Great War (BW)

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

The Great War is an historical event from the Beast Era of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Sharing the same name as the legendary civil war fought between the Autobots and Decepticons, the Great War was a brief conflict fought between the Maximals and Predacons prior to the ratification of the Pax Cybertronia.

Fiction

Timelines

The Great War between the Autobots and Decepticons finally came to an end with former defeating the latter. Many Decepticons were either destroyed or in hiding, BotCon 2009 Razorclaw toy bio while those who were granted amnesty simply retired. BotCon 2006 Laserbeak toy bio In this new era of peace, the Autobots' next-generation successors, the Maximals, rose to power TCC website Max Cops Cryotek profile and formed the Maximal Imperium. BotCon 2005 Darksyde Dinobot toy bio BotCon 2006 Unit 2 (Tigatron) toy bio Timelines #1 Megatron profile TCC Chromia 10 Pilot (Airazor) toy bio The Razor's Edge However, some Decepticons were not content to simply live under the new rule of the Autobots and Maximals. BotCon 2006 Laserbeak toy bio Namely, the leader of the original Predacons, Razorclaw, rallied the next generation of the Decepticons—who were also named the Predacons—under a new calling. BotCon 2009 Razorclaw toy bio His immediate subordinate, Divebomb, reached out to other disgruntled Decepticons—like Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, and Ravage—to join their cause, with the promise of new Predacon bodies and a new purpose. BotCon 2006 Laserbeak toy bio

Under Razorclaw's leadership, the Predacons raised an army and declared themselves the "Predacon Empire". BotCon 2009 Razorclaw toy bio They instigated several wars against the Autobots and Maximals, which climaxed in the what became known as the last "Great War". The Razor's Edge During this war, a young Maximal named Optimus Primal proved himself on the battlefield multiple times, Timelines #1 Optimus Primal profile while on the opposite side, one of the Predacon army's field commanders was a 'bot named Megatron. Timelines #1 Megatron profile The Predacons were also supported by a Decepticon army The Razor's Edge in an arrangement known as the Decepticon/Predacon Alliance. One of the Decepticon generals in this army was Deathsaurus, the former Emperor of Destruction BotCon 2005 Deathsaurus toy bio who had previously led the Decepticons during the waning years of the Autobot/Decepticon Great War. TCC website Max Cops Cryotek profile Having been recreated to fight in this war, Deathsaurus led several successful campaigns against the Maximals and Autobots. BotCon 2005 Deathsaurus toy bio

Right when it seemed like the Predacon Empire might actually win the war, massive blow came when, suddenly, Razorclaw was assassinated by his own kind: Three treacherous generals had eliminated Razorclaw to assume control of the Predacons for themselves. Together, they formed the Tripredacus Council. BotCon 2009 Razorclaw toy bio Seeing a better opportunity for himself, the Decepticon Ravage quit his position of serving under Divebomb and joined up with the Council to become one of their agents. BotCon 2006 Laserbeak toy bio Over time, however, the Maximals and Autobots begin to overwhelm the Decepticon/Predacon Alliance. BotCon 2005 Deathsaurus toy bio Worse still, in the final few years of the war, the Decepticons pretty much bowed out of the conflict and abandoned the Predacons to continue the fight on their own. Without the Decepticons' support, the Tripredacus Council launched one last campaign the J'kozian sector of space, raiding several planets—Chakar, Loneedo, Roliak, Nibari, S'elar, and more—one by one for their resources. In the end, despite these efforts, the Predacons were still defeated by the combined forces of the Maximals and Autobots. The last Great War ended when the Tripredacus Council was left with no choice but to surrender.

In the aftermath of the war, a set of temporary terms were drawn up to maintain peace between the Maximals and Predacons until a formal treaty, the Pax Cybertronia, could be written and signed. Though, a number of field commanders refused to lay down arms during this newfound peace, The Razor's Edge such as Deathsaurus Descent into Evil Intimidation Game and Megatron Timelines #1 Megatron profile Still, the once and former Predacon Empire would eventually adapt to peacetime and become the Predacon Alliance. The Razor's Edge

Contentious continuity

To put it bluntly, the very idea that there was ever such a war—let alone a "Great War"—fought between the Maximals and Predacons during the three centuries set between the end of the Autobot/Decepticon civil war and the theft of the Golden Disk (the precursor event that led to the start of the Beast Wars on prehistoric Earth) is completely antithetical to the backstory lore of the Beast Wars animated series.

In the first episode, Optimus Primal made the first mention of a past conflict known as "the Great War", which he spoke of in an ambiguous context, only noting that he feared possibility of the Predacons acquiring enough energon to "start it again." Initially, writer/story editor Bob Forward put this reference into the episode simply as a vague explanation for why the Maximals and Predacons were in conflict with each other, as if to say that the two factions had previously fought "the Great War" between each other in the past. This idea was immediately dropped, however, when Forward and fellow Beast Wars writer/story editor Larry DiTillio observed the fans' reaction to the episode: The fandom had assumed that the "Great War" instead referred to the Cybertronian Civil Wars fought between the Autobots and Decepticons back in the previous two generations of the Transformers brand. Subsequently, Forward and DiTillio latched onto the fans' perception, as all later references to the "Great War" made throughout the Beast Wars cartoon (in "Dark Designs", "Law of the Jungle", "The Agenda (Part 1)", and "The Agenda (Part III)") were explicitly clear that it did, indeed, refer to the war fought between the Autobots and Decepticons, not to one fought between the Maximals and Predacons.

Beast Wars would also mention a peace treaty called the "Pax Cybertronia". While it was only mentioned once (and thus left largely to the fans to fill in the blanks on its history) the obvious implication was that it was the treaty that formally ended the Autobot/Decepticon Great War, from which point the referenced lore of the cartoon's post-Great War history would see the Autobots and Decepticons succeeded by their descendants, the Maximals and Predacons, as the new dominant factions of Cybertron in a planetwide restructuring process that the Beast Wars sequel series Beast Machines would later refer to as "the great upgrade from Autobot to Maximal." Furthermore, the first episode of Beast Wars would also establish that "There has been peace between the Maximals and Predacons for centuries," (as stated by Optimus Primal), while the episode "Dark Designs" would declare the "Great Wars" to have last been fought "three centuries ago" (as stated by Blackarachnia). Therefore, the intended post-Great War timeline of the Beast Wars cartoon would be that the Great War ended with the Pax Cybertronia, followed by the Maximals and Predacons replacing the Autobots and Decepticons over the course of three centuries of peace and upgrading, until the Golden Disk was stolen by Megatron.

With that said, in the mid-to-late 2000s, a number of expanded-universe Beast Wars media was written and produced by Fun Publications and IDW Publishing, to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the Beast Wars cartoon in 2006. Among these works were some toy bios, character profiles, a prose story titled "The Razor's Edge" (all from Fun Pub), and the Beast Wars Sourcebook series of profile books (from IDW). In each of these works, the backstory lore of the cartoon was fleshed out with several new ideas, some of which were wholly original while others were recycled from dropped concepts originally developed for the cartoon by Forward and DiTillio. In particular, Forward's original idea of "the Great War" referring to a past conflict between the Maximals and Predacons was one such dropped idea that was brought back. But even more surprising was that it was not only restored but also distinguished from the other "Great War", enabling both to coexist as two separate "Great Wars" within the same timeline! And, these works even shifted the timeframe of the Pax Cybertronia to have not ended the Autobot/Decepticon war, but rather the Maximal/Predacon war, repositioning the treaty far later in the timeline.

The author's reasoning for this was the belief that, after the Decepticons had surrendered to the Autobots at the end of their Great War, the Maximals and Predacons would have needed some time to hash out the details of the treaty; during this time, the Maximals and Predacons would have had their own Great War since not all hostilities would have yet fully subsided. In the case of the Beast Wars Sourcebook, this also enabled events akin to the Japanese Beast Wars II cartoon to slot into this timeframe, taking place prior to the Pax Cybertronia—a decision that stemmed from a whole other fan perception of the time. And yet, for the many reasons given above, all of this was completely unnecessary. While these decisions may not explicitly contradict the letter of the cartoon (as in, Beast Wars never actually said that there wasn't a war between the Maximals and Predacons after the Autobot/Decepticon war ended), they do very much go against the spirit of what the cartoon was trying to say about its in-universe history. Beast Wars never stated outright that there was no Maximal/Predacon war because it didn't need to. After all, "There [had] been peace between the Maximals and Predacons for centuries," a mere three centuries total.

What's more, character profiles written for the retail release of the BotCon 2006 comic story "Dawn of Future's Past" (which were condensed down into toy bios for two of that year's convention exclusives) declared that Optimus Primal and Megatron were both veterans of this Great War, which, again, is not what they were supposed to be in the cartoon: The first episode presented Optimus as young and untested, not an experienced combat soldier, while Megatron would later be revealed to have been viewed as a rogue criminal by his own people, not the respected army commander that his profile made him out to be. This perception of Optimus Primal and Megatron as war veterans (along with "Dawn of Future's Past" retconning two characters who were born on Earth in Beast Wars into having already existed on Cybertron beforehand) would eventually lead to the BotCon 2016 comic story "Dawn of the Predacus" taking things to an absurd extreme by depicting nearly every character from Beast Wars as having served in the Great War—the Autobot/Decepticon Great War from three centuries ago—when the cartoon was pretty unambiguous about the Maximals and Predacons being several degrees removed from the Autobots and Decepticons, their "ancient ancestors" (see that story's article for more).

In short, there really isn't supposed to have been a "Great War" fought between the Maximals and Predacons (and certainly not one that involved Optimus Primal and Megatron) in the past lore of the Beast Wars cartoon, and the fact that there is such a conflict described at all in any official Transformers media is very much at odds with the cartoon itself.