Institute

The Institute is an institution from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Convoy.

Before the Great War, the Institute was a rumor whose very existence was, to many, suspect. How could there actually be a laboratory dedicated to rewriting Transformers' minds - dabbling in the forbidden science known as shadowplay? But for many, it is a name whispered in fearful tones - the kind of place where out-of-line mechs might get 'disappeared' to, to have their loyalty coefficient brought back into lockstep with the desires of the Senate.

Rational-minded Transformers dismiss the entire notion as nothing more than a hallucination of the paranoid. But those rational minds might want to reconsider...

Fiction

IDW Generation 1 continuity

This section covers fiction that is ongoing. It will be added to as the story progresses. If it isn't current, you can help by updating it.

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, Tumbler 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, Tumbler was fascinated by the idea of the place, regardless of whether or not it was real. Post Hoc The rational-minded Rung, meanwhile, regarded Red Alert's mentions of the Institute as a sure sign of paranoia. Interiors (He didn't know that Red Alert may have been a victim of the Institute...) Patternism

While on a mission to track down a murderer, Tumbler and Prowl made their way into a supposed Relinquishment Clinic. Once inside, the duo were shocked to find much more than mere bodyswapping going on. They found an entire laboratory complex below the clinic, filled with technicians working on dozens of Transformer brains, and equipment dedicated to imprisonment and worse: magnetic circuit slabs, and a room full of Empties with hollowed-out heads. It was immediately obvious to Tumbler that they were in fact inside the fabled Institute. Hacking the lab's computer, Tumbler found a list of thousands of names organized by "threat level". Patternism

What neither they nor Orion Pax realized was that the very name "the Institute" was sleight of hand: it made people think there was just one, not a whole network! In time, every Relinquishment Clinic would turn out to have an Institute under it and that was only part of it. Senator Shockwave would be a victim of the Institute, deliberately turned into an emotionless husk as an act of petty revenge. An Intimate Beheading

Years later, after the fall of the Senate, the restructuring of Cybertroninan society under Zeta Prime, and the outbreak of the Great War, the Institute continued to operate in secret, rebranded as the New Institute, used by Zeta to brainwash both captured Decepticons and to keep Autobots with wavering loyalties in line. It is unclear if there were still multiple Institutes in operation by this stage; the only confirmed facility was hidden beneath a patch of wasteland, protected by a veritable army of Guardian droids. This facility's staff included Tumbler, who lobotomized thousands with his mnemosurgical skills earning the name "Chromedome" in the process, and Brainstorm, who were both present when Overlord attacked it to rescue Soundwave. Remembrance Day Evidence suggests Highbrow was also a member. The Reluctant SpecialistRules of Disengagement

Millions of years later, Autobot Special Operations would use ex-New Institute technology: the nudge gun, one charge that fires a thought into a target's mind and a second that blanks out any incriminating memories. Arm the Lonely When examining the exploded remains of Skids' nudge gun, Brainstorm could recognise it as Institute technology but didn't know what it was. Rules of Disengagement