Cyclonus's Armada (G1)

The name or term "Armada" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Armada (disambiguation).

Cyclonus's Armada is one or more Decepticons from the Generation 1 portion of the continuity family of the same name.

Who cares if the President doesn't exist? He's a great American!

Cyclonus's Armada is the Decepticon or group thereof that Unicron put under Cyclonus's command. Any details beyond that are a contentious matter; it may be a single Cyclonus-lookalike, a squadron of them, or instead simply Scourge and the Sweeps. It may even be a group including those plus Thundercracker and Skywarp! And don't even get us started on who the Cyclonus-bot(s) might've been created from.

Fiction

Generation 1 cartoon continuity

The Transformers cartoon

Because this is from "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 5", we assume it to be in error. It's meant to be Ultra Magnus and Munka Spanka with the Witwicky family on Earth.

Shockingly, something e-Hobby failed to consider for Gentei! Gentei!.

When Megatron agreed to submit himself to Unicron and be re-created as Galvatron, Unicron also turned several fallen Decepticons into new warriors. He announced their names as he did so, first "Scourge the tracker and his huntsmen, the Sweeps" and then "Cyclonus the warrior and his armada". As Cyclonus was created, a duplicate of him could also be seen. But this doppelganger quickly disappeared and was rarely seen again. The Transformers: The Movie

At least four jets of Cyclonus's design were seen on two occasions during an assault on Cybertron. One even sported a unique paint job! Five Faces of Darkness, Part 5

It is possible to dismiss all of these duplicate Cyclonuses as animation errors, especially the ones in the notoriously poorly-made "Five Faces of Darkness".

IDW Transformers: The Animated Movie comic

For a guy who died so quickly, he sure created a lot of problems.

A jet identical to Cyclonus was destroyed by a blast of Grimlock's fire-breath. To the Death—and Beyond!

Although Grimlock did indeed use his fire-breath in this manner in the movie itself, his target was unambiguously Cyclonus himself with Galvatron inside. While Cyclonus survived that encounter with little damage, his lookalike in the comic goes kersplodey with equal unambiguity.

IDW Transformers (2010) comic

Not long after their creation, Cyclonus and Scourge hunted down Hot Rod, Kup, and the Dinobots while they fled from Quintessa to the planet of Junk. The hunters split up, and Cyclonus found the Autobots on his own. Boarding their ship, he fought with Hot Rod, who taunted him. Cyclonus responded bitterly, complaining about how he'd been overlooked and undervalued "all his lives"; he said that even Unicron had failed to deliver on his promise of personal troops. He was jealous of Scourge's Sweeps, and in fact when Scourge caught up with them, the two ended up fighting each other instead of the Autobots. Rodimus vs. Cyclonus

Marvel Generation 1 comics continuity

Marvel The Transformers: The Movie comic adaptation

Cyclonus's Armada Shadow Mode.

Several additional ships in the shape of Cyclonus were present above the surface of Unicron shortly after Galvatron's creation. When Galvatron decided that he needed to take care of Starscream before going after the Autobots' Matrix, the ships followed Cyclonus to Cybertron. Judgment Day!

Universe continuity

3H Universe: Featuring the Wreckers comics

Well, that clears that up.

During the Vehicon conquest of Cybertron Cyclonus and Skywarp coexisted, surviving by taking on Aero Drone forms. Departure They joined the Wreckers, though Cyclonus eventually betrayed them because he was secretly on a mission from Cryotek. Disclosure

Fun Publications Timelines prose

When the Wreckers caught up with Cyclonus in the bowels of Cybertron, for a moment Skywarp appeared to switch to his side. Cyclonus attributed this to Skywarp having once been his "Armada". Skywarp shot him and told him he had always hated that and hated him, even when Cyclonus had been "a bug". Wreckers: Finale Part II

Origins

My shade of blueish purple may be almost 5% different!

The Armada is, in general, a monumental headache for a number of reasons. The basic idea was for Cyclonus to have a group of followers identical to him in design as a natural counterpart to Scourge's Sweeps. This is evidenced by the movie script:

CYCLONUS is CREATED and then his "armada" of similar, but smaller and similarly colored and clad creatures are formed.

However, while the original comic adaptation of the movie follows through with this, the actual movie itself does anything but. Only one Armada robot is shown to be created and then promptly vanishes from the film mere seconds later, while the number of Sweeps seems to increase from the two who are shown being created to... well, as many as they need.

Consequently, opinions differ on the Armada's actual existence, with some arguing that since Cyclonus's personal army was dropped in production and removed from the film immediately after being introduced, its inclusion is an error that should be ignored. But then, if the Armada is seen to exist, precisely who was turned into a Cyclonus-bot is the subject of yet another debate. (See Cyclonus (G1)#Who is Cyclonus? for more on that.)

Unicron even made them t-shirts.

Some interpret the "and his armada" line to refer to Scourge and the Sweeps. This is a somewhat awkward reading because they had been created and called out by name already, but in recent times a bit of evidence has emerged in favor of that view: The Masterpiece Thundercracker and Skywarp toys came packed with a sticker-sheet featuring multiple Decepticon-themed emblems such as "Jetron Airforces", "Kremzeek Attack", and "Skywarp Teleport". One of these says "Armada Decepticon" and shows a Cyclonus-shaped silhouette with several Sweep-shapes behind it. This leaves lots of room for interpretation, as it's impossible to tell whether the actual Cyclonus and Scourge are among the silhouettes, and the idea of this somehow applying to Thundercracker and Skywarp in their pre-Unicronian forms is just icing on the cake of confusion.

Toys

While there have been no toys of the Armada released, anyone interested in assembling an armada is not without options! As the Armada are physically identical to Cyclonus, an enterprising fan can purchase multiples of the Cyclonus toy of their choosing and make pretend.

Notes

• The capitalization of "Armada" is inconsistent in the fiction. The movie script, treating it as a generic term for a group of soldiers, leaves it uncapitalized. The Wreckers story, treating it as a singular identifier for Skywarp's Unicronian form, capitalizes it. We default to the proper-name form unless the specific fiction dictates otherwise.