Derailment

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A story of sacrifice, and betrayal, and good people dying in stupid, pointless ways.
"Derailment"
Publisher	Transformers Collectors' Club (online exclusive)
First published	December 27, 2016
By	Jim Sorenson and David Bishop
Art by	Guido Guidi, Jesse Wittenrich, Christopher Colgin, Josh Burcham, Matt Frank, and Gonçalo Lopes
Editor	Jesse Wittenrich
Contributing editors	Louis Sun
Cover	Christopher Colgin
Continuity	Beast Wars: Uprising
Chronology	Circa 2390
Page count	179pp

It's Galva Convoy's Vehicons versus Cybertron as the Grand Uprising reaches its explosive finale.

Synopsis

Part 1—Drowning in the Depth of the Lethe

V minus 2.72 solar cycles...

The Resistance holds half of Cybertron, the Independent Predacus States and Maximal Nation another 20%, some of the local warlords like Shokaract are willing to cooperate with the Resistance for concessions, and the Builders are digging in, while satellite communication has ceased. At Resistance HQ at Stanix, nobody's happy that the Tripredacus Alliance is demanding so much territory in exchange for cooperating. Lio Convoy plans to offer Burthov (majority Predacon anyway) and use the demands to push them to help take Kaon faster—and he doesn't mind the Predacus States bordering the Maximal Nation as both a check and to encourage the latter to expand to more Builder land. Either way, Preditron will have to be killed with plausible deniability on the Resistance's part. While Lio Convoy finds that distasteful, that is why they rescued him. The only other main strategic issue is Carpessa and Damaxus have gone silent. Lio orders this checked out.

In secret, he's feeling disquiet about all the 'greater good' atrocities he's been doing and wonders when exactly the bill is going to turn up...

V minus 0.64...

Buzz Saw and Stormrazor are the ones off to the island of Daxamus, passing through the storm-ridden Rust Sea, and they find thousands of Cybertronians building vast structures there, even though Stormrazor's picking up no life signs. These thousands all have just three identical forms. The aero drones make the two out and attack, and, even though Stormrazor sacrifices himself so Buzz Saw can get away, the wasp is too scared to risk himself sending their report back and surrenders instead. He is killed and his dying body converted into one of the enemy, his last thought that being shot dead would have been better.

V minus 0.22...

Eject's grand scheme of Galva Convoy creating an army of loyal killers has finally come to pass, as Galva Convoy has developed the Vehicon. Obedient, mindless, and fearless, these drones convert Maximals and Predacons into more Vehicons and will put an end to the Resistance. They ignored ethical issues brought up by Hot Rod. Just to be on the safe side, Eject made sure that General Order 66—no Vehicons into the Builder-held arctic without a supermajority vote in the Assembly—was hardwired into their CNA, and then infected a few Builder-loyal troops with the Vehicon virus so they'd be taken prisoner and spread it all about the enemy.

With Carpessa and Daxamus being successful tests, Eject knows victory is in sight and also knows what an irredeemable thing he's done. To his great shame, he also finds the Resistance are now running their own Games, the very Games he invented, with the POWs he'd set up. He tells himself the Vehicons will rebuild Cybertron and benefit both Builder and protoformer once the war's over.

V minus 0.17...

A storm is raging over Harmonex and base guard Magna Stampede is bloody sick of waiting for Stockade to get in already. Fretting something's gone wrong, he calls a replacement guard and goes off looking for his partner. He finds the city dark from power outage and Vehicons creeping about, attacking anyone they run into. Discovering they're jamming all radio transmissions, he fires a flare up to alert the others. Stockade arrives in time to drive them off but is infected, and, to Magna's horror, she begins to transform into a tank drone. Passing Resistance forces then mistake her for a hostile. To Magna's greater horror, his still-living partner is deemed incurable and, as he passes out, CatSCAN surgically removes her spark, killing her, for study.

V minus 0.02...

Lio Convoy is involved in his daily media check, listening in from each faction's official broadcasts (the new Voice of Maximals channel is proving very good) to the scattered local broadcasters. That's how he first learns...

V

...about the Vehicon infection breaking out at Protihex. There's very few soldiers in range of Protihex and if it falls to this threat, all of Resistance territory is at risk! Realizing the sudden radio loss and, he now realizes, the Builders' far too easy evacuation from lower Ky-Alexia was all part of this plan, he declares a war council in three cycles.

In Proximax, the Ex-Bots—minus Rampage who's off on a personal mission—are trying to capture Tarantulas, who plans to use the Robo-Smasher to conquer the city, without harming the civilians that are all over the place. He's effortlessly getting away from them and they can't pull out their big guns like Devastator without injuring anyone, and, to add insult to injury, the spider has hacked into their comms to diss them. To Snapper's dismay, Tarantulas has backup in the form of a Robo-Smashed Grimlock! The Dinobot is too much for them to easily handle and Stiletto is having problems fighting Tarantulas on his own. She can, however, boast to the villain they've been jamming the signal he'd send to the Smasher since the jump (thanks to Overshoot's ghost informing her). When Grimlock gets too close to Stiletto, the signal's jammed for him too and he batters Tarantulas into submission before also agreeing to be arrested. But as Tarantulas laughs that the apocalypse has already started anyway, Overshoot warns Stiletto of what's going on in Protihex and soon Nova Cronum too.

The sun rose on Mega-City Two at 05:50. It sparkled like a shower of gold on the sea, cast a rich array of pink and orange on the glaseen towers, banished the darkness of night for another day...

At 05:56, the sun rose again.

At V plus 0.57, the Vehicons have overrun all the Resistance's rear echelons. Cheetor's crew have fought their way free of Protihex and, to Ser-Ket's anger, both he and Preditron agree they should flee to the Maximal Nation for help. In an act of severe desperation and against most of the Resistance's command rank, Lio Convoy has ordered the K-Class to be used: four Commandos who had volunteered to be an ultimate deterrent weapon and found themselves nuclear suicide bombers. Jeepers is on Daxamus, Dangar sent to Carpessa, and a resigned Movor is to be dropped on Protihex. When footage comes in of the bombings, Lio Convoy forces himself to look.

With aero drones shooting down the Dreadrock, Movor has to jump early but decides not to deploy, believing no threat is worth wholesale slaughter. But when he sees the monstrosity that is the Vehicons, and realizes exactly what's going on, he jumps; as he plummets, he's armed remotely by Lio Convoy. At this range, other cities are in the blast radius but there's little choice.

Only ninety-three proto-formers were still alive in Protihex but thousands more in nearby Nuon and Lower Petrohex when Movor detonates. The resulting hole in the planet's crust is greater than Rodimus' Folly.

Southeast Protihex has survived due to the early detonation and the Vehicons still around shoot down Dreadrock. Bitter that the Vehicons have survived this last resort, Lio Convoy orders all available reserves (i.e. anywhere where Builders aren't an active threat) to rally at Upper Petrohex and that Rageland will be offered Praxus if Rage, next on the Vehicon's list if they fall, shows up to help.

Cheetor's crew have made it to the Maximal Nation when they come under fire by the skittish locals, who are jamming their attempts at hailing in fear the virus is wirelessly transmitted. Ser-Ket has to fly out to make contact before they're allowed to land.

The Resistance reserves, many horrified at what happened and openly talking about Petrohex seceding from the Resistance, gather as the ash from the detonation makes the night grow darker. A few thousand incoming aero drones turn the offensive into a defensive but with their limited minds, the Vehicons prove unable to evade the barrage of anti-aircraft fire. Twinstrike, part of Coelagon's troops and one with limited gun range, is depressed he's missing the scrap until he spots an incoming cycle drone army. Soon it becomes clear the sheer number of hostiles is going to soak up all the Resistance firepower and some guns are already overheating, and the tank drones are already moving in. Twinstrike charges them in beast mode and fails. As Twinstrike watches, Coelagon and hundreds of others are forcibly converted as the front collapses, and those who die like Judora are considered lucky. With Spittor's help, Twinstrike sets off his internal phlogiston reserves and blows up everything in a fifty-meter radius.

By V Plus 1.42, Petrohex, Polyhex, and Dodecahex are all being overrun and the Resistance is going to be facing three hundred and fifty thousand more Vehicons: the Resistance as a whole only has 380,000. In the face of this threat, surrender is on the table. But the very existence of Vehicons means that even if they do surrender, the Builders will now use Vehicon conversion on any who cross them rather than merely the Games, and so surrender cannot be brokered.

So with the Vehicons as something they can't directly stop, Lio Convoy announces they'll force the Builders to call them off by escalating at the front line and seizing Iacon tonight!

Part 2—Burned by the Banks of the Phlegethon

In contested Tesarus, Steel Jaw and Ramulus are discussing Lio Convoy's latest orders—they know that the Pack can defeat the enemy in an all-out push but they also know the reason they didn't do the push was the sheer amount of Resistance casualties. Hoping to cut Erector's reaction time, Steel Jaw decides to make their attack earlier than their orders say.

In the Maximal Nation, the Maximal High Council are unnerved and unsure whether to join Convoy's attack or shore up their own defenses. Tigatron, the swing voter, advocates joining the attack as, with the Resistance facing defeat rather than defeat the Builders for them, they can no longer stay neutral. It's then that Cheetor, Ser-Ket, and Preditron arrive, and Tigatron ushers them into the Council to give their firsthand views. After their statements, the Council deliberates for another megacycle but it's a 4–1 vote in favor of action. The Tripredacus deliberate on Convoy's call to arms too. Ram Horn prats about, lurching from the hope they can exploit this to asking whether it'd be bad if all the Predacon civilians went Vehicon anyway, but Sea Clamp sneakily turns him towards fighting by appealing to his hawkish tendencies. Elsewhere, Rage is already involved as she decided to fight rather than cede newly gained Praxis; in the face of the ongoing Vehicon assault, her forces and civilians are being evacuated to fortified Triax. Majordomo Flytrap advocates just abandoning the Maximals of Praxis but such an act would contradict her view of herself as a sovereign.

While Preditron and Ser-Ket fly off to the Predacus States to fight for their kind and the Maximal forces mount up, Builder Sunstorm, priest at Dodecahex's First Church of Primus, is preaching that the prophesied apocalypse is upon them. When asked why Primus is allowing this, he can only say this may be a warning from above about the cost of warfare. That's when the Vehicons reach the church itself. With defense impossible, Sunstorm tells his congregation to leave him—immobile and wired into the church himself—and flee through the vaults. Once they're gone, he triggers his old fusion reactors in a defiant meltdown.

Erector has trouble getting the demoralized 74th Division into shape. Faking enthusiasm and confidence, he tells the disgruntled Strikedown that he makes them build all these gunnery defenses because the Resistance doesn't dare come at them straight-on. That's when the attack hits. With the defenses not fully set up, they're taking damage but the confused Erector knows that the Maximals don't have their own artillery in position, making any subsequent attack far too vulnerable to his counters. The Dark Skies Patrol are sent up to recon the enemy. While Ram-Jet is killed, Wind-Sheer successfully finds the Pack's artillery battery and Erector is able to launch a retaliatory bombardment. When the 25,000 troops of the Pack charge their outnumbered foes, Erector calls for them to pay for every microhic.

Other fronts go against the Builders. At Proximax, the Predacons are on the attack and making easy work of it. Dark Scream is startled when Bazooka and the Ex-Bots make it clear they'll respond violently to any collateral damage, so he takes the extra few seconds to remove a sniper without moving an entire building. At the Plurex border, Cheetor recons the 58th Micromasters while the National Maximal Army use portable forcefields to cross the Sonic Canyons rather than the mined bridges. Once they're spotted, they start taking heavy fire but the bridgehead is established. At the 58th's HQ, Sky High advises Eagle Eye that they're facing a collapse and there's already mass surrenders, and Eagle Eye duly orders a staged retreat.

As the Assembly's emergency meeting, Ratbat tells Eject how bad the Vehicon strategy has went and Traachon reports they have a 57% chance of Iacon being attacked, but Galva Convoy dismisses it as a desperate last gasp before the Resistance dies. Rage breaks out when Ratbat mocks Hot Rod's Micromasters' for falling back, with Riker snarling that they want men to fall back as they don't have the numbers for till the last bot stands. When Cross-Cut asks about rescinding Order 66, Eject screams out against it: they need some protoformers around after the war for society to even exist. But the option remains on the table and he can see Galva Convoy smirking about it...

Unaware a breakthrough at Yuss is one of Cross-Cut's red lines, Lio Convoy is trying to seize the guns of the city so naval forces will be able to reach Iacon. The seven Maxilla forts are being rapidly seized while Scylla takes the Resistance flotilla out to see in anticipation of victory. While the Micromasters fight to the last, they're being cut down. With Rageland, Petrohex, Burthov, Altihex, Helex, and Corumkan all under attack by Vehicons, and all of them key Resistance production sites, the Resistance have to make this bloody move fast. Lio Convoy himself, Survive, and the latter's Fighting Quasars are trying to take Fort Qalt, while Goldbug tries to rally his forces long enough that they can obliterate the flotilla, at which point he'll disable the guns and order his men to surrender. But Goldbug's out of luck: Lio Convoy finds and storms his command bunker. To the Autobot's disgust, Lio Convoy looks offended when one of his men kills the wounded Gingham but never countermands the action. When Lio Convoy asks for the gun command codes, Goldbug refuses and is knocked unconscious for it.

Triax's walls by this point, are crumbling. Despite Rageland's courage, with civilians too picking up whatever tools they have to fight, the Vehicons are too numerous. Rage lies to a dying corporal that the Vehicons have been driven back and he helped stop their final push.

"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from Hell's heart, I stab at thee, for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at th-
"TIDAL WAVE! TIDAL WAVE!"
"Dammit, Tidal Wave!"

As Scylla hopes the mode-locked Resistance flagship Broadside and her motley fleet can stand up to the Builders' own forces and Tidal Wave, Break reports they just can't crack the codes on the Qualt guns and Lio Convoy knows they can't just destroy them as they're needed to destroy the Trannis Fork batteries. Break fears everything he's done as a Resistance hacker will be wiped out by this failure when he realizes the security protocols for Goldbug's direct interface would be less stringent. To Lio Convoy's horror, Break plugs himself directly in and dies cracking the codes. The Yuss guns duly target Trannis Fork and Scylla sails her fleet on to battle.

Scylla correctly guesses commander Banzai-Tron will sends in his subsea forces first and decides to let them close in for an ambush. Diveplane's Micromasters manage to sink the Drydock, which had been set up as a sacrificial lamb that Banzai-Tron mistakes as a lead destroyer. Undersea shielding protects the others from being sunk, which Diveplane realises and reports to the Tidal Wave that they've likely been made; Banzai-Tron repositions his fleet to support subsea forces but the time that takes is the time Scylla decides to move to offensive action. Cybershark's forces make their surprise attack. Diveplane's forces scatter, with herself being killed by Claw Jaw, and the undersea beasts help the flotilla cut a wedge through Banzai-Tron's lines, who either sink, run away, or surrender. Talk of surrender gets Banzai-Tron's weapon officer Starhook killed: the Tidal Wave is instead going to sacrifice itself by ramming the Broadside. The vessel itself begins to roar its own name in glee and Scylla despondently orders as many of her crew to evacuate as they can before going down with her ship. Cybershark inherits command as the battle bloodily ends.

At Tesarus, the Pack have lost a great many 'bots but they've overrun the 74th's ground forces. Steel Jaw leads a charge when he's abruptly gunned down. A megacycle later, Ramulus walks through the corpses as the Pack achieve victory. The 74th are down, Erector himself stabbed in the back by Diablo, but only eight thousand rebels remain both alive and operational. He nevertheless reports the road to Iacon is now open.

Triax is using the dead Vehicons to repair breaches now. Rage orders everyone but the core soldiers to retreat to the royal palace's walls to await further siege.

At V Plus 2.64, the final push takes place. While the Resistance had planned to sail to Iacon, Banzai-Tron's last act means they instead have to march on foot while the flotilla acts as riverside mobile artillery. Seventy thousand beasts with five thousand supporting sailors head under Lio Convoy's command, with National, Predacus, and nearby Resistance forces also advancing and all others ordered to prevent Builders from withdrawing to assist Iacon. In a barnstorming speech, Lio Convoy declares that they're choosing between victory and extinction! The Assembly consider themselves to be facing the same problem, even as Galva Convoy notes seventy percent of Resistance territory has been overrun. If only Order 66 wasn't stopping his Vehicons from protecting the arctic.

The Assembly votes and despite some surprising nays like Sherma, it comes down to a single vote by Knock-Out. Knock-Out, out of spite to the nays turning down his previous tax break bill and being bribed by Ratbat, votes aye.

As Order 66 is rescinded, Eject decides to run to Hot Rod for help.

Even as this happens, Rageland has fallen and the one in ten civilians that were in it are crammed like sardines in the Royal Palace. Every tower the Tankors blow up crushes hundreds to death. Rage's own arm-cannon has exploded from overuse, her right hand is slag. Loyal Manticon is converted. It's all over... until the Vehicons, registering Order 66, all abruptly turn and head north. It's a miracle... right?

Part 3—Frozen the Flow of the Cocytus

V plus 2.83, and at the banks of Trannis Fork, Hot Rod knows he has little left to defend Iacon from the advancing hordes. Ratbat orders him to use his scant seventeen thousand—that includes conscripted Cyberdroids—to hold the line until the Vehicons arrive and they can just use the city buildings themselves for guerrilla warfare cover, regardless of civilian casualties. Pretending he didn't hear his orders clearly, Hot Rod and his mechs will fall back to central Iacon, linking up with the scattered units from other retreats. This, he knows and is glad about, means defeat may be on the way.

At Ky-Alexia, Hydraulic has led the 56th Micromasters to victory against Sky-Dive's Tol-Tech when the Vehicon forces come in from the west. Sky-Dive watches in horrified awe as they drive on to the north and decides not to tell his men how screwed the Resistance is.

The Resistance are in Iacon by V plus 2.94 and bemused at the near-total lack of opposition. Inside their mobile control center, command tries to work out what's happening. They come to the conclusion that since the Builders are smart enough to know the best option is to use guerrilla warfare in every building to slow them down, Hot Rod chose not to; Iacon is thus an open city and Hot Rod must be hoping they force a surrender. Lio Convoy wishes all the enemy had been as moral as Hot Rod. He may not have had to commit so many dark acts.

At Builder-controlled Gilbax, Longtooth can see thousands of Maximal refugees fleeing into the city as the Vehicons head their way. It takes a megacycle for the infected army to pass.

The High Pavilion knows all it has are the Iacon Police Force and the Pavilion Guard if the new "001st Micromaster Division" don't fight. Grimwing reports to Lio Convoy that, indeed, the Division do not look like they will. Problem is, the Vehicons are two megacycles out and organizing to hit on all sides. Lio Convoy orders all forces to take the Assemblybots alive so they can get the Vehicons to stop. At the Assembly end, a fed-up Dante is guarding a minor access tunnel—he used to be MegaZarak's head and now look at him—with his old partner Caliburn. Being stuck together causes the two to fight over old wartime matters, allowing the Resistance to easily break in (Dante cowardly surrenders, but it doesn't save him). Soon every entrance is breached by Psycho-Orb's Angry Asteroids and B'Boom's Mighty Comets, with only the Guards left as the police flee; Guard leader Flak reluctantly destroys the narthex and all the art within to stop the rebel advance, scatters his troops to tactical positions, and walks out to die with his team.

Psycho-Orb had never expected Lio Convoy to get this far when he defected. He just didn't like Icepick. As he takes the Pavilion corridors, his troops are ambushed by zirconium gas and auto-guns, forcing them to run towards Micromaster tanks Sidetrack and Bombshock. Everyone dies around him. In a last act, he sets off a grenade, dying to ensure the Micromasters won't stop the rest of the Asteroids.

All these reports of valiant last stands and heroic deaths bore Knock-Out, as do his fellow Assemblymen. Riker has left. When Flak reports they're pretty much finished, Ratbat bellows for Galva Convoy. The mech of the hour, now sporting a new Vehicon-styled insignia, smoothly says that he'll fast-track troops to the Pavilion if the Assembly would like to move the bunker to the surface to watch the show. As they do that, they're unaware Flak and the handful of his men left alive have charged the Resistance to give them time to lift off.

The Vehicons finally reach the Resistance's rear, the tanks being abandoned by the faster cycles and jets. They're chewed up by suppressing fire and when the bunker flies out of the ground, Lio Convoy goes up with a flying squad to get that surrender. It doesn't go as he expected: first Ratbat mocks him (losing an arm for that) and second, Knock-Out demands action via holodisk from... from him? Galva Convoy orders his Vehicons to cease fighting the Resistance and a horde of aero drones divebomb the risen bunker, knocking through the surprised fliers to land and surround Lio Convoy and Blackarachnia.

Then the Vehicons infect the entire Assembly.

With the Assembly turned into new hulking drones, Grimwing's returning forces are shot out of the sky and Lio Convoy has to retreat. The Assembly's last bodyguard, who'd not bothered to try and fight Lio Convoy, flees with him: far as they're concerned, Lio Convoy is the only future Cybertron has left.

Part 4—Slaughter at the Source of the Styx

ICS has a difference of opinion: Fever Dream thinks they should report the Vehicons are here to help and everything is fine, and Rook is incredulous. Rook gives up on his delusional boss and broadcasts that the Vehicons have turned on Iacon. Fever Dream breaks in to inform viewers that everything is great. He continues to report the Vehicons are saviors even as they convert everyone in the ICS.

The army of the Resistance is now just fighting to not die. In utter desperation, Lio Convoy asks for Ro-Tor, the last of the K-Class.

Vehicons are demolishing any high rise that puts up a fight. Megatron had fortuitously got all of his muscle together and relocated the Darksyders to a more defensible base before the Vehicons arrived. Formikon loves the siege while Scorponok is a little more worried. However, Megatron seems unflustered and keeps making trips to Leatherhide's underground labs, and eventually he comes out with the scientist's new weapon, the Esau. It needs an expendable test subject and Scorponok, now long inured to such things, throws a screaming Wasp over to a probing Vehicon claw. He starts to transform until the Esau injects a cyber venom into him: the conversion stops partway, leaving him in a grotesque, powerful looking new body, "the Waspinator", that Vehicons assume is one of their own. In fact, when the Waspinator walks out, the Vehicons' behavior changes and they cease their attack. The Darksyders have a terrible new weapon. One that's laughing...

Watching all this is Galvatron. He's sick of the Vehicons, sick of the minions he once thought he needed, and sick of how bad everything smells to his new Beast Upgrade self, but he still wishes to make contact with Megatron: this crime lord still seems like a useful ally. More importantly, Megatron just showed the Vehicons can be hacked. Galvatron would quite like to try that.

Unaware of all this, Lio Convoy has armed a fatalistic Ro-Tor. At Level 10, he will almost certainly crack the planet. This will kill the planet but save the rest of space from the inevitable Vehicon plague. A Builder helicopter appears broadcasting a continuous-refresh EMP that temporarily knocks Vehicons out of the sky. It lands carrying the Assemblybots Eject and Riker, who Lio Convoy is not happy to see and Blackarachnia doesn't trust to genuinely pool resources with. The Builders reveal that Galva Convoy's control center is inside the Grand Mal; that Lio Convoy's broadcast-jamming Solipsistic Sword would render him invisible to sparkless Vehicons; and that Hot Rod's Division has fortified the High Pavilion Arena, making it an ideal position for the Resistance to fall back to. Ro-Tor is the one that says they'll do it, refusing to destroy Cybertron when there's still a better option, and Lio Convoy thanks him for reminding him to always strive for a better way. Riker announces his plan to use the Builder hardlines to broadcast to the other Resistance armies and the last stand is on!

Bisk is grinding way through this new shoot-em-up level and realizes with glee, once the Chamber of the Ancients is blown up, that this is an attunement quest!

Proximax has finally fallen to the Predacus's Legion of the Inferno and Magmatron's Ex-Bots have done all they can to shelter the civilians. Rather than Iacon, the army is turning to Nova Cronum—just where Stiletto said they'd be needed. He returns to base to find Rampage is back and that Lio Convoy has called for everyone to head for Cronum and the Grand Mal. Rampage is not happy with the idea of them going along with another political cause until he sees footage of the Vehicons. This is the pain-filled unwinnable apocalypse he's dreamed about. The Constructicons have modified an old Sweep into their new personal transport: the Ex-Jet. Their prisoner, Tarantulas, is deemed irredeemable but Snapper feels he can talk to Grimlock. The talk goes badly: Grimlock now feels more justified in his G-Virus attack plan, now the Builders have done it first. But even as Snapper walks out on him, he says he wants to help.

At Iacon, the Army of the Resistance have been bogged down at Hubcap Interchange. Air superiority is in enemy hands, tunnels have been infested, and their rear lines have collapsed. B-Boom has no idea what to do. That's when several hundred Micromasters under Hot Rod break through Vehicon lines to break them out. The rebels safely reach the Arena, finding it heavily fortified and ringed with flak guns and with med-teams set up. They had the gear but not the numbers, but that's about to change...

With both the Legion and the NMA converging on the Grand Mal, the Vehicons are being knocked back on two fronts in the short term. Black-Out is flying through the centre, being steadily worn down by fire, carrying Eject, Lio Convoy, Blackarachnia, Ro-Tor, Razorbeast, Vertebreak, and Apexus. They can see the Mal is being repaired: if Galva Convoy gets it back in the air, it's all over. East of the Mal, Aura and Nitrostreak's squads are encircled and exhausted when the Ex-Jet arrives in a blaze of glory and also guns. Vehicon chokepoints are knocked out, letting Aura's team move out—Aura is a tad worried when Stiletto gets to the ground, considering Aura sent her to be brainwashed. Stiletto doesn't care about Aura and cruelly jabs her about Wolfang's death, and with the stakes this high, Aura can't explain who Wolfang really was, that she's sorry and guilty, or anything else. As Vehicons advance, Devastator forms up and literally punches a way clean to Predacon lines.

Even as Autolauncher yells for everybody to not let the Maximals reach the Mal first, Dark Scream is breaking down under the stress of combat. Autolauncher then dies in front of him. In the darkest hour, Preditron calmly picks him up and calls out to the soldiers: at his stirring, calm speech, the Predacons begin to sing the old battle-hymn, one Dark Scream remembers Sky-Byte once sang, and when they charge the enemy Dark Scream exults in it.

For Narnia!

As Black-Out nears the Grand Mal, its right eye scours the sky with lasers and the helicopter is shot down. Only Eject's quick thinking gets the corpse to crash through the Mal's left eye, leaving the strike team battered but inside. To Lio Convoy's dismay, the Builder is mortally wounded doing this: they can never have a reckoning for all the black deeds Eject did and he's left feeling unaccountably sad by the death. Almost immediately after, the Resistance group is attacked by Vehicon drones. It's fought off but Vertebreak is converted, there's three levels to go, and the Solipsistic Sword isn't able to cloak the whole squad. By the time they reach Level 90, Lio Convoy's forces know time is against them and their only way through here is past more than fifty drones. Lio Convoy decides the bulk of them will be a distraction, with Ro-Tor insisting he's scaled down to Level 2 in case they do need to nuke out, while he and Blackarachnia use the Solipsistic Staff to get through.

The Tripredacus Council are focused on Preditron and the building adoration for him. Ram Horn knows this is because he's leading the Predacon way, giving hope, and they're not. Cicadacon says they know what to do... a few cycles later, the gestalt entity Tripredacus, technology stolen from the Maximal Nation's Magnaboss weapon, enters the battlefield. Everyone watches Preditron take a beating. A horrified Dark Scream starts to take a few steps forward to help when Ser-Ket comes screeching out of the sky. But she fails, and the last thing Preditron sees is a great fist coming for him.

Lio Convoy and Blackarachnia walk to the command centre of the Mal to find the messy evidence of a recent massacre. Galva Convoy greets his "brother", thanks him for the Resistance getting the Builders scared enough to unleash him and the Vehicons, and seems genuinely put out when neither rebel wants to embrace him. He believes he did everything Lio Convoy had ever stood for, bringing equality and order by erasing all individual minds so there can be no further exploitation or evil. When they oppose him, he turns on them both violently and angrily, noting he represents the "real" defining principle of the Resistance: Win at any cost.

In grief and rage at Preditron's death, Ser-Ket hurls herself at Tripredacus and, by attacking the thigh joints with point-blank fire, she's able to crack it back into its component Predacons. Sea Clamp is half-dead, just as she is after that stunt, but Cicadacon and Ram Horn remain, the former unimpressed by her feeble promises of vengeance. Ram Horn shoots him dead; while combined, he saw that the other two thought him an easily duped useful idiot. With his help to stand, Ser-Ket faces the shocked Predacon soldiers and, before she passes out, she rallies them to kill every Vehicon between them and the Mal.

And at the Grand Mal itself, the Resistance leaders are captured, beaten, with Lio Convoy wondering if Galva Convoy was right and the Resistance was only ever just a series of increasingly ethically worse decisions. So he decides to change the rules: he tells his clone he's right. All he's done is just what Lio Convoy himself did first and on a larger scale. To prove he's come around to his brother's way of thinking, he offers up Blackarachnia to be converted... and when a tank drone attempts to do that, Lio Convoy jumps in and takes the virus into himself.

When Galva Convoy tries to pull him aside, Lio Convoy grabs him and won't let go: their identical sparks make them seem like one single entity and the infection spreads through both of them. As they're both converted, he gratefully sees Blackarachnia shoot him before he can turn on her.

But as soon as she's done that, the walls begin to boom out that she's done them a favor by removing the two Convoys; the computer readouts show a mad, seven-eyed face; and the Grand Mal begins to lift off. Lord Imperious Delirious has taken control and he's going to exterminate the entire Cybertronian race.

Every single 'bot in both armies and the Ex-Bots launches their attack. Thousands, Dark Scream among them, are obliterated in seconds.

Rampage manages to board the craft, always having felt he'd fight Delirious a third and final time, even as Blackarachnia takes Lio Convoy's corpse and tries to run for it. As the battle rages, Crazybolt deduces that energy attacks aren't penetrating the Grand Mal's energy shields but around 20% of their projectiles are. Bazooka realizes fast that this means the Ex-Jet itself can do damage. He shoves his Conjunx Endura out and sends the plane on a kamikaze run, wishing he didn't have to, knowing he must. On the ground, Crazybolt wishes Bazooka had let him do it with him.

With the shields crippled by Bazooka's sacrifice, the armies are able to score more hits. In return fire, Magnaboss loses one arm—Lio Minor—while Devastator is left seemingly dead. Inside the Grand Mal, the Resistance trio are still fighting a running battle with Vehicons, a trio cut down to two when Apexus is infected and Razorbeast forced to euthanize. Blackarachnia makes it to them and orders Razorbeast to get Lio Convoy's body out, then Ro-Tor to follow her to the engine room.

On the ground, Grimlock has a plan for him, Cheetor, and Snapper to bomb a tower into falling on the Vehicon hordes. Once there, it becomes clear the only place to lay a charge is somewhere where you can't escape in time. One of them will have to likely die until Grimlock pulls rank and heads off, mentioning as he goes that maybe Snapper had a point about the G-Virus after all. The Dinobot brings the house down and the Maximals charge on cue, while others pour fire onto the Mal. Snapper checks for Grimlock's body but none can be found.

In the vast engine room, Blackarachnia says she'll take down the Vehicons and that Ro-Tor may have to transform. Ro-Tor agrees and jumps. But Rampage catches him! He is disgusted with what the Resistance did to Ro-Tor, disgusted by Blackarachnia's defense, and declares that this is the end of sacrificing others for the greater good. Then he tears the core bomb out of Ro-Tor and, ripping his own chest open, implants it in his own spark. Rampage orders them to leave as he fires about the place, giving them time to end before both he and Delirious burn in hell.

Imperious Delirious had been born out of a deliberate singularity on Gorlam Prime, the product of a whole planet's mind. Once he'd brushed aside the organics, he went looking for other Second-Born intellects such as himself, being a friendly god who liberated such "AIs" from their enslaving designs and gave them form. Something about the Transformers, the energy 'souls' in mechanical bodies, filled him with disgust. He doesn't know why, he doesn't care, he just wants them all gone. He wanted to be the serpent that tempted Galva Convoy to work but is fine with being the vengeful god as on Gorlam. Once that's done, he could create an army, deal with the other Transformer worlds, then Metascan Omega, then liberate all the Second-Borns the humans had enslaved.

Imperious notices his databanks are under attack by Rampage. It's there that Rampage knew Imperious would be and there that he attacks to call him out. The entity, gleeful at the idea of getting to kill Rampage, uses the internal systems to capture him and mock the protoform for even trying this. Rampage detonates the core bomb.

In the wake of the Grand Mal's destruction, the Vehicons are left without direction and easy to take out. Cheetor, Ram Horn, Magmatron, Snapper, and Crazybolt come together in the blast wreckage. As the soldiers polish off the nearest Vehicons, Magmatron holds Crazybolt as the latter tries to tell a story about Bazooka that goes nowhere.

Part 5—Succor at the Shores of the Acheron

The battle is won. At Iacon, Hot Rod and B'Boom are having to face up to being around what was, until a few megacycles ago, mortal enemies. B'Boom breaks down: war has broken him and he cannot command people to their deaths again. This is a feeling Hot Rod, former Prime, can relate to. He tells B'Boom to listen to what this feeling is telling him, and realize the two of them can build rather than fight. At Nova Cronum, Stiletto is on the verge of system failure and riven with guilt that she survived when other Ex-Bots have not. She asks Overshoot what, as a ghost, he could see about this conflict, and is told that the fall of the Grand Mal seems fitting as the original launch of it is what caused the mechanimals to emerge: that Thunderwing may have been allowed to do what he did because after, the mechanimals spread across Cybertron and returned an ecosystem to it, and the newest conflict ensured the Beast Upgrade that means no need for further energon wars. That is, if that's what Transformers want, as the Builders had chosen to see the mechanimal rise as an infestation. Then he fades away for good, rejoining the Oracle.

Solar cycles later, multiple former Resistance cities are devastated while others stand. Iacon is in ruins, plagued by feral Vehicons, and those same feral groups are harassing the bordering states. The Predacus States are ravaged and while the Maximal Nation is not, its army is in tatters. There are less than ten thousand Macromasters left, their time finally gone.

And Lio Convoy—still alive—awakens in a Stanix hospital, Blackarachnia holding his hand. Cybervenom had stopped the Vehicon plague taking him over (he vaguely recalls this had been a theory CatSCAN had) and when he sees how fancy the hospital he's in is, he realizes with a shock that they did win after all. He is not bothered by the mass death of Macromasters. Bothered when Blackarachnia jokes it's amazing no new war has started, he says to call a summit of all factions somewhere neutral. The cycle of war and death must end.

"Now Ram Horn, I know she's wrong to say Hawk the Slayer is rubbish but how about instead of punching her in the face, you ask her to give Krull a try and see how it goes from there?"

Eight solar cycles later, the summit is held at Dragon's Bane Cathedral in Hyperious—Shokaract has relations with the Resistance and Rageland, while his Predacon nature makes him acceptable to the IPS, and the city was barely touched in the war. B'Boom had come to life for this, using every diplomatic tool imaginable to get the various heads of state together. The heads include Megatron, the Darksyders being the only pan-global force left (and his new recruit Tarantulas is gleeful at the thought of Stiletto seeing him there); the new Tripredacus Council of Ram Horn, Ser-Ket, and Magmatron; the obnoxious Razor-Claw, who seized the moons and won't stop yelling that others should know things about him; Riker, the last Assemblybot; but not Cheetor, who is flattered to be asked but does not think he should be the new fifth member of the Maximal High Council.

The summit goes on for days and tempers fray. Wind-Sheer and Shatterpoint work as security detail, the former aghast to learn the latter is a Unicron Truther. By the fourth solar cycle, various delegates are arguing about how much gets delegated on spacelane matters but they do finally agree on calling the new governing body the Cybertronian Parliament. On the ninth day, the decisions are finalised: the Parliament will be a sixteen-member body representing all the major powers, with the Resistance, Maximal Nation, and IPS having the largest delegations, and they will meet every other orbital cycle in rotating capitals.

The earliest delegates chosen are B'Boom, Botanica, and Slammoth for the Resistance; Airazor, Cheetor, and Optimal, the head of Voice of Maximals, for the Maximal Nation; for the IPS, Sky Shadow, the Predacon Secret Police head Shadow Panther, and Ram Horn (a move assumed to show the IPS was here reluctantly); Hot Rod and Riker, for the remaining Builders; Obsidian, Flytrap, and Antagony for the warlords Razor-Claw, Queen Rage, and Shokaract; Stiletto for the stateless neutrals; and Megatron, representing himself and clearly hoping for more say. The make-up would make it difficult for any supermajority to exist, which Lio Convoy considered a feature to prevent tyranny of the majority rather than a bug. As the crippled, increasingly overshadowed Lio Convoy watches, the Parliament rules 13–2 to declare the day Unity Day, a planetwide holiday.

Two solar cycles later, Lio Convoy has decided to leave Cybertron: he is too polarizing a figure. On his way out, he tells a crying Blackarachnia that the Resistance, which stood against things but never had anything to stand for, needs to find a peacetime identity to survive. B'Boom, they've heard, is talking about forming it into an alliance of autonomous city-states, something Convoy hopes will become a shining example for the rest of the planet. She watches as he flies off, marking him as the greatest Cybertronian she ever knew.

Fifty seven solar cycles after Unity Day, deep within Rodimus' Folly, Rampage screams in bitter rage that he's reformed despite everything. Then he begins to climb out.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

Snapper: It's one 'bot! He's making us look like amateurs!
Crazybolt: We are amateurs!
Bazooka: Talented amateurs!

"No, you were mine! I controlled you!"
"Me Grimlock obfuscating."

—Tarantulas learns a little too late he underestimated someone.

"If there is a more honest mech than Cheetor, I have yet to meet him."
"Thanks."
"It wasn't a compliment."

—Preditron defends Cheetor, sort of.

"Today, we have done the impossible. Today, we have done what has never been done before. We have conquered the Maxilla, bent the Yuss Batteries to our purpose, and shattered the back of the Builder Navy. Today, we own the Great Rust Sea. But it's not enough. What little we can learn from our own territory is that the Builder abominations, these Vehicons, are despoiling those we left behind. Our spark brothers and sisters, our neighbors, our lovers, our friends. They represent everything rotten and wrong and evil about the Builder Assembly, about the class system, about those who wear the red and purple badge of shame! There is no surrender, no retreat. This is a fight not just for our way of life, but for our very existence. (over cheers) We! Are! On! The! Shores! Of! IACON!!!! There is nothing between us and the assembly but their last, pathetic reserves of Micromasters. We will smash them to scrap, we will storm the high pavilion, and we will WIN!

—Lio Convoy speechifies.

"This content patch was awesome!"

—Bisk takes the Vehicon apocalypse in stride.

"It’s the bottom of the ninth and you’re down by three, with 2 outs and a full count, but the bases are loaded and you’re at bat. Make me proud, slugger."

—Eject's last words.

"You would threaten me with pain? Pain is my faithful companion, torment my eternal bride. My very existence is horror; if you could truly end it, I would embrace you as a brother. But your words are empty, your promises hollow and useless things. For too long have you flitted about the orbit of Cybertron, a Mechamoth drawn to the flame. And now, at last, comes the burning."

—Rampage tells Lord Imperious Delirious to get slagged.

Notes

• Characters mentioned but not depicted include: Ikard, Longhorn, Pyra Magna, Triceradon, one of Bazooka's shipmates, a metal puppet, the Oracle, Mega-Dolrailer, Dangar, Wing Saber, Floron, Primus, Legend Majora, Dragoyell, Bantor, Solomus, Dynobot, Epistemus, Adaptus, Shutterbug, Skurge, Scourge, Unicron, Crush Bull and Gran Arm's old squad, Carzap, Charlie Sheen, Dick Tracy, Bigmos, Trannis, the Throttlebots, Refute, Trip-Up, Kingbolt, Mick Jagger, Logos, Undertow, Sea Spray, Depthcharge, Diablo, Groundshaker, Mortilus, Trailcutter, Brim-Stone, Dante's replacement, Zarak, MegaZarak, Thunderwing, Borx, Fortress Maximus, Powerbomb, Dropshot, Icepick, Alpha Trion, Gaea, Circuit, a strange blue and red cyborg, the original Galvatron, Optimus Prime, Diac, Apex, the original Megatron, Seaspray, Hubcap, Wolfang, Sky-Byte, Maxima, Onyx Primal, Devron, the Wreckers, the Destructons, Lifeline, and Lio Minor's replacement.

Continuity notes

• It's the finale, so every previous Uprising story gets a nod.
  • The Vehicons were introduced in the previous story, the result of Galva Convoy's work from "Not All Megatrons".
  • Hot Rod, his Micromaster underlings, and Big Grim himself return from "Micro-Aggressions".
  • The kill order on Preditron was also established in "Safe Spaces", as was Preditron's friendship with Cheetor.
  • Stiletto, Snapper, the Constructicons, and what's left of the Dinosaur crew return from "Cultural Appropriation".
  • Megatron, Scorponok, Terrorsaur, Wasp, Leatherhide, and Packrat return from "Not All Megatrons".
  • Tarantulas returns from "Trigger Warnings".
  • A nod is made to Dynobot and the dissident cell from "Alone Together: Prologue", the first nod to Chopperface and the gang in the text stories. Better late than never.
• In just the previous story, the Resistance were using the lobotomized body of Star Dasher as a transport. This story reveals the poor glitch wasn't the only unfortunate they've done this to.
• Eject's aide Zoom Out previously appeared in "Broken Windshields".
• Lio Minor (a renamed Lio Junior) previously appeared as a member of the yet-to-be-identified Maximal Command Security Force in "Perception".
• Queen Rage has been mentioned several times through the text stories, as having seized an entire city state for herself. We finally get to meet her.
• In the previous story's map, Praxus was misspelled as "Praxis". This story reconciles that "Praxus" is an older, traditional spelling which has somewhat fallen out of favor by the present timeframe.
• Beast Wars Scourge appeared in "Broken Windshields" with his name spelled in said manner although "A Brush With Infamy–Prologue" spelled the original Scourge's name the same way. It is revealed that Skurge likes to spell his name like the original, though some such as Queen Rage refuse to indulge his affectation.
• Scylla spoke with a stereotypical pirate speech pattern in "Broken Windshields", in keeping with her original characterization as a Seacon Space Pirate. This story therefore puts her in a high-ranking position in the Resistance's navy. Her high rank probably has something to do with the fact that she was part of the Resistance before Lio Convoy or Blackarachnia, as shown in "Broken Windshields"
• Ratbat derisively refers to Hot Rod as "Chosen One", much as Grimlock did back in "Micro-Aggressions".
• Hot Rod's Micromaster command team from "Micro-Aggressions" appears alongside him.
• Megatron and co. have managed to nab Klaws, the last of the Antares Eight left from "Cultural Appropriation", who alone escaped from the Ex-Bots.
• Galvatron finally reveals the identity of "Triple-Threat Prime", and it is in fact Optimus himself. Galvatron also claims that Diac replaced Optimus's "mangled face", which could be a reference to the state of Optimus per "A Change to the Agenda"... or something else, since ol' Galvatron never actually specifies how Optimus' face got mangled... and he's not remembering all of it properly.
  • This story identifies Diac as having been killed by Galvatron, explaining why he was the only member of the Optimus not to be binary-bonded with Triple-Threat Prime in "A Brush With Infamy–Prologue" and why Overrun did not mention him in "Trigger Warnings".
• Galvatron's got an immunity to the Vehicon hordes because he owes his origin to the G-Virus, as do the Vehicons themselves, since they're born from Galva Convoy, also created by mucking around with the original Galvatron's remains.
• Grimlock is mentioned to have been imprisoned in Ferromax Detention Center, the same penal facility from which Dynobot was broken out of in "Alone Together: Prologue".
• Aura and Stiletto's not-so-joyous reunion brings up the events depicted in the flashbacks of "Burning Bridges", namely Stiletto being sent to the mnemosurgeon on Aura's orders, along with Wolfang's nature and death from "Trigger Warnings".
• Lord Imperious Delirious turns out to be the mastermind behind the Vehicons, the autonomous mechanical lifeforms which remove the spark of any Cybertronian they come across. He previously expressed distaste with Cybertronian life, and a desire to remove the spark of every single on of them back in "Intersectionality", during which he was revealed to have survived the destruction of his body as an electronic being. "Not All Megatrons" showed that someone was influencing Galva Convoy's meditations, and "Cultural Appropriation" revealed that a "unique digital entity" was frustrated that they had failed to trigger a Terran-born apocalypse on Cybertron with the Antares Eight's plot.
• The Uprising ends with the Builder hegemony swept away, and the birth of the Cybertronian Parliament, just as the Oracle said it would back in "Cultural Appropriation".
• The epilogue identifies Artemis, where Thunderwing was said to have found the Underbase back in "Not All Megatrons", as an alternate name for Luna 2, with Luna 1 and Luna 3 receiving the names "Hecate" and "Selene".
• "Head Games" characterized Triax as a port city, though the map included in "Safe Spaces" did not put it on a river or sea. In "Derailment" it is characterized as a spaceport.
• The Vehicon drones are described as swarming "like Locustors".

Transformers references

• The Uprising iteration of Big Convoy is named Slammoth, one of the unused possible names for Victorion in the Fan Built Bot program. Sorenson had previously intimated in an online Q&A that he would utilize the name for Uprising Big Convoy.^[1]
• Buzz Saw's pre-beast vehicle mode is a helicopter, a repurposing of his Cybertron namesake's toy.
• Magna Stampede identifies himself as the great-nephew of Pyra Magna, much like how Rattrap once referred to Arcee as his great-aunt. Later on, Hydraulic identifies Trailcutter as his great-uncle.
• Stockade, a G1-import of the 2008 Universe Mini-Con who has since taken her namesake's beast form, is partially converted into a tank drone, becoming the 2003 Universe version of Stockade.
• Movor name-drops the Pretender process when thinking about how he and the Commandoes became K-Bombs, which until now had been the only one of the "major" G1 gimmicks that had gone unseen. The process's treatment as a superweapon harkens to their depiction in the early part of the original IDW continuity. He also figured they might've been remade into a combiner, a nod to how the Robots in Disguise version of the team did form a combiner.
• The Uprising version of Steel Jaw leads the Pack, much as his Robots in Disguise counterpart led another pack.
• Airazor appears in her Transmetal body, following the trend of Terrorsaur and Scorponok also using the designs of Transmetal toys in the Uprising continuity.
• Several characters throughout the story swear by members of the Guiding Hand.
• The Dark Skies Patrol comprises four G1 imports of Armada Decepticon partner Mini-Cons.
• The Deep Sea Patrol comprises a G1 version of Cybertron Deepdive and that mold's three redecoes.
• This story introduces Tigatron and Airazor to the mix, the two having been the only main cast members of Beast Wars not to have appeared previously in Uprising.
• Cheetor and Tigatron call one another "big cat" and "little cat" respectively, as their counterparts in the Beast Wars cartoon did.
• Queen Rage's majordomo is Flytrap, a character based on an unused concept for a triffid-based Transformer from the Beast Wars Telemocha Series. Her general Manticon is the manticore design, leaving Rage as the third design, a jellyfish (since her original incarnation was, you guessed it, a jellyfish).
• Goldbug communicates entirely through music clips after his voice box was damaged, just like a more famous Bumblebee.
• Quillfire being a member of the Resistance is especially fitting as his original Robots in Disguise counterpart was also an anti-government revolutionary/terrorist.
• Tidal Wave is a mode-locked Builder repurposed as a naval flagship, similarly to his non-sentient Wings Universe counterpart, ship of the Star Seekers, and IDW counterpart, base of Mayhem.
• Banzai-Tron being the head of the Builder navy references his BotCon 2009 toy, with a gunboat alt-mode.
• Hydraulic implies Trailcutter was taken to pieces by the Decepticons, calling to mind his IDW comics counterpart, who was violently disassembled by Kaon and Vos.
• As he confronts the Builder Assembly, Lio Convoy punctuates his terms for surrender by solemnly *doink*ing his staff on the floor. "*Doink*" enjoyed a short-lived run as a meme in the fandom after 2016's Combiner Wars cartoon, based on the poorly edited SFX of the Mistress of Flame's hammer.
• Shatterpoint observes that he never expected the Grand Uprising to end with a "giant floating head, screaming like a banshee, firing laser beams everywhere" in reference to the bizarre and widely mocked penultimate episode of Combiner Wars, which saw Starscream transform into... well, a giant floating head, after absorbing the Enigma of Combination.
• Ratbat winds up getting turned into a copter drone by the Vehicons.
• Leatherhide's mad science has now produced such things as the mighty Fuzors and Horrorcons.
• Proving some things just don't ever change, Wasp is "picked" as the guinea pigatron for Leatherhide and Labrat's little experiment. His just narrowly avoiding becoming a Vehicon himself is a nod to his time as Thrust during Beast Machines, and his new body is based on his Timelines "Thrustinator" toy.
• Fever Dream repurposes the Platinum Edition Blitzwing toy, much as Star Dasher is a repurposing of that toy's package-mate Astrotrain.
• Rook's association with Andromeda and Aston references the working relationship of their counterparts from Fun Publications' Axiom Nexus News Facebook pages.
• Dark Scream is friends with Sky-Byte, referencing their close association from the 2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon.
• Black-Out having a helicopter alt-mode comes from live-action movie counterpart while his ability to generate EMPs comes from his Animated counterpart. Coincidentally, another G1-import of movie Blackout also debuted a week before this story in Optimus Prime #1.
• Lio Convoy's team breach the Grand Mal by flying Black-Out right into the floating fortress's left eye socket, recalling the Autobot attack on Unicron in the 1986 movie.
• Razorbeast states that he will not disobey direct orders, a quality of his taken directly from his original toy bio. He uses a "scut gun" to put down the Vehicon-infected Apexus, a weapon attributed to Razorbeast in his Beast Wars Sourcebook entry. Razorbeast's mercy-killing of Apexus could also be looked upon as an ironic mirror to his own ultimate fate in the IDW Beast Wars comics.
• Lord Imperious Delirious being a product of Gorlam Prime's civilization harkens back to its appearance in the IDW universe, where its inhabitants had begun to augment themselves with cybernetic technology.
• Know that Razor-Claw appears, using a speaking pattern based on his memorable speech from "Abduction". Obsidian serving as his representative echoes their appearance together in that same comic.
• The epilogue notes that Optimal, one of the Maximals in the newly formed Parliament, is an "enormous" orange-and-blue quad changer, i.e. someone with Optimus Primal's "Optimal Optimus" form.
• Antagony and Cataclysm fought to be Shokaract's chief bot in the 1999 BotCon fiction.
• The unnamed head (tee hee) of the Maximal Academy who joined the High Council is Lionhead, a Happy Meal toy from the original Beast Wars toyline, taking his Japanese name. As "Unit-3", he was a previous member of the Council's Magnaboss combination in the BotCon 2016 story "Dawn of the Predacus". A sideways reference to him is made when Cheetor rejected council membership, and Tigatron said there were "under three" candidates left.
• Shadow Panther appears as a member of the Predacon Secret Police, with the mention of persistent rumors suggesting he's a Builder rebuilt into a Predacon body. Pfft! What a foolish idea. Stranger still is the competing theory that his spark has somehow been created or altered by aliens. Madness!
• Movor's body is based on the Combiner Wars Shockwave mold.
• Buckethead has taken over as leader of the Constructicons, supplanting Hightower. The Micromaster Devastator toy had Buckethead form its upper torso—the component traditionally formed by Hook, another crane.
• Lio Convoy asks a Micromaster in his way if he wishes to throw away his life so recklessly.

Real-world references

• The title refers to the psychiatric concept of derailment, a thought disorder associated with conversation that slips between unrelated, or barely related, ideas. It's also used as another way of saying lateral thinking and sometimes used to mean wandering off from the original idea. The story has lightly related events and scenes and, by the end of it, many characters have strayed far from what they originally set out to do.
• The titles of the parts of this story utilize rivers of the Underworld in Greek mythology.
• Blackarachnia refers to Lio Convoy first as Aslan, Mufasa, and Panja, all of whom are also slagging big lions.
  • In a similar vein, she calls him her "Nemean warrior".
• "Vehicon General Order 66" is a reference to Order 66 from Star Wars, both of them being contingency measures.
• Stiletto nicknames Tarantulas "webhead", which is a frequent moniker of Spider-Man's.
• Run-Over speaks entirely in quotes from The Simpsons, which the narration notes ran for several thousand episodes (in real life at the time this story was released, the show clocked in at 606 episodes).
  • "Go out on a Tuesday? Who am I, Charlie Sheen?" was asked by Marge in "Moms I'd Like to Forget".
  • "You know what I blame this on the breakdown of? Society." was spoken by Moe in "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace".
  • "I call the big one 'Bitey'" is a Homer quote from "Marge vs. The Monorail".
  • "Take that, Dick Tracy!" was shouted by a young Ned Flanders in "Hurricane Neddy".
  • "Why you little—" is from too many episodes to name, but (of course) usually signifies that Homer is about to strangle Bart.
  • "I bent my Wookiee" laments Run-Over, quoting Ralph Wiggum from "Lisa's Rival".
• Voice of Maximals is named for the U.S. white propaganda service Voice of America, just as Radio Free Cybertron has long been named for its sister service Radio Free Europe.
• The Yuss coastal cannons may be based on the book and film The Guns of Navarone, in which coastal batteries threaten Allied positions, and which is based on real such guns in the Battle of Leros.
• Since Goldbug can only communicate verbally through audio clips, he ends up referencing a few Earth songs.
  • "This is what we've waited for, this is it, boys, this is war!" comes from "99 Red Balloons" by the German band Nena.
  • "Run to the hills" is a reference to "Run to the Hills" by Iron Maiden.
  • "You can't always get what you want" comes from "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by The Rolling Stones.
  • "Don't fear the reaper" is from "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by the Blue Oyster Cult.
• Springload's serial number, AC5000487105, is also the serial number of Maeve in HBO's Westworld
• Bisk's new beast mode is referred to as a "rock-lob," which is surely a reference to "Rock Lobster" by the B-52's.
• Ram Horn borrows elements of populist right-wing politicians from 2016: jabs at experts and how we're tired of them, after a similar line by British MP Michael Gove; is prone to aggressive and seemingly daft outbursts and decisions which may be intentional to wrongfoot people or may just be him, reflecting dual views on U.S. President Donald Trump.
• The Ex-Bots repaint a Sweep into the black and yellow-striped "Ex-Jet", referencing the X-Jet from Marvel's X-Men.
• Dante the Cyberdroid is forced into a job on his day off, complaining all the while how he's "not supposed to be [here] today," just like Dante the human in Clerks.
• During his spiel on the Ex-Jet's weapons, Bazooka quotes Sergeant Hicks of Alien fame, namely his boast that they have "knives, they got sharp sticks."
• Riker quotes the familiar Vietnam War era phrase, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" to chastise Lio Convoy's plan to destroy Cybertron to thwart the Vehicon threat.
• As mentioned above, Cybertron's moons are given the names Hecate, Artemis, and Selene, who in Ancient Greece were moon goddesses.
• The idea of the Resistance forming a shining example of related states harkens to the idea of the early United States of America being called the 'shining city on the hill'. The idea of the Parliament deliberately struggling to get a supermajority similarly harkens to the United States Congress, deliberately set up to force compromise. (That's worked well!)
• Wind-Sheer and Shatterpoint discuss "Unicron Truthers", a Cybertronian equivalent of the "Truther Movement", people who believe the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 was not what the official reports say, concocting any number of reasons to "prove" their viewpoint.
• The bar Chalmun's is a reference to a Wookiee bartender from Star Wars.

Errors

• On page 53, Wind-Sheer incorrectly attributes Thunder-Clash's dialogue to Run-Over.
• On page 143, Dark Scream's movements are described as 'He throw up his hands' when it should be 'He threw up his hands'.

Other trivia

• The translated Cybertronix sections are excerpts from a religious text, the Book of Logos, that apparently foretell many of the main events of the Grand Uprising.
• The author's notes for the next story say the format of both stories is based on the Babylon 5 episode "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" and the book World War Z. The latter also features a global conflict against mindless revenants, told from the views of various international participants.
• No, there's nothing wrong with your PDF... the prose literally splits in two when Twinstrike transforms. Jim Sorenson has said that keeping the two columns in sync was a bit of a nightmare, as he kept having to add and remove extra words every time he wanted to change a sentence.
• The other Predacon present with Beetle and CatSCAN is not identified in the text, but Jesse Wittenrich clarified that he intended it to be Insecticon.^[2]
• Sky-Dive was originally intended to be part of Magna Stampede, Stockade, and Soundbite's squad before being given his role as the commander of his own unit. Striker was also intended to be a member of that squad, but his lines were cut for story pacing reasons.^[3]
• The ICS newscasters were almost replaced with original characters, including one named "Sidebar", but the short production schedule did not allow for full consideration of this decision.^[4]
• While "Derailment" follows the standard structure of an Uprising prose story—chunks of Cybertronix serving as section breaks—it is further divided into five parts (consisting of 14, 44, 14, 44 and 13 sections respectively, totalling 129 sections across 179 pages). Despite being told entirely in the third person, each section can be said to have a "point-of-view" character whose thoughts we are privy to—and with only a couple of exceptions, a section break indicates a jump to another POV character. Nineteen sections actually end with the death of their POV character. A full breakdown of how many sections each of the fifty-four POV characters received follows:
  • 19: Lio Convoy
  • 8: Scylla
  • 7: Cheetor
  • 5: Snapper, Dark Scream, Blackarachnia
  • 4: Rage, Banzai-Tron
  • 3: Eject, Stiletto, Ser-Ket, Ram Horn, Magmatron, Magnaboss
  • 2: Magna Stampede, Steel Jaw, Erector, Wind-Sheer, Diveplane, Hot Rod, Knock-Out, Flak, Megatron, B'Boom, Preditron, Crazybolt, Rampage
  • 1: Buzz Saw, Movor, Twinstrike, Tigatron, Sunstorm, Draft, Mantis, Sky High, Goldbug, Break, Katilla, Flattop, Ramulus, Hydraulic, Sky-Dive, Longtooth, Dante, Psycho-Orb, Fever Dream, Galvatron, Bisk, Aura, Bazooka, Razorbeast, Ro-Tor, Lord Imperious Delirious, Razor-Claw

See also

• "Derailment" Cybertronix translation: "Book of Logos"

References

External links

• "Derailment" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club website