Institute

The Institute is (or is not) an institution from the Generation 1 continuity family.

A name dating to the period before the great war, The Institute is a shadowy rumor whose very existence is, to many, suspect. It is a name whispered in fearful tones by those who believe in it, the kind of place where out-of-line mechs might get 'disappeared' to. Those more inclined to rational analysis dismiss the entire notion as nothing more than a hallucination of paranoid minds.

Fiction

IDW Generation 1 comics

Before the war, an acquaintance of Orion Pax within the Senate feared that Orion could get sent to The Institute as punishment for interrupting a Senate session. Chaos Theory Part 2 Around the same time, Chromedome likewise noted that dissenters from the official government line were likely to get sent to The Institute. Though Prowl dismissed the entire notion of The Institute with a derisive phht, Chromedome was fascinated by the idea of place, regardless of whether or not it was real. Shadowplay, Part 1: Post Hoc The rational-minded Rung, meanwhile, regarded Red Alert's mentions of The Institute as a sure sign of paranoia. Interiors

Millions of years later, after examining the exploded remains of Skids' gun, Brainstorm offered his opinion that the familiar engineering may have been the work of The Institute. Rules of Disengagement