Alongside the Aerialbots, the Protectobots were given life by the Creation Matrix after Optimus retrieved it from Buster's mind. Sometime after, Buster began to have nightmares about new combining robots who had not been seen before. In one such dream, he was being chased by Shockwave and rescued by Superion, who was held up by Menasor. Buster managed to escape only to be halted in his tracks by Bruticus
Upon hearing this from Buster, Prime wished to know more and used his mental connection with Buster. Afterwards, they both knew of the names of each individual team and transformer, together with the fact that they could operate as not only individuals and a team, but they had the ability to merge into a larger robot.
After some time, it was decided that these teams should be built. The two teams, now identified as the Aerialbots, were, apart from Silverbolt, all military jets of different design. It was mentioned by Prowl that these should be military personnel, despite Prime's initial refusal. Eventually, Prime conceded that a military team might not be such a bad idea, since the Protectobots would be fully defensive, but had offensive possibilities.