Chapter Text
+ the Dynasty of Primes
Takes its name from the succession of inheritors to Prima’s Matrix and throne, who referred to themselves as Primes. There are next to no verified written records dating from the Dynasty; most texts purporting to date from that Age were reproduced during the later Ages, the originals having been lost to destruction in Cataclysm or war, or simply been rendered unreadable by the passage of time.
Landing - the mythological arrival of Primus to the planet that would later become Cybertron* - is the generally accepted beginning of the Dynasty. This period encompasses the creation of the Thirteen, their defeat of Unicron, and later the genesis of Cybertronian civilization. It corresponds more or less to the Book of Song. The growing Cybertronian society gradually divided itself into subgroups based on line of descent from the members of the Thirteen, developing a system of inheritance in which property and prestige passed from one’s carrier to oneself and one’s siblings.
The development by Solus the Smith of cold-construction triggered a sharp increase in population growth - the resultant mecha were not considered full citizens and had to be beholden to a kindled mech, usually the head of a House, resulting in a two-tiered society of free ‘whole mecha’ and a servant class of cold-constructs who were generally not allowed to enter business, craft or combat of their own accord. The laws were undertaken by the Thirteen, and lasted the length of the Cousins’ War, to be eventually repealed under the rule of Enceladion Prime, who was himself a cold-construct.
The Cousins’ War was the major conflict of the Age, a civil war which grew out of the suspicion and trials of the two Fallen Primes’ insurrections. Unlike previous conflicts, the Cousins’ War was fought between members of the same Houses and clades, hence the name; the instigating conflict, in fact, was between mother and daughter - Genesis Prime, and her child Abyssus. The Cousins’ War ravaged much of the early dynasty, turning the proto-cities of Meridia, Thetacon, and the First City into battlefields. The heroes Enceladus, Phoebus, Persephone, Lightningblade and Olivine are the major figures on the Primacy’s side; on Abyssus’ come Mortilus, Pyroxene, Cryptide and the twins Aquila and Armadere.
The Cousins’ War came to a slow end during the reigns of the Fifth and Sixth Primes. Afterward, a period of reconstruction and peace saw the refinement of the former social structure, under which the system of Houses was merged into the concept of clades and the division of social roles by spark spectra became popular. The power of the Primes diminished; legal and political responsibilities passed to the leaders of individual cities, and a system of ranking clades by wealth and influence, where previously each had been equal to the others, was first conceived.
As the population grew, land and resources within the Centralian Plains (see the map, Central City down to Metrotitan and across to Thetacon) became stretched. Most Cybertronians did not live in cities; rural mining and farming communities run by small low-ranked clades dotted the plains. Settlers went into the hill country south and west of the Central Lowlands - the Austral rus - and the northeastern seaboard of the Sea of Rust - the Tagan rus. These areas had been explored and to some extent settled during the previous ages - the city of Procetae at the Well of All Sparks in the far North rivaled the Centralian cities in size - but were very much underpopulated in comparison to the Central Lowlands.
This was partly because the land in those places already belonged to other civilisations. The Predacon nation covered most of the Tagan Heights and the downlands east of them, while the Arachnicon nation flourished in what hadn’t yet been named the Mitteous Plateau. The expanding Cybertronian nation often came into conflict with these civilizations. The settlers in those places could seldom rely on the Centralian civilisations for help, so they developed their own ways of coping, and their culture gradually changed to reflect this.
The civilisation of the Dynasty came to an end when disaster struck one of Cybertron’s nearest planetary neighbours in the form of a catastrophic meteorite impact. The disintegrated chunks of the former planet rained down on Cybertron for several thousand vorn, turning the surface of the planet into a nightmarish death-trap. Much of the Centralian lowlands were destroyed before anyone had the chance to figure out an escape. Small groups of surviving Cybertronians sought shelter far underground in the mountains of the Tagan Heights and the Main Divide. This was itself a dangerous option, and many clades did not make it through to the end. The Predacon nation was likewise decimated, and many vorn afterward the species was found to be extinct.
* - the Mythos can’t seem to make up its mind on whether Primus is Cybertron, or whether the planet existed prior to His Landing. Many believers compromise and say that Cybertron became a part of His body after the rigors of the Thirteen’s creation, as he entered deep sleep.
+ the First Generation
The Cataclysm is technically counted as part of the First Generation. Underground, the remnants of the Cybertronian species reorganised their collective priorities, and when they emerged into a very different world, they set about developing a society quite different from what they had had before.
Clades, previously the only ‘family’ group, were further subdivided into cadres of between five and ten mecha. These became a ‘nuclear family’ focused heavily around kindling new mecha. The loss of the Well of All Sparks during the Cataclysm had left the species with only one method of propagation - kindling. Given that the post-Cataclysmic Cybertron was a very dangerous places, geologically unstable, reproduction was suddenly all-important.
The survivors gradually came down out of the mountains, establishing themselves once again on the plains. The primary areas of settlement were the Tagan and Austral rus, the Centralian plains and the northwest seaboard of the Rust Sea. Clades organised themselves in tight-knit groups and jealously guarded their land and resources. The larger groups were subsequently able to keep larger areas of land and produce more usable resources, enabling their populations to grow further; the largest of these groups grew large enough to dedicate certain sectors of their population to their own protection, and developed into small feudal nations.
The Primacy had survived the Cataclysm under the mountains of the Main Divide. When the Prime and his attendant clade emerged, they found that they had been all but forgotten by those who had sought shelter elsewhere, and the idea of the Primacy was treated, especially by those in the east and south, as a rival state rather than a religious entity - a view not helped by the Primacy’s view of itself as an institution belonging at the top of Cybertronian society. The early First-Generation Primes thus became feudal king-priests, often expanding their domain by right of conquest. However, the dynamic between the Primes and the feudal lords was considerably helped by the Primacy’s tradition of nominating successors from the upper echelons of the broad population rather than from within a single clade. This gave many states the opportunity to share in the Primacy’s power in the northwest and shore up their own position at the top of the pile in the west and south - although many mecha in those parts did not subscribe to the same beliefs (the division between Oriens and Occidens Orthodox sprung from this time), the authority of the Primacy in its role as the representative of Primus in the world still carried weight. Many times, a Prime sealed the alliance between the Primacy and another state by nominating that state’s lord, or a mech nominated by the lord, as his successor.
As the population grew, and immense natural reserves of energon and other resources were discovered in the Austral rus, the Austral polar region was explored and settled. The most famous conflict of the First Generation was the fifteen-thousand vorn Old Schism, played out between between two rival claimants to the Primal throne after the death of a Prime whom had failed to make known his choice of successor. The settlement of the Austral pole at times seemed like a race between factions working on the behalves of either the former priest whom occupied the Primal Throne in the First City and had integrated the Matrix, and the noble exiled to the Tagan rus whom controlled the recently-rediscovered Well of All Sparks. The Schism defined the split between Occidens and Oriens Orthodoxies, which became the flagship beliefs of each of the rival Primes.
Pre-Cataclysmic identities were often reproduced in the First Generation. Although the practical link between Dynastic and First-Generation civilization was nearly nonexistent, the elevation of history through ancestor-worship was at that time reaching a peak, and many polities sought to heighten their social standing and inter-national power through the claiming of a link to the notable places of old which featured in worldwide myths and legends: the First City, Meridia, Thetacon and Tyger Pax being the most famous of these. Near the end of the First Generation, the proto-states claiming descent from the First City - five or six of them - came to a conclusion and merged. Their noble clades joined to form a ruling class that was dominant over much of southwest Centralia. Several other such proto-states followed suit, creating Metrotitan, Thetacon, Simfur, Praxus, Protihex, Central City, and two Meridias (nicknamed East and West). The final such created entity was the state of Tyger Pax, which ushered in the beginning of the Second Generation.
+ the Second Generation
The Second Generation was an age of upheaval in which the civilisations developed in the First Generation found themselves put to a number of harsh tests.
By the early years of the Age, Cybertronian exploration had covered most of the planet. Although the population of the Southern Hemisphere still vastly outnumbered that of the North, the balance was slowly evening out, and over the course of the Second Generation Cybertronian civilisation reached every part of the planet. Iacon, founded during the preceding generation, quickly grew from a small proto-state into a global trade center; Kaon became Cybertron’s southernmost independent state; and Tarn was founded to take advantage of the massive metallic resources discovered deep in the Iron Ridge. The Northern Polar Highway was built, opening up the Manganese Mountains and the Boreal Flats, and the Northern Trunk Road followed, linking Praxus to Burthov and then Kalis.
Cybertronian technological development and subsequent expansion into their solar system brought them to the attention of the Quintessons, a spacefaring species in the process of carving out an empire. Cybertronian society, which was relatively fragmented, did not react quickly enough, and the quickness and ferocity of the Quintesson’s initial forays onto the planet caused a great deal of damage. However, the Quintessons failed to capitalise upon their initial advantage, perhaps out of caution, and the various Cybertronian states banded together under the leadership of Tarn, Meridia, and the First City, eventually driving off the first Quintesson forces.
Cybertron made several major technological advances during the Second Generation, driven by wartime. The development of the second-generation frametype blueprints - rotaries, seekers, dexters, and the sparked ships and cities - and extended spaceflight technology was intended to help the Cybertronian armies match up to the Quintesson forces. Leaps forward in engineering and communication tech accompanied each of these developments, linking the separate states together to an extent never previously matched. The knock-on cultural effect of this, and the broad cooperation in response to the extraterrestrial threat, was that state-based nationalism ebbed away, and the idea of a singular Cybertronian species identity was aired publically for the first time since the Dynasty of Primes.
This unity became one of the major themes of the middle and late Dynasty. Between the First and Second Wars, many schools of thought adopted the idea of a single global political entity as the ultimate progression of Cybertronian civilization. Outside of the philosophic, however, the concept took a long time to catch on. It was recognised as a threat to the independence of the existing states, and rightly so; the concept was rejected in political circles for a long time as a ‘risky and untested’ system in favour of those that worked for the current status quo. Proponents rejected this view, citing the precedent of the Dynasty.
The Second Quintesson war changed things. It came at a time when the bonds of allyship from the previous war were breaking down; the Iron Ridge Feud between Tarn and Simfur was reaching crisis point, which sent repercussions throughout the southern industrial circuit, meanwhile the northern industrial cities of Polyhex, Burthov and Nova Cronum benefited hugely from the unrest in the south. The Quintessons attacked hard and fast, establishing a ground command post north of the Mare Occidentalis and wreaking havoc throughout the western hemisphere. Again Cybertron came together and fought back, managing to push the Quintessons offworld again, before they came back for the Third War (the repeated failure to take Cybertron by this stage something of a sore point for Quintessa’s emperors).
At this point, the Primacy passed into the hands of a former Towersmech, Kathisma, of Central City, whom had proven himself in the service of the Primacy during the Second War. Kathisma was well-educated, and among other things very much understood the global union theory. As he rallied the much-shaken populace to fight off the Quintessons once again, he worked towards the creation of a solid, resilient overarching state which could meet and match the Quintessons’ assaults without fracturing along its own faultlines, as he had seen with the Iron Ridge Feud. He convinced the leaders of seven states - Meridia, the First City, Tyger Pax, Metrotitan, Central City, Hive City, and Nova Cronum - to agree to a temporary amalgam under the union model, using the emergency of the War as incentive. The unified state proved well able to stand up to the demands of the war and protect more of the planet than could each state on their own. Several other states joined the union, and gradually the Quintessons were driven off for the third time. Kathismon used the union’s successes to bring more and more of the independent states under his hegemony, until the entire planet was covered with what he came to call his Cybertronian Empire.
+ the Golden Age
The initial vorn of the Golden Age were spent in war reconstruction. The ravages of the Quintesson wars had left the Empire weak beneath the propaganda, and had to be repaired in case someone else moved in to pick off what the Quintessons had left. Reconstruction however kickstarted the first of many economic booms to punctuate the Golden Age. Kathismon’s early death brought on a small recession; however his successor was able to pick up where he had left off and the Golden Age continued to gather momentum.
Contact was made early in the Age with several new interstellar entities, the most important of which was the Council of Galactic States. Cybertron came to observe the Council’s laws and regulations; however it was not signatory to many of the Council’s treaties, and the relationship between the two entities was not always warm. Trade benefited both Cybertron and its stellar neighbours, and was quickly established and regulated. Spaceports were opened in Praxus, Polyhex, Kaon and Tarn as well as Iacon.
Kathismon’s successor instituted several major social policies in order to solidify Imperial control over the quickly-growing populace. The first of these was the caste system, meant initially as a classification system based on an ideal social structure. The caste system was popular at first; in conjunction with the functionalist ideologies that were popular at the time, giving rise to the slogan of “Everyone’s shape serves a purpose”. The system did not stay that way – time and tradition made it rigid and stratified, and later on an eighth tier – criminals and slaves – was added to the original seven-tier system. The Primacy also introduced the Imperial Pentarchum, an artificial Broadstream of the Mythos which was then imposed across the planet in the form of the Five Pillars of worship and the Imperial Calendar of Festivals. Finally, the Primacy itself was moved from Centralia to Iacon, following the Imperial Government, which had set itself up in the rich northern city.
The Matrix itself underwent changes during the Golden Age. These were unintentional, a memory of the hundreds of mecha whom had borne it over the ages. It became clear in the early Golden Age that not just anyone could bear it any longer. One Prime suffered physical spark maladies after integrating the Matrix; another had his spark subsumed entirely, creating a frighteningly powerful and completely merciless sort of zombie which was immediately referred to thereafter as a ‘Fallen Prime’. The system of Primal nomination of their own successors was abandoned in favour of testing the Matrix against potential candidates. Even this was no guarantee of ability – a second, and a third Prime Fell. Eventually, the Matrix itself was placed in a heavily-guarded chamber below Iacon’s Chamber of the Ancients, and a replica made for publicity purposes. Each new Prime was then chosen by the High Council, often on the merit of acting as a mere figurehead mouthpiece for that Council. The Primacy – and the Mythos itself – gradually lost political relevance as a result.
During the early to middle Golden Age, cold-construction was gradually taken over by corporate interests. Cold-construction as a one-off method of reproduction was expensive, but in large batches of structurally-identical mecha could be proportionally cheaper In order to fill new job markets, companies paid for the embodiment of entire clades of new mecha, who were then trained in their specific jobs and put to work to earn the company more money to do the same thing again. Sometimes new cold-constructs would be obligated to pay back their creation debt – the amount of money which it had taken to have them brought online – before they could look for jobs elsewhere. The practice was quickly regulated to ensure that it would not take advantage of new mecha, but as the Golden Age progressed, corruption and exploitation quickly overtook the regulations. By the time of the Dusk Ages, the situations of such cold-constructs had often reached conditions not unlike outrght slavery.
Cybertron’s population also went through a boom period at the beginning of the Golden Age. The imposition of the caste system promised to control it for a while, but in practice squeezed the majority of the population into the lowest tiers. After a point, further growth was not sustainable in terms of available living area. The Cybertronian Empire had long since expanded into interstellar space, but the invention of space bridge technology first made offworld colonies not only feasible but practical. Habitable planets were quickly greenlit for colonisation – often without consideration for prior inhabitants, which led to controversy with ethicists and the Galactic Council. Sometimes these situations were resolved peacefully – and sometimes they weren’t. Sanctions were sometimes imposed, but for the most part Cybertronian trade and assistance was too valuable to lose.
The Lunar industries were a related undertaking, wherein Cybertron’s two moons were surveyed, terraformed, and built up with refineries, mines, factories – and often prisons. Prisoners were a cheap source of labor for many major industrial players; many thousands of them were put to work in the service of the Empire in such a way. The moons often were used to test systems and ideas which would then be implemented on further-flung colonies; They became a major final destination for many political prisoners and dissenters, and, by the time of the Dusk Ages, a potent symbol of the systems of power which kept many ordinary Cybertronians under a fearful thrall.
The late Golden Age was a time of economic depression. As the early Golden Age had seen boom after boom, now came several recessions that seemed to lead into one another. The era was quickly nicknamed ‘the Dusk Ages’. Economic crises fueled widespread societal unrest; the problems which had long underlain the more successful earlier Golden Age came to the surface. There was widespread dissatisfaction with Cybertron’s leadership, the upper classes, the caste system itself; the injustices and exploitation that was rife among Cybertronian society saw to it that complaints would be heard one way or another. The recessions had hit the Southern industrial states particularly hard, and it was from there that the loudest voices began to call out against the system, the most influential of which was Megatronus and the Decepticon movement. The government responded by increasing internal security measures designed to suppress discontent rather than deal with it in a constructive way, which quickly became known as the Clampdown.
And from there, you already know the story…