Zachary, Ethan
Human computer programmer who worked in a high-tech lab containing
a hydrothermacline, invaluable to the Decepticons as an energy source.
The arrival of Autobot and Decepticon forces threatened to kill him and
destroy him lab, so he talked the Transformers into entering a
role-playing game to fight out the battle. Megatron and Optimus Prime
upped the stakes by giving Ethan two joysticks... each of which would
trigger lethal explosions in one of the two combatants. At the end of
the game, Ethan was forced to use one to destroy Optimus Prime. However,
he saved Optimus's mind to disk before the explosion, and after years
of searching his memory, found a way to contact Sparkplug Witwicky
concerning Optimus. Goldbug overheard this phone call, and Ethan gave
him the disk in the hope that he could build Optimus a new body.