Age of Primes
| This article is about the fictional historical era. For the real-world toyline imprint, see Transformers: Age of the Primes. |
An ancient epoch of Cybertronian history, the Age of Primes was when the Thirteen walked Cybertron and ruled over its people. It always tends to end with death, tragedy, and the memory of the Thirteen disappearing into legends.
Fiction
Aligned continuity family
The Covenant of Primus
After defeating Unicron in a torturous battle, the Thirteen began making plans for the future of Cybertron. Focused on their own interests and projects, the Primes were infected by a touch of Unicron's darkness, festering resentments, suspicion, paranoia, jealously, anger, and distrust. Prima in particular viewed Megatronus with distrust, placing him on a chart as the most like Unicron, and an "Agent of Chaos". Thus, Alpha Trion would remark in hindsight that the Primes' failure to address their experience facing the Chaos Bringer was the root of what would ultimately doom the Age of Primes.
Prima, Vector Prime, and Alpha Trion concerned themselves mostly with government and the planning of rules and order for a new community and civilization. The independently natured Megatronus, Maximo, and Amalgamous focused on Energon stores, mining, and refining, but were resentful of what they saw as the first group's bossy, controlling interference. Micronus, Onyx, Solus and Nexus lacked interest in the politics of either group and concerned themselves largely with their own creative tasks. While Thirteen, Alchemist and Quintus traveled freely between cliques, the Liege Maximo was the true emissary, always traveling and communicating between all groups and individuals with his natural beguiling charm.
During this period the feelings between Megatronus and Solus deepened into true and mutual love. This surprised the more distant and insular Primes like Prima, Vector and Trion, but the later Primes (especially Thirteen, Onyx and Micronus) smiled on the idea and enjoyed seeing their friend Solus happy. Megatronus was jealous of her by nature, but she was in large the hub that connected all the Primes into friendship and family.
Tensions began to rise as Liege Maximo subtly manipulated his fellow Primes, fermenting the growing negative emotions among the Thirteen. He would reveal Prima's chart to the rest of the Primes, enraging Megatronus (who had always been secretly ashamed of and at inner war with his own nature). Further issues arose when it was revealed that Maximo, along with Megatronus and Quintus Prime, had constructed a "Farm" of mechanical beasts, with the larger of them being pitted against one another in combat. After Maximo was ordered to cease his experiments, he asked Megatronus to claim a requested suit of armor from Solus Prime. This led to the War of the Primes, the conflict that concluded the Age of Primes with Solus Prime's demise and the creation of the Well of All Sparks.
Generation 1 continuity family
2005 IDW continuity
Following the departure of the Knights of Cybertron, Primus: You, Me, and Other Revelations Cybertronian society devolved into a barbaric, feudal society, ruled by various warlords and Primes. Origin Myths It was to this era that the Decepticon scientist Shockwave found himself hurled back to following the destruction of his chronal drive. Wandering the deserts of Cybertron for years, he eventually came across the shepherd Onyx. Recognizing the shepherd's place in history, Shockwave slew him and fashioned his remains into a suit of armor that allowed the Decepticon to become "Onyx Prime", naming one of Onyx's pupils as "Megatronus". The First Who Was Named
As Megatronus and his Darklanders ran amok across Cybertron, Onyx set out to bring together the rest of the Thirteen. First, he found Liege Maximo Origin Myths and his army of bestial Maximals. Endless Forever Then, Onyx and his "menagerie" of Maximals traveled to the village that would day become Crystal City, meeting an alliance of Primes: Alchemist, Vector, Solus, Nexus, and Alpha Trion.
Onyx inspired their followers to take up arms and stop Megatronus' army together, using the young Alpha Trion's belief in the power of myths and legends to goad the young civilization into taking a stand. The next morning, Onyx and his forces joined the fight against Megatronus; but the emergence of three Titans allowed Onyx the opportunity to establish a "truce" with Megatronus, uniting the now eight Primes. Origin Myths The eight original Primes were soon joined by Prima, Amalgamous Prime, Quintus Prime, Micronus Prime, and a mysterious Thirteenth Prime, thus signaling the beginning of the Age of Primes. The Crucible
The Primes ruled together as they built a new civilization on Cybertron The Crucible, with Liege Maximo and his followers becoming known for being skilled diplomats and negotiators Heavy. As they began to wield powerful artifacts and the power of Titans, the Thirteen's egos grew as they began to believe that they were immortal and that only a Prime could kill another Prime. The Crucible
Prima, now known as the Primes' leader, was encouraged by Onyx to turn the Cybertronian race's natural drive to conquer outward: to spread Pax Cybertronia across the galaxy. Time Will Rust The First Who Was Named Onyx and Megatronus led the first of these interstellar colonization missions; though their chronicler Alpha Trion would remember this expedition as one of interstellar goodwill, aimed at spreading the "light" of Cybertronian civilization to their neighbors, the truth was far uglier: when the Omega Sentinel fleet arrived on the planet Antilla, the genocidal ambitions of the Cybertronians became clear, sparking a brutal conflict between the Cybertronian colonizers and the native Antillans. Shockwave informed Trion, who had chosen to gloss over the carnage in his official chronicle of events, that Antilla would become his world; Shockwave's means of ensuring that each of Cybertron's eventual colonies would "belong" to each member of the Thirteen. The First Who Was Named The invasion finally came to an end when an Antillan scientist developed and deployed a destructive superweapon that annihilated all life on the planet. Our Finest
But the Age of Primes was never meant to last forever. Onyx continued the manipulate the Primes, using the simmering tensions between the tribal leaders to pave the way for the next chapter in Cybertronian history: the First Cybertronian Civil War. Using Prima's blame on Megatronus for the Antillan mission failing, Onyx encouraged his other protégé, the Liege Maximo, to join forces with Megatronus and stage a coup against Prima. This coup would end with the death of Solus Prime, the first blow in the civil war. The First Who Was Named The Crucible
By the time the war came to an end, nearly all of the Thirteen were dead or off-world, leaving Alpha Trion as the last Prime still on Cybertron. The Crucible
2019 IDW continuity
Long ago, the Thirteen Primes ruled Cybertron before they were sundered and their time ended. Following the end of their age, their artifacts, save the Matrix of Leadership, were lost. Prime The Age of Primes was succeeded by the Age of the Firstforged. End of Time
Games
Transformers: Earth Wars
The temporally-displaced Orion Pax remarked that "this Age of Primes thing" felt like bad news for everyone. Holding Pattern
Notes
Foreign names
- Japanese: Prime no Jidai (プライムの時代 Puraimu no Jidai, "Era of Primes")
- French: Âge des Primes ("Age of Primes")
- German: Zeitalter des Primes ("Age of Primes")
- Italian: Era dei Prime ("Era of Prime")
- Korean: Prime ui Sidae (프라임의 시대 Peulaim-ui Sidae, "Era of Primes")
- Mandarin: Zhìzūn Shídài (至尊時代, "Era of Majesties")
- Portuguese: Era dos Primes ("Era of Primes")
- Russian: Epokha Praymov (Эпоха Праймов, "Epoch of Primes")
- Spanish: Era de los Primes ("Era of the Primes")
- Turkish: Prime'ların Çağı ("Age of Primes")
