#tf straxus

For background context, Vos in TFHD is primarily a militant city-state and has had such or similar ides since its founding. It is largely known for its extensive and well-established military presence and its rigidly structured society, which mainly accommodates flight frames. The Vosnian Wing Guard is the main branch of the system and consists of only flightframes as active soldiers with only some riles outside of physical service being any other kind of frametype.

I took a lot of inspiration for Vos from Prussian state-building in the 15th-16th centuries because specifically of how powerful their military was at one point, regarded as the best of Western Europe for some time. The Prussians had a similarly militant structure in which accumulating wealth through the act of essentially renting off their troops to other countries with active conflict. A lot of this was done under the rule of Frederick the Great, Frederick William (The Great Elector), and Frederick William I (yes they’re all different people), all of which having a role in the expansion of the military as well as territory in Europe. The training of the Prussian military during this time was VERY thorough and had a large focus on conduct and discipline, which made them favorable in the eyes of other countries at war.

Vos does a similar thing with their soldiers as well, sending them off to different regions for a price. Vos had gone through many military leaders over the years, but none so influential as their last one, General Straxus of The Vosnian Wing Guard. He was singlehandedly the most active out of all of Vos’ other military leaders and, influenced by the ideologies of Nova Prime, expanded Vos’ territory exponentially throughout his rule. His actions was one of the major factors in the beginning of widespread war across Cybertron with the invasion and occupation of Polyhex. Up until that point, though pwerful, the Wing Guard wasn’t a very large military force, which, by the time Straxus had began his conquest, had been spread thin across multiple regions. To counter this, Vos established the Vosnian Geniplex.

They called back home all the soldiers that had been in service under other city-states and began to take in-depth research surveys on the creation of cold-construct Cybertronians. It had not been a new concept at that point in time, the basics had already been covered by earlier scientists, but none went so far as to formally perfect specific functions of the cold-forms. The Geniplex (root words from the Greek “genniménos” for “born” and “plex” as in “complex” or “plexus”) pioneered and perfected the creation of cold-constructs specifically for military usage, developing what is essentially a whole new branch of science in the process. The synecists of the Geniplex (scientists/medical professionals who oversaw the implementation of preserved sparks into cold-forms) were pretty new in terms of there never having been a lot of thought put into the concept of putting a spark into a body.

It was wildly successful. The Vosnian military had doubled in just a few Cybertronian years and retained the level of attention put into the training of the Made to Order (MTO) soldiers. Vos was shaping up to be possibly the most powerful city-state on Cybertron; that was until its fall due to the sudden and powerful force of the Decepticons infiltrating Polyhex under Vosnian supervision and dismantling the system from the inside out. This took place not long before the outbreak of full-blown civil war, but it did in fact lead to the total collapse of Vosnian society. The city was abandoned and dispersed following encroaching conflict near the city-state’s border, and with the dissolution of the military (most of the ranks being absorbed into the Decepticons), there was significantly less money flowing into it. And thus, the Geniplex was too left abandoned.

In the wake of absence, hundreds of unfinished cold-construct bodies were left, some just beginning to be built and others fully constructed, awaiting their spark. Alongside the forms, the vault of preserved sparks harvested from Vos’ main hotspot were left in stasis and not rediscovered until a very long time later.

That’s the main idea. The fall of Vos is very interesting to me bc (in TFHD) of how steadfast the city-state was, making the impact of the very sudden defeat of the military and the execution of Straxus and other military commanders really hit hard.