Matrix of Leadership - Beast Era

Beast Era

In the 1990s animated series, Beast Wars and Beast Machines, the nature of the Matrix was explored and evolved.

These series used "The Matrix" as a term that referred not merely to the physical object, but to an actual other-dimensional realm — the Transformer afterlife also called the Matrix, the well of all sparks that are, have been, or ever shall be (hence the name "All Spark" used in the 2007 live action movie). From the Matrix springs all Transformer life, and when a Transformer dies, their spark returns to the Matrix, sharing its life experience with the collective, creating a huge store of accumulated wisdom and knowledge. Understanding this, it can be retroactively assumed that the physical Matrix object wielded by Autobot leaders in the cartoon continuity is not simply a storehouse of knowledge itself, but rather, a gateway to this afterlife realm. Similarly, this also explains its ability to bestow life as seen in the comic book continuity — by transferring a spark from the Matrix through its connection to the realm.

The Matrix was also used as a nickname in the Beast Wars series for the facility which produced Maximal protoforms.

The Matrix also appeared when Optimus Primal merged his spark with that of the original Optimus Prime, but this Matrix was incorrectly shown to be Prime's actual spark. The Matrix was instead implied by Rhinox to be a part of Prime's actual spark ("That Spark has the Matrix with it!").

Though a conclusion to this error is considered that while in stasis lock, Prime's extensive life energy is connected to the Matrix. A similar effect which happened to Rodimus Prime of the G1 series where after he was severely damaged had gone into stasis, and though alive, appeared to exhibit no traces of life in his body since his spark was connected to the Matrix.

However, BotCon exclusive comic "Primeval Dawn, Part 1" states that the thing held by Optimus Primal is just a Matrix-shaped Spark chamber, the real Matrix is actually concealed in a compartment beneath the Spark chamber.