Menonia

Been spendin' most our lives livin' in a madman's paradise.

The realm of Menonia can be accessed (or departed) by various magical and technological means. That some of these means include Quintesson portals and super-dimensional navigation would seem to imply that Menonia is an alternate dimension. Yet, a bot might try to sell one a map with Menonia displayed as a planet. So, whether the name "Menonia" refers to a dimension as a whole or merely one world within it is unclear.

Menonia's technology is the equivalent of Earth's Middle Ages. However, magic is much more prevalent.

Known inhabitants include:

• Humans
• Dragons: The wizard known as the Golden One can take dragon or human form.
• "Birdpeople": Humanoids with the wings, feet and heads of birds.
• "Tree-centaurs": Strange creatures that seemed part centaur and part Ent.
• "Wood-bots": Mara-Al-Utha, the Red Wizard, employed wooden servants that looked like generic Transformers (a hint of his Quintessonian nature). It is unknown if they were animated by technology or magic.
• "Reptile-birds": a small dragon/pterodactyl-like creature called Groyle served the Red Wizard.

Fiction

Generation 1 cartoon continuity

The Transformers cartoon

"Have you seen my gold goblet? ... It's on my what?"

During the time in which the Quintessons ruled Cybertron, a number of criminals were banished to other dimensions. Mara-Al-Utha, a practitioner of the forbidden art of sorcery, was sent to Menonia. At that time, Menonia was ruled over by the powerful sorcerer known as the Golden One, who took Mara-Al-Utha under his wing as a student. The Quintesson was greedy and, employing the magic he had learned, blasted the Golden One into a cave, blocking the entrance with a huge boulder. In the Golden One's absence, Mara-Al-Utha took control of the kingdom and assumed the name "Red Wizard".

Mara-Al-Utha ruled "ages beyond counting", enslaving the inhabitants of the kingdom and punishing dissidents severely. As well as using other races to control the population, he built the wood-bots as servants. Despite the Red Wizard's long and punishing rule, the Golden One's allies continued to rebel against their slavery and mounted unsuccessful attacks on the castle.

When Daniel Witwicky and Grimlock visited Menonia, the rebel forces were massing for a final, decisive attack on the Red Wizard's castle. The Red Wizard was able to trick Grimlock into helping to defend the castle walls against the attackers.

DIIIIIIVE!

During the attack on the castle, more Autobots, tracking down Daniel Witwicky, via Steeljaw, arrived to find Grimlock and helped to reinforce the castle defences. It soon became clear to them that the Red Wizard was not what he appeared to be. Meanwhile, Daniel and the Golden One's pupil had been freed, and they in turn had located and freed the Golden One, with the help of Ramhorn. Weakened by his imprisonment, the Golden One had a difficult time fighting the Red Wizard, revealed finally in his true form as Mara-Al-Utha. The Autobot Blaster was able to provide amplification to allow the Golden One's spells to be heard, and Mara-Al-Utha was swiftly defeated.

With Menonia once again under the rule of the Golden One, the Autobots returned through the portal. Madman's Paradise

Alternity

Planet Menonia had magic, which was something considered taboo by many mechanisms. The elite trans-dimensional Questors had a base on Menonia in a ruined city. It was from this base Megatron used a dimensional tablet to view and take control of the Planicrons of Flatworld, with Skywarp at his side and Thundercracker looking on.

Starscream arrived at this Questor base with a magic tablet of his own. Starscream put his fellow Questors into stasis lock with his four evil optics and a higher dimensional magic battle over the fate of the Planicrons ensued as Starscream and Megatron input commands on their tablets that could rewrite reality. Starscream could not even scream as he died a horrifically noisy and painful death.

While Megatron was distracted by Starscream's gruesome death, Skywarp noticed Thundercracker accessing one of the tablets. Skywarp's accusatory cry roused Thundercracker, who then realized he was holding one of the magic dimensional tablets and that commands to free the Planicrons had already been entered. Thundercracker fled, using his Nova Concussion ability to cover his escape.

Some time later, Thundercracker returned to Menonia where he received a message of thanks from the Planicrons and witnessed a ghostly apparition of Starscream. Alternation

Animated cartoon

Menonia was part of the Quintesson Pan Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere in the Milky Way. The Complete AllSpark Almanac Swindle picked up a case of powerful super glue from Menonia, which he used to patch up Lugnut after Hothead Blitzwing shattered him with some glass gas. However, the joke was on Lugnut and Blitzwing, since Swindle was arming both Decepticons and stoking their overblown arms race/rivalry. Everything Must Go

King Grimlock

Menonia was a realm governed by the forces of magic, where time moved at an accelerated rate compared to Cybertron. It was made up of various regions and polities, including forest, a golden castle, villages such as Valerift Grimlock the Rebel Angloria, Grimlock the Defender and the Red Wizard's Keep in the Rotlands. Grimlock the Avenger

In the past, Optimus Prime had visited Menonia and with the Golden One as an ally, liberated the Menonians, installing the Golden One as the new ruler. Over the centuries, the Golden One became a despotic tyrant, prosecuting those who did not worship the deity Soltron Grimlock the Rebel as a result of consuming the tainted energon that was the entity's blood. Grimlock and the Sorcerer A resistance, including Elder Arnak of Valerift used the last of their magic to reach out across dimensions to try and bring Prime back, but instead succeeded in getting Grimlock. Though the resistance pointed out that they needed the Golden One's magic to return Grimlock home, this had no effect on the Dinobot leader. Magically observing the Dinobot stalking off, the Golden One was convinced his reign would be unchallenged, though Arnak's daughter Arko ran off to try and win the Dinobot to their cause. Grimlock the Rebel

After fighting off some cyclopses, Grimlock found himself in the intestinal cave of a ridge worm, being saved by Arko who informed him that Soltron had appropriated the Autobot insignia. When the two made their way to Angloria, Grimlock cut down the attacking force of wood-bots. Feeling a kinship with the wood-bots and appalled that they were spark-less attack drones, Grimlock put himself on a crusade against the Red Wizard. Observing these events magically, the Golden One was content to allow the Dinobot to eliminate his rival. Angered that Grimlock wouldn't join her own fight, Arko stormed off. Grimlock the Defender

After weeks of whipping the Anglorians into a fighting force, Grimlock led them into the Rotlands to confront the Red Wizard. Once Grimlock's force reached the Rotlands, the Red Wizard unleashed an undead army that did nothing to deter Grimlock's power. Confronting the sorcerer, Grimlock found him to be a Quintesson, one whom he quickly crushed. The Quintesson's last words though made Grimlock wonder if Menonia ran on a variant of energon. After presenting the Red Wizard's corpse to the army, Grimlock reunited with Arnak among the force, fleeing a recent attack on Valedrift by the Golden One. Deciding that the Golden One's link to energon made him a Cybertronian problem, Grimlock agreed to join the fight, while both were unaware that the directionless Arko had joined the despot. Grimlock the Avenger

While Arko learned something of Soltron's blood as the Golden One bestowed new armor upon her, Grimlock and the rebels drew up battle plans, the Dinobot theorizing that the Golden One was dependent on the tainted energon. When the people of Angloria revealed that they had been stockpiling sorcerous fuel, the army set out to confront the tyrant. Acting as a distraction, Grimlock marched to the gates of the Golden One's keep and faced off against the tyrant's servant Clatta and army of monsters, making short of them, allowing time for Arnak and Nerea to cast a spell that would cause an extended eclipse. Though weakened, the Golden One had power enough to shape-shift into a dragon, only to be quickly downed by a bite from Grimlock's beast mode. Deducing how the Golden One had been enthralled, Grimlock's words eventually had Soltron speak directly to the Dinobot through the Golden One who, disgusted by what he'd become, expelled the malevolent entity from his body at the cost of his life. While Grimlock reflected on what had just happened, Soltron took on Arko as a new host. Grimlock and the Sorcerer

As Grimlock battled Soltron, though unwilling to destroy Arko, the Dinobot offered himself as a new host, promising the deity the universe on the condition that he never returned to Menonia. Soltron agreed only to wind up in Grimlock's spark, the Dinobot's personal universe. Having tricked the deity into a realm without his power, Grimlock swiftly destroyed Soltron. Rebooting, Grimlock awoke to find that the Menonians had used up the last of their energon and were unable to open a portal back to Cybertron. Though the Menonians suggested that Grimlock become their new ruler, Grimlock proposed that Arko take up the crown instead. Some time later, using a sample of Grimlock's own energon, the Menonians managed to open a portal back to Cybertron. Returning only nanocycles after he'd left, Grimlock briefly recounted his adventure to Optimus Prime, noting that he'd learned something about compassion for weaker beings. Grimlock the Triumphant

Notes

• The portal between Cybertron and Menonia as seen in The Transformers is shown as a red disc, while the portals from King Grimlock appear green with radiant extensions from both sides.
• In The Transformers, Menonia appears to be a land with two suns. In King Grimlock, it is only shown to have one and is implied to have one moon, hinted to be the mentioned but unseen "anti-sun".

Foreign names

• Japanese: Menonia (メノニア)
• French: Démonia (European French dub)