Alignment

« Transforce 2001–2002 novella
Galvatron would sell his cannon for this to be canon.
"Alignment"
Publisher	Transforce Productions
First published	Book 1: August 25, 2001 (Transforce 2001) Book 2: August 10, 2002 (Transforce 2002)
Writer	Simon Furman
Illustrations	Lee Sullivan Andrew Wildman Geoff Senior Kev Hopgood Jeff Anderson Lew Stringer
Editor	Paul Cannon
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity

"Alignment" is an unofficial Transformers novella written by Simon Furman, designed to tie up the loose threads left over from the Generation 2 comic book, and to bridge the gap between the Generation 1 era and the Beast Era. The storyline was produced without Hasbro's approval, and as such, is considered non-canon, but is included here on TFWiki.net due to the insight it offers into the author's thought processes regarding the earlier storylines that it follows. As such, those elements of the story that enlighten official stories (namely, the true nature of the Liege Maximo and the purpose of the Hub) could reasonably be considered pseudocanon.

"Alignment" was published in two parts, both released exclusively at the UK convention, Transforce. Book 1 was released at Transforce 2001 in a magazine-styled format; at Transforce 2002, Book 1 was reprinted alongside the newly written Book 2 in book format. In 2005, the whole story was made available online.

The story features covers and interior illustrations by noted Marvel UK artists, Lee Sullivan, Andrew Wildman, Geoff Senior, Kev Hopgood, Jeff Anderson, and Lew Stringer.

Synopsis

The story takes place several hundred years after "A Rage in Heaven!", by which time the Autobot-Decepticon alliance established in that story has broken down, and hostilities have begun once more. In the intervening years, Galvatron II destroys Megatron and assumes leadership of the Decepticons, arranging the construction of a fleet of Warworlds. In a major battle at Pinea Omicron, Optimus Prime succeeds in defeating Galvatron, but is knocked into stasis lock himself in the process, leaving both sides leaderless and in grave need of energon. Ultra Magnus assumes the role of acting Autobot commander on Cybertron, while the Decepticons, led by a High Council, regroup on "New Cybertron", a world transformed into a metallic sphere through use of the eco-structuring process previously employed by the Cybertronian Empire. The Autobots are facing downsizing and other "unpalatable" options, while the Decepticons—having a collective leadership as nobody wants to be leader—are facing irrelevance and the rising Predacon faction are openly talking about surrender.

As the story begins, Ultra Magnus sends a crew under the command of Grimlock to search for energon, only for their ship to inadvertently enter the cloaked region of space concealing the Hub, a massive structure of interlinked planets that is home to the menacing, mysterious Liege Maximo. Using this massive resonant web of worlds, the Liege Maximo plans to ascend to the realm of the gods, and with the time of the universal alignment that will allow him to accomplish this goal about to begin, the Liege Maximo takes no chances and directs his forces to attack both the Autobots and Decepticons to keep them occupied. To fight back, a cabal of Decepticons led by Soundwave secretly restores Megatron to life, and the Decepticon leader is able to safely evacuate New Cybertron and blows the planet up to destroy the Liege Maximo's armies. Ultra Magnus is also able to get his fighting forces off Cybertron, and both sides then counter-attack the Hub.

Grimlock's crew attempts to sabotage the Hub from the ground, but they are systematically killed, leaving only Swoop alive by the time the united Autobot-Decepticon counter-attack arrives and draws the Liege Maximo's attention. As the Liege Maximo focuses his attention on the armada, Megatron performs a solo strike on the monster's exposed flank, dying in the process, but causing it to feel pain for the first time in millennia. Panicked, the Liege Maximo begins the alignment, separating his lifeforce from his corporeal form. His body is destroyed by the armada, and Swoop commits a final act of sabotage, causing the portal created by the Hub to collapse. With nowhere to go, the Liege Maximo's lifeforce dissipates, and he is destroyed.

The resolution of this threat leads to the signing of the Pax Cybertronia and the end of the Great War. The Decepticons are replaced by Predacons, the species downsizes to save energy, and hope blossomed for an enduring peace.

"With hindsight, they really should have known better."

Featured Characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Glossary

Relation to other works

"Alignment" served to answer several of the questions surrounding the mysterious entity, the Liege Maximo, that the Generation 2 comics raised. The story explained, as the comics had hinted, that the Liege Maximo was one of the first Transformers created by Primus, who sought to reconnect with the divine origins of the Transformers by gaining access to the realm of the gods. This was the reason for the eco-structuring that Jhiaxus and the Cybertronian Empire were subjecting planets throughout the galaxy to during the Generation 2 series—this interconnected series of metallic worlds formed the "Hub", a resonant structure that would allow the Liege Maximo to accomplish his goal.

The story also served to form an explicit link between the (Marvel Comics version of the) Generation 1 time period and the recently concluded Beast Era. It is noted that while the Decepticons are leaderless on New Cybertron, the members of the Decepticon High Council are unable to agree upon a course of action to further the Decepticon cause. Specifically, a splinter group referring to itself as the Predacons advocates "unconditional surrender to the Autobots, a pooling of resources, an extended time of gathering and secret re-building"—this, of course, being the tactic of the Tripredacus Council. At the conclusion of the story, this is ultimately the voice that wins out. Additionally, energon depletion forms a major part of the story, and to overcome it, the concept of downsizing the Transformers' physical forms is introduced. A final tidbit is the sudden appearance of a female Transformer in a continuity in which the Transformers have always been a "genderless" species. This shift in composition ties the Marvel continuity more tightly into Beast Wars, where female Transformers are not an uncommon sight.

Since writing "Alignment", Furman has incorporated some of the story's unique concepts in the official material he has worked on. The Furman-penned Transformers: The Ultimate Guide devoted a full two-page spread to coverage of "Alignment", explicitly noting that it was unofficial, but reiterating the Liege Maximo's status as one of the group that fiction now referred to as the thirteen original Transformers. Years later, that latter detail would become officialized.

"Alignment" was also responsible for coining the name "Galvatron II" to refer to the Galvatron introduced in "Rhythms of Darkness!", which was later officialized by e-HOBBY when they used it as the name of their exclusive version of the 2003 Galvatron reissue. Furthermore, the storyline which accompanied the e-Hobby Laser Ultra Magnus reissue described this Galvatron as possessing a Warworld, apparently taking its cue from the backstory briefly covered in "Alignment".

In 2010, in Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac II, the authors Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster (through their in-universe proxies of the same names) noted that "Alignment" is an accurate account of the future of Primax 984.0 Gamma (i.e., Marvel Comics US continuity), "as chronicled by Simon Furman". Then, shortly after The AllSpark Almanac II was published, Jim Sorenson himself added the "apocrypha" template to this page, explicitly defining "Alignment" as not necessarily official. Then in August 2015, the Facebook version of Ask Vector Prime said this timeline definitely had "Mogahn the Mass, the Ebon Knights, the battle of Pinea Omicron, the Liege Maximo, and eventually the Beast Wars", as close to saying Alignment as possible without actually saying Alignment. Confused yet? Then, in 2016, the also-Sorenson-written story Book of Logos depicts (in its pseudo-Jacobean English speak) what sounds an awful lot like events from this story taking place in the Beast Wars: Uprising universe.

In short, the canonicity of this story is dubious, and will likely remain a subject of debate on this wiki and elsewhere. The text of the story itself has still never been published in officially licensed media.

...Oh, and the book ends with the final ever Robo-Capers strip by Lew Stringer, which is similarly unlicensed. Canonise that with your Easter eggs, Sorenson.

Notes

• Mentioned characters: Unicron, Optimus Prime, Jhiaxus, the Swarm, Mogahn the Mass, Praetorian, the Ebon Knights, Galvatron II, the Predacons, Straxus, Trannis, Shockwave, Scorponok, Bludgeon

Continuity notes

• Ultra Magnus is featured in this story as the acting Autobot leader while Optimus Prime is out of commission. This is notable because Ultra Magnus had previously only ever appeared in the UK-exclusive issues of the Marvel Comics, but never in the US issues (outside of the adaptation of The Transformers: The Movie) nor the Generation 2 comics, meaning this is his first ever appearance in the US comics continuity. Meanwhile, from a UK continuity perspective, this would be Ultra Magnus's first present-day appearance since he last appeared in the 1988 UK comic story "Deadly Games!" A version of Magnus from an alternate future timeline was seen in subsequent UK issues, but the one featured in this story isn't that one.
• Cybertron is shown to be facing a desperate energy crisis from a severe lack of energon, and one solution mentioned in the story is the prospect of downsizing for better energy efficiency. This solution is exactly what led to the creation of the Micromasters, as first described in 1990's "King Con!" By the end of this story, downsizing is all but stated outright to be what led to the creation of the Maximals and Predacons, in reference to the common fan perception of the Great Upgrade, and which was first stated to be a thing in the BotCon 1999 prose story "Schism" (which was also penned by Simon Furman).
• It is noted that "several hundred years" had passed since Unicron had been destroyed. In the Marvel Comics, this occurred back in 1990's "On the Edge of Extinction!"^[1] Furman's BotCon-exclusive storyline Reaching the Omega Point (which he wrote with deliberate references to this story) previously established that the era of the Maximals and Predacons on Cybertron was set in the 30th Century.^[2] The 1996 Beast Wars episode "Dark Designs" stated that the Maximal/Predacon era was "three centuries" after the Great Wars,^[3] which would thus place this story in the 27th Century, three centuries before the 30th Century^[4] and several hundred years after Unicron's demise.
• Several major threats to the Transformers are listed off as having come and gone since Unicron's destruction, including Jhiaxus and the Swarm (both from the Marvel Generation 2 comics), as well as new, unfamiliar threats like Mogahn the Mass, the Praetorian, the Ebon Knights, and the devastating battle at Pinea Omicron. Both the latter and "the fifty or so years that had preceded it", are attributed to the current energy crisis facing Cybertron.
• It is said that "Under Galvatron II, the Decepticons had built and mobilised a huge fleet of Warworlds". The Warworld was a gigantic mobile battle fortress first built by the Decepticons under Bludgeon's leadership in the Generation 2 comics, and control of which was seized by Megatron after he killed Bludgeon and took back Decepticon command.
• It is also said that the Autobots had relocated Cybertron, for its own protection, by using technology that Jhiaxus had previously used to terraform planets into other Cybertron-like worlds, which was first seen happening in the first Marvel Generation 2 comic issue "War Without End!".
• The situation for the Decepticons in this story is said to have gotten so bad that a "splinter faction" called the Predacons was growing in support for "unconditional surrender to the Autobots, a pooling of resources, an extended time of gathering and secret re-building." And by the story's end, the Predacons are noted to have replaced the Decepticons entirely. All this is meant to plant the seeds for the situation on Cybertron for the Predacons of the Beast Wars cartoon, who were said to have descended from the Decepticons after the latter had surrendered to the Autobots at the end of the Great War, as stated in the episode "The Agenda (Part 1)". In the same episode, the ruling Tripredacus Council was also said to be biding their time for their long-term goal of an eventual takeback of Cybertron from the Maximals, to which the aforementioned text in this story also alludes.
• Grimlock feigns being able to speak normally in this story. This is in reference to the explanation previously given in Transformers: The Facts (a 12-page booklet included with issue #200 of the UK series) for why he would sometimes speak normally and sometimes speak in "caveman-speak" like his cartoon counterpart: "Grimlock possesses a brilliant mind, but considers intellectuals as weak (he despises weakness). He often chooses to act and talk dumb."
• Direwolf is stated to be a former acolyte of Unicron. The Acolytes of Unicron were a group of cultists who worshipped the Dark God and wore masks of his visage. They first appeared in the 1990 issue "The Void!" and were originally unnamed as a group. Years later, the formal name of "Acolytes of Unicron" was canonised by the final story arc of The Transformers: Regeneration One.
• The story introduces the existence of "a much older reality" than the current one, in which gods dwell. While this does call to mind the "old realms" in which Unicron and other gods originally existed before the former devoured everything and (inadvertently) set off the Big Bang that birthed the current universe, the present-day existence of this one suggests it is a separate place since the other one was fully eaten by Unicron.
• Swoop being the ultimate hero of the story seems to be an attempt to set up him up to become "the Veteran" featured in Reaching the Omega Point; his identity as such was previously confirmed in the Transforce 2000 comic story "The Last Days of Optimus Prime" (which is just as apocryphal, canon-wise, as this story).

Continuity errors

• Ultra Magnus receives info about the Hub and its forces from the S.A.D. pod's transmission sent to Cybertron by Grimlock, but the pod's Starpedo was launched before Grimlock or any of the Hyperwave crew had first encountered the Hub.
• On Page 47, Grimlock is singled out as a Dinobot in contrast to the other four Autobots on his team. But one of those four is Swoop, who is also a Dinobot.

Other errors

• In all of Book 1 and again on Page 44 (in Book 2), the "A" in "Alignment" is not uppercased.
• Page 38: The phrase "had be" should be "had to be".
• Pages 39 and 55: "S.A.D. pod" has an unnecessary second period after the D, rendered as "S.A.D.. pod".
• Page 48: The phrase "a invasive" should be "an invasive".
• Page 58: The word "plains" should instead be "planes".

Transformers references

• In the aftermath of the battle at Pinea Omicron, Grimlock is said to have activated a "stasis field" around the fallen Optimus Prime to keep his near-dead spark still alive. Likewise, it is also said that Megatron's own spark was kept in stasis after Soundwave had previously recovered it from Megatron's last battle with Galvatron II. Both of these instances of "stasis" technology are in reference to the concept of stasis lock that was first introduced in the Beast Wars cartoon as means of preserving one's spark in an emergency shutdown.
• The Decepticons' current colony world is named "New Cybertron". While the name has since gone on to have multiple meanings, its first use (the only one that existed at the time of this story's publishing) was in The Transformers cartoon episode "City of Steel" as the name of a city that the Decepticons had built on Earth. Interestingly, both that New Cybertron and the one in this story are renamings of things that existed beforehand: New York City and the planet Pyrovar, respectively.
• The story describes the Liege Maximo as having been "of the first, born of the living form of Primus." The final chapter of the Generation 2 comic strongly hinted that the Liege Maximo had some kind of inherent connection to Primus, as if he was one of the Light God's earliest creations. The description given here not only reaffirms that notion, but is also a very early hint to the existence of the thirteen original Transformers, whose concept was previously used for the Covenant in Reaching the Omega Point. 2004's Transformers: The Ultimate Guide (also penned by Furman) would later both introduce the Thirteen as a concept and confirm the notion that the Liege Maximo was supposed to be one of them (which the Aligned continuity family would later make official).
• The Liege Maximo is also said to understand the Grand Plan, a long-term agenda that Primus had laid out for the future of the Transformer race and the very universe itself, in which the warring Transformers would finally make peace with each other and unite together as one. It was first mentioned in passing in the seventh issue of the Generation 2 comics, but was more frequently and prominently mentioned all throughout Reaching the Omega Point.
• Being a Simon Furman work, a couple of Furmanisms make their way into the story:
  • Page 49: Prowl cries out "It's over… finished."
  • Page 77: The closing line of the entire publication: "It never ends…"

References

External links

• Alignment online @ transforce.org (archived copy)