ROBOT WARS 1988

In February, the newly-freed Galvatron made his move in making a bee-line to the Decepticon's aquatic base. Commander Shockwave, scared that the future Decepticon was attempting a hostile takeover, set the Seacons on him- they were beaten. Galvatron then told the assembled Decepticons that he'd intended to come in peace, to ally himself with them, but Shockwave had made him their enemy! He'd known the commander would assume he was hostile, so he'd done this to sow discord among the Decepticon ranks. While this was going on, the Autobot Sparkabots (Fizzle, Sizzle and Guzzle) battled the Decepticon Firecons (Cindersaur, Flamefeather and Sparkstalker)- the Autobots were there to spy on Galvatron, while the Decepticons wanted him to come back to Cybertron with them. Galvatron refused to join them and walked away, leaving all other parties concerned feeling rather stupid. 

Continued Decepticons attacks as ordered by Ratbat caused the RAAT organisation to seem weak and useless. Believing Autobot and Decepticon to be the same, they declared they would execute the captive Throttlebots unless the attacks stopped- predictively, the Decepticons attacked again. Walter Bennet, who'd realised the two factions were separate, stole their brain modules beforehand and placed them in battery-powered toy cars, saving their lives. He gave them over to Buster Witwicky, which led to Sparkplug being hospitalised by the Predacons and the capture of Buster by Ratbat. The Throttlebots were left in the place where the Ark used to be, and managed to send out a distress signal. The signal reached the Autobot on the planet Nebulon, led by the Headmaster Fortress Maximus, and they headed for the planet, with the Nebulon Decepticons (led by the Headmaster Scorponok) in hot pursuit. The Autobots encountered Buster's older brother Spike, who became Fortress Maximus' new Headmaster partner after the previous one (Galen) was killed by Scorponok; this way, he felt, he could ensure Buster was rescued.

 The Autobots tracked Buster to a desert island, which was revealed to be a Decepticon star cruiser in disguise when it flew off into space. Fortress Maximus tried and failed to rescue the boy, but did manage to knock out Shockwave and send him spinning back down to Earth, leaving Ratbat in sole control of the Decepticons.

Following this, Shockwave went back to the old Fortress Sinister base in Wyoming, taking the Seacons with him. He decided that, before retaking command, he should deal with Galvatron, and so he salvaged Straxus' Megatron clone. Simultaneously, the Sparkabots salvaged Ultra Magnus only to be attacked by the future Decepticon. Megatron II beat the Straxus influences in his mind, only to be brainwashed by Shockwave; Ultra Magnus overcame his fear of Galvatron and knocked him out. Meanwhile on Cybertron, a powerful explosion rocked the ruined city-state of Kalis. Back on Earth, the Headmasters discovered that Ethan Zachary had a back-up file of Optimus Prime's mind- however, Prime believed he was a computer game character. Despite this, he was instrumental in stealing the secrets of the Pretender process (Transformers encased in pseudo-organic armour) from Scorponok, which allowed six Autobots to be turned into Pretenders to counter the Decepticon ones. 

On the 1st of May, the Autobot base in Kalis was attacked by an army of Transformer zombies, led by the undead Impactor, leading to the capture of the Wreckers and Xaaron. In fear, the Decepticons blockaded Kalis from the rest of Cybertron. Ultra Magnus and the Sparkabots arrived in the city (via Space Bridge technology) unawares of this six days later, and ended up in battle against the zombies alongside their new Decepticon captive Flywheels. Meanwhile, the captives discovered that the mastermind behind the zombies was the disgruntled Autobot scientist Flame, who was trying to reactivate the fusion reactor Megatron built to act as the engine for his "Cybertron as a cosmic dreadnought" scheme; if activated, the engine would blow Cybertron to pieces, but Flame refused to accept that. Springer managed to bring back Impactor's consciousness and Flame ended up facing a task force composed of Magnus, the Sparkabots, the Wreckers, Xaaron, Flywheels and even Trypticon! Flame was killed and the reactor shut off by Impactor, who perished again in the process.

On the 17th of June, the Wreckers decided it was time to finish off Galvatron once and for all. Ultra Magnus and the Sparkabots were going to go with them, but were distracted by an alien plot to abduct Transformers for gladiatorial tournaments. Back on Earth, Scourge and Cyclonus (time displaced and Targetmasters under Scorponok) met with the now-alone Shockwave; they planned to kill Galvatron and take the time-jump device they thought he had from him, but wanted a place of asylum if they failed; in return, Shockwave got their loyal service either way. On the 2nd July, the Targetmasters met up with Galvatron at the same time as the Wreckers, creating a large battle in which the Autobots were forced to allow Galvatron to leave in order to avoid humans being killed.

Grimlock's tyrannical leadership of the Ark crew came to a head when the Nebulon Autobots made contact. He refused to yield command unless defeated through combat, so a resentful Blaster was freed to fight as the Steelhaven crew's champion. The Autobots all gathered on the moon to witness the battle, making them easy targets for a Decepticon attack in which a quarter of their number was taken offline before they could be driven away. In the heat of the battle, the Decepticons were able to break into the Ark and salvage prisoners from there. In the aftermath, it was decided that the two Autobot groups should unite and to give the Optimus back-up a body so he could lead them- Goldbug, Slapdash, Getaway and Joyride headed to Nebulos to get him one. Once there they fought with the Decepticon Dreadwing combiner duo Darkwing and Dreadwind, who were the first Powermasters (Transformers with Nebulon partners as extra engines), the only way to avoid dying from the anti-Transformer chemical that saturated the Nebulon atmosphere. The Powermaster partners, Hi-Test and Throttle, were a pair of disgruntled scientists who had developed the process; their old partner, Hi-Q, duplicated it and after constructing the body for the new Optimus Prime, he turned all but Goldbug into Powermasters. The Autobots chased the Dreadwing duo off-planet and then headed back to Earth, rescuing Sky Lynx and the Spacehikers from the bizarre Cosmic Carnival on the way. 

Inferno, Sandstorm and Broadside returned to Earth to track down Galvatron, dealing with the alien "Firebug" along the way. Meanwhile, Cyclonus accidentally revealed to Shockwave that he & Scourge would kill and succeed him in twenty years time. To prevent this, Shockwave had his brainwashed servant Megatron II kill Cyclonus and his Targetmaster companion; happy with this success, Shockwave sent the clone off to face Galvatron. Upon meeting Galvatron, however, he decided he would rather join the future Decepticon. Shockwave went insane afterwards, trying to logically work out the paradox in killing someone who'd kill him in the future. And unknown to all, a vicious Timestorm began in the year 2008, threatening to grow and consume the universe in two eras!

Throughout November there were several minor skirmishes- the Pretenders battled over an oil rig; to save the life of a human, the Autobot Powermasters had to go under water to salvage a stolen power cell from a crashed Dreadwing and battle the Seacons for it; Decepticon Pretender Skullgrin briefly became a movie star and fought Circuit Breaker; and a human mercenary team called the Roadjammers defeated the Sparkabots and then later the Decepticon Headmasters. Meanwhile, on Cybertron, the Micromasters- smaller, energy efficient Transformers -were created by the Autobots. On the 4th December, the Micromaster Battle Patrol were captured by Decepticon general Thunderwing- though they were rescued, the Decepticons now were able to construct their own Micromasters. 

On the 2nd of December, the Autobot Highbrow battled Scorponok and was able to capture his Headmaster partner Zarak, leaving the Decepticon helpless- however, he couldn't bring himself to kill Zarak. Ratbat's Decepticons set up the "Club Con" resort on their "desert island", thereby making the military unable to invade and thus covering their latest mission, one ordered by the ruling triumvirate of Cybertron- to salvage two offline Autobots (Raindance and Grandslam) who contained data of an object heading for Earth and who had been sent there to warn the Ark crew, should they be active, back in the 18th Century. The Autobots, noting that the public face of Club Con was Buster, sent Blaster and Buster's girlfriend Jessie to rescue him and discover the 'Cons plan. They failed on both accounts but did get the Club shut down. A few days later, Ratbat, Starscream and Soundwave discovered what data was in the offline Autobots- the Underbase, a vast data storage facility that could grant Transformers god-like powers, madness and even death, had been travelling space for eons after being blasted off Cybertron and it would soon be reaching Earth...

As Christmas rolled around, the Powermaster Optimus Prime discovered why his predecessor had been so concerned about Earth- because HE had taken the war to it. But following this, the planet he held responsibility for, was hit by freak weather conditions, seismic disturbances and generally seemed to be coming apart at the seams- the Timestorm was coming...