Vigilem
- Vigilem is a Titan from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Prideful, treacherous, and awesomely powerful, Vigilem hails from a bygone era of Cybertron's history. A Titan from the era of the Thirteen Tribes and the First Cybertronian Civil War, Vigilem's loyalty to his master Liege Maximo supersedes all other desires, even his own sense of self-preservation. Though a warrior first and foremost, bristling with weaponry, Vigilem also takes after his leader, whispering poison into the ears of those who approach him unguarded. If they don't fall for his lies, however, his formidable arsenal might make them reconsider accepting his duplicitous promises.
Though millennia of exile as the living prison Carcer have eaten away at his mind and body, Vigilem remains as proud and wrathful as ever, yearning to strike down his ancient nemesis Metroplex and extinguish the Spark of the 'bot responsible for his long banishment.
Fiction
IDW Generation 1 continuity
- First Appearance: Windblade vol. 2 #3 (unidentified); #7 (as "Carcer");
- Transformers: Till All Are One Revolution (Vigilem mentioned); Transformers: Till All Are One #7 (revealed as Vigilem)
During the era of the Thirteen, Vigilem was the loyal Titan of Liege Maximo. Rubicon His master, however, came to believe that lies could be more powerful than the truth, Heavy and formed an alliance with the resentful Megatronus to overthrow their leader Prima. When their treachery was laid bare — Solus Prime killed by their machinations — Liege Maximo was captured by his fellow Primes, The First Who Was Named just as Vigilem was subdued by his brethren. Rubicon
At Onyx Prime's insistence, Liege Maximo was imprisoned within his own Titan and the two of them were permanently banished from the planet. In order to ensure that Vigilem would remain a suitable prison, Onyx Prime stripped him of his higher functions using a surgical technique that would form the basis for shadowplay — as "Onyx Prime" was a false identity constructed by a time-travelling Shockwave, who had once been subjected to a similar process. The First Who Was Named Permanently transformed into his starship mode, his brain module shut down, and the Liege Maximo entombed within his body, unable to escape, the remaining Titans decided that they would henceforth refer to their exiled brother as "Carcer:" a nomadic, living prison for the Liege Maximo. Several repentant members of Maximo's tribe served as Carcer's crew, pledging to keep Liege Maximo forever imprisoned inside the inert Titan. Rubicon The straitened inhabitants learned to value three things above all else: efficiency, security, and truth. The Will of the Few
In spite of the Titans' efforts to purge Vigilem's name from memory, some evidence of him and his actions remained in the historical records. The colonists of Caminus remembered Vigilem as an example of how not all Titans were pure of Spark. Informed
As Carcer travelled through space over the eons, a core breach threatened the integrity of the ship. The Titan's captain threw his body into the breach to seal it, beginning a tradition where the crew would sacrifice their own bodies to keep their Titan alive as his natural resources diminished. Eventually, Elita One became captain and "First One", ruling from a chair composed of the bodies of their colony's greatest heroes—all of whom had given their lives in the service of their ship. By the 21st century, Carcer's body had become a hodgepodge of mismatched parts. Rubicon The Will of the Few
After returning to Cybertron circa 2014, Metroplex located several of his Titan brethren scattered throughout the stars. A Long Way Down Among them was Vigilem, whose spacebridge read to Metroplex's sensors as his lost brother Tempo. The Will of the Few When Cityspeaker Windblade merged with Metroplex's brain, she saw the name "Carcer" in Metroplex's consciousness. Windblade, who had never heard of such a Titan, asked Metroplex for more information, but Metroplex hid the truth from by claiming that Carcer was a different Titan from either Tempo or Vigilem. The Will of the Few Rubicon
During their climatic battle, Devastator kicked Optimus Maximus through Metroplex's spacebridge and onto Carcer's hull, although Optimus quickly rebounded and dived back through to Cybertron. All That Remains
Hoping to convince the inhabitants of "Tempo" to join the Council of Worlds, Chancellor Starscream and Cityspeaker Windblade used Metroplex's spacebridge to reestablish contact with what they thought was a ship of peaceful philosophers. They were surprised to find a crew of militaristic colonists who identified their Titan as "Carcer". Elita One fudged the situation by lying that they had simply renamed their ship along the way; Windblade was aware that Elita was lying through her teeth and was concerned with what the First One must be hiding. After some political wrangling, the two ambassadors were nevertheless able to convince Carcer to join the Council of Worlds; they chose to send Strika and Obsidian as ambassadors. The Will of the Few
The Carcerians took the opportunity to order replacements parts for some of their ship's more worn out systems. 07:00:00
When Windblade proposed a mental merge with Metrotitan, Pyra Magna brought up Vigilem to remind her that Metrotitan might have ulterior motives. Informed
Shortly afterwards, a horde of zombie Titans, raised by Sentinel Prime in order to raze Cybertron, began showing up on Carcer's sensors, Lancer and Greenlight reported the news to Elita One. As the Titans began arriving on Cybertron, Strika lead Carcer's crew in a valiant battle to defend Cybertron, admonishing them that they could not let the Titans take their ship for fear of releasing the Liege Maximo. As the battle wore on, Metroplex was overwhelmed by his zombified bretheren, prompting Starscream to contact Elita and ask for her help. Starscream explained that he needed Carcer on the ground to help Metroplex; Elita politely refused, wished Starscream well, and shut off her comm line. Ping
Repeated entreaties to get Carcer to transform didn't go any better. Windblade, Starscream, and several Council delegates talked things over, and Windblade came up with a desperate, last ditch plan: the group would invade Carcer, under cover, and Windblade would merge with him and explain the situation in hopes that he'd take it upon himself to transform and defend Cybertron. To cover Windblade's approach, the remaining ships in orbit were directed to attack Carcer directly, and Devastator was deployed to draw the bulk of the Carcerians' troops, giving Windblade and her team a hopefully clearer path to Carcer's brain chamber. Desperate Times A running battle ensued as Windblade and her team struggled to elude Obsidian and Elita One. Windblade managed to establish a cityspeaker link with Carcer's brain module... only to discover that she had awakened Vigilem! Desperate Measures
Vigilem's systems began rebooting, and Windblade realized that he was trying to reawaken. Unable to force the evil Titan back into his slumber, she did the unthinkable by taking physical control of Vigilem's body, shrugging off his whispered persuasions to join him. Windblade succeeded in maneuvering Vigilem's patchwork body onto Cybertron, where she engaged the zombie hordes. The dual strain of trying to fight off the Titan army and hold off Vigilem's mental manipulations proved too much, and Vigilem's consciousness quickly reasserted itself over his body once more, then moving onto Windblade's own mind. Spying Metroplex, Vigilem decided to kill the Titan he blamed for his imprisonment, mockingly declaring that the last thing the First Titan would see would be the return of the Liege Maximo, and began shifting his internal architecture to unlock his ancient prison. It was then that Elita One arrived in Vigilem's brain chamber. Announcing that she had sworn an oath to never let Vigilem or Liege Maximo walk free, she emptied her weapon into Vigilem's brain module, Rubicon who quickly downloaded his mind into Windblade's own, the influx of data sending the cityspeaker into stasis lock. If I Know You While Elita had destroyed the brain module, which caused the Titan's body to collapse, she had arrived too late to prevent her ship from disgorging its prisoner. The Liege Maximo emerged, thanking Vigilem for his loyalty. Before he teleported away, he vowed that he would avenge his imprisonment and his Titan's death. Rubicon
Vigilem's corpse was subsequently cannibalized for parts before transforming back into its starship form, though Elita noted it would be years before their ship would be able to leave Cybertron's orbit. Heavy
When Windblade was brought to a hospital, a doctor determined that Vigilem had jumped into Windblade's body. Unable to distinguish between the two brain patterns, he requested Starscream bring in a mnemosurgeon who refused. After suffering from a crisis of conscience, Starscream went to consult Airachnid, who correctly deduced that Vigilem could only be destroyed if a third bot entered Windblade's mind to help disentangle her mind from the Titan's.
Within their shared mindspace, Vigilem tried to convince Windblade to merge their Sparks so they could both survive, offering his wealth of knowledge about manipulation and ancient Cybertron as extra incentive so that Windblade could bring Cybertron to true peace. As the two clashed, Vigilem said he had no intention of using Windblade to possess Metroplex and examined the cityspeaker's memories to show that despite her initial optimism about the world, she had made countless morally grey choices and told lies. Vigilem then asked, had Windblade compromised her ideals or had she just come to understand how the world truly worked? If I Know You
Windblade and Vigilem continued to battle against one another for control of the body until Starscream—patched into Windblade's mind with the help of Airachnid—arrived to help the beleaguered Cityspeaker. Unfortunately for Starscream, Vigilem recognized that Starscream's mind offered another way to escape his new prison. Transforming into a vision of Megatron to paralyze Starscream with fear, Vigilem leapt into Starscream's mind and began attacking Starscream, ripping away at his mental projection until finally exposing his spark. Convinced that he had defeated his foe, Vigilem began to overwrite Starscream's mind... unaware that Windblade had rescued Starscream's spark. Manifesting a replica of Solus Prime's old hammer, Windblade "forged" Starscream's spark and created a spectral army—all based off significant figures in Starscream's life—to slow down Vigilem.
Battling the ghosts of Starscream's past, Vigilem was weighed down by the ghostly army, buying just enough time to complete her work and forge Starscream into a towering, resplendent form; the true form that his Spark was always meant to take. With one footfall, Starscream crushed the cowering Titan underfoot and banished him back into Windblade's mind. Realizing the key to defeating Vigilem, Windblade once more assumed a gigantic form and shoved the weakened Titan into her own spark chamber. Just as the forge of Starscream's spark burned away everything, revealing his innermost truth, Windblade turned her spectral spark into a forge to burn away Vigilem. His duplicitous nature finally laid bare, Windblade found no truth in the spark of the villainous Titan. Vigilem's mind was swiftly burned away to nothing, finally ending his life and allowing Windblade to return to the waking world. Your First Mistake
Though his spark was destroyed, Vigilem's body was converted back to starship form and reassumed its orbit above Cybertron once again as "Carcer". After human terrorists had attacked Iacon, Elita called for reinforcements from Carcer only for the Solstar Order to arrive and bar the Carcerians from teleporting in troops. First Strike #2
After becoming a candidate in the Cybertronian elections, Windblade confessed to Metroplex that she feared her desire to rule Cybertron might be a remnant of Vigilem's personality lingering in her mind. Metroplex said Vigilem had listened to no one but Liege Maximo and if Windblade listened to and helped others, she would know herself to be free from Vigilem's influence. The Chosen One
Beast Wars: Uprising
The Book of Logos identified two of seven colonies as those of "Vigilem" and "Carcer". Book of Logos
Notes
- "Vigilem" is the first-person singular present active subjunctive (whew!) form of the Latin verb "vigilar", meaning "to watch over"... and he and his crew certainly did "watch over" Liege Maximo for who knows how long!
- Sorry, Classical Latin aficionados, but according to Mairghread Scott, the name is pronounced as an English speaker would expect, like the word "vigilant".[1]
- "Carcer", meanwhile, is Latin for "prison": a fitting name, as he was indeed a prison for the Liege Maximo as well as a prisoner in his own body.
- The "Book of Logos" was written prior to the revelation that "Carcer" was merely an alternate name for Vigilem, hence why it treats the two names separately and does not perfectly mirror the IDW continuity.
