ROBOT WAR 1992

The new Decepticon civil war raged on Earth, as Megatron- supported by Soundwave and his Cassettes, the Insecticons, the Constructicons, Wildrider, Motormaster and the Battlechargers -and Shockwave- supported by >Predacons, Starscream, Triple Changers and the remaining Stunticons -fought for control of the faction, not realising that the greater army was commanded by Bludgeon and that a small group under Sixshot was quietly setting up shop on the Autobot-ruled Cybertron. Optimus became concerned that Unicron would somehow make a return.

On January 18th, Bludgeon decided to take set up a new Mayhem Attack Squad for the purpose of killing the deserters Carnivac and Catilla. The new Mayhems were himself, Octopunch, Stranglehold, Needlenose, Spinister and Snarler (fulfilling the promise made in 1989). Needlenose showed cowardice in training, but Spinister, believing he had potential, let him off. Three days later, Carnivac was away from the rest of the Survivors after an argument with Springer over the group's focus on rescuing humans instead of battles. After realising that he needed to develop as a person and that saving humans could be fun too, he came under attack from the Mayhems, who chased him through Mexico. While saved by the rest of the Survivors showing up in the nick of time, Catilla was severely injured; in a rage, Carnivac ran off to finish off the other Mayhems.

Near the end of January, the Dark Universe Galvatron snuck on board the Ark and attempted to brainwash five deactive Autobots (Prowl, Ironhide, Sunstreaker, Wheeljack and Silverbolt) into serving him by making them relive their most shameful recent memories and preying on their mental flaws. Instead, he woke them up and, easily overcoming his attempts, took him out by using his own Mind Bug against him and placing him in a coma.

On the 10th of February, Prowl and Wheeljack fought Megatron in the Arizona Desert, where he was planning to fire a rocket into Earth's atmosphere that would increase the temperature to such a degree the Ice Caps would melt and he could absorb the heat for Energon- Prowl grabbed onto the rocket as it launched, taking it off course and becoming lost.

On the 26th, Grimlock and Optimus butted heads over the direction of the new Earthforce- a group of Autobots who would protect the planet from the Decepticon civil war. Eventually, Grimlock was made commander of Earthforce, on the condition he would take Prowl (when retrieved) as joint commander and would stick to the Autobot Code (though Grimlock ended up doodling over the text copy of it). The Earthforce was made up of the Dinobots, Jazz, Bumblebee, the Aerialbots, Ironhide, Sunstreaker and Wheeljack, and their base put in Churchill, Canada. 

The first Earthforce mission was to find Prowl and the greenhouse-gas missile. Bumblebee and Ironhide tracked a Transformer Vorcode to the Bahamas, but instead found a gigantic Actionmaster version of Devastator under construction, intended to boost Megatron's firepower, which they quickly destroyed. When the missile was located in Louisiana, Jazz and Sunstreaker raced there to beat the Decepticons, only to find Prowl had disarmed the missile weeks ago and had been relaxing in Louisiana; the Autobots decided to sit back and let the two teams of Decepticons fight each other for the useless missile. 

The Earthforce team were able to relax most of the time, allowing the Decepticons to beat each other up- this gave the Dinobots a chance to play an April Fools joke on Grimlock and later for Wheeljack to get distracted by paranoia gained from mystery novels. But on April 5th the Decepticon civil war became extremely serious when Megatron, using time-travel technology gained from the various visits from the future, created the Flashback portal. Using this, he sent his mind back in time to the battle against the Underbase-powered Starscream, where it possessed Snaptrap and used him to try a steer the Seacons away from battle, so they would still be online in 1992 and therefore extra troops. Prowl was able to thwart this. The Decepticons realised their infighting was doing damage, so they called an Enclave- a truce where they would meet to patch up their differences; Ironhide wrecked this fledgling alliance by making it look like Shockwave had tried to assassinate Megatron and thus causing a large fight. And a few days later, Wheeljack and Snarl thwarted a plan by lone-agent Mindwipe to gain a human army through brainwashing nightlights.

On June 2nd, Carnivac made his move on the Mayhems, killing Needlenose before becoming outgunned and seemingly killed (in reality just his empty Pretender shell). The Survivors pleaded with Grimlock and Prowl to give them the extra manpower to save him- in return they would join the Earthforce. The Autobots attacked while Carnivac murdered Snarler and Spinister, and gained revenge on Bludgeon, Octopunch and Stranglehold by giving them the humiliation of being captured by the Autobots instead of dying a warrior's death.

Near the end of June, Megatron suspected there was a traitor in his ranks, and ordered Soundwave to use his mind-reading powers to find them. Unable to do so because he was the traitor, Soundwave took advantage of Wildrider's paranoia to set him up as a scapegoat. Wildrider was killed and Soundwave was free to work secretly for both Decepticon teams.

The Insecticons attempted to spy on Shockwave's team, only to be beaten by Starscream; however, the Seeker made them give Megatron information about Shockwave going on a solo mission on June 6th. The two leaders battled at Memphis Airport, only to be forced into retreat by the Autobots whilst Soundwave & Starscream usurped control and united both groups under a joint-command (with both planning to betray the other at some point). 

Wheeljack improved the Earthbase security systems, to the extent that the Autobots had to disable them to get into the base! Because of this, the system was still offline when the Decepticons attacked on July 21st. This was merely part of a divide-and-conquer strategy; the main army distracted the Autobots while Starscream captured an oil tanker, but it was foiled by the Survivors. The month ended with an inspection of Earthbase by Optimus Prime, neatly coinciding with one of Slag's rare psychotic episodes; the Dinobots had to work fast to stop Prime finding out.

The Earthforce needed more troops in the wake of the new joint leadership, so Tracks was commissioned to be reactivated, which Grimlock tried to sabotage in order to preserve his sanity. On August 11th, the three surviving Mayhems broke free of confinement, using eerie silence to increase Inferno's paranoia over them until they were able to manipulate him into giving them an opening, at which point the Autobot was seriously wounded by a telekinetically-wielded Bludgeon's sword. And on the 20th Octane got himself caught on a military training exercise field after Jazz out-manoeuvred him to stop his "games" of ram-raiding human vehicles.

Finally, Megatron and Shockwave made their bid to regain power. A reward was put on Starscream's head, causing him to believe Soundwave was trying to off him and thus starting a fight between the two; the Mayhem's were sent to finish off however survived. However, Soundwave was able to make Starscream realise they were being manipulated, and the Autobots joined the battle as they needed Starscream alive- Snarl was dying of Corrodia Gravis, and only Starscream had a compatible systems boost. Starscream agreed to help- IF the Autobots would ensure he and Soundwave remained in power.

In mid-September, Bombshell took control of Superion and had him run amok to discredit the Autobots. Bombshell's cerebro-shell implant was removed by journalist Irwin Spoon, who agreed to help the Autobots in return for an exclusive interview. However, he was captured by the Stunticons and rescued after a vicious high-speed battle. Too late, however, as a cerebro-shell had been implanted in him that forced him to slander the Autobots in print.

Starscream ended up refusing to help the Dinobots, and so in October Snarl was taken back to the Savage Land, where his mind was placed into that of a real Stegosaurus until a new body could be built for him. In November, Optimus sent teams out to look for a new Matrix or way of stopping Unicron should he return. Prowl, Silverbolt, Jazz, Wheeljack, Sunstreaker and Inferno were sent to the Acid Wastes to salvage Underbase energy residue that could act as a substitute Matrix- however, all but Silverbolt had been here four million years hence, where they'd been tortured by the Decepticon warlord Megadeath. The Decepticon was still alive and the Autobots fell prey to their fears, until Silverbolt was able to snap them out of it and they finally brought down the sadist. Finally, in December, Grimlock and Optimus discovered a new Matrix and finally the Autobots had the definite edge in the Earthforce Wars. It would be a few more months, but the conflict would finally result in a major Autobot victory.