Decepticons

The main Transformer army opposing the Autobots. Generally characterized as miltaristic, brutal, and lacking in regard for personal freedom, they act as the Yin to the Autobots' Yang.

Cartoon History (US):

Millions of years ago, the Quintessons turned the planet Cybertron into a giant factory for producing robots. One line, the military hardware robots, became the Decepticons. Unsatisfied with the situation that arose following their ousting of the Quintessons from Cybertron, they began a series of attacks that escalated into the Cybertronian Civil War. At some point, the Decepticons found themselves in need of greater leadership and power, and created Megatron. Four million years ago, they were brought to Earth in the Ark, but the crash landing resulted in their deactivation. A volcanic eruption indirectly caused them to reawaken, at which point they left the Ark and set up a base of operations elsewhere.

Eventually, the Decepticons were able to communicate with Cybertron and set up an interdimensional link between the two planets known as the Spacebridge. Much of the Decepticon effort was put into collecting energon from Earth's resources and transporting them to Cybertron, where the Decepticons, led by Shockwave, had a stranglehold on the remaining Autobots. Despite this, the Autobots became a threat on Earth, and in 2005, Megatron ordered a full-scale attack on Autobot City. The Decepticons were eventually beaten back when reinforcements led by Optimus Prime turned the tide. Megatron, badly injured from the battle, could not prevent Starscream from ejecting him into space and thus overthrowing him. But before Starscream could be crowned, Megatron returned in the form of Galvatron and destroyed him. Though the Decepticons were supposed to help Unicron, they defended Cybertron en masse when he attacked it. They were badly outclassed, however, and relied on Rodimus Prime to defeat Unicron using the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. Presumably too weak and decimated to resist, the Decepticons allowed the Autobots to take Cybertron in the wake of the battle.

Although Rodimus declared this point to be the end of the Civil war, most historians believe he was being overconfident.

Galvatron, who had been lost during the battle with Unicron, later turned up in a pool of lava on the planet Thrull (possibly Thrall or Throb). Having had his mental functions damaged by the extreme temperatures, he still managed to gather the respect of enough Decepticons to take back leadership. After a year under his leadership, the Decepticons were no longer dangerously low on energy, but neither were they as powerful as they once were.

Some time after that, Galvatron masterminded a full scale assault on the Earth-based Autobots. As it turned out, it was merely a distraction to allow several Decepticons to steal the key to Cybertron's plasma energy chamber. However, the key was lost to Cerebros after opening the chamber. An overload in the chamber caused a nearby Autobot shuttle (containing Cerebros) to go to the planet Nebulos. Determined to get the key back, the Decepticons followed them.

They attacked the Autobots, who had been captured by some Nebulans, but they only succeeded in capturing a few, and didn't even manage to get the key. Eventually, the free Autobots binary-bonded to a number of Nebulans, becoming Headmasters, and successfully rescued the Decepticon captives. The Decepticons followed suit (with a little convincing/blackmailing from the Nebulan Hive), but Cyclonus only allowed the animal-based Decepticons to share their heads. The rest of the Decepticons present became Targetmasters. The Decepticons counterattacked the Autobots and obtained the key. The Autobots, however, were able to steal Targetmaster technology from them during the battle when Brainstorm scanned Nightstick, Cyclonus's Targetmaster partner. In the meanwhile, Zarak, the leader of the Hive, worked on Scorponok, an underground city. Arcee eventually obtained the key back from Scourge during a subsequent battle, but then Scorponok suddenly emerged out from the ground, now with the ability to transform and be mobile, and captured Arcee, along with the key.

The victorious Decepticons flew back to Cybertron with the key. Galvatron was unhappy about the alliance, to say the least, but he realized its importance, at least for the time being, and allowed it to continue. Wanting to use the plasma energy chamber to power the giant engines he had built on Cybertron to move the planet, he again used the key, this time on time delay. Due to Autobot interference, the engines instead sucked excess energy from the sun to power Cybertron. Somehow, some of this energy hit the Decepticons (while in Scorponok), who were sent flying out of control into space.

Decepticon Leadership Chart

Megatron

Astrotrain & Blitzwing

Megatron

Starscream

Galvatron

Comic History (US):

The Decepticons began the Cybertronian Civil War, led by Megatron, in order to change the power structure of the planet. Believing that a goverment should rule with an iron fist, they launched assault after assault, decimating entire city-states in their efforts to break Autobot resistance. The sheer magnitude of the firepower used knocked Cybertron out of its orbit and sent it through the Sol system. There, the Autobots were forced to send troops up to clear a path through an asteroid field for Cybertron. The Decepticons waited for them to finish using up their resources and attacked them at their weakest point. The Ark was sent by Earth. The crash knocked all aboard out of commission for four million years.

Shockwave, who was aboard the Decepticon ship (supposedly as backup), came after them, but he was buried by the Dinobots for the same four million years. Shockwave was released when an Autobot probe, searching for the Dinobots, accidentally unearthed him instead. He arrived at the Ark just as the Decepticons were falling victim to poisonous fuel, and with a single blast he defeated the under-powered Autobot skeleton force. Only Ratchet and the Dinobots escaped being taken prisoner. The Decepticons used Optimus to gain access to the Creation Matrix and gave life to the Constructicons. They also launched worldwide attacks and took over several factories, oil rigs, and generator stations. One attack caused the near-total paralysis of Josie Beller, who in retaliation became Circuit Breaker.

As a result, Shockwave took leadership of the Decepticons from Megatron. Trying to kill Shockwave, Megatron made an deal with Ratchet, who then revived the Dinobots. Megatron tried to doublecross Ratchet, but in the ensuing struggle, he disappeared into the surrounding snow. He later resurfaced and found the Decepticons doing quite well on Earth. By this time, they had established communications with at least one city-state on Cybertron and were in the midst of finalizing plans for the Spacebridge.

Walter Barnett, head of I.I.I. and liason to RAAT, came up with the idea of using the comic character "Robot Master" to convince people that the robots terrorizing the world were actually being controlled by a human, albeit an evil one. Megatron kidnapped Donny Finkleberg (who portrayed Robot Master on television) and used him to convince people that he controlled both the Autobots and the Decepticons (and thus that both are evil). As expected, this caused humans to mistrust the Autobots just as much as the Decepticons. After the Autobots managed to get the gestalt technology from them, Shockwave reliquished command to Megatron. Megatron then initiated several other plans, many of which furthered human mistrust of his enemies.

In the midst of relocating their base of operations to an artificial island, Megatron disappeared in a suicide attempt and Shockwave became leader once again. Ratbat, Decepticon fuel auditor, came to Earth from Cybertron to evaluate the efficiency of the Terran operation. He was disappointed but agreed that Earth had much potential. With the island launched into space, Shockwave was sent plummeting through the atmosphere in a fight with Fortress Maximus. Ratbat took command at this point, apparently without any dissent.

During this time, Scorponok led a group of Decepticons from Cybertron to Nebulos, where they binary-bonded to a number of Nebulans. In order to spare Nebulos from this conflict, Lord Zarak told the Autobots on Nebulos about Earth, which convinced them to leave. The Decepticons there followed them to Earth, where they eventually joined up with Ratbat's contingent. Starscream took advantage of the confusion to call the Autobots, which resulted in a meaningless full-scale battle. In the meanwhile, Starscream pursued the Underbase in Scorponok's ship. Once they realized what was happening, the Autobots and Decepticons went after Starscream in Ratbat's island-ship (actually an alpha-class cruiser). They stopped Starscream before he could fully absorb the power of the Underbase, but he still managed to gather enough to destroy both Decepticon starships. However, the Ark was able to take the two armies back, where they fought Starscream long enough for Optimus to deflect the Underbase to Earth. Ratbat and Scorponok were able to predict this part of Prime's plan and shot him, believing him to covet the Underbase for himself. Scorponok then shot Ratbat so that he could have sole possession of it. However, Prime was able to stop Scorponok, and Starscream's attempt to take in the rest of the Underbase destroyed him.

Scorponok's leadership eventually caused several defections and set the stage for the Decepticon Civil War. Optimus Prime surrendered the Autobot Army to the Decepticons in an attempt to unite the two groups for the upcoming battle with Unicron. The rebel Decepticons, led by Shockwave and Starscream, attacked Scorponok's troops just as he agreed to hear Prime out, but Optimus refused to take sides in the dispute. Circuit Breaker and several mutant humans calling themselves Neoknights intervened and attacked, but the only Transformer to take serious damage was Shockwave, whom Circuit Breaker recognized as being directly responsible for her paralysis. With some help from a reluctant Mindwipe, the Autobots stopped the fighting, which in turn caused Primus to teleport them all to Cybertron.

On Cybertron, the Decepticons and Autobots set aside their differences to combat Unicron. Scorponok died in the resulting battle, and Bludgeon took his place. Although the Decepticons agreed to ally themselves with the Autobots after this, the violently self-destructing Cybertron caused the alliance to strain. Eventually, Bludgeon's Decepticons left Cybertron after sabotaging the Autobot ships. They decided (at random) to take over the planet Klo, but the Autobots managed to locate alternate transportation and caught up. However, the Autobots walked into an ambush, and only a few survived it. Unexpectedly, Optimus Prime, thought to be dead, arrived with the Last Autobot, who silently started raising the dead Autobots back to life. Bludgeon, realizing the futility of the fight, agreed to leave and never return.

Not surprisingly, Bludgeon broke his promise several years later and attacked Earth, hoping to draw Prime out of hiding. He planned to take the Creation Matrix from Prime and make a new generation of Decepticons. The plan eventually worked, but Bludgeon was terminated by a recently-rebuilt Megatron before it did. Upon finding out about the Cybertronians led by Jhiaxus, Megatron led an attack on them and got brutally repulsed. As a result, he agreed to another alliance with the Autobots, this time to fight Jhiaxus. The combined Autobot-Decepticon army proved superior and won. Despite this, the Liege Maximo has additional troops, so the alliance may have reason to continue.

Decepticon Leadership Chart

Megatron

Shockwave

Megatron

Shockwave

Ratbat

Scorponok

Bludgeon

Megatron

Comic History (UK):

Decepticon Leadership Chart (UK Comic)

Megatron

Trannis

Straxus

Scorponok

Jhiaxus

Megatron

Shockwave

Megatron

Shockwave

Ratbat

Thunderwing

Legonis/Octus/Seizer

Scorponok

Megatron

Thunderwing

Shockwave

Bludgeon

Megatron/Shockwave

Starscream/Soundwave

Bludgeon

Megatron

Galvatron

Shockwave

Soundwave

Galvatron