Senate

The Senate is a pre-war governing body of Cybertron from the IDW comics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

This symbol denotes official Senate dealings on documents and also adorns many buildings and members of Senators' personal staff. Basically, if someone has this, then they're better than you. And will act like it.

The Senate is the legislative body of pre-war Cybertron. While the Prime and the Autobot Security Services may hold military and police powers, the Senate creates the laws they enforce.

City-states like Kaon have their own senates.

Known senators from this era include:

• Decimus
• Proteus
• Ratbat

Fiction

IDW continuity

The esteemed members of the Senate were held to be the honorable descendants of the progenitors and custodians of the sacred Primal lineage. By the time of Nominus Prime, however, the Senate had become grossly corrupt and oppressive, overseeing a caste-ridden dictatorship with themselves on top. A few honest Senators remained but kept quiet.

In Cybertron's early age, the 113th Cybertronian Senate went into a private session at the Grand Imperium in order to address the matter of Nominus Prime's attempted assassination by terrorists. They decided that the head of security, Sentinel, was to find the perpetrators of this attack and decided to forgo the rights of the citizens by initiating a Clampdown. Their session was interrupted by the arrival of a security officer known as Orion Pax who spoke out against the corruption. However, the outraged Senate had Sentinel place the officer under arrest and remove him from the Grand Imperium. One Senator, however, prevented Pax from being sent to prison and confessed to him that a faction within the Senate was responsible for the assassination, as they were seeking to discover how the Creation Matrix creates life for their own motivations. Chaos Theory #2

Believe it or not, the Decepticons are the good guys here.

Just prior to the Great War, after Nominus had died and Sentinel had become Prime, individual Senators like Ratbat had started to manipulate (and damage) the planet's economy for their own benefit, while the Senate as a whole automated the energon mines at the expense of the mining caste. They made only conciliatory gestures to the miners while hoarding energon for themselves. Sentinel Prime appeared well aware that the Senate was out for itself and held a rather low opinion of them as a whole, even though they were basically his senate.

As part of Megatron's takeover for Kaon, the Kaon Senate's guards were subverted and assisted Starscream, who claimed to be snitching to the Senators, in wiping out the entire body (bar Ratbat) in one swoop. Megatron Origin

The Senate remained during the reign of Zeta Prime, at the start of the war, and even they thought Zeta's plan to use vamparc ribbons on civilians was a bit nutty. Around this time, Starscream was considered a "delegate" to the Senate and not thought to be a Decepticon. Parasites In spite of their misgivings, the Senate still helped Zeta stockpile outlawed weapons. Endgame Zeta was assuring the worried Senate that his tactics were working, at the exact moment when Orion Pax and a squad of Autobots violently turned on him. Overthrown

The Senate's status following Zeta Prime's death and Megatron's short-lived rule of Cybertron is unknown, but things did not look good for them. If they survived, they were probably ousted when Orion Pax, now Optimus Prime, took charge and got rid of the old laws.

Notes

• As Megatron Origin was based on the decline of the Roman Empire, the Senate was most likely based on the Roman Senate. Unlike that Senate, according to Optimus, they're not made up of former magistrates but of the descendants of the progenitors, i.e. they inherit their seats.