Functionist Universe
The Functionist Universe, universal stream designation Primax 1114.26 Gamma, was born as a divergent timeline from Primax 1005.19 Gamma, created when Perceptor tampered with the paradox locks of Brainstorm's time travel device.
In this universe, Megatron as he was known never came to exist, meaning that the Great War never occurred. His history-defining absence drastically changed the course of the timeline, creating a world where the Functionist Council had eliminated the Senate entirely and established a brutal theocracy. Thus, the entirety of Cybertron adhered to the fascist ideals of Functionism, where one's form defined their function. However, the entirety of other alien species in the universe were spared from becoming collateral damage in the Cybertronian civil war... temporarily.
Fiction
IDW Generation 1 continuity
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
Five million years ago, the Functionist Council and the Senate came to loggerheads over the use of Nova Prime's stockpile of frozen sparks to increase the planet's population. The Functionist Council deemed the practice heretical against the teaching of Adaptus. In response, the Senate sealed Vector Sigma behind a wall of impenetrable ununtrium. In turn, the Council gathered an army of devoted followers, seized the Matrix of Leadership, and executed Nominus Prime and the Senate for blasphemy. A World Misplaced
Some time thereafter, they outlawed the intellectual class and deported all Transformers who had been constructed cold. From their headquarters in The Cog, they determined which classes still had value and which no longer had a purpose. The Custom-Made Now As Rung seemed to have no function, they whisked him away to prison and experimented on him for millions of years in a desperate attempt to explain why Primus had created a being with no purpose. Predestination: An Expert's GuideA World Misplaced
When a class was deemed obsolete, they were "recalled" by lethally detonating obsolescence chips that the council had installed in the heads of every Cybertronian. The reasoning behind this mass murder of the populace was that "by downsizing the population, the Council is honoring the Guiding Hand -- principally Adaptus -- and reducing demand for finite energy supplies. Mass recalls should therefore be regarded as acts of both sacrifice and pragmatism." In reality, however, many of the recalls (the intellectual class likely among them) were motivated by the fear that they would act against the Council. Predestination: An Expert's Guide Any 'bot had the right to seek sanctuary in five Sacred Cities thought to belong to the Guiding Hand, as it would be heresy not to allow it... but the councillor in charge of the city could just refuse it. And did. A World Misplaced Rewind would later recall that the laser pointers had been recalled in 6th cycle, 351 in an event known as the Dark Dawn.
Round here we all look the same
Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
They continued to practice empurata on dissenters, until it became so commonplace it lost its effectiveness; when that happened, they began replacing Transformers' heads with monitors that removed their ability to speak, replacing it with text that scrolled across the screen. Known as "flatheads," their faces were considered Council property and the Functionist Council could co-opt the screens to display their own messages of unity if the subject continued speaking out of turn. Some Transformers would attempt to pose as higher-class citizens by attaching kibble to themselves to give the appearance of a more useful alt mode; as a result, the Council's functionaries began directly inspecting the transformation cogs of suspicious 'bots. By the present day, even animals were being added to the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy. The Custom-Made Now
At some point, the Primal Vanguard, ever expanding and ever conscripting peopleModes of Production, was sent to Luna 2 to fight the Black Box Consortia for control of the moon. During that time, Six-of-Twelve got extremely concerned that a moon serves no obvious function OH NOES and plotted to transform it into a interstellar recycling unit, stripping uninhabited worlds of minerals and teleporting the stuff back to Cybertron so it could be expanded. After half a million years of fighting and after Six-of-Twelve had claimed to have abandoned his plan, the Council agreed to peace terms with the Consortia that they claimed gave the moon to the Consortia. In actual fact, Six-of-Twelve (behind the back of even part of the Council) was planning his great recycling scheme. If he ever got to use it, he could blame the massacres on the Consortia! While the Cybertronians were bitter about losing their moon, the Council intended to use the pretext of 'no more need for space travel' to quarantine the planet so nobody could ever leave. Already they'd coached the population to fear the universe as inherently hostile to any mechanics, but now all spaceports were closed and the astro class was subsequently 'recalled' once the Primal Vanguard returned to Cybertron. The Custom-Made Now A World Misplaced Bad Moon RisingThis Machine Kills Fascists
By the time the Council did this, the "willfully non-employed" had begun rebelling and formed Anti-Vocationist League, rejecting alt modes altogether and rallying around the symbol of Rung, called "the Useless One" as a rebuke of Functionist ideology. The Council violently suppressed them and prevented their revolts from being broadcast to the populace. As part of their plan to now fully clamp down, the Council had all of the Vanguard soldiers' eyes replaced with new ones in transit that would allow the Council to watch the populace through them. When this test proved effective, they decided to roll this compulsory upgrade to the rest of the population. Around this same time, the "willfully non-employed" began rebelling against the Functionist Council, Shortly thereafter, they ordered the data slugs recalled as their ability to store information could be used against their government. The Custom-Made Now
Meanwhile, in the other universe, Rewind found his memories being overwritten with ones from this timeline: a warning that someone was time travelling. He briefly tried to ensure the Functionist Universe did overwrite his own because tens of billions of organics lived in this world, spared Decepticon genocide, but some dickhead didn't care and fixed that universe anyway. I'm sure this dimension won't come up again. The Custom-Made NowPredestination: An Expert's Guide
It's so hard to live, and so to survive
You can't even trust the air you breathe
Over time, Councillor and 'Matrix-carrier' (actually not the Matrix at all) Six-of-Twelve has started to believe "Primus" was talking to him. He began preparing for a holy crusade against all of the functionless organics of the universe, i.e. killing them all: transplanting sparks of Cybertronians into new bodies, against all Functionist dictum, to expand the construction and military classes. Unaware of the reason but disgusted by the blasphemy, Councilor Nine-of-Twelve defected, joining the Anti-Vocationist League and turning his city of Adaptica into a refuge for those deemed "obsolete" by the Council. He was able to block the obsolence chip to prevent remote extermination of the refugees and hundreds of thousands began to clog Adaptica's streets, more and more arriving every day, from the recently recalled to intellectual class Transformers who'd evaded extermination. As Primus Himself had granted the sacred city honest—and as Nine-of-Twelve might be necessary one day so the Council could combine into the Key to Vector Sigma—the Functionists couldn't openly take the city from him. The Anti-Vocationist League stepped up their attempts to try and rescue Rung, hoping to discredit Functionism, but each attempt failed. A World MisplacedBad Moon RisingModes of Production
What neither the AVL or Nine realised was the reason the refugees were being allowed to reach Adaptica at all was so once they had the chance, they'd use Luna 2 to cull the entire population at once. Bad Moon Rising
Shortly after Nine-of-Twelve had gone, a janitorial class worker happened to figure out Rung's purpose when he saw the 'bot coughing up photonic crystals: the same crystals Nova Prime had used to store sparks in for the cold construction process. A Transformer had been born that could carry out the blasphemous abomination the Council had overthrown the Senate for! The Council decided that he would need to be destroyed, fearing Rung was a Mortilus spawn sent to debase the will of Primus and destroy their system. Rung, both wanting to inspire the League to take harsh action and wanting the torture to just end, One-of-Twelve that his death would do nothing to delay their inevitable doom and he should pull the trigger. Instead, Six-of-Twelve decided that oh wait no this proves Primus likes cold construction. Unaware the Matrix didn't work because it was fake, they decided to break into Vector Sigma by tunnelling: they'd known for years they could break in after all, and were deep down slightly afraid to try. Rung was blackmailed into producing thousands of crystals under threat of Adaptica being massacred. Predestination: An Expert's GuideModes of Production
You're miles from where anyone will find you
This is nothing new, no television crew
They don't even put on the sirens
Eighteen months after Nine's defection, the Council learned first that they could force Rung to make crystals remotely and then that they could activate Vector Sigma without becoming the Key. Now they didn't need blackmail, Nine-of-Twelve, or anything, they could make their move with nothing to stop them...
Nothing but an entire planet—Necroworld—from the other universe being accidentally warped to this one! Modes of Production
Unware of where they were, a dozen Autobots formerly of the Lost Light arrived on the planet thinking it their own Cybertron. Twelve-of-Twelve and a Functionary shock squad, with several captured and blinded protestors in tow, arrived to arrest them for trespassing in a social exclusion zone. Some Other Cybertron As it turned out, they had arrived on the eve of "Revelation Day": the day when the Council would announce what the Useless One was for. After encountering the Anti-Vocationist League and escaping the Functionaries, the castaways travelled to Adaptica, where they watched as the Council unveiled "Rung"'s supposed alternate mode: a gigantic drilling platform that would allow them to reach the sealed off Vector Sigma, thus 'proving' Primus had foreseen the Senate's plan and made Rung for it. But this dramatic proclamation was quickly overshadowed in Adaptica by the sudden attack by Luna 2! A World Misplaced
The Council made a grand public entrance to the Vector Sigma chamber (abandoning Rung within it now he'd served his PR purpose) as Luna 2 began harvesting Adaptica. Rodimus led a strike team to rescue Rung and engaged in battle with Six-of-Twelve, while Megatron took control from a shellshocked Nine-of-Twelve and began organising the League & all air-worthy refugees into a meagre defence force while the city was evacuated. Megatron was under orders to not damage the moon too badly so the Light exiles could use its teleportation engines later.
Not shop windows down in Brixton
Riots on the television
You can't put us all in prison!
(OI!!!)
Bad Moon Rising Rodimus was quickly taken down by Six's fake Matrix until Ratchet bluffed that he'd execute Rung; the team fled with the therapist, the Council assuming they could just take him back later. On the way out, Rung made sure to mock his old captors for the fact that they'd entered the Vector Sigma chamber without unlocking it, that they'd deep down known their combined form was paraphrenalia rather than necessary, and thus "all hail the Useless Ones".
Megatron's work against Luna 2 distracted it long enough that the bulk of refugees could flee and Rodimus' team stole the Cog itself (albeit with guards stuck on). Rung filled in his rescuers on the Council's machinations and, to everyone's horror, the plan to use a second generation of Transformers for mass organic genocide. Unfortunately, the best way to stop the Functionists was to blow up Luna 2... and if the Light team didn't get teleported to Necroworld pronto, they could never go home. Modes of Production After briefly thinking of leaving this reality to go hang, Rodimus decided to sacrifice his chances and save the world, but the Cog was shot out of the sky by friendly fire.
In an act of great sacrifice, Rung tried to stop the moon himself—by wiring a mass displacement generator into his brain, the Council had enabled him to mass shift so large he could literally punch the moon. Under great pain, he held out for a while but died, small and shattered. The AVP were left wondering if Rung having such a purpose meant functionism was right after all, only for Megatron to tell them the opposite of functionism was choice. Roller managed to figure out a solution: teleporting Luna 2 inside the hollow Necroworld. The Autobots were able to transmat to the satellite and switch its teleporter outwards, but Megatron and Terminus were left behind. (Terminus, having tricked Megatron into going to the wrong place for pickup, lied that the Autobots were 'giving Megs another chance'.)
In the aftermath, the Council lied that the Black Box Consortia had attacked Adaptica and covered up their cold construction with fake news of new spark 'hot spots'. Megatron, however, organised the Anti-Vocationist League into an alliance of scattered, autonomous cells, getting their message out and preaching to the comfortable castes so they'd start to see the truth, all for a long-term revolution: "peace through empathy." It was around this time that Orion Pax reached Cybertron... This Machine Kills Fascists
Ask Vector Prime
Vector Prime was surprised when Primax 1114.26 Gamma suddenly popped fully formed into existence in the multiverse; the gradual formation of splinter timelines was a far more common phenomenon. He noted that although it was an unpleasant reality for Cybertronians, he had seen far worse. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/05/16
Notes
- The Functionist Universe's universal stream designation, given in the Facebook edition of Ask Vector Prime, comes from the release date of "The Custom-Made Now", in which the universe debuted.
- The presence of the Camien Hot Shot on Cybertron suggests that in this universe, Cybertron had re-established contact with at least some of the thirteen Titan colonies before it entered quarantine. Considering that at least one colony was founded to escape Functionist doctrine, "first contact" might not have gone very smoothly.
- In the main timeline, female Transformers no longer exist on Cybertron, having vanished sometime after the end of the First Cybertronian Civil War and before the Golden Age. In this timeline, however, at least one female-identifying Transformer exists. It's possible that this Transformer may have been born on one of the colony worlds and subsequently emigrated to Cybertron. Alternately, it could be that she has voluntarily changed her appearance and/or gender expression; James Roberts has not discounted the possibility of transgender Transformers in addition to Arcee.[1]
