War for Cybertron Trilogy (franchise)

Generations franchise « War for Cybertron Trilogy » Toyline Cartoon Comics Pack-in fiction Siege Earthrise Kingdom Premium Finish

The War for Cybertron Trilogy (aka Transformers Generations War for Cybertron) was a segment of Hasbro's Transformers: Generations line that launched in late 2018. Like the preceding Prime Wars Trilogy, "War" is primarily based around the toylines that make up the trilogy, and was accompanied by a tie-in cartoon series. Released just before IDW's 2019 ongoing comic series, several of the trilogy's toys were used as the basis for character designs and heavily inspired some of the uses of previously unused characters that had also been featured in any of the 4 main toylines.

Toys

Main article: War for Cybertron Trilogy (toyline)

The War for Cybertron Trilogy toylines aim to serve as a back-to-basics approach to Transformers, with a focus on media-accuracy, articulation, and a consistent robot mode scale (relatively based on the Generation 1 cartoon).

The first installment of the trilogy, Siege, is set during the final days of the Transformers' civil war on Cybertron, reimagining classic characters to give them Cybertronian alternate modes and battle damage deco. The second installment, Earthrise, takes place during an interstitial period as the Autobots and Decepticons travel through space, seeing many gain Earthly vehicle modes, while also introducing space-faring characters such as the Quintessons and Mercenaries. The toyline also focuses on modular base-forming with the A.I.R. Lock System. A third installment, Kingdom, concludes the trilogy and features the return of the Maximal and Predacon factions from the Beast Wars franchise, and sees the addition of a new(-ish) size class, Core.

In keeping with installments of the Prime Wars Trilogy, the War for Cybertron Trilogy lines feature a unified, line-wide gimmick: weaponry. All figures are now compatible with the C.O.M.B.A.T. System, with Deluxe Class-and-higher figures being littered in 5 mm ports to facilitate being armed up with any combination of compatible weaponry. In keeping with this, the Siege and Earthrise Battle Master and Micromaster size classes form modular weapons, as did the introduction of Weaponizers, Modulators, and Fossilizers figures which could be disassembled into a variety of 5 mm compatible weapons and accessories.

Cartoon

Main article: Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy (cartoon)

A War for Cybertron Trilogy animated series premiered in mid-2020. The series was produced by Rooster Teeth and animated by Polygon Pictures, and focused on the origins of the war between the Autobots and Decepticons. F.J. DeSanto acted as the series showrunner, with George Krstic, Gavin Hignight, and Brandon M. Easton as writers. Three chapters were released as individual shows via Netflix, with each chapter named and based on the each of the franchise's three lines.

For the sake of easy documention, TFWiki.net has chosen to document all three chapters in a season format, despite Netflix releasing them separately as individual shows.

Comics

Main article: 2019 IDW continuity

While not branded as part of the War for Cybertron Trilogy, the IDW Publishing ongoing series Transformers, and other concurrent comics set in that universe, makes extensive use of contemporary Siege toy designs wherever possible.

Marketing material

When the War for Cybertron Trilogy was first conceived, Hasbro worked hard to establish a multi-platform storyline for audiences to build upon with both their toys and their imaginations.

This continuity is somewhat similar to the cartoon continuity, however; several elements within both storylines are very different from one another. To put it simply; both pieces of War for Cybertron Trilogy fiction spawned from the same outline that had been established, and move in their own unique directions.

War for Cybertron: Siege

Minimal.

The storyline started out strong with the War for Cybertron: Siege line, which placed all of its fiction during the final days of the war for Cybertron. In order to add depth to the characters, each were assigned a unique military insignia, that were made up of smaller chunks, representing the different divisions, units, and ranks within the respective faction's military. These rankings also severed as a means to show the dark past behind some of the characters that would adapt into the fan-favourite icons that we all know and love.^[1]

The main key points of the story relied on both visual storytelling through each toy's box art and the "Teletraan-1 Data Files" which were mostly found on the Siege webpage, but could also be found on Hasbro Pulse through occassional blog entries and downloadable desktop wallpapers from both sites. Each Date File listed off the last location a character had been seen or heard from, giving an idea to who were together during the final battle and what role they played in making the ultimate sacrifice—sending the AllSpark off-world, leaving their planet to ultimately perish.

The Siege story consists of the following media (in no particular order):

• The Teletraan-1 Data Files on the Siege webpage and Hasbro Pulse
• Character bios on the Siege webpage
• "Autobots vs. Decepticons" stop motion posted to both the website and the Official Transformers YouTube channel
• Military insignia found on the back of boxes, in the instructions, and on the Siege webpage
• Various behind the scenes blog entries on Hasbro Pulse
• Several Hasbro product descriptions on Amazon, Hasbro Pulse, and other online retailers

War for Cybertron: Earthrise

Cluttered.

Contrary to popular belief, the War for Cybertron: Earthrise story mostly revolved around space travel, rather than spending time on Earth. The storytelling elements found in this line mostly consisted of a map of the universe that was printed on packaging inserts that required the owner to carefully cut out and keep to build the full map. Also included were transparent red decoders that revealed the names of locations on the map pieces and the path that the Ark and the Nemesis took as they searched for the AllSpark. Carrying on from Siege, Hasbro also released several character bios on the Earthrise webpage.

Eventually, more elements of the story were revealed in the exclusive "Galactic Odyssey Collection" listings on Amazon. Each of the five sets came with a detailed universe map of the five planets the Transformers interacted with while searching for fuel and the AllSpark. Story elements that described each of the planet's inhabitants and habitat were also printed on cards included in the sets.

To be frank, Earthrise was released at what can only be described as the worst possible time. As the COVID-19 pandemic hit worldwide in 2020, the same amount of effort found in the Siege storyline could not be found in Earthrise, likely due to the lack of staff on-hand for health and safety reasons. Also due to the pandemic, worldwide distribution was halted and several countries went into lockdown, resulting in the toyline being cut short, with around half of it only being sold as online exclusives. To top it off, what was being distributed appeared to be supplied in such short number that most of the line never saw the light of day in some countries and even parts of the United States. Ultimately, the storyline took just as big a hit as the toys it was made to advertise.

The Earthrise story consists of the following media (in no particular order):

• The "Transformers Universe Map", clipped together from packaging inserts
• Character bios on the Earthrise webpage
• Military insignia found on the back of boxes, in the instructions, and on the Earthrise webpage
• Several Hasbro product descriptions on Amazon, Hasbro Pulse, and other online retailers (namely, the Galactic Odyssey Collection)

War for Cybertron: Kingdom

Balanced.

Finishing off the trilogy with a bang and celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the original Beast Wars franchise, the War for Cybertron: Kingdom line took a new spin on both the Beast Wars and its famous time travelling theme. Waking up from stasis before 1984, the Autobots and Decepticons found themselves caught up in the Beast Wars where the Maximals and Predacons had been fighting over the AllSpark to right the wrongs the Transformers' battle had brought to their future timeline.

Kingdom's biggest story elements are the collectible "Golden Disk destiny" cards selected at random and included inside the packaging of mainline figures. Each card features four possible destinies for each of the six different character cards. Each of these destiny cards represent readings of alternate futures that had been imprinted onto the Golden Disk.

Another element used was, once again, the webpage's character bios. Released in conjunction with the Kingdom cartoon, the Kingdom webpage's bios heavily reflected the characters from the cartoon over the pre-established continuity given with the previous two lines, even going so far as to include characters/toys only released in the War for Cybertron Trilogy, Siege and Earthrise toylines, instead of the ones released in the Kingdom line itself, such as the Fossilizers. Also following on from the theme of possible destinies, the toyline saw the exclusive "Golden Disk Collection" subline imprint, which followed the same suit as the "Galactic Odyssey Collection", placing large chunks of the line's fiction in product descriptions on Amazon.

Released around the same time, The Transformers: The Movie toys released in the Studio Series toyline had also been described by Hasbro as being alternate universe counterparts to the War for Cybertron Trilogy characters, due to characters like Cyclonus and Galvatron being released in one line, while Scourge and the Sweeps were in the other. This made for more of an additional personal canon-type element to the story and playability between the lines.

The Kingdom story consists of the following media (in no particular order):

• Golden Disk destiny cards
• Character bios on the Kingdom webpage
• Box art
• Military insignia found on the back of boxes and in the instructions of Autobots and Decepticons
• Several Hasbro product descriptions on Amazon, Hasbro Pulse, and other online retailers (namely, the Golden Disk Collection)

Continuity notes

Unlike the original Beast Wars cartoon, the time travel elements within the War for Cybertron Trilogy marketing material fiction don't entirely mesh as well as they could.

Though there is a bulk of fiction released in Earthrise that takes place in space before reaching Earth, there are other elements of the story the depicts their battle on Earth during 1984. This makes placing Kingdom on a timeline somewhat difficult, as several Autobots and Decepticons are depicted in their Earth vehicle modes over the Cybertronian vehicle modes from Siege. Further, the Kingdom webpage blurb has them wake up on pre-historic Earth to participate alongside their descendants in the Beast Wars, which makes one wonder, how did they get these modes if Earth vehicles don't exist yet? The product descriptions for the Earthrise Autobot Alliance and all five of the Seeker Elite members also suggest they woke up in 1984, which adds to the confusion.

There seems to be only two logical explanations:

1. The first is that the Autobots and Decepticons woke up on pre-historic Earth, fought in the Beast Wars, and then went back into stasis, before waking up again to continue the battle in 1984... but that still leaves the question as to where the Earth vehicle modes came from, which leads into the second theory:
2. It takes place in an alternate timeline. The Kingdom blurb does hint at some kind of catastrophe taking place in the distant future where the Maximals and Predacons hail from, which led them to pre-historic Earth in search of the AllSpark to fix whatever happened, so it is possible that some kind of time vortex-type issue may have played into this.

If the second theory is to be the "correct" one, then that would mean the events of Kingdom never happen in one reality, but happen in another, so one could happily skip the continuity headache (and the Beast Wars) altogether.

At the end of the day, the marketing material fiction built around the War for Cybertron Trilogy is only there to sell the toys it's advertising. A lot of the fiction isn't all that easy to find if you don't know where to look for it either, so the attention to smaller details aren't all that needed for something with very little significance over a cartoon which more people are likely to see.

Notes

• Each portion of the War for Cybertron Trilogy has a hidden number picked out in the word War in each lines' logo that indicates which section of the trilogy it is. For Siege, the letter W has the number 1, for Earthrise, the letter A has the number 2, and for Kingdom, the letter R has the number 3.

References