Autobot - Transformers: Generation 1 - Animated Series

Animated Series

Fleeing the wars that devastated their home planet of Cybertron, most of the Autobots made Earth their temporary home. Under the leadership of the powerful robot, Optimus Prime, the heroic Autobots battled fearlessly against the assaults of the evil Decepticons, protecting their new human friends. Now it is the year 2006, and the Autobots have reclaimed the planet of their origin, Cybertron, to establish a new golden age. In migrating from Earth, they have been reunited with companions from other regions of the galaxy, including Sky Lynx, the gigantic space shuttle, Blurr, the fastest car on wheels, Kup, the flinty old warrior, Wheelie, who always offers advice in rhymes, Springer, the mighty helicopter, Arcee, a forceful female Autobot, and Wreck-Gar, the leader of a tribe of Autobots that dwells on the planet Junkion. The Autobots have a new leader, Rodimus Prime, who inherited from Optimus Prime the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. As a receptacle of the wisdom of Autobot leaders for the past millions of years, the Matrix helps Rodimus guide the Autobots in their darkest hours, as they fight to end the tyranny of the evil Decepticons.

In the original U.S. cartoon line, Autobots were the descendants of a line of robots created as consumer goods by the Quintessons on the planet Cybertron. Their bodies were forged by the Plasma Energy Chamber and given intelligence by the mega-computer Vector Sigma in order for the work to be carried out. Eventually, they developed sentience and rebelled against their creators. However, A-3, the resistance leader was displaced from time by Quintessons from the future in order to stop the insurgency. The resistance had help from future Autobots (whose transformation technology frightened them) and A-3 returned to turn the tide by activating his coda-remote which deactivated the Quintessons' Dark Guardian Robots.

With the Quintessons cast off and forgotten, Cybertron was at peace. The consumer goods and military hardware bots renamed themselves as Autobots and Decepticons. However, the Decepticons wanted war. No match for the superior firepower and battle prowess of the Decepticons, the Autobots developed transformation technology (possibly with the help of the Dark Guardians) to win the war, bringing about the Golden Age of Cybertron. Eventually, the Decepticons also developed transformation and began the third Cybertronian War. They would have succeeded in completing their conquest had not more time-displaced Autobots blown up an energy warehouse and brought its workers to A-3, now renamed Alpha Trion, as the new defenders of Cybertron.

For five million years, the Cybertronians warred over the remaining energy that was left. With this crisis, the Autobots, headed by Optimus Prime, made an expedition to find new energy sources. But the Decepticons intercepted them, causing the Autobot ship Ark to crash-land on Earth. During the next four million years the Beast Wars occur on Earth.

Four million years later in 1984, the volcano that the Ark was wedged in erupted, jarring the Ark's main computer Teletraan I back online. Through use of Spy Satellites, Teletraan created new alternate forms for the Transformers out of earth vehicles (Like F-15 Eagles for Starscream and a Semi-trailer truck for Optimus Prime). The Decepticons were revived first and then the Autobots due to Starscream's carelessness. The Autobots made an alliance with the local humans, thus beginning the Great War.

After waging the war for 21 years, the Autobots created Autobot City as their main base of operations while the Decepticons got complete control of Cybertron. In 2005, the Decepticons launched an attack on the city, resulting in the death of Optimus Prime. Optimus managed to pass the Matrix of Leadership to Ultra Magnus before his passing. The city then received messages from the bases on Cybertron's moons being devoured by the transformer demi-god Unicron. After another Decepticon attack, the Autobots were scattered to two planets, Junk and Quintessa. Forming new allies on those planets, the Autobots headed for Cybertron. A young Autobot named Hot Rod used the recovered Matrix of Leadership from Galvatron (formerly Megatron) to destroy Unicron and became Rodimus Prime. With the Decepticons in disarray, the Autobots reclaimed Cybertron, bringing about a new age of peace and prosperity.

In 2006, the Great War still raged. But both sides rediscovered the existence of the Quintessons. After numerous battles, the Hate Plague was unleashed. Rodimus ordered the uninfected Autobots to search for a Quintesson to revive Optimus Prime. An uninfected Quintesson was found and forced to restore Optimus Prime to life. Optimus would then recover the Matrix by defeating an infected Rodimus Prime, and cure the galaxy of the plague.

After one year of peace, Galvatron gained access to the Plasma Energy Chamber. He planned to move Cybertron to Earth and use the Chamber's energies to overload the sun. However, all this was planned by Vector Sigma who wanted to restore Cybertron's Golden Age. Thanks to Spike Witwicky and the allied-Nebulons, Cybertron regained its golden hue. Optimus knew that there will always be Decepticons and the Autobots will always stop them.

On the cartoon, a majority of the Autobots had a blue eye color, while most of the Decepticons had a red eye color.

Each of the various later Transformers cartoon incarnations had differing origin stories, generally based on fictions provided in the 1984 cartoon (and occasionally comic) series. The one exception was Beast Wars, by which time most Autobots had been retrofitted into Maximals. This CG series and its sequel Beast Machines used the G1 cartoon as a historical base.