Maximal Elder

The Maximal Elders are the political leaders and primary members of government on the planet Cybertron during the age of the Maximals and Predacons centuries after the conclusion of the Great War. While they allow the Predacons certain individual freedoms as their own faction with their own government, the Predacons must still ultimately answer to the Maximal Elders.

The Maximal Elders aren't a perfect bunch, however, as they have been known to make a few mistakes along the the way. They mean well, but some of their good intentions for the greater good could be considered misguided.

Fiction

Beast Wars cartoon

Voice actor: Doug Parker (English)

While public access to most information regarding the Great War and Earth was granted via the history record called the Chronicles of Cybertron, the Maximal Elders had restricted access to certain info they deemed too sensitive for the public eye. Namely, they had classified all files pertaining to the ancient Decepticon Starscream (while the Predacons, conversely, apparently had no such restrictions imposed on them). Possession

The Tripredacus Council, a high-ranking political body in the Predacon Alliance, held secret long-term plans to overthrow the Maximal government and takeover Cybertron for the Predacons. But because these plans were gradual rather than immediate, the Council had to keep up an appearance of peaceful coexistence with the Maximal Elders, which the Predacon criminal Megatron considered a sign of weak leadership on the Council's part. Accusing them of kissing up to the Maximal Elders, Megatron deciding to rebel against the Council and take more swift action by the stealing the Golden Disk (Cybertron's most carefully guarded relic Beast Wars (Part 1)), venturing back in time, and inciting the Beast Wars. The Agenda (Part 2) When the Maximal transwarp vessel Axalon captained by Optimus Primal went missing in pursuit of the Predacons who stole the Golden Disk, Beast Wars (Part 1) the Maximal Elders on Cybertron launched temporal probes to find the Axalon and bring her crew home. The Probe Alas, the probes never found them. The Agenda (Part 1)

Midway through the Beast Wars, circumstances led to a transwarp wavefront traveling forward in time at an accelerated rate. Code of Hero. Rhinox calculated that it would eventually reach Cybertron back in the Maximals' native future time, which would alert the planet (and presumably the Maximal Elders) to their location. However, the Tripredacus Council had had been struck by the wave first and prevented it from reaching Cybertron. They sent their covert agent Ravage back in time to the Beast Wars to eliminate everyone there, The Agenda (Part 1) but his mission was ultimately a failure. The Agenda (Part III)

While Ravage had previously (and falsely) claimed to the Maximals that the transwarp wave had been too weak to reach Cybertron, The Agenda (Part 1) Optimus later spoke of the possibility of Elders sending a rescue ship (evidently still holding onto the hope that the transwarp wave did possibly reach Cybertron and that Ravage had lied). Rhinox, however, was more doubtful, insisting that such a rescue ship would have already arrived if the Elders really were sending one. Soon after, when Cheetor spotted a small craft falling out of the sky, he reported it to Optimus and got the Maximal leader's hopes up. However, the craft was but a single-pilot Starhopper piloted by the rogue Maximal Depth Charge, rather than any rescue ship from the Elders. Deep Metal

Beast Machines cartoon

Sometime after conquering all of Cybertron with his Vehicon army and transformation virus, Megatron moved into the Council Citadel in the planetary capital of Cybertropolis, which had previously served as the capitol for the Council of Elders. When Optimus Primal first entered the Citadel during Megatron's reign, he demanded to know what had become of the Council of Elders. All Megatron said of them was that they were no longer in control, now that he was in charge of the planet. Master of the House

3H comics

In the wake of a number of terrorist attacks in the outskirts of Cybertropolis's development sectors, Apelinq noted with disdain that the Council of Elders opted to remain silent on the matter, leaving it to Peace Marshal Command to assure him that the situation was supposedly under control. The Terror Begins

Following the Spark War, the Elders held a wariness of the Maximal known as Snarl. While they did respect him, they remained uncomfortable with the idea that he was actually capable of communing with ancient powers of myth and legend far greater than their own. Universe #1 Snarl profile

2006 IDW Beast Wars continuity

Once the Great War between Autobots and Decepticons ended, Autobot leadership was initially restructured to form the Primal Council. Dawn of the Predacus In time, however, three of the Council's members, Prowl, Ironhide, and Silverbolt were among the last few Autobots on Cybertron. Feeling that they had the wisdom to help the burgeoning Maximal race, the three took new Maximal bodies and became the Maximal Elders, Beast Wars Glossary: Maximal Elders entry presiding over the Maximal Imperium. The Ascending #2

During a Great War fought between the Maximals and Predacons, Beast Wars Glossary: Great War (2) entry the Predacon forces revived Combiner technology in the form of the monstrous Tripredacus. In response, the three Maximal Elders reformatted their bodies, allowing themselves to combine into the mighty Magnaboss. Beast Wars Sourcebook #2 Magnaboss profile Near the very end of the war, a rogue Predacon unit launched one final campaign Beast Wars Glossary: Destron entry on the Earth-like planet of Gaea. Beast Wars Sourcebook #2 Galvatron profile Beast Wars Glossary: Gaea entry During this conflict, the Elders sent academy instructor Skywarp to help bolster the Maximal forces on Gaea. Beast Wars Sourcebook #4 Skywarp profile Once there, Skywarp and fellow Maximal Santon were reformatted by the unique spark of Lio Junior, enabling the three of them to combine into a new Magnaboss named after the Maximal Elders' combined form. Beast Wars Sourcebook #2 Magnaboss (II) profile

When the war officially ended with the signing of the Pax Cybertronia, Beast Wars Glossary: Great War (2) entry the Maximal Elders saw great leadership potential in the "one robot army" Big Convoy, and personally assigned him to captain the starship Gung Ho and its crew of young Maximals. Beast Wars Sourcebook #1 Big Convoy profile Eventually, the Elders withdrew from public affairs and allowed other organizations such as the Committee for State Affairs to perform the day-to-day governance. Still, they provided guidance when it was needed. Beast Wars Glossary: Maximal Elders entry

When Unicron's machinations and manipulation of the Predacon Shokaract threatened to destabilize Cybertron, the unaware Maximal Elders discussed the increasing strife on the planet and sent Ikard to get a report from Big Convoy. The Ascending #2

Fun Publications fiction

The Maximal Elders were the heads of state for the Maximal Imperium. The Razor's Edge

During a critical time in Cybertronian history, a Great War fought between the Maximals and Predacons had officially ended, and a peace treaty called the Pax Cybertronia was being drafted to finally bring all hostilities between the two factions to a formal end. However, certain small groups of Predacon radicals continued to attack various Maximal outposts, in hopes of preventing the formal peacetime that the treaty would bring about. In response, the Elders had Maximal Command send out numerous Maximal squadrons to stop these renegades' efforts. The Elders even ordered Maximal Command to suppress certain data of these attacks from the general public. The Razor's Edge

In time, the Pax Cybertronia was ratified and signed by the Maximal Elders and the Tripredacus Council. The Razor's Edge

Following the theft of the Golden Disk, Maximal Command contacted the crew of the Axalon and ordered them to both intercept the Predacon thieves' ship and retrieve the stolen disk. When Optimus Primal reminded Command of the "sensitive cargo" the Axalon was carrying, Command stated that the Maximal Elders were well aware of said cargo and that recovering the disk had been deemed a higher priority. Dawn of Future's Past

Notes

• In a both an interview and a post from 1997, Beast Wars story editor Bob Forward stated that the Maximal Elders were the ones responsible for the programming block that caused the Maximals to all act like feral beasts in the episode "Call of the Wild". While there is nothing that contradicts this authorial intent, it's also never been mentioned or supported in any canonical media.
• In the Beast Wars episode "Deep Metal", another group of Maximal authority was referred to as the "High Council". While the cartoon never did explain the relationship between the Maximal Elders and the High Council (as in, whether they were the same or different groups), the later Beast Machines episode "Master of the House" referred to the primary political unit on Cybertron as the "Council of Elders", seemingly declaring the two groups to be one and the same (a "High Council of Maximal Elders", if you will). Certain pieces of tie-in media released by 3H Productions and Fun Publications all subtly seemed to agree with this notion by indirectly treating the Elders and the "Maximal High Council" as the same entity.

Fan theories and perceptions

Due to just how little the Beast Wars cartoon revealed about the Maximal Elders (evidenced by how most of the information given in the cartoon section above pertains to other things besides the Elders themselves), the early online fandom formed many theories, speculations, and assumptions about the Elders that spread all over the internet, some of which became so widespread as to be easily taken as fact instead of the hearsay it really was. Among the most common theories from back in the day were the following:

• The Maximal Elders are a corrupt, sinister bunch who tamper with history records and conduct unethical experiments behind the scenes.

This blatant conspiracy theory was largely born out of two factors:

• In "Possession", Optimus Primal said Starscream's history files had been classified by the Maximal Elders. This throwaway line was originally intended to make it easier for the episode to introduce Starscream to the audience without the need for too much exposition. Bob Forward also explained that the sealing of Starscream's records was meant as a safety precaution to prevent a corrupting influence on the general public of Cybertron. However, some fans misunderstood or misremembered Primal's line and believed the Elders had classified all records of the Great War (which is nuts when one realizes just how knowledgeable of the war Optimus Primal and Blackarachnia were) instead of just those pertaining to Starscream, thinking the Elders were trying to create a sort of revisionist history to control the Maximals as a people.
• In "Bad Spark", Optimus also revealed that a secret experiment had been conducted by the Maximals on Cybertron in order to replicate the immortality of Starscream's "mutant indestructible spark". This resulted in the monstrous "Protoform X", whom Optimus's crew had been tasked with disposing of prior to the Beast Wars. Coupled with the previous notion of the Elders having classified Starscream's files, this experiment being related to Starscream immediately led fans to jump to the conclusion that the Elders had personally sanctioned this experiment. This belief even reached the authors of Beast Wars Universe, which made a similar claim in its glossary section. In actuality, the episode is completely ambiguous about whether the experiment had ever even been approved by any official, as no authority group of any kind is ever mentioned (for all anyone knows, the Maximal scientists could have even carried out the experiment without any clearance at all). What is known, at the very least, is that "Deep Metal" later revealed that Protoform X was turned over to the Axalon crew by the High Council, and even they were never stated to have had any ties to the experiment either.

In fact, the Elders' sealing off Starscream's files may have even been because of how badly the Protoform X experiment went, which would mean the files would have been sealed only recently, since "Deep Metal" also revealed that the experiment occurred four stellar cycles (years) before the Axalon and her crew left Cybertron to fight in the Beast Wars.

• The Maximal Elders were featured in the Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo manga, and in the Beast Wars Neo cartoon, in which they appeared as Convoys.

Since the Elders were never actually shown onscreen in either Beast Wars or Beast Machines, no one really knew what they looked like. Meanwhile over in Japan, the Beast Wars II manga introduced a ruling council on Cybertron of Maximals that all sported heads that physically resembled that of Optimus Prime (known as "Convoy" in Japan). This "Convoy Council" seemed to play a role quite similar to that of the Maximal Elders. Then in Beast Wars Neo, a very similar group of "Great Convoys" was shown to be in charge on Cybertron in the same way as both the Convoy Council from the manga and the Maximal Elders from Beast Wars. When fans in the west became aware of these two groups in the Japanese fiction, some thought that both of these groups were the very same group as the Maximal Elders from Beast Wars.

Unbeknownst to the greater western fandom, however, all references to the Maximal Elders from the original English version were actually omitted in the Beast Wars cartoon's Japanese dub, meaning they technically don't exist in that version (though, the High Council does). What's more, certain inconsistencies between the English and Japanese cartoons eventually led to the future setting of Beast Wars and Beast Machines being chronologically separated from the setting of Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo by several tens of millennia, further disassociating the two Japanese Maximal authority groups from the Elders of the English version.

Nevertheless, this perception led to the 2006 Beast Wars Sourcebook describing the Elders as playing a very similar role to the Maximal authorities of the two Japanese series, such as sending Skywarp and Santon to Gaea and assigning Big Convoy to captain the Gung Ho.

• The Maximal Elders are the three individuals who combine to form Magnaboss: Silverbolt, Prowl, and Ironhide.

Since the Beast Wars cartoon used the three Predacons who form Tripredacus (Ram Horn, Sea Clamp, and Cicadacon) as the three members of the Tripredacus Council, fans began to speculate if the three Maximals who form Tripredacus's opposite, Magnaboss, were likewise the Maximal Elders (the Tripredacus Council's opposite). Some fans also cited the Generation 1-inspired names of Magnaboss's three components as possibly suggesting them to be the original Autobots Silverbolt, Prowl, and Ironhide in new Maximal bodies, which would theoretically fit with the Elders being, well, elderly.

While neither Beast Wars nor Beast Machines ever explored this notion, the idea would later be utilized twice in tie-in material released by 3H Productions and IDW Publishing:

• The third issue of the Universe comic introduced a post-Beast Machines version of the Maximal High Council, which featured Magnaboss as its most prominent member. A profile written for Snarl published in the back of the first issue noted that the members of this council were "Maximal elders", which would logically also apply for Magnaboss's three component members.
• The second issue of Beast Wars: The Ascending showed Prowl, Silverbolt, and Ironhide to be the primary authority figures on Cybertron, heads of the "Maximal Imperium". The subsequent Beast Wars Sourcebook further declared the three of them to not only be Maximal Elders but also the Generation 1 Autobots in new bodies, having lived into the age of Maximals and Predacons.

Relatedly, Ironhide was again depicted as a Maximal authority figure in the first issue of IDW's 2021 Beast Wars comic series, but what, if any, title he possessed (an Elder, a High Councilor, or something else entirely) was not stated.

See also

• Autobot Elder
• Council of Autobot Elders
• Great Convoy