ROBOT WARS 2, 000, 000 BC

Two Transformer ships, the Maximal exploration craft Axalon and the stolen Predacon military ship Darkside, ended up displaced from the 30th Century to two million years in the past after a battle in Transwarp space. The two crafts crashed onto a strange planet containing vast amounts of raw Energon, which was responsible for many strange phenomena like mountains & islands floating in the sky. The two teams scanned the DNA of the most powerful local creatures (some of which were extinct, except for in the southern icecap of the planet, where there was a special alien-created environmental area where these dinosaurs still lived) and used it to create pseudo-organic alternate forms for themselves, as a protection against raw Energon exposure. The Predacon team where lead by the terrorist and True Path cult leader Megatron, who had stolen the Golden Disks of Cybertron and was looking for prehistoric Earth. His crew contained his loyal followers Waspinator, geochemist Fractyl & Scorponok, a not-so-loyal mercenary called Terrorsaur, a sadistic scientist named Tarantulus and his old comrade Dinobot. Upon awakening, Dinobot immediately turned on Megatron, angry at being stranded on an unknown planet and time that, judging by the two moons (visible even in daylight), was clearly NOT Earth, and the fact that the Maximals had survived the space battle. He tried to usurp Megatron and ended up running for his life, branded a traitor.

The Maximal exploration crew consisted of mission commander Optimus Primal, gunner Rattrap, scientist Rhinox, scout Cheetor and a hold full of Maximal protoforms which had been lost in the battle and were now in orbit. They quickly came under fire from the Predacons and Optimus was challenged by Dinobot, who wanted to fight him for control of the Maximals (who he planned to use as a means to take over the Predacons from Megs). Their battle was interrupted by an Predacon attack and Optimus had to save Dinobot's life. The warrior joined the Maximals and helped them thwart Megatron's attempt at gaining a large cache of Energon- despite this, it would be a while before Rattrap would trust him. Optimus realised they couldn't let Megatron win this war- if he gained enough Energon, he could repair the Darkside and return to Cybertron to lead the Predacons into war against the Maximals. 

The two teams began exploring the planet and trying to develop new devices to give them the edge in the struggle. Cheetor ended up captured by Tarantulus and was saved by Rattrap; later, while helping set up an Energon monitoring system, Cheetor ended up switching places via teleportation with Terrorsaur. They also became aware of what seemed to be signs of civilisation on the planet when they discovered a structure resembling Stonehenge and a mysterious Probe that temporarily imprisoned the molecular essence of Primal, and both Rhinox & Fractyl realised that the large amounts of Energon couldn't have grown naturally on this type of planet. It appeared that something bigger was going on.

Terrorsaur absorbed the power of a floating mountain of Energon crystals, and used it to usurp Megatron; when it was discovered he needed a regular recharge to stay this powerful, the Maximals destroyed the mountain and the now powerless Terrorsaur returned home to find a very peeved Megatron. A Protoform stasis pod arrived on the planet, in a snow-covered region of the planet and the Predacons laid siege to the Axalon in order to allow them to reprogram the protoform into the Predacon (using a Shell Program, an updated form of Cerebro-Shells); the Maximals sent a radio signal to the pod instead, activating the protoform so it could defend itself from the Preds. The new Maximal called himself Tigatron and, suffering from amnesia and scanned brain patterns from the tiger, decided to stay living in the arctic wasteland so he could work out his true identity. The Predacons successfully intercepted a second stasis pod and Tarantulus converted the occupant into Blackarachnia; Optimus, suspecting the Predacons had found a way to decode Maximal transmissions, had Rattrap play an elaborate deception, pretending to defect to the Predacons in order to infiltrate the Darkside and destroy their decoding program. Megatron wasn't fooled but, lucky for Rattrap, Terrorsaur was and used Rattrap to imprison Megatron and become leader (again) to the support of the other Preds; Megatron escaped and let Terrorsaur lead them into battle, where Rattrap's position as double agent was revealed, the Preds took a pounding and allowed Megatron to regain power, safe in the knowledge that nobody would believe Terrorsaur should be leader again- he lost the decoder chip but removed a threat to his command.

 Rhinox constructed a powerful security system called Sentinel, giving the Maximal a serious edge, and simultaneously Tigatron thwarted a Predacon plot to severely damage the Axalon. Scorponok used a CyberBee to infect Optimus with a virus in an attempt to turn him into a coward and wreck the Maximal command structure; due to his incompetence, it turned Optimus into a raging berserker who thrashed the Predacons severely. A probe was sent from future Cybertron to locate the Axalon crew but the Predacons prevented the Maximals from signalling it. Just a week afterwards, the Predacons faked their own demise so the Maximals would steal the Darkside engine to allow the Axalon to return to Cybertron, at which point the Preds would attack and seize control of it;  this plan was foiled by Optimus and Dinobot, but the Axalon was never able to fly again afterwards. The Predacons tried to reprogram Rhinox into one of them, and the resulting carnage resulted in them NEVER reprogramming non-protoforms ever again.

Megatron used a back-up copy of Dinobot's programming and the DNA of his velociraptor beast mode to create a clone of Dinobot (albeit one with no robot form), who was promptly discovered and devoured by the real Dinobot. A third stasis pod crashed on the planet, and it appeared its protoform would die, but it was saved and became Airazor. The alien presence on the planet again entered the spotlight when Rhinox discovered that one of the planet's moons was hollow and therefore was not a natural satellite, while Tigatron discovered a Flying Island containing immense destructive power, which he had to destroy to prevent Blackarachnia from controlling; upon destruction, a signal was sent to the hollow moon and then into deep space. As for what it meant, no one knew.

Tarantulus and Blackarachnia worked together briefly, resulting in the creation of the pyromaniac Predacon Inferno and Tarantulus' attempt to steal a stasis pod. When questioned, the scientist made an ominous prediction of the planet being doomed and how he intended NOT to be there when it happened. Two new protoforms crashed down onto Earth, becoming the Predacon warrior Vice Grip and a cowardly Maximal kleptomaniac called Packrat. Fractyl created an Energon armour, which would allow fighters to remain in robot form without any threat of Energon exposure and also boost defensive powers, but it was discovered that it caused Energon to explode; Packrat stole it and nearly took it into a heavily rich Energon field that would cause a explosion capable of annihilating the continent, but was convinced to give it up and Fractyl destroyed his creation. The Predacons later damaged the Axalon so it couldn't prevent Energon radiation entering the craft, and the Maximals, under siege, were forced to remain in beast mode for a while and temporarily ended up gaining the instincts of their beast forms before they managed to repair the Axalon. 

A Predacon assassin named Onyx Primal arrived from the future; he was on the run from the Tripredacus Council, and pretended to be a Maximal. He clashed with Optimus, believing he should be in command, and gained a sidekick in Packrat. Future Predacon Antagony arrived from the Shokaract era, carrying the powerful "Transwarp Driver", and ended up captured by Megatron, who began examining the both of them for possible advantages. Onyx used this incident to create a splinter group of Maximals composing of him, Tigatron, Airazor and Packrat. The main group suffered an incident which caused them to become temporarily blind; more serious was when Starscream's ghost, travelling through space and time, managed to possess Waspinator, take over the Predacons and conquer the Axalon. Starscream was exorcised by an Energon explosion and the Maximals regained their base.

The splinter group, after several weeks of planning, staged an attack on the Darkside, retaking the Transwarp Driver. Megatron & several of his troops tracked the group down, beat seven shades of lubricant out of them and regained the Driver, whilst Tarantulus killed Packrat. After this, Onyx became traumatised by his failure and willingly rejoined Optimus. Later, there was a disturbing incident in which beans and a Predacon virus causing Rhinox to randomly discharge Energon resulted in the Predacon force being defeated by Rhinox passing gas. Tigatron underwent a loyalty crisis when his tiger lover Snowstalker was killed in the crossfire of a battle. He quit the Beast Wars, much to Dinobot's disgust, only returning when his comrades where put in danger. 

Near the end of the year, an energy surge was created by an alien Golden Disk, which Megatron appropriated. In order to have time to study it, he called a ceasefire with the Maximals so he wouldn't have to bother with them. Tarantulus, still trying to get off the planet, stole a Transwarp Cell, but Megatron had it reprogrammed for some unknown purpose... The tyrant translated the alien Disk and, using the information gained, decided his plans had been updated. Tigatron infiltrated the Darkside and discovered that the Disk had been sending a beacon to the alien race behind the strange phenomena, raw Energon and artefacts, and that those aliens were coming...