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Chapter Text

The Decepticon movement has existed for countless eons, and though Megatron of Tarn may be its most (in)famous leader, many warlords, kings, and generals before him have held the title of Emperor of Destruction throughout the faction's long and sordid history. Sadly, these figures have fallen to the wayside in modern scholarship, becoming little more than historical footnotes, their names all but forgotten by their Predacon descendants. Even now, the Great War robs us of proper historical documentation of these towering personalities, while centuries of Maximal censorship has severely handicapped the current generation's knowledge of Cybertronian history. Thus, to help restore public knowledge of some of the most influential leaders in our planet's history, and to make my earnest contribution in reviving the field of Cybertronian historiography, I have taken it upon myself to provide a brief overview of the most prominent ancient Decepticon leaders (hereon defined as those honored in the faction's ancestral Hall of Heroes), the key events of their lifetimes, and how they each met their end. 

The first Decepticon leader was Gladiaron, the founder of the movement. By the time of the faction's rise nearly 10 million years ago, Gladiaron was already a respected figure in Cybertronian society, having fought valiantly in the Great Rebellion against the Quintessons. He earned his name from the gladiatorial battles he was forced to wage for the amusement of his five-faced masters, in which he proved himself a natural-born warrior and tactician. When word that slave revolts had broken out across the planet reached him and his fellow pit fighters, Gladiaron rallied the slaves of Kolkular and successfully captured the sprawling complex, systematically clearing its labyrinthine corridors, production facilities, and storage vaults, capturing a large amount of weapons and energon in the process. Gladiaron's hardened forces would use their stockpiles to defend Kolkular for the duration of the war, repelling thirteen Quintesson counterattacks and enduring seven stellar cycles under siege. In the aftermath, Gladiaron led his forces out of Kolkular, which they had come to dub their "Cradle," and founded the city of Kaon, built upon a strong martial culture of soldierly camaraderie, discipline, and duty to the Cybertronian race. 

As Cybertron entered its first era of true independence, however, Gladiaron and his comrades, those robots originally constructed as military-hardware by the Quintessons, found themselves growing disillusioned with the peace they had fought so hard to win. Their life's purpose, wired into their very programming (perhaps--we shall examine this claim in greater detail shortly), was to serve as soldiers for a cause; they had found that cause in defending the freedom of Cybertron and emancipating their race from the yoke of Quintesson slavery. But with their oppressors defeated and the planet at peace, it was the view of many Cybertronians, predominantly those originally constructed as consumer goods robots, that they no longer needed a standing army. This view was codified into law by Guardian Prime, successor of the famed Nova Prime, who formally abolished the Revolutionary Guard in the infamous Edict of Disarmament, with the expressed goals of encouraging peace amongst the planet's burgeoning city-states and freeing up funds to be spent on infrastructure and industrial development. While the majority of the Edict has been lost, a fragmentary passage was salvaged from the Library of Alpha Trion after its bombing during the Great War; it reads:

"-shall henceforth honorably discharge the valiant warriors of the Liberation from their posts, and bestow upon them all the honor and riches they are entitled; they shall never want for energon nor be denied any public service upon registry with the civil-"

It was this decision that proved the final straw for Gladiaron and his kinsmen; though Guardian Prime had promised generous pensions and high honors for veterans, the military-hardware bots took the Edict as a grievous offense, an insult to their honor and a crippling blow to the defense of Cybertron's fragile independence. As soldiers, they believed it was not only their right, but their duty to stand ready against any potential threats to Cybertron, Quintesson or otherwise; within more radical circles, it was even suggested that Cybertronians should go on the offensive, taking the fight to other worlds in order to cull any future rivals, and claim the land and resources necessary for Cybertron to become a respected galactic power. Though originally a fringe viewpoint, this expansionist sentiment quickly gained traction throughout the disaffected ranks of the soldier caste and was endorsed by many leading figures, Gladiaron chief among them. In protest of the Edict, soldiers began rioting in the streets, loudly decrying the authoritarianism of the Primacy, destroying public offices, harassing pro-disarmament counter-protesters, and refusing to give up their weapons or pay taxes. In response, Guardian Prime publicly denounced the unrest, dismissing calls for expansion as "petty warmongering by dangerous upstarts," and began work on the first draft of what would become the Autobot Code, a manifesto for his vision of peacetime Cybertron.

Guardian Prime would never finish his work: a scant five solar cycles after dismissing the rioting soldiers, he was murdered in the streets of Iacon by Gladiaron and a cadre of his Warriors Elite, who had snuck into the city. When news of the Prime's death was revealed to the public, Gladiaron used the opportunity to broadcast his rallying cry, calling for the abolition of the Primacy, the remilitarization of Cybertronian society, and a campaign of aggressive expansion under the leadership of the military caste. In response, the remnants of Guardian Prime's government, represented by Alpha Trion--then known as A-3--himself, implored the populace to resist Gladiaron's hostile takeover and take up arms in defense of the hard-won peace. Dubbing themselves "Autobots," a truncation of "autonomous robots," the defenders of the old order hastily scrambled impromptu militia forces and prepared themselves for the coming war.

For this act of betrayal against their former brothers, Gladiaron and his followers were dubbed "Decepticons," a name the insurgents readily adopted, both out of spite and to represent how they and Cybertron were betrayed by the foolish pacifism of the Autobots. Across the planet, bands of military-hardware bots pledged themselves to the Decepticon cause, capturing forts, armories, energon refineries, and a scattered handful of city-states. In Kaon, meanwhile, Gladiaron was marshaling his forces, assembling an army forty thousand strong and striking out across the Badlands; within the stellar cycle, all the city-states south of the Sonic Canyons had fallen or sworn fealty to the Decepticons, while isolated strongholds in Tarn, Polyhex, and Simfur wrought havoc on Autobot logistics and communications, carving up the planet into a patchwork of disconnected holdings. 

Before continuing the historical narrative, however, we must confront one of the most divisive questions among scholars: was the war inevitable? The question is arguably one of the most important in Cybertronian history--though they could not know it, the ramifications of Guardian Prime and Gladiaron's actions would condemn Cybertron to countless eons of civil war, caste division, and galactic infamy. The orthodox thesis argued by partisans of both factions, though predominantly among Autobots, cites the innate programmatic differences between the military and domestic castes as the root cause of the conflict; indeed, Rodimus Prime himself described this view as the consensus among most Autobot leaders while recounting his spiritual experiences in the Matrix Tapes, saying, quote:

"The way the Primes spun it, war was inevitable--should we really be surprised the guys built to kill started shooting? Don't look at me like that, it's just what they said. I think. Look, I was almost dying at the time, and- are we done for the day?"

Autobot historical films (though this author hesitates to call them anything but shameless propaganda) dating immediately prior to the First Golden Age present a similar narrative, with one disk narrating that:

"Millions of years ago, Cybertron was a planet of peace...until the Decepticons, lusting for power, began a terrible war. Not designed for combat, the Autobots were overwhelmed and subjugated by their evil opponents."

While the orthodox thesis has remained the prevailing narrative throughout Autobot history, evidence suggests that the Decepticons took longer to adopt the "programmatic position." By what can only be described as a miracle of Primus, a sliver of uncorrupted police audio of a conversation between a proto-Decepticon and proto-Autobot at a demonstration was preserved in the subterranean ruins of Iacon. The transcript reads:

Decepticon: "You think just because the Quintessons have fled, we're safe? Look up--imagine how many races are up there, stronger than the squids. You think they'll just ignore us? Let their "products" go? They'll smother our flame before it catches!"

Autobot: "Oh come off it! All you could ever see is treachery and hostility--you were born for battle, of course you'd say that."

Decepticon: "Yes, I was, which is why you should listen. My brothers and I know war better than anyone, and we know that it is what creates peace. How long will our freedom last if we don't continue the fight, until every threat to Cybertron is destroyed? Does the Revolution mean anything to you?"

Autobot: "Don't you dare talk down to me--you speak as if only the military caste did any fighting, but it was we, the working class, who suffered the highest casualties! We are the Revolution! I was at Hive City; I stared down the barrel of a Guardian's cannon. You don't get to lecture me about 'knowing war,' understand?"

While not entirely avoiding reference to programmatic differences, the conversation suggests a clear philosophical division in Autobot and Decepticon worldviews. The Libertarian Programming School has taken this transcript as proof that rational free thinking played a substantial, if not predominant, role in causing the war. Furthermore, a recent dissertation by Amphibot of the Ibex University has argued that Guardian Prime's failure to provide new careers for veterans, and Gladiaron--whether by ignorance or conscious decision--not seizing the Matrix of Leadership to legitimize his rule, each contributed substantially in the escalation of the conflict to planetary civil war. Programmists have retaliated by citing Megatron's usage of the Robosmasher to convert Autobots to Decepticons through crude mnemosurgery--brainwashing--as proof of Decepticon acknowledgement and weaponization of innate programmatic differences between Cybertronians, a process developed to new heights by modern science via shell programming. I leave it to the reader to weigh the evidence, and come to their own conclusions.

Regardless of the particulars of its cause, civil war was upon Cybertron, with Gladiaron's forces at a decisive advantage. Despite the best efforts of the Autobots, the Decepticons held the advantage in firepower and training, forcing Autobot city-states to fight desperate defensive actions rather than striking back against the insurgents. In the absence of a Prime, Alpha Trion and the High Council of Iacon assumed control of the faction, and while the former brought his experience as leader of the Great Rebellion to bear, the latter was plagued with indecision and ongoing internal disputes, which significantly delayed the mustering of Iacon's ample manpower reserves. What's more, Guardian Prime's disarmament policies left the Autobots sorely lacking in the munitions necessary to equip their forces, leaving many cities guarded solely by their lightly-equipped police forces and hastily assembled citizens' militia fighters. Still, they had retained control over the capital and its neighboring city-states, ensuring that, with time, the Autobots could muster the soldiers and munitions necessary to face the Decepticons in open combat. 

Until then, Alpha Trion had his forces fight as guerillas, utilizing the same tactics pioneered in the Great Rebellion against the Quintessons. Supply depots were bombed in the night, weapons stolen, and patrols harassed by newly-minted sharpshooters. It wasn't enough to prevent the Decepticons from sweeping across the Magnalium Mountains and pushing through the Sonic Canyons, but it did stymie the break-neck pace of their advance. Gladiaron was no fool, however, and recognized many of Alpha Trion's tactics: he and his Warriors Elite had, after all, pioneered them against the Quintessons during the Rebellion. Autobot guerillas, though brave, often found themselves captured and executed without ceremony, their bodies melted down into more useful materials, just as the Quintessons had done when they ruled Cybertron. 

Gladiaron, for his part, allowed his men a degree of freedom in how they treated POWs, though he never authorized the use of slave labor within his lands; Decepticon folk history remembers a tale where, upon finding out one of his generals had been using Autobot POWs as slaves in his factories, Gladiaron had the general disarmed, forced to his knees, and beaten to death by the POWs, who were then offered their freedom in exchange for service in Gladiaron's armies, which most eagerly accepted. Slavery was considered the ultimate indignity by Gladiaron and his inner circle, and no Cybertronian, Autobot or Decepticon, would be returned to servitude so long as he reigned.

Unfortunately for Gladiaron and thousands of Autobot POWs, however, his reign was cut short at the height of the Tagan Campaign--though records are scarce and what information is available highly disputed, official Decepticon histories assert that Gladiaron fell nobly in battle at the head of the army while attempting to storm the Great Gates of Tetrahex. This version of events is recounted by the Tesarian scholar Breakneck in his Historia regum Cybertronia, a text that, while an integral work of Cybertronian historiography, contains several claims of dubious authenticity, as well as clear Decepticon bias, hence its widespread distribution and endorsement by many a Decepticon ruler. In it, Breakneck states,

"...the defenders of Tetrahex, outnumbered and without succor from the feckless Iaconians, made their final stand before the Armies of Kaon, fighting to the last atop the Great Gates of the city. The Kaonians surged forward, peerless Gladiaron at the fore, and crashed upon the Gates like Mithril waves upon the shore, the ground stained blue with the blood of heroes. The Autobots, though doomed, fought with the strength of their ancestors, repulsing the onslaught once, then twice, before the Gates crumbled into golden dust and molten metal. Tetrahex burned that night, but the Kaonians did not revel in their victory, for Gladiaron, strongest of all Cybertronians, had perished in the final assault, urging his soldiers onwards to the very last. He was mourned for twelve and one solar cycles before his body was returned to Kaon for internment in what was to become the Hall of Heroes."

Despite its moving prose, Breakneck's account has been vigorously disputed by both Autobots and Decepticons alike. The latter, never a people partial to written history, have instead passed down a myriad of contradictory oral myths, legends, and folk tales. One such tale, which was miraculously recorded in the journalist Rook's invaluable Through Southern Optics series, claims that Gladiaron was slain not on the frontlines during the battle, but in his command post, lured in and murdered by his three highest ranking generals, who will be discussed more later in this volume. While one might be inclined to believe Breakneck's written account over mere folk history, archaeological research in Tetrahex reveals little indication that the city was sacked following the battle, nor is there evidence that the defenders were unsupported; on the contrary, contemporary Iaconian records reveal that a force eight thousand strong was sent to reinforce the city garrison, who had been holding their position thanks to advantageous geography and the legendary Great Gates. 

The largest hole in Breakneck's account, however, is that there is no confirmation that the Decepticons actually won the battle, and in fact, archaeological evidence suggests that the Autobots managed to drive the Decepticons back, with subterranean remains and weapons from the battle giving the appearance of a hasty retreat from the city. These glaring discrepancies, coupled with similarly dubious claims throughout the Historia, place serious doubt on the veracity of Breakneck's account, leading this author to believe the oral folk history is in fact the more accurate telling, for reasons we shall soon delve into. Lastly, it should be noted that contemporary Autobot propaganda took credit for the killing of Gladiaron, although this is extremely doubtful given the disorganized state of the faction, Gladiaron's well-known battle prowess, and lack of supporting evidence from other sources. It is likely the Autobots simply used the confusion to try and raise morale within their ranks, and prove to remaining fence-sitters that their cause was not lost.

Whether by the hands of friend or foe, it is certain that Gladiaron met his end during the Siege of Tetrahex and was succeeded by his three highest ranking generals--Floron, Dery, and Pinoy--who would become known as the First Triumvirate. The three were spark-brothers, supposedly hailing from a lost archipelago deep in the Mithril Sea, though this anecdote too comes from the Historia and evidence of this archipelago's existence is disputed. Under Gladiaron the brothers had masterminded many successful campaigns, and each had established notoriety within the Decepticon ranks, albeit for varying reasons.

Dery was the strategist of the trio, a ruthlessly cunning general who studied the key battles of the Great Rebellion and Gladiaron's campaigns, learning all they could teach him. His mind was constantly formulating new stratagems, building upon battlefield gains and reacting to losses almost instantaneously, as if by instinct. Despite this mastery of strategy, however, he was arrogant and uncompromising, only promoting sycophants who wouldn't dare challenge his ideas. As a result, he became deeply unpopular among the rank and file officers, who believed he and his advisors were turning High Command into little more than an elitist clique.

Where Dery planned battles, Floron led them, reveling in the glory and action of war. He was the most publicly seen of the three brothers, fighting alongside the troops in their campaigns, celebrating their victories together, and enduring the same hardships and triumphs as the bots he led. For this, he earned the favor of his troops, and was immensely popular within the martial society of the Decepticons. To the Autobots, however, he was a remorseless butcher who didn't bother taking prisoners and actively encouraged brutality from his soldiers.

Last was Pinoy, the trio's silver-tongued schemer, sent in to negotiate with enemy city-states and maintain the delicate balance of the Decepticon hierarchy. City-states would always meet with Pinoy first, who would offer them the simple choice of collaboration or resistance. If the city surrendered and chose to cooperate, its people would remain unharmed and wealth unplundered, with only the Autobot leaders being killed. If the city resisted, it would be subjected to pitiless sacking and have its citizens pressed into slavery, in violation of Gladiaron's staunch anti-slavery policy. Many times, the Decepticon military wouldn't even be in the vicinity, with the mere threat of violence being enough to subdue many cities. Floron's fearsome reputation proved a most useful negotiating tool.

Within the Decepticon ranks, however, it was Pinoy's job to ensure the Triumvirate stayed in power, undermining potential rivals through all manner of trickery, charm, and secret murder. Many ambitious generals and upstart consuls sought to overthrow the Triumvirate and claim leadership of the Decepticon cause for themselves; Pinoy used this to his advantage, pitting rebellious officers and politicians against one another through misdirection, rumor, and staged acts of provocation. His methods proved successful in preventing coup d'états, though at the cost of dozens of competent officers and adept city-state consuls, who were not easily replaced. The famed Warriors Elite, in particular, were targeted by the new regime, which feared their fierce loyalty to Gladiaron and his principles would lead them to revolt. Thus, Pinoy dismantled the unit, assigning its members to far flung sections of the front where they couldn't cause trouble, or perished in mysterious "accidents."

Following their rise to power, the Triumvirate momentarily halted all offensive actions in order to consolidate their forces and solidify their rule. This pause gave the Autobots, still scrambling to organize themselves following Guardian Prime's murder, a brief period of respite, which they used to reorient their industry towards war production, shore up their defenses, and reorganize their antiquated city garrisons into fast-acting militia forces which could repel assaults on their city-states until reinforcements arrived. These efforts were coordinated by a Sistexian librarian named Zeta, who, while not described as charismatic nor a great warrior, possessed a strategic acumen and calm, analytical disposition that the Autobots sorely needed. It was these organizational talents that brought Zeta to the attention of Alpha Trion, who, with the High Council's blessing, declared him Zeta Prime at the summit of Nova Peak. Autobot accounts of the ceremony, though almost certainly dramatized, describe Trion passing the Matrix to Zeta, who opened it in a spectacular display before the whole assembled crowd to prove his legitimacy as a Prime. Ascribing a personality to Zeta is difficult, however, due to an acute lack of primary sources--the only documents by Zeta himself are laconic troop dispatches and logistics reports to the High Council, while secondary sources describing his disposition alternatively characterize him anywhere from "compassionate, but reserved" to, in the words of an especially disgruntled High Councillor, “detached in the manner of a sparkless droid; cold enough to crystalize the energon in your circuits." What is known for certain is that he was capable enough as a strategist and organizer to keep the Autobots from collapsing under the weight of the ever-growing Decepticon Empire.

Even with these preparations, the Autobots found themselves hard pressed to repel the renewed Decepticon advance. Under Dery's direction, the Decepticons had been reorganized from a series of ad hoc militia units to a great, roaring machine of conquest, establishing a degree of rigid military professionalism that Gladiaron, while a master tactician and charismatic leader, had failed to impose. Floron, meanwhile, was at the head of this new army, leading from the front just as Gladiaron had, to the respect and adoration of his soldiers. Decepticon loyalty has historically proved a fickle force, but to Floron's credit, the bond between him and his soldiers was genuine, with oral histories and fragments of surviving primary sources alike affirming this to be the case. As for Pinoy, he continued serving in his roles as chief diplomat and internal security director, accruing a small army of turncoat Autobot collaborators, deadly assassins, and silver-tongued speakers like himself. These bots, alongside his own aforementioned talents, were his instruments of choice for undermining Autobots and Decepticons alike, and were used to great effect.

With the war having now resumed in earnest, what few Autobot strongholds there were began to crumble, each city terrified of the newly reinvigorated Decepticon war machine. Harmonex and Hyperious gave up without a fight, falling to Pinoy's words; Ur-Raya and Old Rydion stood their ground and were razed, their soldiers lined up and shot, their citizens enslaved. Their horrific fates compelled yet more city-states to abandon the fight, and struck terror throughout the Autobot ranks. This is not to say the Autobots simply rolled over without a fight--on the contrary, in Kalis and Altihex, the Autobots cost the Decepticons dearly, making them bleed any time they dared to assault Zeta Prime's impressive fortifications. The great anti-aircraft guns of the northern states proved especially critical, rendering any Decepticon air raids a costly endeavor, while dashing hopes of surrounding the fortress cities by air-deploying forces behind enemy lines. 

In the end, however, these battles proved only temporary obstacles to the seemingly inexorable Decepticon advance; Kalis was taken from the very foundation, its Quintesson-era sewer systems stormed by Decepticon commandos, whose sudden emergence behind enemy lines broke the Autobots' stalwart defense. Altihex, meanwhile, was taken from within, its defense sabotaged by Pinoy's carefully cultivated spy network, its air defenses brought down just long enough for Decepticon pilots to destroy them, leaving the city vulnerable to a lengthy terror bombing campaign, before eventually being surrounded by elite Decepticon skyraiders. Within the decacycle, the city fell, and soon Iacon itself was put to siege, the last great bastion of Autobot resistance on the cusp of falling. Anyone at the time would be forgiven for believing the war was all but over, as the Triumvirate most certainly did.

And yet the winds of history, as they so often do, changed direction, and the Decepticons' ultimate triumph was not to be. For within the Triumvirate, discord had been brewing for some time between the brothers, first manifesting only in minor slights and disagreements, then open arguments and insults, and finally, a total breakdown in command, culminating in all three leaders turning on one another in a bloody, senseless game of thrones. Despite the particularly sparse documentation of this period, the Fall of the First Triumvirate has remained one of the most dramatized moments in Cybertronian history, enduring in both Autobot and Decepticon popular culture well into the Golden Age through theater, poetry, and the aforementioned Decepticon oral tradition. While not primary sources, and full of contradictions when directly compared, these sources do nominally agree on the broad strokes of what happened, which modern scholars can use alongside archaeological evidence to paint a rough picture of the events leading up to the Fall of the First Triumvirate. As this historian understands it, events proceed as follows.

It begins with Pinoy. Always the least popular of his brothers and ambitious to a fault, Pinoy fought hard to maintain his status within the Decepticon ranks. Using his sharp wit and network of saboteurs, spies, and assassins, Pinoy maintained an iron grip of fear in the sparks of his enemies, be they Autobot or Decepticon. While undeniably a master at his work, the treacherous tactics he employed made him deeply unpopular with the Decepticon soldiery, who saw his methods as dishonorable in comparison to his brothers, and lived in constant fear of his frequent purges of "malcontents." What's more, his position of authority as one of the three ruling members of the Triumvirate was coming into question: though the brothers had agreed at the beginning of their reign to share power equally, it was clear that Floron and Dery possessed greater popularity and de facto authority than their third sibling. With the end of the war in sight and questions of the post-war order being raised, a degree of tension had formed between the brothers for who would ultimately rule Cybertron.

Sources differ on which of the three first began the chain of events to follow. In Crosscut's famous play Warrior, Thief, King, Floron, in what was either an earnest effort to maintain peace between the trio or solidify his own authority (or perhaps both), advocated a simple continuation of the status quo, but received noncommittal responses from Dery each time he brought up the issue. As Crosscut tells it, Dery had grown greedy and conceited within the ebony halls of Castle Darkmount, believing himself superior to his brothers in intellect, and thus desiring to claim leadership of the Decepticons for himself. This telling is supported by Dery's well-known ego and cult of personality within High Command, though it is contradicted by the poet Provoke, who instead asserts in her Ode to the Threefold Tragedy that it was Floron who aspired to power, believing in true Decepticon fashion that he who stands at the forefront of conquest has earned the right to rule, a sentiment echoed by his devoted armies. Various oral retellings, meanwhile, insist it was Pinoy who set the fall in motion, misinforming both Floron and Dery that the other coveted the title of Emperor.

What all the accounts agree upon is that, instigator or otherwise, Pinoy used the rift between his brothers for his own benefit, seeing it as a prime opportunity to claim power and status for himself. To that end, he whispered lies into the ears of Floron and Dery, twisting or outright fabricating messages from one another so as to fuel a burning hatred between the two. With communication breaking down between the frontline and the capital and rumors spreading amongst the officer corps and rank and file soldiery, the seemingly unstoppable Decepticon advance ground to a halt, and the First Siege of Iacon, the last campaign to end the war, was delayed. This proved to be a tremendous mistake--while Pinoy had considered the Autobots all but crushed, Zeta Prime and his forces were far from beaten, and capitalized on the situation and went on the offensive against the confused and directionless Decepticons, reclaiming Kalis and Altihex in a fierce counterattack.

Outraged, Floron directly contacted Dery, railing against his perceived botching of the situation, to Dery's incredulity. Communication between the two ceased entirely, and Floron assumed de facto control over the army, isolating Dery and High Command. A scant few solar cycles later, an assassin attempted to kill Floron as he recharged. Here, the sources again diverge; in The Threefold Tragedy, the assassin fails and is beaten to death by Floron, who assumes that it was Dery who ordered the attempt on his life. In both Crosscut's play and the oral histories, meanwhile, Pinoy is pointed to as the culprit, having known Floron would assume Dery had been responsible. Regardless of the assassin's true employer, this proved the final straw for Floron, who marched south to Darkmount with eight thousand of his most loyal soldiers, intent on removing Dery and High Command from power. With word of Floron's advance brought to him by Pinoy's intelligence network, Dery prepared the capital's defenses, utilizing what forces he had on hand to fortify Polyhex and dig in for a siege. When Floron reached the gates of the capital, however, Dery's forces did not fire--instead, they threw open the gates and switched sides, allowing Floron to march unopposed with eleven thousand troops at his back. Panicking, Dery scrambled to prepare a defense of Castle Darkmount, barricading himself inside with High Command as Floron put the fortress to siege.

What happens next is, again, disputed: in the play, Pinoy capitalized on the frustrations of the officer corps, who resented Dery's promotion of spineless sycophants to High Command, and convinced them to stage a coup d'état, killing Dery in exchange for parlay with Floron. The officers agreed to the plot and, in the dead of night, stormed the Throne Room of Castle Darkmount, slaughtering High Command in a bloody massacre. Dery, upon seeing it was Pinoy who had betrayed him, did not try to escape, and was slain personally by his brother with an energon blade through the spark. His body was tossed from the windows, and Floron was invited inside by his brother, who claimed to have killed Dery as proof of his loyalty. Floron took the bait and came to celebrate with his brother over their triumph; he was instead met in the Throne Room by Pinoy and his personal cadre, who surrounded Floron and hacked him to death with energon blades. Floron did not go quietly, however, and his struggle alerted the officer corps, who had believed Pinoy was going to negotiate with his brother. The sight of Floron's mutilated corpse appalled them, and they turned on Pinoy and his forces, starting a shootout within the throne room. With a full-blown battle now raging in the fortress, Floron's forces flooded in to find the throne room a warzone, and the body of their beloved commander bleeding out on the ground. Enraged, they did not hesitate to open fire, making no distinction between the officer corps and Pinoy's supporters, despite the former's dying cries of innocence as they were gunned down. Pinoy himself was thrown screaming into the smelting pools, his body melted down into the alloys of his own grave marker.

The play's depiction, while undeniably dramatic, is almost certainly exaggerated for the sake of spectacle, somewhat convoluted, and reeks of anti-Decepticon bias on account of its playing up of the Triumvirate's savagery and treachery to almost comical extremes. This is perhaps unsurprising, given it was written nearly a million years after the fact by an Autobot playwright. Provoke's account is comparatively simpler, and half a million years closer to the original event: instead of Pinoy convincing the officer corps to revolt, they storm the Throne Room on their own and take Dery prisoner, offering him to Floron in exchange for promotions to his new High Command. When Floron enters Darkmount to accept their offer, Pinoy descends upon them all with his cadre of spies and assassins, taking his brothers by surprise and executing them. Now the only member of the Triumvirate left standing, he addresses the army outside, claiming Floron and Dery killed each other and that, as the sole survivor of the trio, he was the rightful Emperor. The army, however, was suspicious of Pinoy, who they had always resented; opinion turned fully against Pinoy when several members of the Warriors Elite emerged from the crowd, denouncing him as a traitor and conspirator who organized the deaths of Gladiaron and Floron. Incensed, the army stormed the fortress. Fearing for their lives, the traitorous officers told the soldiers what really happened, who proceeded to rip Pinoy limb from limb alongside his supporters. This account is closer to those of Decepticon oral legends, and is thus the more likely version of events, although the exact details of each brother's death tend to vary from story to story. A personal favorite is the one in which Pinoy was slain by his own trickery, playing dead so convincingly that Floron's soldiers entombed him alive in Darkmount Crypt; urban legend claims his remains may lie there still.

In the end, however, the outcome is the same: the First Triumvirate, successors of Gladiaron, were destroyed by the very treachery that had brought them to power. The Decepticons, now leaderless and with most of their experienced commanders dead, were left scrambling as Zeta Prime led the Autobots back from the brink of destruction. The next volume of this work shall cover the fallout of the Triumvirate's collapse, the rise and fall of Zeta Prime, and the sinister players of Cybertron's first dark age: the Interregnum.

Chapter Text

Following the collapse of the First Triumvirate, the Decepticons entered a state of weakness and disunity. With most of their top leadership dead, the chain of command rapidly broke down as surviving officers attempted to seize power. What's more, the army's supply lines had become heavily strained from the sheer distance between the front and the Decepticon heartland, a problem made worse by frequent Autobot guerilla raids. Leaderless and undersupplied, the army painstakingly built by Gladiaron, brought to the very suburbs of Iacon by the Triumvirate, was routed by a fierce Autobot counterattack, and forced to retreat south along the Rust Coast. In a series of rapid, precise campaigns, Zeta Prime and the Autobots succeed in reclaiming much of the northern hemisphere, targeting individual Decepticon warlords. As the faction rapidly splintered and southern city-states began to be claimed by petty generals, Decepticonism transitioned from an organized military force to a philosophy practiced to certain degrees by the rulers and peoples of Cybertron's city states; an idea, rather than an army. The Autobots, too, entered a succession crisis when Zeta Prime was swallowed by the ravines of Simfur during a botched advance through the Sonic Canyons. With no new Prime presenting themselves and the Matrix lost, the coalition of Autobot city-states dissolved for a time, and all of Cybertron was plunged into an age of anarchy known simply as "the Interregnum."

Before we continue, however, we must address a contentious question: why did both factions fragment so completely at the same time? How could the two largest forces on the planet break down into petty fiefdoms and remain as such for over 500,000 years? The most commonly touted answer is simple--with the deaths of their leaders, the Autobots and Decepticons no longer possessed central authorities with enough power to keep their factions together. This explanation, while partially true, is far too simplistic and fails to consider that succession crises were nothing new to either faction. As early as the Great Rebellion, the warrior castes had organized soldiers' councils called "Enclaves" to meritocratically elect their leaders, a system formalized under the Decepticons to prevent squabbles among generals. The Autobots, meanwhile, had the venerable Alpha Trion and the High Council of Iacon to guide them, for it was they who had approved Zeta's ascension to the Primacy in the first place. While certainly no substitutes for the positions of Emperor and Prime, these entities were theoretically able to maintain factional cohesion in the event of a succession crisis, making it doubtful that lack of leadership was the primary cause of the Interregnum.

Instead, the more likely culprit was the enmity brewing between Cybertron's city-states; in the years after the Great Rebellion, the Cybertronian population increased exponentially, making it an inevitability that, at some point, the burgeoning city-states would squabble over land, trade routes, energon, and natural resources. Even during the nominal height of the Cybertronian Renaissance period under Guardian Prime, the High Council feared that Iacon's status as planetary capital could be challenged by budding powers like Polyhex, Tarn, Kaon, and Helix. Tarn in particular had gone so far as to declare war on Vos over control of its energon reservoir, leading to an eons-old hatred between the two city-states. Similar, albeit smaller, resource wars had begun on the Tesarian Steppe, before Gladiaron brought the disparate tribes together under his banner. Under this analysis, the rise of the Autobots and Decepticons may have actually delayed Cybertron's descent into a warring states period, with factional loyalties for a time overcoming parochial ambitions. While requiring further evidence to be proved conclusively, this author believes it probable that these wars were the first signs of a planet-wide resource conflict, one only exacerbated by the material demands of the Autobot-Decepticon war until, in their moments of weakness, both factions fell victim to the pressures boiling just beneath the surface. 

Thus, with the upper echelons of Decepticon leadership gutted, the Autobots unable to select a new Prime without the Matrix, and both armies in a state of disarray, neither faction possessed the legitimacy, strong leadership, or brute force necessary to keep the fractious city-states together, resulting in a break down of interstate cooperation. Directionless, exhausted from the war, and unable to stem the tide of nationalism within their lands, the Autobots and Decepticons could no longer maintain their coalition armies and experienced total collapse. Soldiers defected en masse, either to return to their home territories or to carve out their own petty fiefdoms. In Protihex, the local Autobot garrison declared de facto independence under the self-proclaimed Septimus Prime, while roving warbands of Decepticon soldiers ripped themselves apart over the riches and energon of the Badlands city-states.

The most powerful Decepticon territories during this era were Tarn, Kaon, Polyhex, Helix, and Corumkan, and the Undercity; the first four city-states had already been prominent before and during the war, whereas the latter two became influential during the Interregnum, for reasons that will be explored later. Each of these rump territories was led by a powerful warlord seeking to create their own version of a model Decepticon city-state. While smaller polities existed, it is these six and their leaders that, for one reason or another, are remembered by history. We will begin with Tarn.

Located deep in the Manganese Mountain Range, Tarn had been a vital Decepticon stronghold in the Autobot-dominated northern hemisphere, providing a bastion from which Decepticon raiding parties could threaten the borders of Iacon. While eventually made contiguous with the rest of the Decepticon Empire, Tarn's relative isolation, coupled with its distinctly Manganese history and culture, had inculcated a strong nationalist sentiment among its populace long before the Interregnum. Thus, almost immediately following the collapse of the First Triumvirate, the city was seized by its military consul, the aptly-named warlord Murdron, who declared the formation of his own Tarnian Empire. Information on Murdron prior to the Interregnum is virtually nonexistent, with only a fragmentary datatrack written by the Golden Age author Winchlock indicating that he had fought in the Gladiatorial Games during the Quintesson Era. While there are no records of his activities during the Great Rebellion, it can be presumed he fought in the liberation of Tarn, as he was given the consulship of the city by Gladiaron early in the war. 

Outside of conducting raids on Autobot-aligned city-states in the Manganese, he remains obscure until the declaration of the Tarnian Empire, where the historical record improves. His regime was purportedly one of both great prosperity and draconian subjugation, defined by the uncompromising totalitarianism preached in Decepticon rhetoric. Under his rule, Tarn, long the hotspot of the Manganese, was made into a great industrial and military power, nearly eclipsing Iacon in strength and influence at its peak. With this build-up of soldiers and resources, Murdron led his city in great conquests, annexing large swaths of the Manganese and Plurex Flats, making Tarn the beating heart of a mighty empire. The city's people experienced a golden age of wealth and prosperity, which earned Murdron their loyalty and admiration. Tarnians to this day will claim they never had a greater leader than Murdron, and a number of myths on his conquests and leadership persist in local folklore. 

In these myths, Murdron is characterized as a strict, but fair, warrior-king with a genuine love for his people, and something of a philosophical streak. It is commonly claimed that Murdron authored Tarn's legal code, one in direct conflict with the Tyresian Code employed by the majority of states. The driving principle of this code is surmised in a common proverb still spoken among Tarnians, first attributed to Murdron during his "taming" of the Thetacon tribe, stating that, "The mark of civilization is justice; to submit to just rulers and their laws is the mark of a civilized bot." Less fondly remembered are many of the code's comically strict rules, outlawing, among other things: singing in public, "garishly bright" paint jobs, domesticating petrorabbits, and speaking any language but Old Tarnic. Despite these nonsensical decrees, however, material standards of living for the Tarnian people rose substantially under Murdron's rule, who enjoyed for the first time in their history consistent safety, energy security, and access to luxury goods from as far as the Tagan Heights.

Tarnian "civilization," however, was marked by extreme brutality against any who dared dissent against Murdron's regime. City-states subjugated by the empire were treated harshly, and thousands were forced into slavery or, at best, the role of second class citizens. The city of Vos, in particular, was treated with unrestrained malice due to its longstanding rivalry with Tarn for influence over the Manganese. Murdron enacted pitiless vengeance against the Vosians, massacring them en masse and pillaging much of the city's treasures. Ultimately, however, Murdron's empire would crumble around him when, with covert Iaconian support, Vos and the other conquered states revolted, rallying against the thinly-stretched Tarnian army. The Liberation Wars, as they have become known among the Manganesians, are not well researched, and most surviving records from the time period are propaganda pieces from Tarn, Vos, and Iacon, respectively. Beyond a handful of declassified shipping manifests revealing the extent of Iaconian involvement in the uprisings, supplying both arms and training to the rebels, the only surviving first-hand account is the journal of Midflight, a Vosian soldier. From her logs, a rough idea of Vosian troop movements can be discerned, as well as the palpable mix of hope and rage that was felt amongst the rebels. 

The rebels would have their vengeance. Following a rapid withdrawal to the Vitarn River Valley in hopes of consolidating his forces and preparing a counterattack, Murdron would meet his end when the revolutionaries detonated a series of photon charges on the mountain slopes surrounding Tarn, supported by a sustained air raid and artillery bombardment. The resulting avalanches buried over a quarter of the city and crushed Murdron beneath a mountain of stone and rended metal; his remains were never recovered, indistinguishable from the debris surrounding him. For a more detailed examination of the Liberation Wars and Murdron's downfall, see the entries on the Manganese states in Vestorian's Glossary of Cybertronian City-States, with modern annotations by myself . Today, Murdron is remembered as perhaps the closest practitioner to Megatron's oft-quoted philosophy, "Peace through tyranny." Though defeated, he served as a model for what an effective Decepticon leader could be, and for this legacy, he is honored in the Hall of Heroes. Megatron himself is on record as drawing inspiration from Murdron, likening himself to the Warrior-King in a speech delivered at one of his earliest rallies: "Murdron the Conqueror once stoked fear into the sparks the degenerate High Council--rise with me, Sons of Tarn, and we shall do so once again!"

In contrast to Murdron, who was a relative unknown prior to the conquest of the Manganese, the next warlord--Rapiron of Tesarus--was notable among Autobots and Decepticons alike, if only for his atrocities. Under the Triumvirate, he first made a name for himself during the infamous Rape of Trigat, in which the city was put to the torch after refusing Pinoy's terms of surrender. While sacking cities which refused to submit was standard practice, Rapiron wrought devastation beyond even the worst standards, slaughtering over half the population, enslaving the rest, and razing the city to the very foundations. It is for this reason that Trigat disappeared from subsequent maps of Cybertron, and where Rapiron likely gained his name, which may in fact have been an epithet, though if so, his original name is long forgotten. Decepticon legend has it that, when questioned by one soldier why he had gone beyond his orders and destroyed Trigat, Rapiron simply smiled, before slicing his head off.

In truth, there was likely no practical or ideological justification for Rapiron's actions, as a scant few stellar cycles later, he was visiting the same destruction upon the tribes of the Badlands. Like Murdron, Rapiron went rogue in the aftermath of the Triumvirate's collapse; unlike Murdron, he gave nothing to the people under his domain, and by all accounts was little more than a highly effective bandit chieftain. Favoring the use of lasercycles, Rapiron and his troops roamed the Tesarian Plains as nomadic bandits, similar to the Maraudicons of the north, plundering the fledgling cities of the Badlands with unrestrained brutality. While conflict between Badlanders, many of whom were at this point somewhere between organized tribes and fully-fledged city-states, was not uncommon, Rapiron's impressive tactical abilities and feared reputation made him a far greater threat than the other tribes could handle, effectively turning Pinoy's strategy of rule through terror back upon the Decepticon heartland. It is for his mobile warfare tactics that Rapiron is remembered and honored among the Decepticons, despite his otherwise retched reputation, with the maneuvers of his warbands pioneering many of the tactics used by transforming bots in the future, even among the Autobots. Tesarians most of all embraced Rapiron's way of war, an art which they perfected over millennia until even Iaconians knew Tesarian raiders were not to be trifled with.

Though the specifics are not known, Rapiron reportedly captured Kaon at the height of his power, sacking the ancient city for three terrible deca-cycles. The primary source for this period is, again, the poet Provoke, who, though forged after the events in question, lived at the same time as many bots who experienced the events firsthand. The misery of the occupation is remembered in her Ko-tu poem, The Taking of the Cradle:

[Screams, gunfire, death throes

Our mother raped, home defiled

Burning as we weep]

As Provoke tells it in her larger epic poem, The Saga of the Badlanders, Rapiron made Kaon his capital (Tesarus, ironically, had exiled him) and continued raiding southern cities, taking inordinate amounts of tribute and slaves. Following a successful raid against Destrex--what is today remembered as "Slaughter City"--a parade of slaves was led before him at the Smelting Pools, with every tenth captive tossed screaming into the pools to break the spirits of the others. When the time came for the last captive to be executed, however, she cut her bonds with a concealed energo-blade in her forearm and rushed Rapiron, taking him by surprise. Though mortally wounded in the attempt, she succeeded in tackling Rapiron, locking her arms around him as they both fell into the pools. According to Provoke, the captive Destrexian was heard laughing even as her body melted; oral legend, meanwhile, holds that Rapiron's screams were heard as far as Nuon. Though the true name of the Destrexian is not known, she is immortalized in song and legend as Pythaga the King-Slayer, and was posthumously canonized as a Saint by the Primal Orthodox Church in K'th Kinsere.

The next three Decepticon leaders are of particular interest, as they were each followers of a niche circuit-sect called Mortilism, which venerated acts of cannibalism, corpse-defilement, and other perversions of the dead in service to the god Mortilus. According to Vestorian, Mortilism is believed to have been one of many cults that emerged from the Magnalium Mountains, likely a heretical branch of the cult of the Guiding Hand, in which Mortilus was one of several deities, though this was an understudied topic even during the Golden Age. Outlawed under Guardian Prime, it appears Mortilism experienced a resurgence during the Interregnum, particularly among eccentric members of Cybertron's aristocracy, who formed a loose network of contacts running across the planet's equatorial city-states. It was allegedly through this network that the three "Cybervore Kings"--Ghoulon, Bloodron, and the Cannibal Baron--met in the Undercity and swore oaths of non-aggression; though not allies, per se , they would respect one another's spheres of influence. There is no concrete proof of this meeting, with its existence attested only in Decepticon mytho-history, dubbing the three rulers the "Second Triumvirate."

The first and least well-known of the Second Triumvirate was Ghoulon, ruler of the Undercity, whose history comes to us entirely from Vestorian. Before his rise to power, Ghoulon was a wealthy noblebot in Stanix, a quiet city on the southern edge of the Hydrax Plateau. By exploiting the political corruption of the city government, Ghoulon secured himself the comfortable position of controlling Fort Scyk, an isolated fortress in the Acid Wastes beyond the main city. There he showed his true colors, and transformed the old fort into a hellish prison for it's luckless garrison. The soldiers were forced to fight one another in gladiatorial combat, with the winner getting to join Ghoulon's inner circle and the loser being torn apart limb-from-limb, circuit-by-circuit, until they were nothing more than a pile of mangled diodes and gears. Ghoulon would then weld the remains to his own body, forming layers of armor made from the corpses of his victims. According to the survivors of Fort Scyk, he was attempting to, "Bind the souls of the dead to himself and use their spirits for power." And powerful he did become, if not from mysticism, than through sheer strength of armor and reputation.

Ghoulon's reign over Fort Scyk came to an end, however, when one of the soldiers in Ghoulon's inner circle, Gearswitch, managed to steal a cloaker from the fort's armory and escape, braving the hazardous Acid Wastes and its dreaded razor-snakes. When he reached Stanix and informed the city's people of what Ghoulon was doing, they initially didn't trust him, unable to believe a bot could ever perform such despicable acts. When he revealed internal footage from his videofeed, however, the populace soon began clamoring for Ghoulon's head. A riot ensued, and Gearswitch led the mob of angry citizens to liberate the fort. Once the soldiers inside saw that help was on the way, they rallied against their master and began fighting their way to his throne room, guarded by the few veterans of the arena who enjoyed spilling their comrades' energon for sport.

Ghoulon, however, had not stuck around to meet his end with dignity, and instead fled through a dried-up energon vein running beneath the fort. Soon he grew lost in the maze of subterranean corridors, fuel lines, and sewage tunnels that ran beneath the Sea of Rust's corrosive waves. At this point, historical sources become non-existent, but it can be assumed that eventually, after many solar cycles of wandering Cybertron's depths, Ghoulon reached the Undercity, due northwest of the Magnalium Mountains. The Undercity had once been a grand city-state called Sadrion along the Red Coast, but it had been partially swallowed by the sea after a cataclysmic rust storm. Its inhabitants were lost to the waves or left trapped within the crumbling ruins, degenerating into mad, starving husks siphoning energon from the natural veins that ran beneath Cybertron's surface--and any unlucky mechs who found them.

It is unknown how Ghoulon asserted himself over those tortured sparks, but when he finally made himself known again to the world, he sat at the helm of what he called his, "Daemon Horde," and was the undisputed ruler of the Undercity. Few challenged him, for most local city-states agreed that waging war against monsters in the endless, labyrinthine ruins beneath the deadly Rust Sea was a fight better left unpicked. Thus, little action was taken when bots began disappearing along the coastline, never to return. Tall tales and legends of demon raiding parties made their way across Cybertron, but any who went looking for the missing bots inevitably ended up vanishing beneath the Rust Sea, and Ghoulon's kingdom of the living dead was left well alone. One can only imagine what horrible fate befell those hapless sparks, presumably victims to Ghoulon's dark experiments. Though no known record of how the dweller in the depths died exists, it has been posited that he perished around the same time that a great seismic impact shook the coastline. Some theorized it was the result of a large portion of the Undercity collapsing, or a tectonic shift in Cybertron's metallic crust, though spiritual bots have more esoteric theories; the High Priests of K'th Kinsere, in their Sermon on Retribution, declared the impact as, quote, "The Wrath of Primus sending the Daemons and the Damned to the Inferno." Evidently, however, some within the Undercity survived, and through unknown means developed the art of transformation, emerging from the depths in the twilight hours of the Second Great War. These twisted sparks were the first Insecticons, whose oral histories venerate Ghoulon as their "Father." It is the Insecticons who ensured Ghoulon was canonized in the Decepticon Hall of Heroes, though with the near extermination of their race, and with it, their language and mythology, we will likely never know the full extent of their relationship with the Demon King. 

The next of the Second Triumvirate, Bloodron, was one of the more genteel leaders in Decepticon history, possessing a sense of aristocratic refinement uncommon among most warlords of the Interregnum. Before his rise to power he was one of the wealthiest bots in all of Polyhex, having made his fortune as an arms dealer selling weapons to Gladiaron's armies; unbeknownst to the Emperor, however, Bloodron had in fact been selling to the Autobots as well. When the Decepticons splintered after the fall of the First Triumvirate, Bloodron capitalized on the situation and seized control of the city with relative ease, unchallenged by both Autobot and Decepticon entrepreneurs who wished to continue doing business. Under his leadership, Bloodron reorganized Polyhex into a corporate state, with a ruling Executive Council comprised of the city's business magnates. Unlike many city-states during the Interregnum, Polyhex's economy continued growing, with the Council pursuing a strategy of neutrality and free trade with its surrounding city-states, while actively encouraging firms to base themselves within the city. These policies ensured a thriving market economy and steady profits for the Council, a model many ambitious entrepreneurs wished to recreate in other city-states across the globe. 

What is conveniently left out in many analyses of the "Polyhex Model" is that the overwhelming majority of the city's denizens found themselves in either the shrinking middle class, or the throngs of impoverished workers who made up the bulk of the population. Nothing in Polyhex came without a price, with surviving financial records from the prestigious "Imperial Credit" bank revealing that, compared to even the most expensive Iaconian properties, a home in Polyhex cost fifteen times market value, in a city that had no minimum wage or public services. What's more, with the city's wealthy elite heading both the economy and government, labor activists had no legal recourse, and were thus fiercely persecuted as enemies of the state. Rather than simply execute dissidents, however, Bloodron and his cronies opted for the far more practical options of impressing them into the army, or, for the especially loathed, subjecting them to the city's infamous Grease Pits, where they would fight and die in gladiatorial combat an entertaining distraction for the masses to amuse themselves with in their limited free time. 

This tidy solution simultaneously helped pacify the populace, eliminate threats to the regime, and ensure a steady supply of soldiers to fuel Bloodron's largest business venture, the Software Wars, a series of conflicts throughout the Magnalium Mountain Range in which Polyhexian mercenaries would be hired out to any and all participants, thereby indebting them to Polyhex. In this way, Bloodron and the Executive Council held sway over the economies and armies of virtually the entire Magnalium region, a pseudo-empire embroiled in ceaseless conflict. True to form, Polyhex's mercenary companies and arms manufacturers kept detailed financial records, which are the main body of primary sources used for studying this period of the city's history, coupled with Vestorian's Glossary. Collectively, these records paint a dystopian picture of Interregnum-era Polyhex, the average bot suffering through an interminable cycle of work and war that served only to enrich the Executive Council. Not even they, however, could have guessed as to what Bloodron had spent his ill-gotten wealth on.

Deep below his sprawling estate, Laserena ("The Most Serene"), Bloodron had poured countless shanix into constructing a massive subterranean complex, with secret tunnels running beneath the city, all leading back to Laserena like the heart of great, terrible organism. From these tunnels, Bloodron's personal security, the Laserean Guard, would emerge to abduct the hapless denizens of Polyhex; beggars, drifters, vagrants, unionists, political rivals, all would find themselves snatched in the shadows, hauled across the maze of tunnels, and brought beneath Laserena, where they'd be imprisoned indefinitely. Unlike Ghoulon, however, Bloodron was no sadist, and treated his captees well, providing them comfortable cells and the finest of energon to top-up on. Ironically, life in captivity for these bots was often better than freedom, prompting few to offer any strong resistance. Had they known the fate that awaited them, however, they likely would not have been so compliant. 

Once each prisoner was sufficiently pampered and "well done," as Bloodron himself is reported to have put it, their stay beneath Laserena would come to an abrupt end. They'd be led into a chamber that resembled a medical facility, clasped to an operating table, and then have their spark slowly, tenderly extracted from their body using the most illegal (and expensive) "medical" equipment shanix could buy. As the process went on, Bloodron and his fellow Mortilists, of whom many of the Polyhexian aristocracy were a part, would watch from a well-furnished overhang above the operating theater, lounging comfortably and sipping energon wine while observing through sound-proofed barriers as souls were ripped from their bodies. The purpose of this torment was in their hands--once each prisoner's body was free from its spark, their energon would be drained, fermented, and turned into only the finest of energon wine, mixed with the crushed remains of extracted sparks. The bodies, meanwhile, would be smelted and turned into statues, furniture, and other fine art for Bloodron and his cronies to enjoy.

In a twist of irony, it was Bloodron's own cannibal habits that did him in. According to declassified medical records from the Polyhex Institute of Medicine (miraculously preserved in the Museum of Decepticon History in Kaon), the consumption of sparkmatter from so many different people, each drink laced with the remnants of a bot's very soul, caused Bloodron's own spark to begin losing structural integrity, unable to maintain its proverbial "sense of self" while absorbing the fragments of so many other identities. After a battle with what would be posthumously diagnosed as Early-Onset Cybercrosis, Bloodron's spark could no longer hold itself together, causing it to dissipate and flicker out--it is said he dropped dead during a toast to the Executive Council, spark-laced wine still dripping from his mouth.

Following his demise, the Polyhexian nobility rapidly turned on one another, engaging in a series of assassinations, "terrorist" attacks, and even full-blown turf wars between private armies. The economy, already unstable as the city-states of the Magnalium began to embargo Polyhex, collapsed as businesses changed hands, fled the city, or were put to the torch, while property damage soared as rival oligarchs attacked each others' assets. Fed up with being unpaid, the city's mercenary military revolted and stormed the upper districts, a mob of angry citizens at their heels, ready to tear the oligarchs limb from limb and seize their wealth. Few of them escaped the mob, tossed screaming into the crowds as their villas burned, while the city treasury was looted by the army and (somewhat) redistributed to the masses. When the rioters reached Laserena, the remaining estate's guard quickly surrendered, letting soldiers and civilians alike storm the grounds. When they reached the lower levels, however, the looting came to an abrupt halt--revolted by the sight of butchered captives (the guards presumably had no further use for them) and the extraction chamber, the mob lost what little restraint it had, massacring the Laserean Guard to a bot and fleeing the "ungodly" grounds. Only a stellar cycle later, Laserena and its catacombs were destroyed by high explosives, though a precious handful of academics, Vestorian among them (or so he claims), were able to view the site before the sins of Bloodron were erased from the face of Cybertron, forever. His legacy lives now only in the theories of Decepticon--and in this age, Predacon--economics, and a long-forgotten statue in the Decepticon crypt.

The last and most legendary of the Second Triumvirate is the Cannibal Baron, Lord of the Corukhanate. His true name, and indeed most information prior to his rise, was intentionally purged by the Baron in an effort to mythologize himself; given his status in Decepticon mytho-history, he may well have succeeded. What is known of the Baron before his rule is only the barest basics, gathered by Vestorian and Phylax of Gyronia during the Golden Age from local testimonies, the Hall of Records, and interviews with the few surviving members of the Coruk tribe. While Vestorian provides the most (and indeed, only ) detailed account of the Khanate's spread throughout the Neutral Regions, Phylax's Darker Sparks focuses on reconstructing a narrative of the Baron's life, and will thus be our primary source for the following information. 

The Cannibal Baron was first reported south of Proximax shortly after the formation of the Autobot United Front, a coalition of northern city-states led by Iacon that attempted to reunite the disparate Autobot polities following the death of Zeta Prime. After successfully expanding its reach into the Sea of Rust, the AUF looked towards the Neutral Regions. The region had historically been a haven for culture and science during the Interregnum, protected from the south by the Sonic Canyons, the Rust Sea to the east, Tagan Heights to the west, and the warring empires in the north by the Jan-Ja. The AUF, hoping to reclaim control over Cybertron and having finally subdued Tarn and Vos, sought to enter the region and claim its strategic location, wealth of academics, and abundant natural resources.

The region quickly became embroiled in a fierce guerilla war, however, with the arrival of the Coruk tribe. Following Rapiron's conquest of the southern Badlands, many of the defeated barbarian tribes migrated north and west in order to resettle. The Coruk were one of these displaced tribes, and were exceptionally brutal--their path north was marked by a wave of pillaging and destruction of local settlements, which the equatorial city-states quickly took notice of. Once the Coruk arrived in the region, they were met by a coalition force from the most powerful cities in the area, and were driven deep into the caves of the Sonic Canyons, the roaring ears of Primus.

It was here the Coruk lurked for many years, raiding merchant caravans and local settlements for supplies, before disappearing back into the howling canyons. How the Cannibal Baron came to rule the tribe is disputed, though the half-dozen testimonies from members of the tribe say he killed their last leader in an ancient Badlands tradition that called for a one-on-one dual for the rulership of the clan; this tradition, popularized during the Baron's rule, may be where the ancient "Code of Combat" originates. To refuse it was to admit weakness and lose power, and so a challenge was rarely left unanswered. It was around the time of this power shift that the Autobot United Front attempted to "pacify" the region, marshaling an army to seize control of the equator. Though it was hoped that the local city states would welcome the Autobots, they were surprised by how much the region valued its independence, and negotiations broke down. Though all-out war had yet to break out, tensions were high and armies were mustered on the borderlands, ready for a face off.

It was then that the Baron made his play. He had convinced his tribe that, during an expedition deep into the Sonic Canyons, he had heard Mortilus whisper to him the way to victory. He spoke of dark acts, cannibalism, and said that by consuming the laser cores, the sparks, of their enemies, they could gain supernatural powers like no Cybertronian had ever seen. The Coruk were divided, with some viewing the proposition as unholy, while others were willing to consider it. Eventually, the Baron grew tired of debating, and went out alone to test his theory. When he returned, his optics had grown darker, his physique stronger. The last living witnesses claim he shouted fire from his mouth, and had strength not seen before.

Swayed by this demonstration, the Coruk followed their leader's example, abducting bots on the outskirts of cities and feasting upon their souls. The modern medical explanation for the Coruk's increased strength and borderline supernatural abilities is that, in the process of consuming the laser core, which housed the spark, the tribesbots were simultaneously consuming the power chip rectifiers of their victims, and thus gaining their unique abilities and powers. To the people of the neutral states, however, they were being set upon by demon cannibals, soul eaters with unholy powers that terrorized the lands around the Sonic Canyons.

The coalition of neutral cities became paralyzed with indecision, unable to commit many troops due to the fear of border encroachment by the Autobots, and equally unable to decide which city's forces should take responsibility for the Coruk menace. The Baron, for his part, capitalized on this lack of action, and became bolder in his raids, attacking cities directly and abducting double the number of bots as before. By the time the neutral states could muster a force to oppose them, it was already too late, for the Coruk had claimed control of Nuon to the far south, and were preparing to strike north towards Harmonex, the Singing City.

The two forces met on the open planes between Carpessa and Harmonex, at the edge of the Sonic Canyons. The neutrals fought hard, but were pressed upon by bots with powers to rival a dozen soldiers each, and so they were pushed back. Desperate to stop the Coruk's advance, the Neutral States submitted to the AUF and rushed to divert a combined Autobot-Neutral force south to reinforce the beleaguered defenders, but it was too little too late. The Baron had formed a special unit of his forces who were capable of hologram projection, and set them up upon a ridge overlooking the battle. On his signal, the Coruk ground forces would surge with all their might, while the holographers projected towering giants, akin to the Dark Guardians used by the Quintessons in the ancient past.

Pressed upon by a vicious foe, then seeing the sight of giants advancing upon them, the coalition forces fled, broken and afraid. By the time the reinforcements sent to aid them saw combat, it was in defense of Harmonex itself, which fell quickly. The Autobots, having received word of the defeat, retreated back to their own lands, abandoning the Neutral Territories to their fate. The region was conquered in various short order, and within three stellar cycles had fallen entirely under the Baron's dominion. At the sight of his glorious victory against the coalition, he founded the city of Corumkan, and proclaimed himself Emperor of his own personal Khaganate.

Under his rule, the once tranquil neutral cities became subject to three thousand years of ruthless occupation, characterized by the incarceration and subsequent execution of anyone who dared to speak out against the state. All in the land paid tribute to Corumkan, and the city grew rich in wealth, slaves, and sacrifices for the Baron and his tribesbots. The Coruk became the ruling elite of this new empire, and loved their chieftain for the lands and riches he had brought them. Mortilism was enshrined as the state religion of the land, with death by cannibalism made the primary mode of execution for all criminals and dissidents; according to Phylax, the carnage reached its peak in Corumkan when five thousand sacrifices were consumed in a single night.

The Cannibal Baron, however, understood the necessity of maintaining his image as an unstoppable warrior king, and so fashioned himself as the God of War, Mortilus incarnate, an image reinforced by a purge of all intellectuals and historians who weren't loyal to the Coruk elite. Monuments were erected across the land, shrines to the Baron and Mortilus replacing the Temples of Primus. Who lived and who died in the Khaganate depended solely on whether or not one was considered expendable. The lucky ones went about their business and said nothing as the less fortunate, the criminals, jobless, and dissidents, were swept off the streets and never heard from again. Everyone knew where they went: the great feasting halls of Corumkan.

The Autobot United Front, however, would not be deterred forever. They recognized the threat of the Khaganate, and plotted on how to liberate the region (or rather, conquer it for themselves). War was out of the question, for the Sonic Canyons made fighting in the region confined to a series of bottlenecks that couldn't be taken without tremendous losses. Political schemes were debated, but inserting a spy within the Coruk ruling elite would be difficult, never mind getting close enough to the Baron to hatch an assassination plot. Few would have dared to volunteer for such a task in the first place--most all who entered the Khaganate never returned.

That is, until a single brave spark who's name time has forgotten emerged from the Jan-Ja and begged to speak with the leaders of the AUF. He was a Coruk tribal, and claimed to have witnessed the Cannibal Baron's rise to power first-hand. Claiming to have always denounced cannibalism as an affront against Primus (though who can verify this?), the tribal had continued living in a cave in the Sonic Canyons, praying for salvation, before finally hatching a plan to bring it himself. Informing the Autobots of his people's customs, he claimed that the Baron would not dare refuse a challenge of single-combat, lest he appear weak amongst the Coruk and shatter his status as a living god. To win, however, would require the strongest Autobot in their ranks to step forward and face the Soul Eater head on. Only one bot, a distinguished fighter hailing from one of Iacon's great noble houses, answered the call: Sentinel EnN, Hero of the Manganese. He had made a name for himself in the Liberation Wars, and was the face of the Autobot cause during the Interregnum. In a speech that is engraved in the walls of Gygax, Sentinel officially challenged the Baron to aria-bellum-- ”solo combat” in the language of Old Cybertronian.

When word reached the Baron, he accepted eagerly, viewing it as an opportunity to demonstrate his power to Cybertron, and strike fear into the sparks of those who'd dare oppose him. Confident in his victory, he allowed EnN to chose the location of the duel, and it was decided that the ancient and spiritually significant city of Doradus, home to the Priestesses of Primus (who had since been exiled to K'th Kinsere), would be the site of the battle. Sentinel allegedly chose Doradus in order to gain the blessings of the Priestesses and have Primus on his side in the duel. The Baron, meanwhile, prepared his largest feast yet, consuming five hundred laser cores in the event. Phylax describes his visage as "darkness upon darkness, Daemonic energy crackling around him like a cloak, a crown of roaring flames upon his head."

When the duel began, no one believed EnN would last beyond a few minutes, outmatched by his god-like foe. But, to the shock of the assembled crowds, EnN remained without a scratch after the Baron's initial volley of fire. Sentinel's plating glowed blue, as though strengthened and shielded, his sword gleaming with light. Modern historians believe he had guessed the secret to the Baron's power, and was willingly given the power chip rectifiers of countless Autobots so that he may match his foe. The faithful--Phylax among them--believe it was divine intervention, and claim the Sonic Canyons sang EnN's name. When Sentinel made his own strikes, the air became ripped and distorted, "as if he were slicing through the barrier between worlds." For reasons that will soon become obvious, eyewitness accounts of the battle from within the city are lost, but the pilot of a passing cargo plane offered his testimony to Vestorian, claiming to have seen "the sky split open" over Doradus, while Phylax writes of the world being "illuminated by the clash of Holy Light and the Flames of the Inferno."

What happens next, despite all scientific efforts to explain it, remains impossible to fully understand: Sentinel, the Baron, and the entire city of Doradus disappeared without a trace, as though erased from existence. Theologians say that EnN, made divine by Primus' will, used the Cyber Caliber, a sword written of in the Covenant, to cut Doradus from the rest of reality, trapping himself and the Baron outside the flow of linear time. No theory has ever been conclusive enough to prove them wrong, though Perceptor himself once argued that the clash of forces may have inadvertently triggered a large-scale transwarp reaction, which displaced the city from time and space. Regardless of how it happened, Doradus, Sentinel EnN, and the Cannibal Baron were removed from the world, never to be seen again--conclusively, at least. Legends say they return to Cybertron every ten thousand vorns, still locked in their deadly battle, but no sightings have since been confirmed. The area that was once Doradus is given a wide birth, undisturbed out of fear and reverence. Where the city once sat is now merely a barren field, a single shrine to Primus marking the sight of the Honored Dead.

Overnight, the course of Cybertronian history changed. The Khaganate, now leaderless, devolved into infighting between the Coruk tribesbots, while the Autobot United Front supported numerous rebellions throughout the region. Once the remaining Coruk warlords were sufficiently weakened by constant revolts and civil wars, the Autobots declared war in earnest, storming the equator alongside their proxies, at last bringing the Neutral States under their rule. The last of the Coruk either dispersed and disappeared across Cybertron, or were hunted down and executed by the vengeful citizens of their former empire. This event marks the beginning of the end of the Interregnum, and the final chapter of Decepticon history before the rise and fall of the Golden Age.

Chapter Text

Marked by the Fall of the Second Triumvirate and the rise of the Autobot United Front, the Interregnum entered its final chapter. With the great empires of Kaon, Polyhex, Corumkan, Helix, and Tarn in ruin, and the remaining Decepticon fiefdoms busy tearing themselves apart, the Autobots were granted a limited opportunity to reorganize themselves. The Autobot United Front, a coalition of city-states formed by Iacon roughly three hundred vorns after the death of Zeta Prime, seized the opportunity and claimed large swaths of territory in the north and Neutral Regions, absorbing much of the old Corukhanate and the remote cities of the Manganese Mountains. The Decepticon states, too wracked by internal conflicts to mount a coherent resistance, were pushed deep into the southern Badlands and eastern steppes, with Polyhex marking the northernmost boundary of Decepticon territory. 

The details of these campaigns are almost entirely lost, with Vestorian's Glossary of Cybertronian City-States acting as the keystone primary source for today's historians. Though heavily corrupted in certain sections, with as many as half its entries lost to time, the Glossary still provides invaluable information on many city-states' histories prior to the Great War, through which a rough idea of the latter stages of the Interregnum can be gleaned. Vestorian, as an Autobot and wealthy northerner from the city of Tyger Pax, had a clear anti-Decepticon bias in his work, and thus the histories of Decepticon city-states were not as comprehensive as those of Autobot states; what's more, his bias leads him to exaggerate and aggrandize certain historical figures at various points. As a result, much of what is known of the AUF's advances comes from the Autobot perspective. 

In the Glossary, Iacon is recorded as having first pursued a strategy of consolidation, using economic interdependence and sheer weight of population to align and integrate adjacent states into the AUF. Next, the High Council extensively pursued intervention in the Manganese to undermine the rising Tarnian Empire, which succeeded in toppling Murdron's regime, as recorded in the previous volume of this series. With the Manganese tamed, the AUF then shifted to projecting power in the Rust Sea, backing the formation of an allied republic on the Hydrax Plateau and funding revolts against the self-proclaimed “Septimus Prime” and his Protihexian Empire, winning the nominal goodwill of the Red Coast states. Then came the occupation of the Neutral Regions when, again, the local power--the Corukhanate--collapsed. Lastly came the subjugation of the Plurex Flats, which is easily the least well-known campaign undertaken by the AUF, summarized by Vestorian as "scattering the bandit chieftains of the Mauradicons to the winds, driving them beyond the hills and mountains." It is at this point that, having secured the northern half of the planet and most Autobot-aligned city-states, the AUF chose to temporarily halt its expansion and integrate its newly conquered territories.

While the exact date of his rise is contested, much of the AUF's campaigns in this period were spearheaded by Sentinel the First, a Major General from the Great Rebellion and founder of the Iaconian Great House Sentinel, from which Sentinel EnN claimed kinship. Since the death of Zeta Prime, the Autobots had lacked a true Prime, with the Matrix of Leadership, light of Primus and symbol of office, having been lost with Zeta to the Sonic Canyons. Eons passed as the Autobots searched for the holy relic, but to no avail, with twelve successive "Matrix Quests" ending in failure, and often the disappearance of the adventurers. It was Sentinel who finally retrieved the Matrix, launching an expedition to the center of Cybertron itself in search of the talisman. While written off as another likely failure by the High Council of Iacon, all of Cybertron was stunned when the party returned, with Sentinel wearing the Matrix around his neck in triumph. The expedition's official report to the Council, written by the vaunted High Priest Trianoch of K'th Kinsere, states that after weeks of battling Insecticons and the planet's internal defenses, Sentinel and his forces reached the chamber of Vector Sigma, defended by the legendary Centurion Guard. It is by no small miracle that the climax of the report's text survives:

"Sentinel strode to meet the Holy Warriors, [the Autobot] insignia in his left hand, the Golden Key in his right. A brilliant radiance shone from the Key, and we shielded our optics, but the Major looked on as every Centurion knelt before him and drew open the Gates to God. There we saw before us our Creator, Vector Sigma, and were blinded by its splendor, as if gazing into the heart of the Sun. As we fell to our knees reciting verses of the Covenant, Sentinel recited the Litany of Humility and placed the Key within the Mother Mainframe. Then Sentinel addressed the Lord Primus: ‘I have come to seek your blessing, O Holy God, to bear Your Gift, the Matrix, and serve as Your instrument in the mortal world. By Your word alone I act, to create everlasting peace for all Your children.' And unto him the Matrix was given, brighter than the strongest spark, and we returned to the surface unaccosted by the Daemons of the Underworld."

It did not take long for the story to reach the public, and soon Sentinel was hailed as the savior of the Autobots, rightful claimant to the Matrix and heir to Primacy. With overwhelming popular support, Sentinel was declared Prime by the High Council and granted control of the Autobot United Front. The exact date for this momentous occasion is, sadly, in dispute--Vestorian claims that it was in 13th Cycle 04, whereas a commemorative plaque in the ruins of Iacon dates Sentinel's rise as occurring a whole twenty two stellar cycles later in 13th Cycle 26. Frustratingly, neither text lists its sources, so there is no way to tell which is true, though this author is inclined to trust the plaque given its greater age compared to the Glossary. Regardless, what is known is that the new Prime acted swiftly, for Sentinel had ambitions to unite Cybertron once and for all under the Autobot banner. Passing a rapid series of reforms, he sought to integrate the soldiers of the United Front’s many city-states into mixed-member formations, each drilled ceaselessly until each unit was capable of acting as a cohesive, cooperative fighting force. It was with this force that plans were devised to resume the Second Great War in earnest, with the Autobot cause rallied behind their new leader, chosen by Primus to bring Cybertron to order.

The Decepticons, for their part, were also attempting to unify for the first time in eons. Sensing an impending Autobot invasion, any warlord with even a hint of clout convened in Polyhex for the 113th Enclave to decide on a course of action. This single event is one of the most legendary and dramatized in Decepticon history, commemorated in solid-light holography by the renowned artist Halaica of Vaporex, and written of with appropriate gravitas in both Autobot and Decepticon chronicles. Arcweld of Destrex, whose epic poem The Parricidium survives to us only in fragments, describes the Enclave as "The Infernal Council in all its awe and arrogance, raised from the thirteen corners of the world like Ankmor Wraiths, living-dead in the shadow of the Warrior Prime's legions." Vestorian, less theatrically though no less accurately, described the assembly as "the greatest single gathering of tyrants outside of Hell." Of the gathered warlords, few are known beyond their names, but if Arcweld's prose is to be taken at face-value, many of the bots convening in Castle Darkmount had reputations that preceded them: Dorsata Secundis, Generalissimo of the Apex Legion; Cannonball I, Master of the Mithril Sea; Killzone, High Chieftain of the Mauradicons; Ether, Baroness of Centurion; Cygar, the Hellhound of Helix. Among these towering figures were innumerable lesser sovereigns, including the eloquent, but hitherto unknown, Lord Devron, who ruled the small mountainous city-state of Teledonia.

The conference lasted nine solar cycles with little headway made towards cooperation, the assembled leaders too distrustful and jealous to work together. Vestorian claims "at least seven brawls, two firefights, and one loosed turbofox" occurred over the course of the proceedings. Tiring of the lack of progress and evermore fearful of usurpation in their absences, the Enclave threatened to disband, and with it, any hope of a Decepticon United Front. It was at this critical juncture that Devron made his move. At the final meeting of the council, the delegates gathered to formally conclude the Enclave, each receiving a glass of energon wine. As per tradition, they made solemn toasts to Gladiaron, to Decepticonism, and to one another, lying through their teeth as they wished their hated rivals good fortune. Then, with a flourish and forced salute to the purple banner, they downed their glasses--and fell retching to the floor. For Devron has anticipated the council's inability to cooperate against the greater threat of Sentinel Prime, and had thus seen fit to poison the wine of the assembled despots and take Polyhex for his own, proclaiming it the capital of his new empire. 

Devron's methods, while grievously taboo in violating the sanctity of the Enclave, were undeniably effective: rallying his small but well-disciplined army of Teledonians, who had taken up positions outside the city in secret, he quickly overran Polyhex and was crowned Emperor in Castle Darkmount within the solar cycle. The details of his subsequent conquest of the southern hemisphere are frustratingly lost, only mentioned in passing by Vestorian, and absent entirely from the remaining portions of Arcweld's work. All that is known is that, within a scant three stellar cycle, Devron had seized control of the other Decepticon provinces and, after a period of suppressing revolts and eliminating rivals, claimed full control over the Decepticon faction and its holdings. The apparent speed with which he seized control of half the planet is one of the great mysteries of the Late Interregnum, bemoaned by military strategists across the eons who have yearned to study Devron's campaigns. While modern historians can only speculate, the general apathy most civilians experienced during the Interregnum may partially explain the relative ease of Devron's takeover. Few rulers could command the genuine loyalty of their citizens, and the prospect of a united south, free from the endless wars and raids that had for millennia terrorized the masses, may have proves enticing for a majority of southerners.

Even with these factors in mind, however, Devron's conquest and consolidation of the south did not occur overnight, providing Sentinel Prime and the Autobots with a golden window of opportunity to strike the disoriented Decepticon states. Why, then, did they not? As always, sources are limited, but Iaconian records indicate that economic disputes between Autobot city-states was a primary cause for the delay. As Prime, Sentinel was in charge of the Autobots' military forces, but the funding for his armies was provided by the various city-states within the United Front. Balance sheets pulled from the ruins of Fort Scyk, Sentinel's chosen nerve center, plainly show that the coalition's finances were not in order: half the United Front's member states had failed to deliver the shanix they had promised, while the other half resented having to make up the difference. In a transcription of the Iaconian Senate's 16th Cycle 113 budgetary meeting, Senator Highrise is recorded lambasting, "The heightened taxes placed on honest Iaconians to cover the debts of second-rate states under our protection. If they don't want to pay their share, let them take their chances with the Decepticons." Ambassador Fallout of Altihex, who was observing the proceedings, cordially replied by telling the Senator to "Take [his] first-rate opinions and jump off Sherma Bridge with them," before the transcription ends. It is reasonable to infer that these monetary disputes within the AUF left Sentinel Prime unable to properly equip, or even pay, his massive army, forcing him to watch as Devron brought the south to heel.

By 16th Cycle 129, Devron's revitalized Decepticon Empire was secured, at which point he began working tirelessly to prepare for total war with the Autobots. It was he who popularized the practice of drone manufacturing and single body-types for his soldiers, using the uniformity to encourage a sense of camaraderie and discipline within the ranks, while the drones provided force of numbers with which to overwhelm the numerically-superior Autobots. Like Sentinel, however, Devron was faced with the challenge of properly supplying his armies; unlike Sentinel, Devron did not treat with local governments, and simply nationalized industries that would not agree to cooperate with him, famously executing one Polyhexian corporate magnate for daring to suggest the Emperor offer him a bribe. Like with statecraft, this direct approach forced Devron to put down a number of corporate-backed schemes to depose him, but in time, he succeeded in economically mobilizing the southern economies, pumping out drones and materials at a rate that made the Autobots fear what a fully mobilized Decepticon Empire would look like.

Sentinel, however, was done waiting: always military minded and out of patience with politics, he began a preemptive invasion of the southern hemisphere, marching on Polyhex itself in a lightning strike to shatter Devron's regime. When the Autobots reached the gates, however, they were greeted by the cornerstone of Devron's new army, the ASD-324-ddd-3e3c1 model Decepticon (known colloquially by Autobots as "Hellhorns" for their spiked appearance). Their sparks placed into a singular, thickly-armored frame, soldiers of this body-type were a disciplined fighting force wielding heavy weapons and photon rifles, the picture of a modern, well-trained military. The invading Autobots, having grown arrogant fighting the tribals, mercenaries, and petty warlords of the Interregnum, were caught completely off-guard by the organization of Devron's troops, and suffered heavy casualties. Sentinel's forces were ultimately forced to break off their assault and retreat to Bitrex, while Devron launched an offensive of his own in the Neutral Regions, quickly pushing as far north as Rodion.

Having now suffered two grievous defeats and initiated a losing war, Sentinel Prime faced strong condemnation for his unauthorized use of United Front forces. While legally protected by his status as Prime, Sentinel’s reputation suffered a considerable blow, and some city-states, such as Nova Cronum, threatened to withdraw from the coalition entirely, in open defiance of the Primacy. To his credit, however, Sentinel did not back down, stating in a historic address to the United Front Council that his attacks, while unsanctioned, proved his concerns about Devron's war preparations correct. Furthermore, he argued that it was the apathy and infighting of the Council that had led to defeat, having provided Devron with the time he needed to consolidate and modernize his forces. Most audaciously of all, Sentinel demanded that the Council grant him full authority to conduct the war, including control of troops, funds, and war production, citing the need for a strong Prime to lead the Autobots to victory, harkening back to the Great Rebellion which, he reminded the Council, he personally had fought in. "I did not dedicate my life to the destruction of Quintesson tyranny merely to replace it with Devron's--give me fifteen legions and a full treasury, and I will win this war." The text of Sentinel's Address to the Coalition Council has miraculously survived in full, and is a genuine oratorical masterpiece; the full speech can be publicly accessed through the Cybertron Archives in Cybertropolis.

Moved to action, the Council granted Sentinel near-total authority over the prosecution of the war. Even without the barriers of bureaucracy, however, the Autobots' situation was growing more dire by the day, with Devron's forces steadily advancing on all fronts. For all their valor, the average Autobot soldier simply wasn't equipped for combat like the Decepticons: their plating was thinner, forms more lithe and agile compared to the enemy's heavily armed and armored infantry. While retaining the advantage in numbers and mobility, Sentinel's forces could not match the Decepticons in open combat, and struggled to even ward off the mass drone attacks meant to soften their lines before an offensive. Recognizing the need for time to systematically reorganize the United Front's forces, Sentinel ordered his legions to withdraw to the defensible terrains of the Tagan Heights, Manganese Mountains, and northern Red Coast, using the Rust and Mithril Seas as natural barriers between his and Devron’s forces. This move, while strategically sound, worsened the already-low morale of the Autobot citizenry, and saturated the northern states with a torrent of refugees fleeing the enemy advance. When Devron's forces broke through the Thunderhead Pass, many assumed the war was lost entirely; though an Autobot counterattack miraculously managed to surround and capture the invading force, the breakthrough inspired mass fear and defeatism, even among the Coalition Council.

It was at this point, however, that the winds of history shifted yet again. While giving a speech before over twenty thousand soldiers in Helix, Devron, the Great Restorer of the Decepticon Empire, was assassinated by a duo of Autobot partisans, veterans of the Great Rebellion who history would remember as the legendary Obsidian and Strika. This author had the pleasure of interviewing the two directly, the full text of which has been published in my Voices of the Past anthology. When questioned how precisely he and Strika succeeded in assassinating Devron, Obsidian said, quote, 

"Even in those ancient days, Cybertron had a vast network of tunnels running beneath its surface, holdovers of the Quintesson occupation. Anyone clever and brave enough to map the dilapidated metro tunnels, sewers, and dry energon veins could travel wherever they wished. Devron had neglected to post guards beneath Helix--we neglected to warn him of the photon charges beneath his podium." 

This unexpected victory provided a desperately-needed morale boost for the Autobots, and inspired Sentinel Prime to pursue a doctrine of asymmetrical warfare highly similar to the tactics of the Great Rebellion. Small guerilla forces, using the subterranean tunnels mapped by explorers like Obsidian and Strika, would cross behind enemy lines to disrupt supply convoys, ambush troop columns, assassinate officers, and bomb vital war infrastructure. 

The Decepticons, meanwhile, were plunged into yet another succession crisis, and were forced to halt their seemingly inexorable march towards Iacon. Devron, in traditional Decepticon fashion, had failed to appoint a successor, leaving it to his generals to hash out who would become the next Emperor. In older times, an Enclave may have been convened to resolve the issue, but Devron's own actions had literally and metaphorically poisoned the tradition, leading to a brief resumption of the Interregnum within Decepticon lands. Mercifully for the south, however, the empire was reunified within three stellar cycles under the command of Trannis, a little known general from the Tagan Heights theatre who had captured the wealthy city of Tyrest. Using the looted treasure of the city as a sweetener, he managed to sway the majority of High Command with bribes, promotions, and promises of land and status for those who backed his claim to the throne. Before Trannis could resume the war in earnest, however, the new Emperor had to quash a handful of holdout generals, energon riots in the Badlands, and ever-present Autobot partisans, giving Sentinel Prime a temporary respite to devise new strategies for tipping the balance of the war.

While Trannis had been consolidating his empire, Sentinel had not been idle, and used the lull in fighting to strengthen his defenses. Key positions along the front were reinforced, weary veterans were rotated out for fresh troops, and industrial production was shifted fully towards a war economy. These actions, however, were merely the first of larger reforms; recognizing the superiority of Decepticon infantry, on account of their heavy armor and firepower, Sentinel began his "Prime Initiative," a program dedicated to upgrading volunteer soldiers into stronger, larger bodyframes. Under the direction of Alpha Trion, who had fought alongside Sentinel during the Great Rebellion, special "heavy trooper" units were constructed and sent to reinforce the weakest sections of the front, providing much-needed firepower capable of turning back Decepticon incursions in direct combat. 

The greatest boons for the Autobots, however, would be discovered by pure chance in the unlikeliest of places: the ancient Quintesson capital of Hive City, which had lain silent since the days of the Great Rebellion. Considered taboo by most Cybertronians, only criminals, outcasts, and ghosts inhabited the ruins, lurking in the shadows of once-great megafactories and slave pens. That was, until a research expedition led by the archaeologist Lancer ventured into the Forbidden City--they would return with two discoveries that could tip the war in the Autobots' favor for good.

The first was a cache of blueprints and design documents found within the administrative quarters of one of the larger factory complexes. While the schematics of ancient Cybertronian bodyframes were exciting enough discoveries for the archaeologists, of particular interest was a section of the documents detailing a portion of Cybertronian physiology unfamiliar to the research team. The 'organ' on the documents was a small, circular device, with a label reading "Transformation Cog” in Old Quintesson. Though not much was said about its purpose in the files, there was a paragraph or so of text vaguely mentioning plans to "revolutionize product efficiency with this new and innovative concept." When sent back to Iacon for further study, Minister of Science Proxima, founder of Proximax and one of the most brilliant bots of her day, immediately recognized the cog from an autopsical study conducted by the Academy of Science and Technology, which had found that roughly one-in-thirty Quintesson-constructed Cybertronians possessed a t-cog. The purpose of the cog had, until then, not been properly understood, and it was theorized to be some sort of antiquated design feature leftover during production; now equipped with detailed schematics of the machine, however, Proxima insisted on examining a preserved t-cog from the Academy's laboratory. 

What she learned changed Cybertron forever: when exposed to the proper stimuli, the transformation cog opened and reformed itself, completely converting from one form to another. When tested with the cog placed inside herself (Proxima was notorious for her self-experimentation), her entire body transformed, with successive trials finding that frames with cogs could transform from humanoid robots to all manner of forms, from vehicles, to weaponry, to scientific instruments. In the modern day, we can safely reason that the Quintessons, always looking to increase production efficiency and corner new markets, had intended to mass produce t-cogs shortly before the Great Rebellion. Before they could implement this plan, however, the Rebellion began and the Quintessons were forced off-world, making bots equipped with t-cogs relatively rare, and its purpose unknown until Proxima's breakthrough. While we in the present era can't imagine life without transforming, this discovery was revolutionary in its day, quite literally transforming Cybertronian history. Once word of the cog's purpose reached Sentinel Prime and the military, they immediately set about weaponizing it, formulating new stratagems based solely around transformation, and reverse engineering copies of the organ to be installed en masse within volunteers.

The t-cog was not, however, the only miracle retrieved from Hive City, with the second being considerably more militant in nature. When the Quintessons evacuated Cybertron, they left behind much of their heavy weaponry, including the titanic Dark Guardian robots, building-sized warriors which they used to rule the planet in ages past. Each capable of leveling an entire legion, the Guardians were only defeated when Alpha Trion, known during the Rebellion as A-3, used the Coder Remote in the Battle of Hive City, deactivating the giants where they stood. They were left inert, and remained so until Lancer's expedition discovered their hulking forms, standing as silent monoliths in the ruins–silent, but still operational . Sentinel Prime, enraptured with the idea of possessing such fearsome warriors, sent numerous engineer teams to try and reactivate the dormant guardians, an endeavor that, while possible, would take time to accomplish. Alpha Trion, for his part, had purposefully withheld knowledge of the Dark Guardians so as to prevent their reawakening; when confronted with Sentinel's plan to turn them on the Decepticons, the great sage was appalled, leading to his resignation from the Prime Initiative and self-imposed exile. While he had intended to prevent the reactivation of the Guardians with the Coder Remote, Sentinel privately tasked Proxima with overriding its control, a confession she allegedly shared with her protege, the legendary physician Ratchet, shortly before her death in the Protihex University Bombings. 

As the Autobots worked rapidly to reverse engineer the technologies of Hive City, Trannis was preparing to resume the war in earnest. Marshaling his forces for an assault on Rodion, he was shocked to find that the Autobots, who once fled at the sight of Hellhorns rushing their lines, now stood firm, defending every position with newfound tenacity. Trannis' infantry, the pride the Decepticon war machine, was matched on the field by Autobot heavy troopers, capable for the first time of going toe-to-toe with their opponents. In a blunder mirroring Sentinel's aborted march on Polyhex, Trannis and his forces were repelled from Rodion and driven south into the Neutral Territories, harassed all the while by Autobot partisans. No matter how hard the Decepticons cracked down on occupied territory, they seemed incapable of destroying the insurgency behind their lines; the further they were from their seats of power in the south, the more vulnerable they became to attacks from the shadows. Obsidian and Strika, those famed Autobot heroes who killed Devron, had become the de facto leaders of the guerilla movement, and proved masters in the art of asymmetrical warfare.

These attacks were only made worse, however, when the Decepticons were ambushed by their own vehicles; against all reason and understanding, the Autobots had become shapeshifters. In a few seconds, an ordinary laser-cycle could become an Autobot warrior, stoking fears among the Decepticons that every machine--every troop transport, tank, and jet--was a robot in disguise. Where once partisans could at least be identified as a humanoid, now anything could be a saboteur or assassin. The soldiers, as soldiers are wont to do, grew superstitious, questioning if their guns, their buildings, their own comrades could be next. The Autobots, for their part, embraced the panic and uncertainty within the enemy ranks, fueling the fires with planted rumors and the occasional high-profile assassination. Though many traditional warriors may have considered them dishonorable, none could say the Autobots were fools, and the Decepticons soon learned to fear the possibility of anything, anything at all, transforming into an adversary.

Trannis could do nothing to stop the panic and confusion spreading throughout his army, his soldiers disorganized and petrified by fear of Autobot guerillas. His logistics, hampered at every step of the way by partisans, left forces at the front chronically undersupplied, allowing Autobot heavy units to punch through in several sectors. Try as he might to counterattack or retreat to more defensible positions, the Autobots simply outmaneuvered his forces, with fast transforming fighters rushing to surround the enemy. Whole battalions were cut off and destroyed, with the most disastrous defeat occurring at Ambustus Minor, where an entire division, twenty thousand strong, was encircled and forced to surrender. With the front collapsing, Trannis reluctantly ordered his forces to withdraw from all occupied territory and retreat to the pre-war border, which Devron had fortified in anticipation of an Autobot assault, while the capital was moved to Kaon. These decisions, though considered cowardly by many a future Decepticon, were ultimately sound, buying Trannis time to retrench along a better-protected front. No longer would Autobot partisans dominate the landscape, not in the south, where Decepticon ideology was strongest. Their supply lines would be shortened and safer, allowing for a cohesive defense that would force the Autobots to bleed themselves dry, until Trannis could reverse engineer the Autobots' secret technology and push north once again. It was a plan that, under normal circumstances, might've secured a Decepticon victory, or at least, a return to the pre-war status quo--until Sentinel played his trump card. 

The project to restore the Dark Guardians, codenamed Operation: Omega Sentinel, had finally borne fruit--Proxima and the Ministry of Science had succeeded in bypassing the Coder Remote, nullifying Alpha Trion's lock on the Guardians. For the first time in eons, Hive City shook with the rumbling of titanic footsteps, each warrior equipped with enough firepower to level a mountain. Obsidian and Strika were there to witness the occasion, with the latter saying, quote, "I had never seen anything like it. We had heard stories of the Guardians during the Rebellion, but to see them with my own optics, each as tall as Pion's Tower, steps thundering for a thousand kliks...I knew in my spark the war was soon to be over. Nothing could ever hope to stand against those monsters."

Sentinel, eager to avenge his defeat, chose Polyhex as the Guardians' first target. Our primary source for the battle comes from Vestorian's Glossary, which heavily dramatizes the event based on a lost account by Gasket, one of the city garrison's few survivors.

"The Fall of Polyhex, that city of the damned, came on a dim dawn under an overcast sky, pink clouds marking the beginnings of an acid storm from the Sea of Rust. The Decepticon garrison was unnerved: they had been expecting an Autobot assault for over a fortnight, but none had come, and no scouts sent to investigate had returned. Agonizing silence reigned as the cycles passed until, from the mountains, a rumbling as if from an avalanche. Suspecting a bombing raid, the warriors scrambled to their defenses, doubtless relieved for the moment of battle to have come. Their resolve soon gave way to confusion--there were no explosions, no Autobot sorties raining death over the skyline. But the steel beneath their servos did not stop shaking, and the deafening noise grew louder, louder, and louder still. By the time cold realization dawned, it was too late. Nothing could have prepared them for the inevitable, nor when the first sentry shouted from the walls 'Look! To the north!' Seized with panic, soldiers and civilians alike scanned the horizon, just as the towering silhouettes of giants with monstrous claws and pitiless optics emerged from the rust-red fog. On that day, the Decepticons received a grim reminder of the terror their ancestors once felt, cowering in the shadows of certain death.

Before Polyhex had stopped burning, reports came flooding into Kaon of "wrathful gods" coming to punish the Decepticons for their crimes. The oldest soldiers, veterans of the Rebellion, recognized the Dark Guardians for what they were, and gave their solemn warning to Trannis: surrender or watch Kaon burn. Paralyzed with fear and indecision, Trannis could do nothing as the frontline crumbled, the death throes of his soldiers echoing through the audiogrid of Fortress Kolkular. By the time he came to his senses, it was already too late to try and salvage the situation: the Autobots had advanced deep into Decepticon territory, Omega Sentinels leading the charge, all heading to a single point--Kaon.

The war ended in various short order. The Decepticons were utterly broken, and the few who weren't were too insignificant to pose a real threat. City after city fell to United Front forces, with Sentinel Prime himself leading the 1st Iaconian Legion into Kaon. In order to ensure 'cooperation' with their occupiers, Decepticon cities were each staffed by an Omega Sentinel, which the Autobots soon rebranded as "Guardian Robots" once the war came to an end. Trannis attempted to flee the capital once Sentinel's forces broke the perimeter, but was hunted down by the Prime himself and bested in single combat. He was imprisoned, taken north to Iacon for trial, and executed by firing squad before the Autobot High Council.

With the capture of Kaon and the southern city-states, the Decepticon faction was left without any territory to call its own, and, like in the Interregnum, devolved into a radical ideology adopted by several petty militant groups scattered across the deep south. The Autobots were naturally euphoric--at last, the whole of Cybertron was again united under their rule. In a grand inaugural address in Iacon, Sentinel publicly relinquished the emergency powers granted to him by the United Front Council, and declared the formation of a New Cybertronian Senate to represent the planet's city-states, with the Primacy retaining control of the military to "ensure everlasting peace and prosperity--a new Golden Age for all Cybertronians." Under the new regime, Decepticonism was swiftly outlawed, but remained alive in the sparks and minds of disgruntled southerners, who detested the foreign-forged Autobot governors installed to "rehabilitate" the south, with little oversight from Sentinel or the Senate. Too often, governors subjected their territories to unreasonably high production quotas and steep taxes under the guise of "reparations" for the damage caused by the war; precious little of these funds went towards repairing the shattered infrastructure of the Badlands, leading to centuries of economic stagnation. For most southerners, Sentinel's "Golden Age" was an eon of humiliation, not prosperity. It is no coincidence that functionist bigotry gained some traction among the Autobots presiding over southern lands, which the Senate--dominated as it was by Iaconians and their vassals--was content to overlook.

It is perhaps no wonder then that, as Trannis' and Sentinel's generation grew old, a new wave of political dissidents gravitated towards the ideals of Decepticonism, and longed for the mighty, unified empire preached by Gladiaron in ages past. Even in the remote northern city-states of Tarn and Vos, these ideas gained traction, their rival peoples for once unified in their discontent of paying tribute to Iacon. In the waning years of the Golden Age, Sentinel and the Senate would grow complacent in their roles, and paid no mind when these new dissidents began to take more overt action in Kaon and the Badlands. The Guardian Robots, they reasoned, could quell any revolts. It wasn't until a young, powerful robot emerged from the depths of Tarn did they learn just how wrong they were...

Chapter Text

As many have pointed out to me, some more rudely than others, the sources used for this chronicle are lacking in many places, and large portions of the text rely on inference or more fantastical accounts to continue the historical narrative. Though some may consider it the fault of poor researching and sensational storytelling, the fact of the matter is that our homeworld has been wracked by war for most of its long, long history, and as a result, highly detailed, accurate references are scarce for those of us trying to shed light on an ancient past. The Decepticons, in particular, have traditionally disregarded written history save for its value as propaganda, and there is virtually no information about their various leaders uncolored by highly biased accounts, be they from the Decepticons themselves or their Autobot foes.

With these limitations ever-present in my mainframe, I have poured exhaustive amounts of effort into finding and properly researching the records that we do have, using archaeology, mythology, and careful deduction to fill in what gaps remain. The extreme difficulties of this process cannot be understated–the destruction of the Hall of Records and Autobot Storage Asteroid, followed by suppression and purging of historical texts under the Maximal Elders, obliterated most of what precious pre-Great War sources remained to us. What is left comes from salvaged databases, oral histories, the works of other contemporary historians, archaeological evidence from before the Great Transformation, a scant few surviving contemporary publications, and an ever-shrinking number of eye-witness accounts. With such sources forming the backbone of modern historical research, it is no wonder that any text on subjects dating as far back as eleven million years will be riddled with dubious claims and contradictory evidence.

The formation of the Decepticon faction by Gladiaron, for example, is recounted only by pro-Decepticon propaganda material, oral storytelling, and Autobot smear campaigns. Similarly, Gladiaron's death is simultaneously attributed to both an Autobot sniper and the First Triumvirate, with not even the Decepticons sure of which story to believe. Decepticon records of Devron’s rise to power, meanwhile, are all but nonexistent save for a museum description of Halaica’s ‘The 113th Enclave,’ his legacy all but destroyed in historical purges by Trannis and Megatron during their attempts to aggrandize themselves. According to Autobot propaganda, meanwhile, Devron was, alternatively, a spark-eater; an advanced Insecticon capable of speech; a Daemon of the Pit. Even the most reputable surviving sources, such as Vestorian's Glossary, are less than charitable in their depictions of the Great Uniter.

By far the most controversial portion of my writings, however, has been the duel between Sentinel EnN and the Cannibal Baron, a battle so dramatized by Autobots and Decepticons alike that, were it not for the testimonies of a few surviving Coruk tribesbots during the Golden Age and EnN's fellow house member, Sentinel Prime, the entire battle may have been discounted as mere myth. All that is known for certain is that great lights were seen in the night sky, and that the entire city of Doradus disappeared. The rest is brought to us by dubious first-hand accounts from a passing cargo plane, Autobot and Coruk storytelling, and Primal Orthodox religious texts.

It is events like these that blur the lines between history and legend, and cause so much anguish for historians like myself. But, in spite of these limitations, I have used the sources available to me to construct as accurate and captivating a narrative as possible. Furthermore, I would invite the reader to reflect on our more recent history: it was not long ago that the entire Multiverse was torn asunder by great holy wars between Primus and Unicron, or that our world was transformed into a technorganic paradise in a single day. As our own lifetimes have shown, anything can happen in this vast, wild universe; it is pure folly to discredit every tale simply because it is tall.