Ancient
| This article is about the old-timey Transformers. For the even more old-timey Transformers referred to as "Ancients" in various media, see Thirteen. |
Many Cybertronians revere famous historical inhabitants of their homeworld by the generic moniker Ancients.
Fiction
Cybertron cartoon
The Ancients were the Golden Age Transformers who sent colony ships out into space to the worlds of Earth, Velocitron, Jungle Planet and Gigantion. Warp They look a liiiiittle familiar. Balance
Aligned continuity family
Aligned novels
The Ancients' secret to their expansion were the space bridges, a continuation of many successful building projects under Sentinel Prime. They were capable of moving Energon by transmitting it via the Geosynchronous Energon Bridge. Exodus
Prime comic
According to Cliffjumper, only the Ancients knew how to build space bridges but somehow Starscream got hold of the knowledge. Transformers: Prime
Prime cartoon
The Ancients created the Energon Harvesters to remove raw Energon from any source. According to Optimus Prime, the Ancients used the art of a given era to conceal hidden messages. For example, a fresco in Ancient Greece depicted a harvester, likely as a signpost to its location. Deus ex Machina They also were known to have foretold the events detailed within the Covenant of Primus. One Shall Fall
After the Decepticons recovered an empty Cybertronian data cylinder, Megatron became determined to find out the contents of the device. This is because he believed that the knowledge of the Ancients was power. When the knowledge of this data cylinder threatened to consume Bulkhead's mind, Ratchet initially struggled with finding a means of removing the data without the wisdom of the Ancients. T.M.I.
During a planetary alignment, the events detailed within the Covenant of Primus of a time of darkness was coming to pass. Ratchet claimed that he always related such a story to the war that had engulfed Cybertron. However, events came to pass that this chaotic period might have related to the planet Earth instead. Megatron attempted to make the events of the tale come to pass by building a space bridge in order to harvest Dark Energon. During a battle with Optimus Prime, he told his old foe that the Ancients had foreseen his defeat though Optimus told him not to believe everything he had heard. At the climax of the fight, it was finally revealed that Earth was indeed the site of the prophecy as a large deposit of Dark Energon was erupting from beneath the Earth and coming to the surface from a volcano. One Shall Fall
Cyberverse cartoon
When Starscream had seized both the Allspark and Vector Sigma, he used the latter to have the former birth him an army of Scraplets that he believed held the sparks of reborn ancients such as Solus Prime, Zeta Prime, and the noble Megatronus. Dark Birth Parley
Games
Fall of Cybertron
An earlier civilization referred to as the "ancients" predated that of the Transformers on Cybertron. They were noted to had been explorers that charted space who collected their data in a map room. During their reign, they created the technology that allowed them to travel through time and space. An unknown cataclysm later devastated their society and was believed to had created the Sea of Rust where their tomb resided. Cliffjumper and Jazz discovered the ruins of the "ancients" when they were tracking a missing Grimlock to the site that was being used by the Decepticons during the Civil War. By this point, Shockwave had discovered the technology and began experimenting on it in order to unlock its secrets to possibly find a new world whose energy would be used to reboot Cybertron's Core. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
Notes
- In Galaxy Force, the Japanese version of the Cybertron cartoon, Vector Prime is identified as an "Ancient". However, in western fiction, as a member of the thirteen original Transformers, he pre-dates the Transformers who masterminded the colonization program by several million, if not billion, years. Consequently, the waters are a little muddied when it comes to Logos Prime, who is identified by the Japanese Beast Wars Reborn prose story as being an "Ancient", but is further identified as "one of [Vector Prime's] own" and presented as having incredible powers on an equal level with Vector Prime's, strongly suggesting that he is supposed to be one of the thirteen, rather than simply a colonist. By what would appear to be only sheer coincidence, various Revenge of the Fallen storybooks would also refer to the original thirteen Transformers as "Ancients".
- The ancient transformers seen in Balance are based on Optimus Prime G1, G1 Hot Rod, G1 Jazz and Ultra Magnus.
