Unicron War

TheUnicron Warrefers toUnicron's attack uponCybertronand his efforts to destroyPrimus.Unicron's threat is successfully repelled by a joint effort between theAutobotsand theDecepticons(but mostly theMatrix of Leadership).

Fiction

Generation 1 cartoon continuity

The Transformerscartoon

The Unicron War spun directly out of the events of theBattle of Autobot City.The planet-eaterUnicronwas first drawn to the Transformers onEarthandCybertronwhen the dyingOptimus Primebequeathed theAutobotMatrix of LeadershiptoUltra Magnus.Unicron recognized the Matrix as the only thing capable of eliminating him and so, seeking a means to destroy it, began what would be known as the "Unicron War".

Following the Battle of Autobot City,DecepticonleaderMegatronand several of his injured subordinates were thrown out ofAstrotrainand set adrift in outer space. Unicron sought to use these discarded Decepticons as his servants. Upgrading Megatron intoGalvatronand the other Decepticons intoCyclonus,Scourge,and theSweeps,he charged them with the mission of destroying the Matrix.

After a brief trip to Cybertron to reassert his authority as leader of the Decepticons, Galvatron then led his forces back toAutobot Cityon Earth. Now under the command of Unicron, Galvatron's single goal was to destroy Ultra Magnus and the Matrix within him. When Ultra Magnus and several other Autobots fled in shuttles, Galvatron and the Decepticons gave chase, shooting one shuttle down on the planetQuintessa,and seemingly destroying the shuttle piloted by Ultra Magnus. Galvatron, thinking his mission a success, returned to Unicron.

It was a ruse, however, and Ultra Magnus and his Autobots had escaped to the Planet ofJunk.Informing Galvatron of his failure, Unicron dispatched his servants to Junk to finish the job. Galvatron was more successful on his second attempt, blowing Ultra Magnus to pieces and stealing the Matrix for himself.

Galvatron, desiring freedom from Unicron, attempted to wield the Matrix against his master. Unfortunately, he was not capable of opening the device and was promptly eaten. Enraged by his servant's behavior, Unicron transformed torobot modeand swore to destroy all of Cybertron in retaliation.Shockwavequickly ordered all Decepticons to engage in a counterattack on their foe, though their firepower proved ineffective.

The Autobots, both those who had been stranded on Quintessa and on Junk, arrived to aid in defending Cybertron, joining forces with the Decepticons in battle. Several Autobots invaded Unicron by flying their ship through his eye, though were met by his inner defenses. The AutobotHot Rodbecame separated from his teammates and ran afoul of Galvatron (still carrying the Matrix). Galvatron initially asked for Hot Rod's aid in destroying their common foe, but still under Unicron's control, was forced to fight his would-be-comrade, instead.

The battle continued until Hot Rod removed the Matrix from Galvatron's possession, transforming himself into Rodimus Prime. Throwing Galvatron into deep space, Rodimus Prime then opened the Matrix, causing a devastating chain reaction within Unicron's body. Rodimus and the other Autobots escaped just as Unicron's body exploded, with only his head left to sightlessly orbit Cybertron.The Transformers: The Movie

Following the end of the Unicron War, the Decepticons, who had previously been in control of Cybertron, were driven from the planet by the Autobots. The Decepticons would eventually seek asylum on planetChaar.Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1

Galvatron would eventually crash-land into a plasma pit on the planetThrull.Five Faces of Darkness, Part 2

Unicron's head would continue to orbit Cybertron for many years, causing various sorts of trouble.Ghost in the MachineGrimlock's New Brain

Beast Wars Neocartoon

The energy released by his destruction would be known asAngolmois Energy.It would eventually be used to resurrect the planet-eater, who would make a second attempt to destroy Cybertron many hundreds of years later.Unicron Revived!?

Marvel Comics continuity

MarvelThe Transformerscomics

AfterPrimushad inadvertently been awakened, Unicron became aware of his brother's location and set course to finish their duel.The Primal ScreamThe Transformers scrambled to find the lostCreation Matrixto destroy the Chaos Bringer,Bird of Prey!A group of Autobots tracked down the talisman to the moon ofVsQswhere they found that the Matrix had developed sentience without a host and encounters with alien lifeforms had turned it evil. As such, the Matrix latched ontoThunderwing,Dark Creationforcing the Autobots to send it adrift once again leaving them with no defence against the coming of Unicron.All Fall Down

A temporally displacedGalvatronknew however that Unicron could also be felled if all Transformers were united as one and convinced Primus to recall all his creations back home.Out of Time!After the Transformers had dealt with theAcolyte of Unicrons,Unicron himself arrived.The Void

The sheer size of the Chaos Bringer threw the Transformers into a panicked frenzy requiring Galvatron to mount a lone attack to rally his people into battle. In spite of this unity, Unicron still murdered millions of Transformers, even banishing Primus from the physical plane, before the corrupted Matrix returned and attempted to destroy Unicron. Bereft of its virtuous nature however, it was no threat to the Chaos Bringer who swatted it aside with ease.

After that, Unicron decided to simply devour Cybertron in planetary mode beforeG.B. Blackrockmanaged to rallyCircuit Breakerinto unleashing her full power on the Chaos Bringer temporarily stunning him. This boughtOptimus Primethe time he needed to purify the Matrix and open it within Unicron destroying the dark god.On the Edge of Extinction!

Though Unicron was vanquished, it had seemed he was ultimately victorious as Cybertron threatened to tear itself apart in a series of planetary quakes.Still Life!It was later revealed however that the Matrix had sacrificed itself to destroy Unicron and had released a wave of healing energy onto Cybertron, the quakes being a side-effect that were eventually quelled by theLast Autobot,a contingency Primus had placed in the event he was banished during Unicron's attack.End of the Road!

Classics

In2012when facing off against hisnegative polarity counterpart,Octopunchboasted that he had survived the Unicron War.Invasion

Regeneration One

Though he was resurrected after destroying Unicron, Optimus Prime carried lingering trauma from the Unicron War. Even twenty-one years later, he was still haunted by visions of the Chaos Bringer returning.Loose Ends, Part 1This trauma snowballed into an aggressive form of pacifism with Optimus adamantly refusing to believe the Decepticons were returning, confident that the Unicron War had been the end of theGreat War.Counterpoint

Ask Vector Prime

In a hybrid universe created by the machinations ofSidewaysandGong,the Unicron War incorporated theGoBots.After a few quantum destabilizations—first pitting the Autobots against theRenegades,and later the Decepticons against theGuardians—the reality coalesced into an amalgamated universe that incorporated both GoBots and Transformers. In this strange timeline,Leader-1perished at the hands of Megatron, passing the Guardian Matrix of Leadership on toMajor Mo.Unicron reformatted Megatron into Galvatron to seize the Matrix, withFractureandDeadliftin place of Cyclonus and Scourge.

Kup, Hot Rod, and the Dinobots crashed onAntares III,where they battledMaster Renegadeand hisMonster GoBots,while Springer, Arcee, and Major Mo encountered and allied with theRock LordsonQuartex.

During Unicron's final assault on Cybertron,Vector Primemanaged to intervene from behind the scenes. The two universes were set back on their correct courses, allowing Hot Rod to open theAutobotMatrix of Leadership and save the day.Echoes and Fragments

InPrimax 490.0 Gamma,Unicron managed to destroy Cybertron. This act caused the essence of Primus to be diffused among the remaining Cybertronians, turning the once amoralCybertronian Empireinto a force for good. When Unicron re-emerged and began attacking the cyberformed planets in the Empire,Jhiaxusunited the surviving Autobots and Decepticons. The united Cybertronians fought valiantly against Unicron, and evenLiege Maximosacrificed himself to permanently expel Unicron from this reality. In the aftermath, the Cybertronian Empire and the Confederation of Terran Worlds became steadfast allies.Ask Vector Prime, 24/06/2015

Beast Wars: Uprising

Unicron attacked Cybertron during the height of the Great War. Autobots, Decepticons, and evenNeutralscame together to defeat the Chaos Bringer but thousands upon thousands of them perished under his heel. With the Matrix lost to the Cybertronians, Unicron was brought down through the actions of aselect few.The scientistDelugetook note of this fact and endeavoured to create additional Point One Percenters in the future. Peace reigned for a time following the Chaos Bringer's destruction before the war inevitably restarted, more violent than ever.

By the 24th century,information creephad caused memories of the attack to become distorted, some doubting Unicron had ever even existed.The Inexorable March

2005 IDW continuity

Many sects of Cybertronian religion spoke of Unicron, the uncreator, the diametric opposite toPrimus,with both acting as a natural counterbalance for the other. In these stories, Primus, either alone or with help from theTitans,banished his foe and brought life to Cybertron. One version of the story, however, predicted that the Chaos Bringer would return one day but thatthe Arisenwould lead Cybertron's defence and slay the monster, bringing peace to the universe.You, Me, and Other RevelationsAll Good ThingsOrigin MythsLast Stand

This dreaded prophecy was fated, however, to become far more than a mere story. In the year2013,the DecepticonShockwaveattempted to enact theDark Cybertronprophecy but lost control of hischronal drive,...And the Damage Donesending him hurtling back to Cybertron's prehistory, after theKnights of Cybertronhad left the planet. After years of aimlessly wandering the wilderness, Shockwave chanced across a shepherd namedOnyxwhom he slew before appropriating his identity. As "Onyx Prime", Shockwave manipulated events to bring together the legendaryThirteenPrimes together before pushing their leader,Prima,to enact a galactic expansion he dubbed the "Pax Cybertronia."Inspired, Prima commissioned a mighty fleet, led by theTitanNemesis,to conquer the neighbouring world ofAntilla.Though theAntillansfought back against the invaders, they failed to match the might of theTransformers,bringing them to the brink of extinction.One Antillan,despondent at the death of his daughter, createda machinethat sterilized the blighted world before refashioning it into an ultimate weapon of retribution against the Cybertronian race. Returning to Antilla years later, Shockwave discovered the dormant superweapon and conspired to use it as part of his goals to ensure a perpetual Cybertronian hegemony.The First Who Was NamedOur FinestRoad's End

In2017,thePrysmosiansorcererMerklynnwould unwittingly activate Unicron during his creation ofNew Prysmoswithin Cybertron's underground.First Strike #6When the Cybertronians clashed with the Prymosian squatters, the Talisman sent out another summons to its creation, dubbing the monster planet "Unicron" after the Cybertronian legend. As its first act, Unicron assimilated theblack holeit had once orbited so as to exploit its quantum tunnels as a power source.The CurtainOur DarkestUnstopped and UnstoppableAssemblyHistoria

Though Shockwave intended that Unicron devour all of theCybertronian colonies,growing stronger by the assimilation of theRegenesisores seeded on those worlds, before ultimately consuming Cybertron, itsmagic-taintedenergonkilling the weapon from within,Last StandUnicron was driven by the spirit of the Antillan that had created it, and was thus guided by a vengeance that Shockwave had not anticipated for.Ceremony

The opening week of the "depressingly asymmetrical" war saw Unicron consume the vast majority of the Regenesis worlds before it was joined by theMaximals,the betrayed servants of Shockwave, as it consumedDevisiun.Unstopped and UnstoppableWith this army acting as its heralds, Unicron attackedCaminus,having the Maximals attack theAutobot fleet,ultimately consuming the planet.Last StandUnicron's position was tracked down by theDecepticon Vengeance Division,an impromptuDecepticon fleet,whomStarscreamordered to destroy Unicron atG Nebula 89.Though the fleet possessed enough firepower to destroy dozens of planets,Bludgeonbetrayed them to Unicron, who warped them viaOre-11,into its new heralds for its attack on Cybertron.Stranger Eons

When Unicron arrived at Cybertron, now having gained arobot mode,it physically tore into the planet,Our Finestbefore the magic of theSpectral Knightsteleported the populace to safety. With no opposition remaining, Unicron ripped the empty globe in two, effectively destroying Cybertron. Though Shockwave had intended for this to be the end of conflict, the teleportation wave had brought the Talisman to Earth, leaving Unicron free to follow the Transformers there.Road's End

Unicron was soon assaulted by the combined forces of Cybertron, Earth, andEloniawhileOptimus PrimeandArceefought their way to the monster's core via a path cleared by the Talisman. At the core, Optimus followed the Talisman into the black hole, emerging ininfraspacewhere he was confronted by the spectre of Unicron's creator. Though the two initially came to blows, Optimus was able to convince the ancient scientist to abandon his vendetta, causing Unicron to collapse in on itself and ending the battle.Ceremony

Notes

• In Japan, the term "Unicron War" was coined by the writers of theTransformers 2010story pages(most likely byMasumi Kaneda) as a means to describe the events ofThe Transformers: The Movie,which would not be released in Japan until 1989. With the events of the Unicron War being referred to extensively but neverseen,it gained a mysterious and almost legendary quality, both among the characters in the series and the audience observing the fiction. The term was also used in multiple episodes of theTransformers 2010dub, often by the narrator at the start of episodes like "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 2"and inSecret Files of Teletraan IIsegments, and is still used in Japanese fiction to refer to the conflict to this day.

Foreign names

• Japanese:Unicron Sensō(ユニクロン chiến tranh, "Unicron War" )