Golden Disk (Voyager)
<div style="border: thin solid rgb(170, 170, 170); margin: 0pt 1em 0pt 2em; padding: 0.5em; background: rgb(247, 248, 255) none repeat scroll 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">The name or term Golden Disk refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Golden_Disk_%28disambiguation%29" title="Golden Disk (disambiguation)">Golden Disk (disambiguation)</a>.</div>
- The Voyager Golden Disk is an artifact from the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Beast_Wars" class="mw-redirect" title="Beast Wars">Beast Wars</a> portion of the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Generation_1_%28franchise%29" title="Generation 1 (franchise)">Generation 1</a> <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Continuity_family" title="Continuity family">continuity family</a>.
[[Image:|right|250px|thumb|DJ Meggy spins the hits.]] The Golden Disk from the Voyager probe is a recurring object throughout the Beast Wars. It plays a major role in the escalation of the conflict between the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Maximal" title="Maximal">Maximals</a> and the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Predacon_%28BW%29" title="Predacon (BW)">Predacons</a> and leads to the death of <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Dinobot_%28BW%29" title="Dinobot (BW)">Dinobot</a>. It is eventually destroyed, but the Predacon leader, <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Megatron_%28BW%29" title="Megatron (BW)">Megatron</a>, recovers one of the shards and uses it to escape capture at the hands of a <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Ravage_%28G1%29" title="Ravage (G1)">Cybertronian government agent</a>.
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A seemingly insignificant scrap of metal made by a small, fragile
species hardly worth mentioning....and yet this object holds the key to
the conquest of the whole of Cybertron. For over three hundred cycles,
the Golden Disk has carried the mystery of incredible power under its
shimmering surface. I can tell you the tales of a thousand Maximals and
Predacons who have hunted this dark relic. Every story had the same
ending.....destruction.
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<td colspan="3" style="padding-top: 0pt;"> <p style="font-size: smaller; line-height: 1em; text-align: right;"><cite style="font-style: normal;">—Cryotek, giving a history lesson</cite>
<a name="Fiction"></a><h2><span class="editsection">[<a href="http://tfwiki.net/w2/index.php?title=Golden_Disk_%28Voyager%29&action=edit§ion=1" title="Edit section: Fiction">edit</a>]</span> <span class="mw-headline">Fiction</span></h2>
<a name="Theft_of_the_Golden_Disk"></a><h3><span class="editsection">[<a href="http://tfwiki.net/w2/index.php?title=Golden_Disk_%28Voyager%29&action=edit§ion=2" title="Edit section: Theft of the Golden Disk">edit</a>]</span> <span class="mw-headline">Theft of the Golden Disk</span></h3>
<span style="border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-width: 0pt 1px; padding: 0pt 5px; font-size: 10px; background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" class="tt1_nowrap"><a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Theft_of_the_Golden_Disk" title="Theft of the Golden Disk">Theft of the Golden Disk</a></span>
<a name="Dawn_of_Future.27s_Past"></a><h3><span class="editsection">[<a href="http://tfwiki.net/w2/index.php?title=Golden_Disk_%28Voyager%29&action=edit§ion=3" title="Edit section: Dawn of Future's Past">edit</a>]</span> <span class="mw-headline">Dawn of Future's Past</span></h3>
<span style="border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-width: 0pt 1px; padding: 0pt 5px; font-size: 10px; background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" class="tt1_nowrap"><a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Dawn_of_Future%27s_Past" title="Dawn of Future's Past">Dawn of Future's Past</a></span>
<a name="Beast_Wars_cartoon"></a><h3><span class="editsection">[<a href="http://tfwiki.net/w2/index.php?title=Golden_Disk_%28Voyager%29&action=edit§ion=4" title="Edit section: Beast Wars cartoon">edit</a>]</span> <span class="mw-headline">Beast Wars cartoon</span></h3>
Sometime within roughly a decade of when the Transformers aboard the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Ark_%28G1%29" title="Ark (G1)">Ark</a> awoke in the eruption of <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Mount_St._Hilary" title="Mount St. Hilary">Mount St. Hilary</a>
(possibly earlier, possibly later), the humans of planet Earth launched
a spacecraft to study the outer planets in their solar system. Attached
to this spacecraft was a gold disk which contained information about
Earth. <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Megatron_%28G1%29" title="Megatron (G1)">Megatron</a>, the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Decepticon_leader" title="Decepticon leader">leader</a> of the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Decepticon" title="Decepticon">Decepticons</a>, acquired it at some point and encoded an additional message on the disk.
Megatron's message was even more of a "message in a bottle" than the disk itself, although the complete message was never revealed. He orders any Decepticons who might, in the future, come across the message to use <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transwarp" title="Transwarp">transwarp</a> technology to achieve some particular end.
<div style="border: 2px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); margin: 0pt auto 0.2em; padding: 2px; width: 90%; background-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); text-align: left;">Note: <i>Exactly what end is unrevealed because the disk was destroyed before the message was ever played on-camera. Predacon <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Megatron_%28BW%29" title="Megatron (BW)">Megatron</a> plays only a surviving fragment of the message for <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Ravage_%28G1%29" title="Ravage (G1)">Ravage</a>.
Presumably, the rest of the message indicates the location of the Ark
and asks the descendants of the Decepticons to use transwarp technology
to travel through time, gain access to the </i>Ark using codes to <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Teletraan_I_%28G1%29" title="Teletraan I (G1)">Teletraan I</a> encoded on the disk, and change history by killing <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Optimus_Prime_%28G1%29" title="Optimus Prime (G1)">Optimus Prime</a>, the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Prime_%28rank%29" title="Prime (rank)">leader</a> of the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Autobot" title="Autobot">Autobots</a>, before he can defeat Megatron and win the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Great_War" title="Great War">Great War</a>.</div>
[[Image:|right|180px|thumb|A giant statue outside the archives where it was stored includes a copy copies.]]
At some point between Decepticon Megatron adding his message to the
disk and the beginning of the Beast Wars, the spacecraft holding the
disk—or perhaps only the disk—fell into the hands of the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformer" title="Transformer">Transformers</a>.
It was seemingly considered a precious artifact, even though the
general population of Maximals had no idea what it really was (and even
some Predacons—like the reformatted Decepticon Ravage—didn't have a
clue). The <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Maximal_Elder" title="Maximal Elder">Maximal Elders</a> were presumably aware of the Disk's origin.
The Predacons stole the Golden Disk from the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Cybertron_%28planet%29" title="Cybertron (planet)">Cybertron</a> archives. Megatron claimed that the disk held the location of a vast store of energon, with which the Predacon commander believed he could reignite the Great War against the Maximals. <span style="border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-width: 0pt 1px; padding: 0pt 5px; font-size: 10px; background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" class="tt1_nowrap"><a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Beast_Wars_%28Part_1%29" title="Beast Wars (Part 1)">Beast Wars (Part 1)</a></span>
[[Image:|left|175px|thumb|"Well look at that. I've actually talked till I'm blue in the face."]]
<a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Dinobot_%28BW%29" title="Dinobot (BW)">Dinobot</a> broke into the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Darksyde" title="Darksyde">Predacon base</a>
and stole the Golden Disk. He then climbed to a high peak where he
pontificated to himself about the potential power the wielder of the
Golden Disk could hold, and the potential danger that came with it. On
a personal level, he felt that it could either confirm or destroy his
own reason for being. He needed to believe himself the master of his
own fate, and if history could not be changed, then he could only
believe himself a deterministic pawn. He eventually decided that the
most prudent thing to do with an item of infinite power was to shove it
under a large rock. <span style="border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-width: 0pt 1px; padding: 0pt 5px; font-size: 10px; background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" class="tt1_nowrap"><a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Coming_of_the_Fuzors_%28Part_1%29" title="Coming of the Fuzors (Part 1)">Coming of the Fuzors (Part 1)</a></span>
Later, he noticed that the Predacons had been setting up installations around their base in a pattern that matched the shape of one of the symbols on the disk. Realizing that Megatron still meant to alter history, Dinobot rejoined him to discover the truth of his own destiny. He led Megatron to the location of the Golden Disk and presented it to him. Shortly afterwards, Dinobot defected to the Maximals once again, but Megatron escaped with the Golden Disk. <span style="border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-width: 0pt 1px; padding: 0pt 5px; font-size: 10px; background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" class="tt1_nowrap"><a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Maximal%2C_No_More" title="Maximal, No More">Maximal, No More</a></span> Not long afterwards, Megatron began testing history's mutability, discovering through the images contained in the disk that he had the power to alter the timeline. The Predacons attacked the valley from which humanity's ancestors would emerge, but Dinobot launched a one-man berserker attack on the Predacons, single-handedly defeating them and shattering the Golden Disk with his last bit of energy. <span style="border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-width: 0pt 1px; padding: 0pt 5px; font-size: 10px; background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" class="tt1_nowrap"><a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Code_of_Hero" title="Code of Hero">Code of Hero</a></span>
Megatron was captured by Covert Agent <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Ravage_%28G1%29" title="Ravage (G1)">Ravage</a> for violations of the <a href="http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Pax_Cybertronia" title="Pax Cybertronia">Pax Cybertr
