ROBOT WARS: GENERATION 2

(August 1993-December 1994)

By the summer of 1993, the Earthforce Wars were over and most Autobots believed the overall war as done. Bludgeon was undisputed leader of the Decepticons again and had taken his followers off into deep space, saying they planned to retire; Shockwave had disappeared during 1992; and Megatron, along with Starscream, was left for dead on Earth, whereupon he secretly hid in the left-behind Ark and started to die. To Optimus Prime's dismay, several of the Autobots left Cybertron to find new battles to fight.

One group - containing the Dinobots, Sideswipe, Broadside, Blades and Hound - started coming across Cybertron replicas, seventeen in all, dotted around the galaxy and under the control of Decepticons they'd never seen before who called themselves the Cybertronian Empire. They managed to destroy a Decepticon Cyberforming party before it added the planet Nexus Seven to its tally, but commander Grimlock realised the threat was too large for them to handle on their own, and prepared to call Optimus Prime for help. 

In early September, Megatron was attracted by energy signals generated by a transformer, which he believed may be a fellow Decepticon. Upon investigating, it turned out to be a transforming fortress belonging to the human terrorist group Cobra. Angry at being fooled and then having Cobra Commander try to deal with him, he began wrecking the fortress until he sustained damage from a new hyper velocity rail-gun developed by Cobra's weapons designer Dr Biggles-Jones. After this, he decided it might be a good idea to deal with Cobra, and offered Cybertronian technology to Cobra in exchange for a new body with the rail-gun as standard; secretly he planted a virus on the technology he gave them and planned to take Biggles-Jones (or rather her central nervous system) to Cybertron with him. Cobra constructed for him a Mega-Pretender shell that transformed to tank form, contained the rail-gun, gave him increased strength & endurance and gave him the ability to cause low-yield nuclear explosions. When the GI JOE task force discovered Megatron was on Earth, they immediately contacted the Autobots.

Optimus Prime was faced with a dilemma- Megatron was back and selling Cybertronian technology, but meanwhile Grimlock was calling him to another planet to tell him about a new and far more serious threat. Optimus Prime went to answer Grimlock's call, taking Hot Rod and Kup with him, and sent an Autobot task force - Brawn, Hotspot, Skydive, Steel-Jaw, Override and Chase - to handle Megatron (Prime didn't know the Decepticon had been upgraded and thought this team would be enough to handle him). The task force attacked Megatron in the Cobra-controlled town of Milleville, being caught up in a battle between GI JOE and Cobra as well. Megatron demolished the task force, killing Override and leaving only Hotspot and Skydive active, and took to the Ark. Unknown to him, Skydive had sneaked aboard, as had Spike Witwicky who planned to finish Megatron once and for all as Fortress Maximus; unfortunately, the Headmaster's body had been vandalised by Megatron. He destroyed the Ark's engine and caused the craft to explode, wrecking Megatron's plan and sending a dying Fort Max through a warp gate to Cybertron; Skydive escaped with Biggles-Jones, whilst Megatron managed to flee on a revitalised Starscream. Down on Earth, a wounded Hotspot destroyed Cobra's cargo of Cybertronian technology before self-destructing himself to prevent Cobra dissecting him. Skydive remained on Earth, just in case.

On the same day, Optimus headed to Grimlock's co-ordinates and had a vision of an apocalyptic threat, a whole world of Transformer corpses. Just after meeting Grimlock and realising the magnitude of the Imperial threat, they were attacked by the enemy flagship Twilight and captured. They were taken to the leader of these Imperials, the Liege Centuro Jhiaxus, who explained that the Autobot/Decepticon war had merely been a little pocket squabble- the Empire, consisting of Decepticons who'd abandoned Cybertron soon after the Ark left, had instead evolved beyond evil and avarice, and instead had taken up the tools of construction and colonisation by Cyberforming worlds. He asked Optimus to join them, and his sermon left the Autobot leader rattled and disillusion. Grimlock talked him out of it and made him realise that however the Empire prettied it up, they were still causing genocide. The Autobots broke loose and stole an Imperial space ship. They fled to the K'Tord Nebula, where spaceships were known to disappear, in the hope the legends surrounding it would discourage pursuit; instead both sides were possessed by psychic parasites who unlocked their dark sides and got them fighting like savages. It was here Jhiaxus's mask of control slipped and it was revealed that he had been a sadistic butcher. The Transformers were able to break the control and escaped; however, the only way to get escape was to stop fighting, and this meant the Decepticons had to let the Autobots go. Jhiaxus vowed to bring them down, as their philosophy of all life mattering would mean that Jhiaxus was still a butchering sadist, and was merely covering up his excesses.

The Autobots continued to make little attacks on the Empire and Prime continued to be plagued by his visions, but to everyone's surprise Bludgeon's Decepticons re-entered the fray as well, and on the 17th of November both sides clashed over a planet full of alien super-weaponry, before the last inhabitant of this planet chased them away. Later, the Decepticons attacked a Khyaxian trading ship with their new flagship the Warworld and cannibalised the alien craft to finish construction of the warship. Bludgeon had not only had the Warworld constructed, but also new Decepticon special-model warriors - the Laser Rods, who wielded laser weaponry and moved at high speed, and Rotor Force, who fired spinning razor blades that formed the "rotors" of their boat/plane alt modes. He planned to steal the Creation Matrix from Prime to bring these new warriors to life, and he worked out the best way to attract Prime's attention was to attack Earth...  

Several of the Autobots headed for Earth occasionally, checking for possibly Decepticon activity in between clashes with the Empire. During Christmas 1993, Prime was attacked by an old Decepticon warlord named Clench, and was only saved by the arrival of Autobot Obliterator Pyro. Earth was spared further Decepticon problems until 18th January 1994, when Bludgeon attacked London with the Skyscorchers, Stormtroopers and Firecons, destroying a large part of the city and killing hundreds. This was a small attack planned to get Prime's attention, the plan being to have a larger force ready for him when he arrived- this plan was ruined by the fact that Prime was already on Earth, along with his warriors Jazz, Skram and Sideswipe, replying to a call from Grimlock. They engaged the Decepticons, who were now low on fuel, and Optimus knocked out Bludgeon, only to be attacked by Megatron, who had been the real reason Grimlock had called (he had knocked the Dinobot out before he could reach Prime). The battle turned against him, however, when the Decepticons attacked, believing Megatron was trying to kill Bludgeon. When Grimlock, Snarl and Slag attacked, Megatron was forced to retreat, the Firecons were near destroyed, the Skyscorchers & Stormtroopers were captured, and Bludgeon sneaked away, not realising Megatron was still alive. 

After this event, Optimus confined the Autobots serving with him to a new Autobase on a distant asteroid-  he didn't want any more strikes until the apocalyptic threat could be identified. After twelve days of this, Grimlock cracked and took a raiding party to destroy the Twilight. Due to a mistake in infiltration, he got Red Alert and Mirage seriously damaged, and nearly had them taken away to the Liege Maximo, leader of the Empire, before Optimus rescued them. After this, Prime went to Cybertron to visit the First Church of the Primal Trinity on Cybertron, who helped him decipher the visions he was receiving from the Matrix. They showed him that originally Transformers could reproduce individually like amoebas, using Nanobots and part of their life force to create a second Transformer (though no one would know until 2000 that this was a Nanobot process). This process, called biomorphic replication, was eventually blocked off from Transformer minds by Primus, as it it eventually resulted in their link to him being diluted and the creation of soulless, amoral, nihilistic robots who simply killed without any real reason, pleasure or remorse from it; ultimately, it would have resulted in legions of drones. However, Prime saw that eventually a group of Decepticons unlocked this secret, creating Jhiaxus and the rest of the early Empire. In a rage, Prime broke free of the vision and realised he needed help from the Decepticons to stop the spread of the Empire. In his haste, he missed the most crucial part of the vision- the creation of a dark cloud of Nanobots being spawned by this incessant replication. This, the Swarm, was the very threat his visions were signifying and he had missed it.

On February 16th, Bludgeon attacked Earth again, this time in full force. The Warworld blasted random areas of the planet, racking up a large death toll, before he lead a small group to an Earth city for mindless destruction. However, instead of getting Autobots he attracted Megatron and Starscream! Bludgeon and Megatron fought for command of the Decepticons, and ultimately Bludgeon was killed; however, Megatron decided to continue the Pretender's plan, and the Decepticons waged bloody war on humanity, turning capital cities to rubble and pounding the world's armies into submission. To Earth's dismay, it took until March 1st for Optimus to arrive, and he arrived alone in order to talk with Megatron. The Decepticon wasn't interested in the threat of the Empire and beat Optimus to within an inch of his life before stealing the Matrix; only Grimlock, leading an unauthorised Autobot force, saved Prime. The Decepticons left planet. Meanwhile, in space, the Swarm devoured a small colony of Esk Clones.

The Decepticons Matrixed the new Laser Rods -Electro, Jolt, Fireball and Volt - and Rotor Force -Leadfoot, Manta Ray, Powerdive and Ransack -, along with a new Mega-Pretender version of Darkwing and an experimental creation of Transformers with organic alt modes (which mostly resembled heroes and villains from the Beast Wars, due to the influence to Megatron's Spark after being mingled with his Predacon successor during that time). The organic Transformers proved a failure and were blasted off to the alien world of Yajarus. The others proved a success, however, and were instrumental on stealing the armour-strengthening chemical Rheanimum from the planet Tykos. A six-man team, including Skullgrin, was dispatched to investigate whether the Empire truly existed; Megatron realised the truth when the team was wiped out. He declared war on the Empire, despising their sheer indifference to conquest and their assumption of the Decepticon insignia and identity, but Jhiaxus made a pre-emptive strike, damaging the Warworld, killing Octopunch, Stranglehold & Crack-case, wrecking Quake & Runamuk and sending a wounded Megatron spiralling into atmosphere re-entry. The Imperials left, thinking the Decepticons finished, but in turned out Megatron had survived, and was ever so slightly pissed off. 

The Autobots had relocated Autobase to the Nevada Basin, where Prime had spent the last 22 days in heavy repair. Megatron, still badly damaged, burst into the base and agreed to take up Prime's offer of temporary alliance. Starscream began to feel threatened, realising he was no longer of any use to Megatron and may soon be terminated. Meanwhile, Jhiaxus, growing insane under the pressure of dealing with the Autobots, ordered a galaxy-wide genocidal attack to gain Prime's attention. The Autobots and Decepticons fought the Imperials on the planet Ethos, their first combined battle since Unicron, and saved the remaining natives, though the occasion is marred by the serious damages done to Inferno, Slapdash, Ironhide and Smokescreen,  Starscream going AWOL and the possibility that the Autobots may need to sink to the Decepticon level in order to triumph.

In early April, the Swarm began to make itself felt by the Empire. First, the Autobot/Decepticon alliance discovered an alien mining colony on J'Asik that had decayed by an unknown force which frightening resembles the images seen in Prime's visions. A mere day later, a Cyberforming team led by Mindset on the planet Karn was attacked by the Swarm. No one survived and, peculiarly, the death of Mindset was felt by Combaticon leader Onslaught. And on the 10th of April, Starscream met with Jhiaxus and made a deal- a position in the Empire in return for getting disabling Autobase's early warning systems.

Six days later, Optimus and Megatron were informed that the Swarm by-products taken from J'Asik showed it to be a close relation to the Transformers- Prime worked out it was a by-product from the biomorphic replication, instinctively hunting down the Matrix energy it was deprived. Suddenly they came under attack by Imperial forces. Despite the element of surprise, Jhiaxus found his forces being pushed back, which gave his sanity another knock. Afraid of this new facet of Jhiaxus, his lieutenant Rook contacted the Liege Maximo. Meanwhile, Starscream led a boarding team onto the Warworld, deactivating the Combaticons and Octane as he went. He now had at his fingertips the Warworld and also the Matrix, still onboard after Megatron stole it in March, and decided the Empire had done all it could for him. He instead merged with the Matrix and Warworld, becoming a powerful living weapon that tore apart the Imperial fleet and tried to kill Megatron and Prime- but to his horror, he found out the Matrix was beginning to influence his actions, causing him to spare Prime's life and to protect Earth. To his horror, he was being good! Optimus tried to contact Jhiaxus to beg for peace so they could stop the Swarm, only for the Cybertronian to order his forces to start attacking Earth.

San Francisco was destroyed with one shot, the greatest single attack ever made by Transformers on Earth soil. Before a second shot could be fired, the Swarm attacked. Foolishly the Twilight fired on it, causing it to blindly attack every Transformer on Earth. Optimus took the Matrix off Starscream and headed for the Twilight in an attempt to stop the Swarm. The Imperials were devoured, and the Autobots & Decepticons made a desperate attempt to fight back. Slag, Razorclaw, Slingshot, Dirge, Ramjet, Nightbeat and Frenzy were all taken out in the battle before Megatron and Starscream arrived with Rheanimum to bolster the Transformer's endurance. On the Twilight, a berserker Jhiaxus literally tore apart Optimus before being killed by the Swarm; Optimus too began to be devoured before he sacrificed the Creation Matrix to the Swarm, giving it true life; in return, it gave him a new body, his "Combat Hero" form. The Transformers emerged triumphant, but at the Hub, centre of the Empire, the mighty Liege Maximo began to take an interest in the Autobots and Decepticons.

Optimus had small teams of Autobots sent out throughout the galaxy, to investigate the Empire and locate all its strongholds. However, it was becoming apparent that he was starting to slip- the Imperials had to embrace Primus' vision or die, "one Decepticon is one too many". Soon after this, the Last Autobot arrived on Earth, returning Prime to his original body; however, when putting the repairing of Autobase over the restoration of San Francisco and the resurrection of its inhabitants, he came under fire from Mirage. He reluctantly admitted that while he wasn't the original Optimus (the original had died in 1987), he still had the original's duty to protect human life. The Last Autobot used all its power to bring back San Francisco and its inhabitants (killing himself in the attempt), though many people felt that there was something off about the restored city, something fake. 

The Decepticons broke the alliance and raided an air force base for material to repair their injured comrades. Beachcomber, Hubcap and Seaspray had to flee Decepticon pursuit after overhearing this information, and afterwards Hubcap struck a deal with Buzzsaw- information for diamonds to sharpen the Decepticon's beak. Though it was meant to be a one-off deal, Hubcap would end up dealing with Buzzsaw a lot in the future... 

The Imperial Cyberworld of Jhiatron-1 had a revolution, as its inhabitants become one of a small movement breaking free from the Liege's control and proclaiming themselves Autobots. Phoenix, a general who had had redesigned herself to a female humanoid configuration, was ordered by the Liege Maximo to convince the revolutionaries to resubmit to Imperial control. An Autobot shuttle team, consisting of Hot Rod, Sideswipe, Manta Ray and Leadfoot (the two Rotor Force members had switched sides to the Autobots) came to the aid of Jhiatron-1, only to be captured by Phoenix. Sideswipe managed to escape, while Hot Rod proclaimed that she couldn't stop the Empire fragmenting.

Artwork by Matt Dallas, taken from TMUK fanzine "Continued Generation 2 #14"

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