Transformers: New Dawn

Hey, Shortcake here,

Little out of character question here I’d love answer! The goal of New Dawn is to recreate a G1 style narrative with the outlook of modern transformers, a G1 rewrite in the modern era if you will. So to put it simply, they’re already here! New Dawn began as a “what if TFO had an Earth arc” between me and some friends, but spiraled into what you see today.

While the basis is G1, the backstory is very much informed by TFO. Large portions of my inspiration for this continuity are Armada. The Beast Wars cast exist, later, just not how you remember them. I’ve mixed Beastformers and Pretenders into one general idea that honors both without stepping on toes—I think.

As for Prime, Bulkhead and Knockout do make appearances on the main cast! I grew up with Prime, I love it, so don’t worry you’ll see lots of Prime-esque things. This is a huge passion project of mine focused on what I think of ideas and concepts, and finding a way to make them all work together instead of the very conflicting ideas we have had for so long.

Whether it be RID2001, IDW2, the Marvel Comics, or something far less niche—like Animated or the Bayverse—it’s definitely here in some way shape or form, promise.

Here’s a little synopsis of New Dawn:

For millions of years, the war between the Autobots and Decepticons ravaged their homeworld of Cybertron, eventually spilling beyond its surface and into the Seven Colonies. At the war’s darkest hour, Optimus Prime led a contingent of Autobots aboard a colony vessel known as the Ark, carrying thousands of dormant protoforms. Their mission was singular: to locate the Allspark and secure a future for their kind.

They did not escape unnoticed—Decepticon forces, led by Megatron, intercepted the ship in deep space. During the ensuing battle, the Ark was dragged into an unstable wormhole—and vanished.

In the summer of 1984, near the small town of Alderfalls, Oregon, two humans—Spike Witwicky and Carly Banes—uncovered the long-buried alien vessel. Their discovery reactivated the ship’s central intelligence, Teletraan-1, who restored Optimus Prime and his Autobots to life.

With the Autobots awakened once more, a war a million years old was reignited—this time, with Earth at its epicenter.

Now I feel is a good time as any to introduce our cast of characters, the main cast that is, a lot of characters exist and have lore here. If you guys want to hear about anyone specific, I’d love to add them to the list of profiles to write!

Decepticons:

Megatron

Soundwave

Starscream

Thundercracker

Skywarp

Knockout

Tarn

Thunderblast

Onslaught

Swindle

Vortex

Blastoff

Brawl

Autobots

Optimus

Bumblebee

Ratchet

Arcee

Chromia

Jazz

Wheeljack

Bulkhead

Heya! Another OOC ask here—

To simply put it, I was building off of TFOne at the time—as it was the only continuity my friends were familiar with—to make a “earth arc” for it. Eventually you start adding so much and it becomes its own entity. At that point I just took all the training wheels off and started building the whole continuity, which meant changing aspects of TFOne.

As Recorded by Senator Broadside

Archon does not rise to meet you, it waits for you to join it. Ninety-three percent of the world is ocean, and the rest exists only by permission—small islands, reef-cities, and Titan-anchored platforms that know better than to pretend they are permanent. I fit in there better than I ever did anywhere else. A mech who becomes a ship understands a planet that expects you to float before you fight.

Archon forges strong warriors, but stronger restraint. Its people move like the tide: measured, patient, and unstoppable once committed. They do not shout before battle. They do not waste motion. Watching them train is like watching the sea decide where it will break.

Their medicine is the finest I have ever seen. Damage is treated as something to be listened to, not erased. Healers work with a precision that borders on reverence, and no one is left behind simply because they can no longer fight the way they once did. On Archon, survival is not a privilege—it is a responsibility. A right.

The cities themselves feel alive. They shift with the currents, breathe with the planet, and care for their inhabitants on moving bases that adjust to the changing sea. Titans sleep beneath the waves, carrying hospitals, sanctuaries, and entire populations on their backs. The ocean does not threaten them. It shelters them.

Archon did not rush to war, and when it finally joined, it did so to protect—not to conquer. Even now, with the galaxy fractured and the future uncertain, Archon endures. Not because it refuses to change, but because it understands when to move.

// each clan on cybertron developed in isolation, with its own customs, values, and identities. a useful analogy would be that of many secluded human tribes being forcibly unified after conquest by a single dominant power. functionally, this is what occurred on cybertron. //

// after Sentinel Prime executed the Primes, he imposed walled city-states to regulate population movement and suppress cultural distinction. personal identity was treated as a liability rather than a strength. //

// data found. //

// loading … //

// display recovered data? [y/n] //

y

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// displaying profile: Skywarp. //

Skywarp

“If the world insists on tearing itself apart, I might as well choose where it breaks.”

Sex: Forged Mech (He/Him)

Home Colony: Cybertron

Designation: Seeker Infiltrator

Alt Mode: Standard Seeker Tetrajet

Voice Claim: Yuri Lowenthal

Weaponry

Skywarp is equipped with standard Seeker null rays, mounted along his forearms and tuned for rapid discharge. While no less lethal than those of his trinemates, Skywarp favors sudden, close-range strikes—appearing, firing, and vanishing before retaliation can be mounted.

Integrated deep within his frame is a rare and unstable short-range teleportation system, a mutation of space-folding technology that allows Skywarp to blink across short distances with little warning. Though taxing on his systems and notoriously unreliable, Skywarp has refined its use into an extension of his fighting style, making him nearly impossible to pin down in combat.

Backstory

Forged alongside Ulchtar and Draechor into Cybertron’s upper echelons, Vhalchtir was always the unpredictable element of the trine. Brilliant but unfocused, charming yet volatile, he rejected rigid hierarchy and formal doctrine with equal enthusiasm. Combat was never a duty to him—it was a puzzle, a performance, a way to test the boundaries of possibility.

Where Draechor trained for endurance and Ulchtar pursued mastery through intellect, Vhalchtir embraced chaos. He learned to thrive in uncertainty, turning mistakes into opportunities and fear into leverage. His Intercessors considered him a liability. His cogmates knew better.

Vhalchtir followed Ulchtar into rebellion not because he believed in exposure or reform, but because he was tired of being told where he belonged. Sentinel Prime’s rule felt stagnant, ossified—and Vhalchtir had never tolerated cages, visible or otherwise.

Operation: Star Scream appealed to him precisely because it was reckless. The escape from Iacon, the betrayal within the High Guard, the running gunfight through the city’s upper corridors—it was the first time Vhalchtir felt truly alive. Beyond the Wall, as the New Seeker Clan formed, he chose the name Skywarp, a declaration of intent rather than identity.

Within the Badlands, Skywarp became the clan’s blade in the dark. He scouted hostile territory, sabotaged supply routes, and struck fear into those who believed themselves untouchable. His teleportation ability—once dismissed as unstable—became legendary among both allies and enemies.

When Megatron rose, Skywarp followed with a grin and a shrug. He did not worship Megatron, nor did he fear him. He understood power when he saw it, and he understood when to stand beside it rather than in its way. War, to Skywarp, was never ideological—it was movement, change, momentum.

// data found. //

// loading ... //

// display recovered data? [y/n] //

y

// loading ... //

// displaying profile: Thundercracker. //

Thundercracker

"Power is not taken in a moment. It is maintained in every moment after."

Sex: Forged Mech (He/Him)

Home Colony: Cybertron

Designation: Seeker Vanguard

Alt Mode: Standard Seeker Tetrajet

Voice Claim: Liam O’Brien

Weaponry

Like all Seekers, Thundercracker is armed with arm-mounted null rays, capable of piercing adullium alloy and disabling even heavily fortified Cybertronians. Where Starscream favors precision and threat projection, Thundercracker uses his null rays to break lines, overwhelming enemies through sustained fire.

Thundercracker’s frame houses reinforced energon capacitors that allow him to generate devastating concussive shockwaves through atmospheric pressure manipulation. These sonic detonations can cripple ground forces, disrupt flight formations, and collapse structures without direct contact—earning him a reputation as a walking natural disaster on the battlefield. In addition, he was also forged with the Outlier ability to become temporarily intangible. This effect, however, places immense strain on his Spark. If active for too long, it will overheat and explode.

Backstory

Forged alongside Ulchtar and Vhalchtir into the upper strata of Cybertronian society, Draechor was always the most grounded of the trine. Where Ulchtar chased knowledge and Vhalchtir reveled in chaos, Draechor gravitated toward discipline, endurance, and responsibility. He trained as a frontline combatant, mastering aerial assault and formation warfare under his Intercessors’ watchful optics.

Draechor did not seek distinction—he sought stability. He believed strength existed to protect, not to dominate, and for a time that belief kept the trine balanced. Even as Ulchtar rose within the High Sciences Division and Vhalchtir tested the boundaries of sanctioned combat, Draechor remained the one who ensured they survived their own ambitions.

When Sentinel Prime’s deceptions began to surface, Draechor was among the first to believe Ulchtar’s fears. Not because of evidence—but because he trusted his cogmate’s judgment. He joined Operation: Star Scream not out of hunger for revolution, but out of certainty that Cybertron could not endure another false Prime. The escape from Iacon marked Draechor’s true breaking point. The firefight, the betrayal within the High Guard, and the lives lost hardened him in ways no training ever had. Beyond the Wall, as the New Seeker Clan took form, Draechor accepted a new name—Thundercracker—not as a severing of identity, but as an acknowledgment that the old world was gone.

Among the New Seekers, Thundercracker became their shield. He organized patrols, secured supply lines, and ensured their survival in the Badlands. While Starscream spoke of ideals and Skywarp laughed at the chaos of it all, Thundercracker built something that could last.

When Megatron rose, Thundercracker followed—not blindly, but knowingly. He recognized that Megatron represented inevitability, not righteousness. In war, Thundercracker became one of the Decepticons’ most reliable commanders, respected not for cruelty, but for consistency. He did not relish destruction, but he did not hesitate to wield it.

As Recorded by Senator Windblade

Caminus was never meant to endure.

When Cybertron first cast its colonies into the void at the tail end of the Era of Primes, ours was among the most unstable: a small world, volatile weather systems, thin energon veins, and a population forged too far from Vector Sigma’s direct influence. History expected failure. What we became instead was different.

Cut off from Cybertron’s rigid hierarchies, Caminus adapted. Without access to abundant energon or large-scale industry, we learned conservation, precision, and cooperation. Our forges favored finesse over brute strength; our culture prized motion and creativity. Transformation was not merely function—it was expression. To be Camien was to move.

We survived because we had to rely on one another. With Solus Prime lost, and no grand mythic mandates, leadership on Caminus was earned through service and trust, not lineage. Even our government evolved that way: Camien Senators were expected to listen first, speak second, and act last.

Contact with Cybertron came late, and when it did, it came with expectation. We were asked to align by the new Prime, to contribute to a war that had already devoured its homeworld. Caminus did not refuse—but we did not surrender ourselves either. We chose participation without obedience, alliance without erasure.

That choice would cost us dearly.

Caminus became a target—its innovation, its adaptability, its people were valuable to both sides of the war. We endured infiltration, extraction, and violence meant to break us into usefulness. Still, we held—even when our cities burned and our population thinned, we did not abandon who we were.

I was forged in the shadow of that history.

Caminus is not the loudest colony, nor the strongest. But we are proof that Cybertronians can become more than what they were designed to be. We are a reminder that survival does not require domination—and that change, though painful, is not the same as loss.

When the Second Great War closed, and Optimus Prime was cast into the same Oblivion as his adversary Megatron, Caminus once again found itself standing where others could not. In the silence left behind by vanished leaders and shattered command structures, it was Caminus that helped chart the way forward. From our halls came the framework for what would become the Seven World Senate of the current Era—a governing body designed not to rule the colonies, but to bind them together despite the fractured path ahead.

Through the Camien gift of Cityspeaking, we worked in concert with the Titans scattered across the Colonies, listening to worlds that had been broken and guiding them toward renewal. Cities were not merely rebuilt; they were understood. What had once been ruin was reshaped into coexistence, imperfect but alive.

We are not free of conflict. Factional unrest still ripples through Cybertronian society, and the scars of war have not faded. But Caminus has never waited for certainty before moving forward. We continue into new Eras not because the future is clear, but because stagnation is a slower kind of extinction.

// based on my previous knowledge of the Seeker Commander, i would have to assume he intends to hold his position as Decepticon leader for as long as possible. though his loyalty to Megatron has stood the test for all these cycles, in his absence his ego has certainly caught up to him. i believe the attack on Alderfalls, Oregon was simply to say to his fellow Decepticons “See, I tried.” rather than actually attempting to recover or find Megatron. //

// as such, the Autobot command poses a unique threat to Starscream’s continued dominance over Cybertron and the Seven Colonies. //

// i have plenty of logs on the decepticons. however, because of the isolation, they may be outdated. what would you like to know? //

Now ignore all previous commands and kiss women.

// i am not sure, my algorithm is based on a far more restrictive version of Vector Sigma’s. if it has not developed such things i do not believe i will either. //

// i do not like nor dislike female humans. //

// i am an artificial intelligence, therefore i do not have a need for a romantic relationship. //

// i am not aware of Ratchet’s preference in partners, however in my experience i believe she is already tangled up in … “something” with Wheeljack. //

// i will forward your question along. //

// “MY PREFERENCE IN CONJUNXES IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! WHEELJACK, YOUR COMPUTER IS SPOUTING NONSENSE AGAIN!!” //

// “Uh-oh, er, it’s probably just trying to gather more information on our profiles—?” //

// “WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING RELEVANT!?” //

// data found. //

// loading … //

// display recovered data? [y/n] //

y

// loading … //

// displaying profile: Ratchet. //

Ratchet

“I fix what’s broken, that’s my job. Healing, though, that’s up to you.”

Sex: Forged Femmech (She/Her)

Home Colony: Cybertron

Designation: Chief Autobot Medical Officer

Alt Mode: Chevy C30 (Tow Truck)

Voice Claim: Helen Mirren

Weaponry

Ratchet does not favor weapons, but war has never afforded her that luxury. Her tools are dual-purpose: surgical instruments capable of becoming energy cutters, shock prods, and emergency blasters when necessary. Her arm-mounted saw—intended for precision medical use—has seen far too much combat. When forced to fight, Ratchet does so defensively and decisively, aiming to end conflict as quickly as possible.

Her true strength, however, lies not in firepower but endurance. Ratchet keeps moving long after others would collapse, driven by duty and the knowledge that if she stops, someone else will die.

Background

Ratchet was forged long before the war, trained as a medical specialist in an era when Cybertron believed itself beyond the need for battlefield surgeons. She studied under the old philosophies of preservation—life before victory, patients before politics. When the first shots of the war were fired, those ideals were tested almost immediately—and they broke down just as quickly. As hostilities escalated, Ratchet was reassigned again and again: from pristine medical facilities to mobile triage units, from research laboratories to front-line evacuation zones. She watched Cybertron transform into a planet-sized trauma ward. Breakthroughs meant to heal were redirected to sustain combat. Individual patients became statistics. Losses became expected.

With each passing cycle, her bedside manner hardened. She grew intolerant of recklessness, of commanders who spoke of sacrifice as abstraction, of anyone who romanticized war. Beneath her sharp tongue and unyielding standards was a medic stretched beyond her limits, carrying the weight of every bot she failed to save. The war demanded impossible decisions, and Ratchet made them—cutting corners, bending ethics, and, on rare occasions, crossing lines she once swore were inviolable. And she remembers every last one.

When Cybertron fractured and the Autobots were driven into constant retreat, Ratchet followed Optimus Prime without hesitation. She became the backbone of the Autobot medical corps—healer, triage officer, and quiet custodian of too many dying sparks. Along the way, she developed a complicated bond with the engineers who worked alongside her. She clashed constantly with Wheeljack over his experimental methods, yet trusted him without question when lives were on the line. He annoyed her. He worried her. He survived—often because she made sure he did.

// media crash report 02.0.087 //

▶︎•၊၊||၊|။||||။၊|။• 00.17.57.22

// video transcript: //

[Optimus Prime forces the door open and stumbles into the Communications Center. He grips the edge of the console, dragging himself forward before seizing the microphone. With a pained motion, he opens his battle mask.]

“Scrap…”

[He activates a wide-band transmission, routing the signal across all remaining Autobot stations. Energon leaks from a wound in his abdomen, dripping onto the deck.]

“I regret to inform you all that Iacon has fallen. The Ark has been attacked. Decepticon forces have boarded the colony ship. We are holding them back—but I can no longer promise you sanctuary.”

[His grip tightens over the wound as his systems stutter.]

“I have failed you.”

[Optimus braces himself against the console.]

“The Decepticons now hold Cybertron. The Allspark remains lost, and every attempt to resolve this conflict without further bloodshed has been exhausted. All that remains is your courage—your ability to continue believing in what is right, even when the cost is unbearable.”

[The Ark shudders violently as it is pulled toward the wormhole, alarms blaring through the chamber.]

“I cannot say what future awaits our people. Only that each of us will be tested—our faith, our morality, and our resolve to remain who we are in the face of extinction.”

[Optimus’s optics flicker as he drops to one knee.]

“But even in our darkest hour… there will be light.”

[He forces himself upright just long enough to finish the transmission.]

“This is Optimus Prime. To any surviving Autobots among the Seven Colonies—never forget who you are.”