I’m probably patting myself on the back saying this but I am glad with Nizziverse that the central conceit of the Autobot-Decepticon conflict really is about other species because it reframes Optimus’ “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” as not just some general catchphrase but like, a context-specific rebuttal to some prior phrase. Something like “Freedom is the right of all Cybertronians.”
This is what he and Megatron outlined after they successfully defeated the Functionists, but the quote as we know it really does reflect how he’s grown and what makes him better than the Decepticons, what reassures us that this conflict isn’t meaningless, because it addresses the in-group attitude of the Decepticons that made their talk of freedom become outdated and hypocritical, bio-essentialist even, in its paradoxically narrow definition of where “freedom” is extended. Optimus’ quote really does reflect, again, the central premise of the conflict and what the story is about.
It’s Optimus acknowledging that there’s more to this world than the Transformers themselves, and tbh I feel that also reflects one of the attitudes behind Nizziverse. That in the end, humans ARE vital to Transformers, that the basic premise was in the interaction of our world with another one; Our vehicles turn into their robots. It’s a twist, you can’t have a twist if it’s Cybertronian vehicles turning into Cybertronian robots, you don’t have to think about how a real life vehicle would turn into a robot and vice-versa if you can just create an original alt-mode clearly designed to accommodate and work around the robot mode and never the other way around, which is much more rewarding because it interacts with real space by interacting with real things.
And I want to explore the tension and the implications of Cybertronians turning into parts of our world more, and how this develops our relationship, how our relationship with our world is redefined by them, and how it bleeds into our relationship with them. How this relationship is the foundation for the story because the story is the conflict. And in general I love the interaction of Transformers with the worlds they inhabit and mimic so much that I want to explore more the other worlds they’ve encountered, and not just humanity’s.
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When initially fighting the Decepticons, humanity attempted to face them head-on in open battlefields and the like, testing the full might of their most powerful engines and weapons in a contest. This was a mistake; Human technology was no match for Cybertronian armaments, and your typical Decepticon footsoldier was more agile, durable, and hard-hitting than any tank. Battles in Mission City, Shanghai, Egypt, etc., made this clear.
But as Sector 7, and then NEST, gathered experience, advice, and teamwork from the Autobots, eventually the best strategies were figured out. So by Dark of the Moon, humanity knew better than to tackle the Decepticons in open confrontation; That would only get them killed. Instead, it accepted its limitations, and opted to make the most of what its puny little form might entail against these giants.
It became David vs Goliath; Instead of bringing the Decepticons’ attention, humans would take advantage of their small size to sneak up on unsuspecting enemies who normally towered over them, planting small energon-powered explosives and other debilitating traps. Focus on speed to evade their enemies, since durability was otherwise wasted. While the Decepticons focused on their more obvious Autobot enemies, human snipers would support from afar to take out their optics and other key points. Guerilla tactics were key.
When it came to the Battle of Chicago, the humans didn’t arrive en masse; They sneaked in, using their size, and the fact that the architecture was built for them, to exploit various routes the Decepticons weren’t aware of or were ill-equipped to prepare for. In short, humanity realized the folly of fighting the Decepticons on their own terms and expectations; Let humanity take the fight to them in a way they didn’t expect, by using their rules. Let humans fight in the way that embraces what sets them apart from their Cybertronian counterparts.
In essence, one could say humanity learned that to fight a Decepticon… one must fight like a Decepticon themselves, relying on trickery, deception, subterfuge, and stealth. They turned the Decepticon values of the underdog trickster against them, and like the Functionists they originally opposed, stuck to the roles their tiny little bodies were most equipped for. For those Decepticons who realized the poetic irony, it was quite a humiliating and frustrating realization, as those they disregarded as insects realized just how difficult it could be to hit such a microscopic target, from their experiences with their own insects.
Cybertronians might be able to study the technology of their enemies to use against them, but humanity adapted by studying the tactics of the Transformers to use against them, understanding how they operate and think, and exploiting the blind spots of that vision. No need to use your own strength when you have the Autobots; Turn their massive size and power, even their own Energon-based technology, against them! Decepticons may have had ruthlessness and military prowess, but the Autobots had allies and the home advantage, now that both groups were one and embraced Earth. The Autobots worked with those who best understood this alien battlefield, those whom many of them fought for to begin with, to win.
I recognize I made Soundwave massively autistic in the Nizziverse, but let’s be real. He also is in the original source material anyhow, in every canon continuity. Soundwave be like Me and the Bad Bitch I pulled by being Autistic and he’s talking about Megatron. Except Megs is busy obsessing over Optimus instead, not that he doesn’t deeply value Soundwave either!!! But with Optimus, in addition to the loss he’s trying to avert, there’s just…
And Soundwave, he doesn’t really understand this (he never really interacted with Prime much nor cares for him in a context outside of Megs) and is deep down a little hurt, but he’s so dedicated to Megatron that he accepts it anyway. He just wants his beloved to be happy and so will gladly continue being in the background as support as he’s always been, if it means Megatron being crowned in the light.
I was initially going to disregard Rise of the Beasts for the Nizziverse, since I saw its story as irreconcilable with my own take on Unicron (both of which ignored the Bayverse’s), and only selectively adapt certain characters and bits from that film…
But I’m actually considering (very loosely) adapting Rise of the Beasts to function as Transformers 6 for the Nizziverse, since that film was never made for the Bayverse. In a meta sense, Rise of the Beasts IS Transformers 6, and even stars Unicron as the overarching threat, after The Last Knight set it up (even if those two are definitely different continuities).
At the very least, I’ll probably use RotB as a prompt and inspiration to figure out the general details of Transformers 6; I guess this makes Noah and Elena the human protagonists (rather than being split up between Transformers 1 and 2 respectively as I considered), and Scourge and his Terrorcons could be mercenaries working for Shockwave, who ultimately bring about the birth of Unicron. Mirage will look like his Bayverse self, or maybe he’ll be his RotB appearance in Dark of the Moon. I could also make Dino and Mirage into separate characters, too…
Not so sure about adapting the Maximals, since a part of me wants the Nizziverse to end in a way that sets up the possibility of its own Beast Wars sequel, but we’ll see. I’ve already had fun imagining traditional Autobot and Decepticon takes on Beast Wars characters, and even planned to do this for Protoform X. Of course, X already had an established personality before the events of the G1 Beast Wars, so that could still work out… I dunno. A lot of characters could’ve been those who were successfully rebuilt into Maximals, like what happens with Ravage; But I also prefer the perspective of a new generation.
When the Allspark was located, both Autobots and Decepticons sent out a worldwide signal to all agents across the globe, urging them to converge no matter how unlikely it seemed one could make it in time to help; Every bit counted, and they needed to fortify the Allspark’s position now that it had been discovered.
Despite this precaution, the battle for the Allspark finished before most could arrive, with only those nearby able to show up in time to influence the tide of war. While the Allspark was lost, the Autobots made an ally in the human race through Sector 7, which was eventually reformatted into the global NEST organization. As part of this joint Human-Cybertronian alliance, the Autobots relayed the location and identities of all their agents on Earth.
Coincidentally, various stories of vehicles being stolen or disappearing had sprung up across the globe, around the exact moment the Autobots and Decepticons sent their global summons. The Autobots vouched for themselves, and NEST’s data on their agents, cross-referenced with the missing vehicle reports, identified many of these lost machines to be Autobots who had answered the call, recklessly abandoning their posts in the mad race for the Allspark. As was protocol, all of these Autobots activated holoforms when driving on their own, giving the illusion of many vehicles being commandeered by unknown thieves.
All other cases unaccounted for were clearly Decepticon agents who had also been in hiding, and thus also abandoned their posts to pursue the Allspark. Ordinarily this would be a dead giveaway as to the identity of several Decepticons… But the Decepticons realized this strategy as well, and accordingly swapped alt-modes to blend in once more. But while they mostly evaded the radar, the locations of disappearances still provided a starting point to work off of; There was a chance some Decepticon agents hadn’t strayed too far from their stations, and knowing their general areas greatly narrowed down the list of places to search.
(It’s worth noting that some Decepticons managed to sneak back into their stations after the battle in Mission City was reported a loss, before anyone could notice their absence. Onslaught might be one of these examples, as someone stationed at a fairly abandoned military garage at the time.)
I’m thinking all of this may segue into the beginning of Revenge of the Fallen; Investigations in the Shanghai province due to multiple missing vehicle reports leads our protagonists to Sideways, whom they corner only to be surprised when it turns out Scavenger is with him, too. This makes them privy to the Constructicons’ presence and some sort of project they’re working on, and by following this lead the Autobots eventually learn about the Fallen’s plan.
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During the years leading to the Great War, there was a rising amount of tension between the Autobot and Decepticon political parties of Cybertron. But a particularly inciting incident was the publication of the controversial satire novel, “Unicron: The World that Eats Worlds.”
The story of Unicron follows a titular, monster planet that roams the galaxy, devouring and crunching apart countless planets in its unstoppable gluttony. A wasteful, senseless appetite that all shudder at; Readers will naturally do so as they learn of Unicron from the perspective of the protagonists. With massive mandibles to latch onto and pierce crusts, grinding teeth, and a churning digestive system, the death of an entire civilization, an apocalypse on every level imaginable, is just take-out for Unicron.
But then comes the ending twist of the novel; Unicron is not some foreign entity. It is nothing particularly new or novel, really; It is in fact the natural end-point of Cybertron’s current system of colonizing other worlds for Energon, via unsustainable practices that leave them dry and the native population wiped out. Unicron, the author posits, is the inevitable evolution of these practices; A scenario in which the Cybertronian Empire agrees to cut all of the middle men and get right to the point, by converting their homeworld into a planet that directly eats other planets for them. It’s more efficient than having to gradually bring back specks of Energon over an extended course of time through Cybertronian agents, after all; Cybertron’s appetite is too large, too impatient even for that! Let’s not bother with bringing the planet to Cybertron, but Cybertron to the planet!
This scathing critique riled up Cybertronian audiences, as the author’s politicial affiliations were made clear. Many Decepticons found it grossly offensive, a demonizing caricature of Transformers culture and its way of life. Others were deeply jarred, tricked into viewing their own empire from the perspective of the victims they thought so little about. To have the positions reversed and changed, after learning to relate to the protagonists…
Unicron really did incentivize some Decepticons, or those who hadn’t picked a side, to rally with Autobot ideology. It was a wake-up call for many, but for others, the ultimate insult; Unicron deeply polarized the population, sorting any remaining Transformers into a side.
Naturally, Decepticon outrage called for censorship of the novel, for the author to be tried for treason and sedition. When an incensed Megatron obliged by this decision, the Autobots just took it as further proof that he had become the very type of dictator he chose to defy the Functionists for being; Megatron had become a hypocrite, after having once authored an inciting thesis himself. Copies of the science fiction novel were destroyed, distribution of Unicron banned; But this just incentivized those in the black market to let it spread, and made rebellious would-be readers even more intrigued, and more sympathetic.
Case in point, Unicron ended up a rather sour name for Megatron when the Great War started. Its relevancy faded, although its impact hardly did; But inevitably, it still lingered in the minds of some. And while any Decepticon worth their salt derided Unicorn as an offensive portrayal of Cybertronian colonization…
Well, Shockwave was always kind of a deviant amongst Decepticons. Truth be told, he did not love Cybertron like they did, and actually agreed with the Autobots that it was a deeply impractical planet to sustain now; They really should move on and abandon this dying world that grew and ate itself to death. But on the other hand, Megatron and his Decepticons were far less concerned with morality and the rights of organics than the Autobots, and THAT proved more conducive to Shockwave’s experiments in general. So, Decepticon he was! But the dilemma of Cybertron and his personal disagreement with it never did go away, and was always a point of contention between him and Megatron…
When Unicron was published, Shockwave found it rather amusing and couldn’t really disagree. Nor did he want to… But the hypothetical future it suggested fascinated him. While anyone else would’ve found this sci-fi novel’s idea outrageous (as was the intention), for an amoral scientist like Shockwave, who had thrown aside all pretenses of morals and sentimentality that the Decepticons at least tried to subscribe themselves towards; It was fascinating.
Again, he had no love for Cybertron itself, no attachment; His only faith was towards science, and Shockwave at times found Cybertron’s incessant appetite a strain on the pursuit of science, devouring resources that could otherwise be used for it; It was only the Autobot sentimentality that proved more wasteful to him. But the idea of a living planet, a planet that could roam the stars on its own, and directly devour other planets for sustenance…
It was SUCH an interesting concept to Shockwave. He couldn’t let it go! And so the idea of converting Cybertron into the actual proposed Unicron, itself more of a theory for political satire than an actual serious proposition… Oh, it made his circuits sparkle! He obsessed over it secretly. This really WAS a solution, and Shockwave didn’t care if he was making himself out to be the caricature his political enemies had invented, the Autobots had already done the same in jokingly embracing a supposed hatred for their home planet. Like the Autobots, Shockwave saw his opponents as not actually intending to meet his argument in good, intellectual faith, so why bother trying to resist that by playing by their rules, avoiding the terms they set?
Cybertron as Unicron… Suddenly, the wastefulness of this planet could now be justified in Shockwave’s eyes as the ultimate testament to science, by becoming embodied as a literal world-eater; An unheard of, unprecedented concept. A planet that could feed itself, without having to rely on its inhabitants who were prone to discourse and abandoning it, didn’t REALLY need it. It was the ultimate solution, the ultimate resolution to his contention with Decepticon ideology; And he agreed that it SHOULD be the natural end-point of their beliefs!
Megatron, of course, would never listen to him. He was still deluding himself into thinking he was doing the ‘right’ thing, not the ‘interesting’ thing like Shockwave was. So his sham performance wouldn’t allow Megatron to allow such a project, of such a massive scale. But Shockwave kept thinking about it as he researched into the ancient Primes that once ruled Cybertron…
He’d even conversed with the Fallen behind Megatron’s back, when their leader had disappeared in pursuit of the Allspark. Shockwave had never been upfront about his intentions, just asked a lot of hypothetical questions here or there. Whether the Fallen had any suspicions, he didn’t know; But it didn’t matter, because eventually Optimus killed him. But by that point, Megatron had returned, so any hopes of seizing control of the Decepticons for himself had vanished; Soundwave’s loyalty and Starscream’s own ambition were already obstacles enough.
For the hypothetical ‘finale’ of the Nizziverse, my version of the sixth and final film the Bayverse never got to end on… Shockwave, after doing a lot of work behind the scenes, rallying scattered Decepticon cells (he survives Dark of the Moon), and gathering the most powerful Cybertronian artifacts, finally succeeds. He converts Cybertron, or what’s left of it, into a world-eating planet, capable of interstellar travel, able to turn an entire planet into raw Energon within its own maw; And he dubs it Unicron, in both ironic and genuine tribute to the novel that inspired him.
For reference, this is like… If someone read Jonathan Swift’s satirical “A Modest Proposal”, which suggested the devouring of babies to deal with low resources. And unironically said, YES, this is a great idea actually! This is like if a member of British parliament actually went with the idea, fully aware that this was a caricature made by Swift, but simply not caring because joke or not, it actually made sense. That’s what Shockwave just did, and boy were even the most devout Decepticons appalled.
What finally gets Megatron to let go of Cybertron, to let go of his dream of return to that golden age; What makes Megatron finally acquiesce Cybertron as just not worth sacrificing entire worlds to… Is Unicron. When the planet unexpectedly assumes a demonic robot mode, that is when it finally dawns on Megatron. Right then and there, Cybertron has become and embodied itself, visually and symbolically, as the thesis the Autobots warned him about. Megatron can now see Cybertron as the very monster so many other worlds saw it as, its destructive essence distilled and perfectly represented into a way he cannot ignore. The very folly and core of Cybertronian colonization has been laid bare, exposed for what it really is; And no more can Megatron’s denial sustain him when the facade has been totally shed and the truth openly rampages.
Because that’s what truly angered him most about the novel; That deep down, he knew, or at least suspected, that the author was right about their critique. But he couldn’t let himself admit or face this, because he was still so drawn to his home, so protective of it. Deep down, he knew the Autobots were right, but Megatron was too scared to face a future without Cybertron, so he stubbornly stuck to what he was used to and familiar with.
But not anymore. And it dawns on Megatron what he’s done, that this is what Cybertron has become, and in some ways always was to him; The sunk-cost fallacy has collapsed, because in the war to defend Cybertron, it has already changed beyond recognition into a shell of itself, he has made it into the very thing he swore to avoid, just as Megatron himself became the tyrant he swore to defy. This was not the Cybertron he fought for... Except it was, wasn’t it? It’s too late, and all he can do is just… move on. And so this starts Megatron’s redemption, as he and the remaining Decepticons ally with Optimus Prime and the Autobots to stop Unicron; Finally defying the natural end-point that his beloved Cybertron was heading towards and eventually arrived at. Finally taking responsibility and accountability for what he’s allowed in his desperate denial.
In the end, that accursed novel finally convinced him with its point.
The Decepticons being named as such isn’t a case of “Bad Guys having Villainous Names” in-universe, because to Cybertronians, deception is a valorous trait, given their whole gimmick is transforming into disguises to infiltrate other worlds. Deception is a virtue, and Liege Maximo is well-regarded among the Primes for that very reason. The Decepticons are not the exception, they are the status quo, the heroes who embody the traits everybody looks up to. It’s the Autobots who are the outlier here, not as keen on deception because they want to honestly approach other worlds on peaceful, respectful terms. Well, most of them; Autobot ideology is nuanced and varied.
Cybertronians love trickster stories, especially trickster underdog stories. Not that they’ve ever really been underdogs, because again, their almighty frames are already sufficient to take on weaker worlds in an open war. But they won’t consider that, they’re convinced they’re the good guys, the Decepticons believe they’re still the underdogs against a threat like the Functionists, this time it’s just the Autobots.
Megatron is… admittedly an outlier, in that he prefers to be rather brash, open, and BIG about who he is; He’s clear about his intentions. In some ways, he’s antithetical to Cybertronian values… But to the emerging rebellion against the Functionists, it kinda endeared Megatron as a defiance to the status quo that was already deriding them. Megatron was an interesting cultural shift, in that many rallied behind him BECAUSE he was so blatant, he became a guiding beacon for the downtrodden and oppressed.
His brute force became attractive in some ways, although good old-fashioned deception was still valued. Megatron was just seen as a fine exception that sparked a new trend, a new type of hero and set of values to look up to, still concurrent with older ones. When invading other worlds, he refused to take on the disguises of the local machines, being too proud of his Cybertronian identity to do so. So instead, he functioned as an open combatant; After the first wave of Cybertronians revealed themselves, Megatron would swoop in, so recognizably Cybertronian, and engage in direct combat with the enemy. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, and that appealed him to many as a working-class hero. The support of the Constructicons certainly vindicated this.
This also applied to the gladiators of Kaon, whom under the Functionists were seen as brutish in their open, undisguised combat, nothing but dumb raw force. A lesser, crass occupation. But with the rise of Megatron and the solidarity of the oppressed, this image was given a much kinder face by the new society. The revolution had brought untold amounts of change, so for many, it seemed reasonable to assume that they’d brought about all the change they really needed to. They didn’t imagine there were other parts of their society that ever needed to be confronted, such as their colonization of alien species.
In the end, deception was prized mainly against other races the Cybertronians conquered; With each other, honesty was a lot more welcome, because deception was for war and conquest, and why would Cybertronians be fighting each other?
