Great War (G1)

The Great War is a historical event that is a prominent feature of the Generation 1 continuity family.

In the Great War (sometimes also known as the Third Cybertronian War), Autobots wage their battles to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons.

Fiction

Marvel The Transformers comics

The Great War came after a long period of tension between city-states and energy shortage, and a devastating war that wiped out Vos and Tarn. Iacon had deliberately left its rivals to burn and the last Overlord had died in the ruins, allowing Megatron (who had let the Overlord die) to form an army, the Decepticons, from the disgruntled Vos/Tarn survivors. State Games They were ignored as cranks. Legion of the Lost!

After eons of planning, plotting, and building up strength, Megatron and the Decepticons finally attacked, setting off global conflict of staggering proportions. The Decepticon plan was to conquer the world and turn it into a mobile "cosmic dreadnought" that would conquer the galaxy! The Transformers Legion of the Lost! Decepticon tactics were well-orchestrated, and Autobot casualties continued to mount until Optimus Prime arose from the Autobot ranks to become a warrior of great firepower and leader of great skill. With his help, Autobots were able to hold their own against the Decepticons The Transformers and he was given full command of the Autobot forces after the successful defence of Iacon: halting the Decepticon's then-unstoppable advance. And There Shall Come...a Leader!

The very planet was knocked out of orbit, requiring the Autobots to clear its way through an asteroid field. The Decepticons attacked them as soon as it was done, leading to both Prime and Megatron to be lost. Before this happened, Optimus had been talking about the need to make peace with the Decepticons. The Transformers This would not happen: the war continued under Decepticon leader Trannis, who conquered the Prime-less planet but failed to crush the Autobot resistance. Cybertron: The Middle Years! Four million years later, the war on Cybertron still raged on and when Optimus and Megatron awoke on Earth, they carried on too.

Marvel UK future timelines

In the year 2510, the last Decepticon was killed. The next Great War, between embittered Autobot factions, broke out immediately after. Peace

Generation 1 cartoon continuity

The Transformers cartoon

The Great War is known by some chroniclers of Cybertronian history as the Third Cybertronian War. Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4 It was during a time of peace known as the Golden Age of Cybertron that Megatron re-organized the Decepticons for the purpose of challenging the Autobots for control of Cybertron. War Dawn

Wings Universe

Nine million years ago, the Autobot High Command was keeping an eye on a nascent unorganized group of rogues called the Decepticons. However, open war erupted when the Decepticon movement became organized and conducted actions such as shooting down the Van De Graaff. After saving the precious cargo of the Van De Graaff from the Decepticons, the crew of the Eight Track, including Kup, was inducted into the newly formed Elite Guard to fight the Decepticons. Wings of Honor

Within 10 years of the war's commencement, the Decepticons were led by the Decepticon Warlords. However, Deathsaurus ensured that he and Megatron remained the only rivals for power by assassinating the rest of the Warlords with an unwitting suicide bomber. A Team Effort Megatron later became the sole leader of the Decepticons by defeating Deathsaurus in an unfair duel. Battle Lines, Part 5 Meanwhile, after being mostly massacred by the turncoat Combaticons, The Coming Storm: Part 6 the Elite Guard was replaced by the new Autobot military led by Optimus Prime. Battle Lines, Part 1 The war later cooled down for a time as energy became scarce on Cybertron, prompting many Autobots and Decepticons to go enter stasis hibernation pods or to go offworld aboard the Ark and Nemesis. Battle Lines, Part 6

Millions of years later, the Great War finally came to an end in 2013 C.E. with the signing of the Pax Cybertronia by the Autobots, Decepticons, and Jhiaxus's clones at Autobot City on Earth. The peace treaty had come about in part due to the actions of Jhiaxus: in starting the Machine Wars to achieve peace on Cybertron by exterminating all "First Generation" Transformers, he had unintentionally gotten Autobot and Decepticon alike to fight with each other rather than against each other. A Common Foe Unfortunately for the Decepticon commando unit Squadron X, their location in deep space meant that they did not receive word of the war's end until it was too late. Setting a trap on Torax Prime for their foes the Wreckers, who never came because they got word of the war's end, the members of Squadron X eventually killed each other off due to boredom. Tornado and Ferak were left as the unit's sole survivors. Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur

Beast Wars Neo cartoon

According to legend and rumor, Unicron was destroyed during the Great War. Illusion? Lio Convoy

Beast Wars cartoon continuity

Beast Wars cartoon

The key turning point in the Great War was when the Ark crew reactivated in 1984, on Earth. The Predacons Megatron and Blackarachnia stated the Great War started in 1984. The Agenda (Part III)

Shortly after the war began, Megatron would encode a message to Cybertron on the Voyager Golden Record (also known as the Golden Disk) just in case he lost. The Agenda (Part 2) The Agenda (Part III) Over time, he was reformatted into Galvatron by and the monster Unicron. Possession In the end, in large part thanks to help from the humans, the Autobots would win the Great War. Code of Hero

The Great War was officially ended by the forming of the Pax Cybertronia with the Autobots the victors and the Decepticons placed under heavy restrictions. A number of Decepticons were granted amnesty and retired. The Agenda (Part 2) Many records were restricted Possession and most of the Ark crew were considered legendary figures in the time of Predacons and Maximals.

A period of uneasy peace followed with the Predacons biding their time in preparation for their chance to challenge the supremacy of the Maximals and start the Great War again, something that Optimus Primal couldn't understand. It was three hundred years after Pax Cybertronia when Primal was drawn into one such challenge. Beast Wars (Part 1)

Beast Machines cartoon

When Megatron impersonated Optimus Prime, he claimed that the Autobot leader had perished in the final battle of the war. The Search

3H comics

When Galvatron failed the Decepticons and the Great War ended, Cyclonus turned his loyalty to the gangster Cryotek. Wreckers: Finale Part II

Dawn of Future's Past

At the end of the Third Cybertronian War, the Decepticons ceased to be a viable threat to the Autobots. Razorclaw then led the emergent Predacons to become the main opposition to Autobot rule of Cybertron until he was assassinated by the Tripredacus Council. BotCon 2009 Razorclaw profile card

Buzzsaw was one of Megatron's most loyal soldiers during the Great War. BotCon 2006 Buzzsaw profile card

Waspscream continuity

Obsidian was an Autobot general during the Great War. Universe Obsidian profile

Beast Wars Neo comic

Longrack mentioned that Unicron was a terrifying lifeform killed by the Transformers in the Great War twenty million years ago. Double Cross

Dreamwave Generation One continuity

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2005 IDW continuity

The seeds for the Great War (though it was not the first "great" war) were planted through many years of social stratification by an increasingly entitled upper class, who exploited everyone below them with the aid of a rigid and corrupt police system. The spark to the powder keg was provided when factions within the Senate, the corrupted government of Cybertron, arranged for an attack upon the leading Prime, Nominus Prime. By doing this, in a failed attempt to gain access to the Matrix of Leadership which had been secreted away centuries before, they also gained an excuse to introduce the "Clampdown", a planet-wide security regime which let them crack down on anyone who opposed them. Chaos Theory Part 1 As such, Kup considered the Matrix to be the root cause of it all. All Hail Megatron #6 During the Clampdown, the Autobots served as the Senate's peace-keeping force, enforcing their draconian rules. This caused frictions to rise even more and politically minded Transformers spoke out loudly against it, only to be silenced brutally; and even within the Senate itself, some - such as Ratbat - tried to exploit the extreme social unrest for personal gain. An energon miner turned fugitive from justice turned underground gladiator named Megatron rallied a force of gladiators, escaped convicts, and other bots dissatisfied with the current leadership of Cybertron to rebellion based out of the city-state of Kaon, naming his faction the Decepticons after their rallying cry of "You are being deceived." Megatron Origin After Megatron's defeat of Sentinel Prime, and the routing of the corrupt Senate, peace seemed possible when Zeta Prime took over command of the security forces and became the de facto leader of Cybertron; however he revealed himself as the most ruthless dictator of all. Orion Pax and Megatron found themselves working together to stop his army of Omega Sentinels, equipped with weapons of mass destruction, but after Megatron destroyed Zeta Prime with the proverbial 'Shot that started the war', the treaty ended...and the war truly began as Orion Pax - now Optimus Prime, after gaining the Matrix - and Megatron both strove to control Cybertron. Autocracy

The war continued for over four million years, turning Cybertron into a lifeless husk until the "Chaos War" against Galvatron, which ended with the planet's restoration. Most Decepticons were imprisoned, thousands of neutral Transformers who had fled during the war began returning home, and the Great War was considered over. The Death of Optimus Prime

Beast Wars: Uprising

The Great War, also known as the Third Cybertronian War, began eleven million years ago and ended in 2031 after the apocalyptic battle later dubbed "the Scouring of Nebulos". The Human Confederacy, along with other races in the galaxy, forcibly imposed an armistice on the battered combatants and restricted them to a small Allowed Zone consisting of Cybertron and nine colonies. Micro-Aggressions

After scrounging up some new Cyberdroid recruits from the backwater colony world of Master, Galvatron attempted to re-ignite the war by first taking out humanity in the Great Push. A Brush With Infamy–Prologue The battle against the Human Confederacy was a humiliating defeat for the Transformers, and as punishment the humans sterilized four colonies. Intersectionality Micro-Aggressions Thunderwing brought the war to a close after absorbing the Underbase, driving him mad and prompting him to launch the Grand Mal; the Autobots and Decepticons formed a temporary truce to take down their mutual enemy. Not All Megatrons

Too decrepit to continue the war but unwilling to completely let old grudges go, the Autobots and Decepticons renamed themselves the Builders of Cybertron and used the energon matrix to create their successors, the Maximals and Predacons. They then crafted a system of gladiatorial Games that Maximals and Predacons would have to participate in, functioning as proxies for the Autobots and Decepticons' old grudge forever and providing endless entertainment for the mostly immobile Builders. That is, until Guardian of Order Lio Convoy, holder of the energon matrix, had his eyes opened to the injustice of the status quo. Publicly exposing the Builders' conspiracy, he set the Fourth Cybertronian War, the Grand Uprising, in motion. Broken Windshields

Timelines

In Primax 096.0 Beta, General Optimus Prime led the reconstituted Firestormer Squadron in the final battle of the third Cybertronian war against Megatron's Decepticon Star Empire at Mirtonia. The Autobots emerged victorious when the Decepticons accidentally blew up an experimental energon refinery and themselves with it. However, the massive explosion also blasted General Optimus Prime and Sergeant Hound out of their own reality and into Nexus 208.0 Epsilon. General Optimus Prime profile card Sgt. Hound profile card

Of Masters and Mayhem

While the cause of the Great War is unknown, it swept across Cybertron in a fury, wiping away any trace of the once glorious civilization that had existed. The Decepticon aggressors quickly proved the better fighters, keeping the former Autobot ruling class on the back foot. As the war ground on, it began to spread to other planets, The Truth We Make with some combatants from both factions choosing to abandon Cybertron and live elsewhere in the galaxy. Life Finds a Way

Facing defeat, the Autobots undertook Project: Ark as a means of carrying their hopes beyond Cybertron, and their desire to see the war end. The Toxic Transformer An installation was also established on the planet Athenia where the Autobots worked on a project that was their last hope of winning the war. This facility was attacked and destroyed by Counterpunch, though footage of this found its way to Autobot High Command. The Truth We Make

Combiners were a valued asset in the war, both sides devoting great time and resources to fuelling them. The Decepticons eventually managed to create the combiner that called itself Thunder Mayhem, its destructive power bringing a decisive end to the Great War by razing the surface of Cybertron and the near-extinction of the Cybertronian race. Deadly Aim

2019 IDW continuity

When Orion Pax first interfaced with the Matrix of Leadership, its mediator software warned him that a war the likes of which had not been seen since the Age of the Firsforged was coming to Cybertron. Prime

Following the Autobots managing to escape Cybertron, Shockwave and Flamewar congratulated Megatron on conquering the planet but the Decepticon leader was keenly aware that the Autobots' escape meant that the war had only just begun. Fate of Cybertron

Transformers/Ghostbusters

Megatron started the Great War to liberate Cybertron from Autobot rule. On the cusp of Decepticon victory, the planet was invaded by Gozer shortly after the Autobots fled. After Gozer destroyed Cybertron, the surviving Autobots - thinking themselves the last of their kind - considered the Great War to be over. Ghosts of Cybertron Part 1 Ghosts of Cybertron Part 2

Last Bot Standing

The Great War broke out before Rodimus' forging. Rapidly expanding outwards from Cybertron, the conflict eventually decayed into a stalemate that consumed more and more resources across the galaxy, destroying stars and planets while driving countless alien species to extinction. As time passed, the Cybertronians became victims of their own success, having used all up the energon and other resources that they needed to repair themselves and continue the conflict. As the Cybertronians began to die permanent deaths, the conflict was considered over. Last Bot Standing #2 When Rodimus discovered that the planet Donnokt was rich with energon crystals, he decided to keep it a secret, confident that if more Cybertronians learnt about the fuel, the war would restart. Last Bot Standing #4

Energon Universe

As recounted by Optimus Prime, the Great War followed an age of peace and prosperity, the extremist Decepticon launching attacks on the rest of Cybertron. Transformers #2 By Megatron's own account, he started the war seeking to restore his planet to its "rightful and glorious place among the stars". Transformers #14

After two centuries, Autobot High Command fled aboard the Ark only to be attacked by the Nemesis, both ships crashing on Earth. Transformers #2 Thrown from the Ark before it crashed, Beachcomber eventually made his way back to the ship but chose to leave his fellow Autobots in stasis, fearing that his comrades' presence would simply restart the war on Earth. Transformers #10 On Cybertron, Elita One continued to lead a guerrilla resistance against Decepticon rule, Transformers #7 while other Autobots took their chances in the larger galaxy, searching for new supplies of energon. Void Rivals #11

A century after the Ark crashed, Jetfire found the ship and - unaware of the war - reactivated all aboard, restarting the war on Earth. Transformers #1

Notes

Foreign names

• Japanese: Great War (グレートウォー Gurēto Wō)
• Indonesian: Perang Besar (Great War)