Enigma of Combination
The Enigma of Combination is one of the artifacts of the Thirteen. Possessed by Nexus Prime, it is not only capable of fostering unity and cooperation of the minds of sentient creatures in its proximity, but also of bestowing one of the greatest abilities known to Cybertronians—that of combination. This ancient tool can instantaneously merge any Cybertronians together into a combiner, enhance the power and mental stability of pre-existing combiners, or integrate new components into pre-existing combiner teams.
Fiction
The Covenant of Primus
In ancient times, Nexus Prime wielded the Enigma of Combination, which contained a fraction of his own combinational powers. Much like its owner, the Enigma frequently changed size and shape, making it impossible to predict or keep track of. The Covenant of Primus
IDW Generation 1 continuity
In the ancient past of Cybertron, some twelve million years ago, the Enigma was first held by the haughty Nexus Prime, a member of the Thirteen. The Crucible According to Alpha Trion, the Enigma and the other Artifacts of the Primes were "metaphors made real," and were unbeatable by ordinary Cybertronians. Aphelion
During the First Cybertronian Civil War, Nexus Prime and his tribe allied with Onyx Prime, and the pair used the Enigma to create the first Headmasters by combining humanoid Transformers with Onyx's bestial followers. The Mind Bomb The Darklander warrior Galvatron was of the opinion that Onyx only tolerated Nexus due to the fact that the latter owned the Enigma; The Crucible sickened by the "abominations" that the Enigma produced, Galvatron waged a bloody crusade in the name of Cybertronian "purity" and slaughtered the Headmasters to the last 'bot The Mind Bomb before killing Nexus and taking the Enigma. The Crucible
In the age that followed, Galvatron would partner with Nova Prime, who, to accomplish his dream of an interstellar "expansion," sought to use combiners as a weapon of conquest. All Good Things Galvatron lied and claimed that Nexus had fled the planet and took the Enigma with him. Alpha Trion could detect the falsehood in Galvatron's words — none had ever known whether or not the Enigma was anything more than a concept, but Galvatron clearly knew it to be a physical object. Realizing that he had accidentally tipped his hand, Galvatron shot the Enigma into space to put it beyond anyone's reach, The Crucible hoping that the Enigma would crash and burn up in some distant star. Now and On Earth
While stories of the Enigma's capabilities survived into the modern era of Cybertron, most Cybertronians dismissed the artifact as a myth. Vs. Different groups of Transformers would infrequently attempt to recreate the "lost art" of combination, but what few successful combiners they produced were brutish and imperfect. The Crucible
After drifting in space for millennia, the Enigma fell to Earth some seven million years ago in the region that would one day become Mesopotamia. The Crucible ONoffON While developing his Regenesis initiative, Shockwave, aware that the Enigma of Combination was somewhere on the planet, selected it as one of the thirteen planets involved with his plan.
Eventually, Onyx Prime — who had fled Cybertron at the conclusion of the First Cybertronian Civil War — became aware that the Enigma still existed in the universe and sent Domitius Major and the crew of the Axalon to find and retrieve it for him. Strange Visitors Centurion profile
When the Axalon failed to return, Onyx sent another one of his servants to Earth in the form of the Titan Master Sovereign. Disguised as a human and extensively conditioned with false memories, Sovereign — who would come to take up the identity of "G.B. Blackrock," — was sent to find the Enigma and summon his master when he did so. Helden
It is currently unknown how long Sovereign was active on Earth for; as "Blackrock," he claimed that the Enigma was first discovered by primitive humans some six thousand years ago at the intersection of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Its energies supposedly "combined" the thoughts and ideas of these early tribes, and the ancient warrior Gilgamesh would raise the city of Uruk to protect it. According to Blackrock, Gilgamesh passed the artifact to his children, and, over the centuries, this lineage — from which Blackrock supposedly took his surname — would use the Enigma to unite great minds in times of need, leading to breakthroughs such as the atomic bomb and the internet. ONoffON Owing to Sovereign's jumbled state of mind, the veracity of these statements are unclear. The Dead Come Home, Part 1
What is known is that, sometime prior to 2012, Blackrock came into possession of the Enigma while scouring the earth for Cybertronian artifacts. ONoffON Unaware of his "Sovereign" persona and the original reason why he had been sent to Earth, Helden Blackrock deduced that the artifact was of Cybertronian origin and used it to jumpstart the lucrative Onyx corporation, tapping its source code and engineering miraculous new breakthroughs in interlinked software and robotics. Signals, Calls and Marches ONoffON Ex-Skywatch agent Spike Witwicky became aware of Blackrock's possession of the Enigma; hoping that it would provide a clue as to why the Transformers had constantly interfered with Earth's development, he planned to steal it from the Wanmu warehouse where it and Blackrock's other extraterrestrial curios were stored. Vs.
Around the same time, Alpha Trion deduced the location of the Engima and set out to Earth to retrieve it. He left his travelling companion Metroplex in the care of the Camien cityspeaker Windblade and cryptically informed her and her friends that he was hunting for "the holy grail". Burning Bright
After rescuing Trion from EDC custody, Optimus Prime learned of the Enigma's existence from Alpha Trion and ordered his lieutenant Prowl to search for it while he returned to Cybertron. The Crucible Both Prowl and Galvatron — now leader of the Decepticons — realized that Spike likely had some information about the Enigma's whereabouts, and both attempted to hunt him down. Vs. Galvatron managed to convince his sibling Arcee to temporarily put aside their differences so that they could destroy the Enigma once and for all, but Prowl and the Constructicons allied with Spike and beat them to the punch, using Devastator to attack the Onyx facility.ONoffON
Despite Blackrock's best efforts to put the Enigma beyond his reach, Devastator easily captured the artifact but quickly went berserk at the sight of Spike. As he went berserk, Galvatron's forces arrived to try and seize the Enigma, and an enraged Devastator hurled the Enigma at Arcee in fury. In the chaos, Galvatron's underling Scoop — in reality, a secret mole for Cybertron's leader Starscream — absconded with the Enigma and flew off to deliver the artifact to his boss, The Obliterati who was hoping to obtain a combiner of his own. The World of Tomorrow Galvatron grimly predicted that this would soon mean the end of Cybertronian society. The Obliterati
Having recovered the comatose body of Superion, Starscream recruited Wheeljack to use the Enigma to rebuild the combiner, drafting Powerglide and Alpha Bravo as reinforcements. The World of Tomorrow As first contact with the Cybertronian colony world of Caminus approached, Starscream devised a plan to win the adoration of the Camiens and used the Enigma to recreate Menasor as an out-of-control monster. When Swindle and Menasor attacked Caminus, the Titan detected the Enigma's energy within the rogue combiner and tried to alert his cityspeakers, but they were unable to properly interpret his warnings. The Sum and Its Parts
The Enigma was later used to reinvigorate the defeated Aerialbots after Devastator began attacking Caminus's spacebridge. Realizing that Superion couldn't take on Devastator alone, Starscream used the Enigma on a group of bystanders, merging them into a new combiner, which called itself "Defensor". Mistakes and Mayhem Now that the Constructicons were in custody, Starscream used the Enigma on Scoop and turned him into Devastator's new leg. Additionally, Scoop's devotion to his "Chosen One" meant that Devastator would obey Starscream's orders. Acting on Prowl's orders, Rattrap managed to steal the Enigma and deliver it to the captive Autobot, who used it on himself and some other Autobots to create Optimus Maximus. You, Me, and the Universe
After all this chaos, the Council of Worlds had the Enigma put under secure guard on Cybertron. The Badgeless stood guard, along with an Autobot juuuust to be sure Starscream didn't pull a fast one. Soon into this agreement, Arcee stole it with the intent to destroy it: she wanted to be damn sure Starscream didn't turn people into combiners against their will. The Camien Torchbearers, who saw destroying a Primal relic as blasphemy, intervened to help Windblade and became a combiner, Victorion, themselves! Eventually Windblade managed to convince Arcee to return the relic, so as to make sure Starscream had no excuse for military action. An Uneventful Night
During the time he kept it Blackrock managed to deduce what the Enigma did. He used it to make combiners from his army of Thrust and Ramjet drones. He also linked all his Onyx products to each other via copying the Enigma's source code. He was able to exploit this when the Autobots brought one of his devices onto their ship. It granted him control of the systems aboard the Ark-7 which he used to cripple the warship. The Nothing Man Blackrock implied to Spike Witwicky that via the Enigma he had extracted information regarding the Thirteen. Aphelion
When the Autobots and Decepticons stormed Galvatron's underwater base, Galvatron revealed the full extent of Blackrock's manipulation. The Onyx technology had co-opted the source code of the Enigma, and the millions of Onyx devices across the world were still linked to one another—the entire Earth had become a gigantic Engima of Combination, and Galvatron could control its energies. He gleefully did just that, first breaking Victorion apart and then mish-mashing some of the combatants together to create Galvatronus and Sky Reign. It's Beginning To And Back Again
Superion—who had not been created through the Enigma—managed to hold out against its powers long enough to hack into the Onyx source code, copying part of its workings into his own mind. When he separated, he took a vital part of the code with him, nullifying the effects of the Earth-Enigma so long as he never re-formed. As Above... So Below
Determined to discover the information that the brain dead Swindle had on Starscream, Onslaught ordered Rattrap to bring him the Enigma so the Combaticons could see inside Swindle's mind. Things We Said We'd Never Do The Enigma combined the five Combaticons into Bruticus. The Line Between Us
In the aftermath, Ironhide demanded that Starscream turn over the Enigma to him, noting it had wandered off too many times to cause mayhem. Starscream was hesitant about parting with his most powerful weapon but the conversation was interrupted before the two could continue. Ping
Timelines
Ratchet was exposed to an "ancient artifact", giving him the power to combine. Customization class G1 cartoon Ratchet bio
Prime Wars Trilogy cartoons
Games
Transformers: Earth Wars
Toys
Timelines
- Autobot Ratchet (2016)
- Class participants who finished creating their Ratchet toy in-class were given an exclusive Enigma of Combination accessory. As with the previous year's Covenant of Primus, it was handcrafted by Myu who offered the accessory to class participants, but without any official Hasbro endorsements.
- This accessory can be held by any toy with 5mm ports; more interestingly, it can be used with the Combiner Wars Optimus Prime toy, plugging into the combined form's chest plate. Naturally, this means that, if you so desire, you can give the Enigma to Menasor, or worse, Grand Scourge... but that would be evil, and you'll have to spend the rest of your life living with the knowledge that you've disgraced the legacy of the Thirteen to achieve your own twisted, selfish ends.
Generations
- Dinobot Grimlock (Voyager Class, 2017) - Dinobot Enigma
- Starscream (Voyager Class, 2017) - Seeker Enigma
- Terrorcon Hun-Gurrr (Voyager Class, 2018) - Terrorcon Enigma
- Elita-1 (Voyager Class, 2018) - Autobot Enigma
- Inferno (Voyager Class, 2018) - Autobot Enigma
- Each Power of the Primes Voyager Class figure comes with an Enigma of Combination. These are shaped like Titan Masters and Prime Masters, but are single-mold pieces and therefore can't transform into a robot or provide neck articulation if used as a head. They can interact with the Voyager Class figures by either attaching to their Prime Armor or attaching to their combined mode chest. They could also attach to Deluxe Class figures' Prime Armor, Leader Class figures' Matrix frame or the head sockets of Titans Return figures.
Notes
- When listing a handful of the artifacts of the Primes, the novel Exiles mentions the Infinite Combinatoric. Given the abilities its name implies, this might have been an early name for the Enigma. It wouldn't be the only point of confusing discontinuity between artifacts in Exiles.
- When asked if the Enigma and the Infinite Combinatoric had a connection, Vector Prime enigmatically asked the questioner if "...there [is] a connection between Jupiter and Odin and Ahura Mazda and Zeus and Marduk?" Make of that what you will.
- It also shares similarities with the Spark of Combination from Energon.
- Some combiners created or enhanced by the Enigma display unusual powers: Superion was able to split his body apart at will and swap legs into arms almost instantaneously, while Defensor was able to detach entire limbs and use them as rocket-propelled projectiles.
- Blackrock mentions that the Enigma can tap into the "primal force" of the universe to alter the mass of any given target, providing a tongue-in-cheek explanation for why combiners tend to be several times the size of their components.
Foreign names
- Japanese: Enigma (エニグマ Eniguma)
