#kheprrigarde

The Primacy works like a monarchy, usually, that's what I say tbh. Or that was the intention. Most Primes are female-adjacent, but female/femme aren't actual words used on Cybertron, genders don't typically matter and doesn't really exist either. For the Primacy, what matters is a mech's qualities, what makes them a contender for the Matrix. Willingness to learn and grow, strength and courage, compassion and benevolence.

Both Solus and Megatronus had this, but unfortunately what turned Primus away from Megatronus wasn't his strength or what could have been the start of violent tendencies, it was his greed that turned his mother away. It was a type of greed and hatred that had caused her to remove one of her own heads, and seeing that in one of her charges scared her. She chose Solus to become Prime, not foreseeing that Megatronus would lash out in the belief that she wasn't a suitable host.

Megatronus didn't hate his sister, he didn't think she wasn't a good leader. He just believed she wasn't strong enough and wouldn't be able to handle it— The Matrix of Leadership. But he nearly killed her when he lashed out, causing Primus to banish him and strip him and his later generations of her legacy. She bestowed Solus the Matrix of Leadership to better help her lead the growing society on Cybertron.

From then on, descendants are chosen by the same qualities; willingness to learn and grow, strength and courage, compassion and benevolence. Sometimes they're chosen from birth but don't receive the matrix until it deems they're ready. What makes the Primacy "female-adjacent only" is the ability for their sparks to be ignited and create more life, the primacy can't be passed down by a mech who ignites a spark unrelated to Primus. Vector Prime and Nova for example; Even though Vector was chosen as a Prime, none of his charges ignited from Nova's spark could ever be chosen. If it were the other way around, then maybe there would be a chance. But it's likely Vector foresaw something he didn't like, almost like he foresaw something in his charge when he was still young.

I also mainly wanted to write this because I glazed over the term "host" whenever I mentioned it in previous posts. No one really "bears" the Matrix of Leadership, they're hosts to it. It's sorta, sadly, parasitic and that's its main drawback.

Codexa is one of the main characters where I wanted to sorta showcase this with? She has outlived MULTIPLE Primes, because the Matrix requires too much power that eventually the host spark can't keep up. It's then absorbed into the collective consciousness to aid the next Prime. Codexa was born during the Era of Peace when Solus was the first Prime, Solus passes and Vector is chosen. She outlives Vector's time in primacy, she becomes his younger sister's scribe after she is chosen and outlives her, she outlives Prima, and then Vector for real this time, and also after the Great War, raises Orion and outlives Optimus (even Magnus, Orion's brother, outlives her). She's older than multiple primes and outlives them— many do, but she's been with them in person since Solus.

Screenshot of a work in progress of TF:LOP's timeline. There’s a giant gap because sometime down the line we look into Vector Prime and Sentinel’s portion.

Codexa will also be the first during the Great War to suggest the idea of re-engineering Optimus's future eggs to better survive their hatchling stages and ALSO better survive hosting the Matrix if/when they're chosen. Because she knows just based off her personal experience with the other Primes, and with raising Orion who was already sickly and predicted to not live past a couple centuries before she became a Prime, that the Matrix has something to do with their unnaturally short lifespans. This is after Roller is already an adult and the only egg that hatches from this project is Equinox post-war. But she was born too late to be chosen and the Matrix chooses Megatron's charge, Hot Rod, instead who is NOT ready for it.

// A note that Vector doesn't die due to the Matrix. It did drain him, sure, which likely had an effect on his overall lifespan. But he passed on the matrix to his sister before it could drain him completely. Instead he sacrifices his own life during the Great Drought to become Vector Sigma.