Golgo-13
The Return of the O.G
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O.K i took this from over at the Don Murphy baords and take NO credit for writing it myself but it really sets up the movie quite beautifully and makes a great prequel story...enjoy!
The book has two intertwining plot-lines. One of the Transformers themselves, and one on 1950's cold-war Earth.
Basically, Apollo 11, the first landing of a man on the moon, takes place, and simultaniously elsewhere, another space-launch happens out of the public eye. This launch is drastically more technologically advanced. The United States has had Megatron for over 50 years and has successfully backwards-engineered several of his more primitive systems. They built a space-craft using this technology and want to launch it into space and do some exploration to ensure that there are no more relatives of the "Ice Man" close to our planet. This was all done, of course, by Sector 7, which is secretive but NOT totally "black" yet.
During this launch, we're introduced to both the Decepticons and Autobots, who have both come to our galaxy (though on the far side of it, many light-years away) by chance, searching for the Allspark. Starscream and his Decepticons are introduced and we are given some nice dialog between them that demonstrates how Starscream has all along been telling them he wants to find the Allspark and Megatron, which keeps their hopes alive, but secretly does NOT want to find Megatron, and hopes to manipulate the Autobots and Decepticons into letting him find the Allspark for himself.
The Autobots, on the other hand, are war-weary, especially Prime himself. Prime is struggling with the search for the Allspark, and is a hairs-breadth away from dropping the search alltogether, and finding a new home planet to live on and at least have peace. The only thing keeping him going is the fact that in their search for the Allspark, the Decepticons have destroyed numerous civilizations and annihilated whole planets. Prime feels responsible for this, as it was his decision to launch the Allspark off of Cybertron. We're told that Cybertron is essentially 100% dead, after having been without the Allspark for so long, and that Prime's hope was to recover it and restore life to his home planet. Like I just said, he's basically given up on this and the only thing keeping him going is his hatred for the Decepticons and how much destruction they are causing. Bumblebee, Jazz, Ratchet and Ironhide are introduced. Jazz is a sarcastic smooth talker, always positive, Ironhide is Jazz's "foil", keeping him grounded and making sure he doesn't get overly enthusiastic, Ratchet is the genius medic and engineer, and Bumblebee is introduced and given a ton of attention by Prime and the other Autobots.
They all love him, consider him to be the bravest and most dedicated of their group, and respect him for his sacrifice when he attempted to stall Megatron right before Megatron left the planet to chase down the Allspark. His throat and the mechanical organs contained in it were ripped out, ratchet has not been able to replace the parts as the allspark is gone and the transformers don't seem to have 100% control over what their body does, and bumblebee's automatic repair systems can't do anything because the parts were completely removed...there is nothing to "repair." Bumblebee can, and does, communicate just fine, he retains his digital and radio communications, but he can no longer VOICE himself aurally. The autobots seem to consider actual aural communication to be superfluous, but they enjoy it and use it when they are together because it's more intimate.
The human spacecraft and it's crew launch out of earth's orbit, flying a ship that they don't even understand. They don't know how it works, they just "copied" some of the systems from megatron and performed tests to see what they did. So they're essentially flying a ship they don't know how to use, using communication devices they do not understand. The crew was briefed about this, and they all know that there is a good chance they will not survive the trip. Once they leave orbit, they activate the main "engines", hoping to fly out to Jupiter (I think it's Jupiter, it may have been Saturn), loop around, and come back, recording anything they see and looking for signs of life that resembles the Ice Man. However, upon activating their engines, the engines do what they're SUPPOSED to do, and actaully accelerate them so quickly that they tear/create a wormhole and wind up on the opposite side of the galaxy. (It is not 100% clear that they were responsible for MAKING the wormhole, the humans literally have no idea what even happened, but it seems to me that Megatron's engines were designed for this very purpose. It would explain why he is the only Transformer who apparently has the ability to travel via wormhole...just another one of his technological and power advantages over EVERYONE else. The Autobots actaully discuss this later, talking about how Megatron is likely dead as the Allspark went via wormhole and Megatron followed...and no Transformer has ever been able to do this successfully)
The Autobots and Decepticons are very close to eachother, on the opposite side of the galaxy, but are not aware of eachothers' presence yet. When the human spacecraft rips it way out of the wormhole near to where they are, both factions detect it and move in for a look. The autobots find it, and are surprized and afraid, because there are obvious Megatron influences in the design of the ship and it's systems. They believe it may be some kind of Decepticon trap. The Decepticons detect it, and all hell breaks loose amongst them. Starscream is horrified to see the obvious Megatron influences on the ship, and scrambles to come up with explanations to tell his crew, who are all delighted to see that Megatron may yet live, as his design was obviously copied. Blackout, in particular, uses this to begin to chip away at Starscream's authority, making snyde remarks and questioning him at every turn. Barricade seems to be completely in the middle, serving whomever is most powerful, and happily.
Meanwhile, back on earth, the people in charge of Sector 7 have decided that the time has come to remove the Iceman from his icy tomb, and transport him to a new location. The people in charge of the arctic base think this is an idiotic idea, as moving the Iceman poses a huge problem. They're told that another "artifact" has been found, and that the government wants the Iceman and the artifact to be at the same location so they can be more easily studied. When the man in charge of the base questions his superior, asking why they can't just move this smaller artifact to the arctic base, since the base is out of the way and secret, he's told "lets just say we CAN'T move the artifact." Then his superior tells him that the arctic base is no longer secure, and they have intelligence that suggests it has been infiltrated by a russian spy. So, the men at the base begin getting things set up to transport the Iceman. They plan on keeping him frozen using a mix of nitrogen and some other chemical, inside a massive tank, towed by a semi.
Then we get back to the Autobots, Decepticons, and the human spacecraft. The humans' instruments (which are actaully megatron's) detect the Ark, while the Decepticons detect it as well and move to the opposite side of a nearby planet to avoid detection. The autobots approach, and the humans bring to bear their weapons, then hightail it back to the nearby planet and put down, hoping to escape and get some time to figure out what the hell happened and how they wound up lightyears away from where they were supposed to be. The autobots still believe it's a trap, but Prime thinks otherwise, convinced that the ship, which they now know contains some basic organic life, means them no harm. He thinks they may have gotten a scan of megatron and somehow made the ship and don't really know what's going on.
Prime decides to investigate, but thinks about it and elects to send Bumblebee to the planet's surface to do it instead. He thinks to himself about how he needs to continue to give Bumblebee things to do, ways to prove himself, because the young autobot wants so badly to be a part of the group and do something of importance. So, Bumblebee leaves the ship for the surface, landing a safe distance from the humans (using his comet-entry form), then transforming and beginning to slowly work his way to the human spacecraft. It's at this point that the decepticons make themselves known to the autobots, hoping to catch them while they're occupied. In truth, Starscream desperately wants to get to the humans first, to find out how they got megatron's designs, and make sure that nobody...Autobot or Decepticon, is able to find out whether Megatron still lives, or where he's at. He leaves the ship and decends to the planet, alone.
Optimus contacts Bumblebee and warns him that Starscream may be close, then talks with his other Autobots and they decide to attack the Decepticons while their leader is absent. Prime hopes to end the battle once and for all. Both factions leave their ships and a battle is begun, in space. Ratchet stays on the ship to man the Ark's weapons (which, by the way, are far more powerful than the Nemesis'. Ratchet personally modified the weapons and shields of the Ark, turning it into a battleship, when it began life as a scout-ship) As an aside, Starscream ordered the Decepticons NOT to attack, but Blackout, in Starscream's absense, convinces the others to do it anyways. Barricade warns Blackout that he's overstepping his authority, but goes with the plan anyways.
Back on the planet, Bumblebee has worked his way to the human ship and scans it. He realizes that their weapons are so primitive that they don't even pose much of a threat to him, and that he can interface with the human com systems. He decides to take the initiative and attempt to communicate, hoping to find out how the humans got Megatron's design, and to find out whether they're friendly or not. He also hopes that the Allspark might be known of by the humans, and plans to ask. He simply walks right up to the ship, preparing to communicate, when Starscream flies overhead and opens fire right before bumblebee can say anything. Bumblebee knows he's completely overmatched, and reconfigures himself according to an all-terrain wheeled vehicle who's design he had in his databanks. He transforms, and takes off, darting in and out of cover on the surface as Starscream attempts to shoot him from above. Eventually, Starscream chases his sufficiently far away and breaks off the attack, returning to the human ship himself.
He promptly interfaces with the ship and steals/hacks every single bit of information contained in the databanks, discovering that both Megatron and the Allspark are on earth, and that Megatron is in stasis. He decides to destroy the humans and all the evidence, hoping to lead his Decepticons to the planet later, destroy Megs while he's disabled, and claim the Allspark, cementing forever his position as Decepticon leader. At this point, Starscream gets an idea: He wants to humiliate Optimus Prime. Instead of outright destroying the humans, he decides to befriend them, convince them that the Autobots are evil, and trick them into opening fire on them....only to have Optimus destroy their ship. Starscream would then inform Optimus of the humans' true nature and demoralize the leader.
So, he adopts english and interfaces with the ship, letting his voice run through their com devices. The humans are at wit's end, they've contacted earth and nobody there knows how to get them back home, except possibly using the wormhole again, which is still open, but closing fast. Starscream knows this, as he scanned EVERYTHING, and tells them they're lucky, the evil autobot they saw earlier (Bumblebee) would have destroyed them. He forms an alliance with the humans, telling them that if they're patient, he and his comrades will destroy the Autobots, save them, and then help them return to their home planet. The humans trust him....although the captain of the ship has some misgivings, since Bumblebee did not look threatening or even fire back at Starscream....and Starscream gives him the impression of a used-car salesman....everything is just TOO good to be true.
Bumblebee has, at this point, transformed back to his robot form, and is thinking about what he should do next. He can't just leave the planet, as Starscream would pick him up and destroy him before he was able to leave orbit. He begins to look around the landscape, examining things, and biding his time. Bumblebee is very very fond of other planets, civilizations, etc, and he absolutely adores geology. He is examining some strange looking pillars, which he thinks might have been carved out of the rock and not simply happened naturally. He moves to the center of these pillars and begins examining more closely.....when he begins to fall into a strange sandy sink-hole. He is drawn down very quickly, only barely managing to send a warning to the other autobots that Starscream is on the planet. After that, he's completely drawn down, and the other end of the sinkhole opens up into a large underground cavern. Bumblebee falls out of the bottom of the sinkhole, into this cavern, and lands quite roughly on the ground....right on his long-range communicator. All he has left at that point is his close-range digital messaging systems, so he is cut off from contacting the other Autobots. He performs a scan to get his bearings and discovers that he is not alone in these caverns...there seems to be some very primitive organic life. Very LARGE, numerous, and closing in on his position.
At this point, Optimus is told by Ratchet of Bumblebee's last transmission, and as contact was cut off, he's worried Bumblebee may be in trouble. The autobots break off their attack, return to their heavily shielded ship, and Optimus decends, alone, to the planet, searching for Bumblebee. He finds the last location of Bumblebee's transmission, among the pillars, and see's the sandy hole that bumblebee fell through. From below he can hear the sound of Bumblebee's guns firing rapidly, and Prime decides to blast open the sink-hole and jump below to see what Bumblebee is doing. He does so, and the two fight side by side, against the indigenous life on the planet: A massive species of carnivorous ground worm (thinks Tremors! It's just like that!). The worms are huge and their calcified fangs are strong enough to dent and bend both Autobots' armor. They fight on....
