Transwarp Key

The Transwarp Key is a powerful device. For many entities, planetary travel can be considered a demanding ordeal. Whether it be distance traveled, time required to travel, or the energy required to make the entire distance, it may not be ideal, and for some, even impossible. With the Transwarp Key, however, that distance shrinks significantly, allowing for entities to travel between time and space, and what seems to be a challenge, even an impossibility in terms of travelling distance even for gods, has become nothing more than a short distance to travel.

Fiction

Rise of the Beasts film

Long ago, the Transformers on Cybertron used the Transwarp Key to open space-time portals to energon-rich worlds all across the universe. Thousands of years prior to 1994, the Key was "lost" to Cybertron; the circumstances surrounding this event are unknown, but the Key wound up in the custody of the Maximals, an advanced race of Cybertronians who evolved on one of the worlds the Transformers had spread out to. Proponents of advancing life across the universe, the Maximals used the Key to visit young worlds and help guide the development of other races.

In time, the Key drew the attention of the monster planet Unicron, who sent his Terrorcons to obtain the device for him so he could use it to travel to worlds rich with Energon at any time. Maximal leader Apelinq entrusted the Key to Optimus Primal, who used it to transport himself and a group of other Maximals across space and time to prehistoric Earth, there to hide it from Unicron and his minions.

Upon their arrival on the planet, Optimus Primal decided to have the Transwarp Key split in two, with Primal hiding his half within a temple in Peru, while Airazor kept her half sealed away in a falcon statue. Some time between the initial splitting of the Transwarp Key and 1994, Primal moved his half of the Transwarp Key, giving it to a small village of people aware of the Maximals' existence for safe keeping. The statue containing Airazor's half was eventually unearthed and taken to a museum on Ellis Island in New York City.

The Transwarp Key halves remained dormant during this time, until museum intern Elena Wallace accidentally broke the falcon statue and activated the Key's signal beacon, attracting the Autobots as well as the Terrorcons. The former saw the Key as a means to return to Cybertron, while the latter saw it as a means to summon Unicron to Earth. Both factions came to blows, but Scourge ended up escaping with the half of the Key.

Scourge would present the half of the Key to Unicron, believing that it was the whole piece, but Unicron tortured the Terrorcon leader, demanding he retrieve the other half.

When the Autobots arrived in Cusco, they made a plan to retrieve the other half of the Key, while their human ally, Noah Díaz, made plans to destroy it. Upon meeting with the Maximals and taking the Autobots to their village, Amaru presented the other half of the Transwarp Key to Optimus Prime, only for it to be temporarily stolen by Airazor, who had been corrupted by Scourge. Noah attempted to destroy the Key, but was convinced by Optimus Prime not to. Upon Noah's refusal, the remaining half was stolen by Airazor once more, and handed to Scourge.

With both halves reunited, Scourge connected the Transwarp Key to a newly formed Transwarp Drive, where it then opened a vortex that allowed for Unicron to come to Earth. Though the Autobots and Maximals initially hoped that Elena could upload the Transwarp Key's override abort, the Key was ultimately destroyed in the final battle by Optimus Prime in order to stop Unicron's arrival after Scourge destroyed the control panel to ensure his master's victory. Rise of the Beasts

Toys

Studio Series

• Optimus Primal (Leader Class, 2023)
  • Movie: Rise of the Beasts
  • Hasbro ID number: 106

A painted Transwarp Key is included with the Studio Series Optimus Primal as one of his accessories. Much like the Transwarp Key in the movie, the accessory is capable of splitting in half to replicate its state from the early portions of Rise of the Beasts.

Notes

• The key is covered in writings, when Noah was about to shoot on it in Peru, inscriptions on it reads as "keeper of the keys".
• When the "Autobot Signal Flare" contrail is equipped in Fortnite, the Transwarp Key will appear above the player while falling and split in half to create portal effects before recombining.

Foreign names

• French: Clé de Transdistorsion ("Transwarp Key")
• Hungarian: Transztér kulcs ("Trans-Space Key")