Terminus (G1)

The name or term "Terminus" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Terminus (disambiguation).

Terminus is a Transformer from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Those who survive, arrive.

Terminus was a co-worker and influence on the young Megatron.

Fiction

IDW Generation 1 continuity

I just hope you understand that nothing happening to you now is personal. Yeah, you put us in this situation and it is almost kind of a cosmic justice for it to be you, but we would have done this to anybody. We will. But at the end of the day, no matter how much we hate all this ugly business... A man's gotta eat.

Terminus was a drill operative at the Messatine mines and, most importantly for Megatron, a proofreader and distributor for his political writing. He kept quiet about how he distributed it which was by enscribing sections on the corpses of dead miners, before they were shipped home. Births, Deaths, and Interventions The Sun in Flight

A mining accident tore off his legs, and he simply wasn't 'worth' the cost of fixing. Megatron topped up his energon with his own rations, even as Terminus told him not to. Eventually, getting suspicious of his role in distributing tracts, the mine administrators came around to have a nice chat about how they'd hope he'd get better. This backfired: Terminus instead demanded Megatron devote more of his time, that he harden himself against negotiations, and that he should make himself a figurehead instead of relying on the collective.

When Messatine had to be evacuated, Megatron went to fetch Terminus but the old 'bot was missing. Births, Deaths, and Interventions

In fact, he'd been rescued by a time traveller: Censere, who had been guilt-tripped into saving the lives of people who history recorded as "disappeared" and could be rescued. Using the time case, Terminus was brought to the Necroworld in the future, millions of years later, which in turn caused him to be marked as disappeared in the first place. Time travel-induced sickness had Censere put Terminus into a coma and disguise him as an organic being using holograms. Do Not Go Gentle

Megatron dedicated Towards Peace to Terminus, only to remove the dedication in a revised edition. When asked as to why by Rung, Megatron simply noted that Terminus taught him to "not get attached". Towards Peace Terminus was erased from the official history to the point where veteran Decepticon warlord Deathsaurus had never heard of him. The Sun in Flight

Tarn collected "first edition" miner corpses and considered Terminus unfairly written out. The Sun in Flight

During Team Rodimus's battle with the Decepticon Justice Division on the Necroworld, Terminus and his fellow rescuees emerged from their comas to find Megatron and a gaggle of Autobots. Unknown to him, Megatron had been on the verge of abandoning any hope of redemption or making up for his atrocities; at the sight of the confused Terminus, Megatron embraced him and lamented he'd "lost [his] way". Do Not Go Gentle

Notes

• The script for the Megatron Origin comic series initially included a character who would have met Megatron and served as a 'mentor' to Megatron in his early days, but the character was removed when the script was shortened from six issues to four.
• Terminus was designed by Alex Milne — the full character model (with legs!) can be seen on his Twitter account.
• Terminus was the name of the Roman god of boundaries, with the motto "Concedo nulli" - "Yield no ground".