Ironhide's History
Ironhide and Prowl intercepted a lone Decepticon who had strayed too close to the Ark, but discovered that the Decepticon was Jetfire, who had come to join their cause. Siege episode 4 He later joined the impromptu interrogation session, but remained skeptical of Jetfire's true intentions despite his claims. As a computer virus engineered by Shockwave ate its way through Cybertron's network, he warned Elita-1 that Autobot outposts across the planet were suffering from system failures, moments before the virus hit the Ark and took its cloaking system offline. Ironhide and Wheeljack worked to get the ship back online while helping to keep the Decepticons at bay, and were aboard the Ark when it went through Cybertron's last space bridge to retrieve the AllSpark, though the passage through the portal left everyone aboard unconscious. Doubledealer's crew of mercenaries eventually discovered the drifting Ark, brought it back online, and took the captured Autobots to the planet Chaar to meet with their employer, the Quintesson Deseeus. When Optimus went to meet with the alien alone, Ironhide remained confident that their leader could handle things himself. Deseeus proved dangerously irrational, however, and when one-fifth of his personality usurped the rest of his consciousness, the mercenaries turned on their employer by freeing the other Autobots and allowing them to flee to their ship.As the ship's pilot, Ironhide flew the ship to the nearby Nebulon system in the hopes of seeking out an active spacebridge, but discovered an abandoned space station wedged halfway through the still-active dimensional portal. Ironhide remained on the Ark while the others investigated in more detail, but when they returned from their encounter with an enraged Scorponok and the Decepticons, Prime ordered Ironhide to get the ship out of harm's way. When Ironhide fired the warp drive, however, a freak accident stranded their ship in the Dead Universe. Earthrise episode 4 Ironhide and the other Autobots detected the presence of Sky Lynx, who teleported Optimus away to speak with him in private. Following their return to realspace, Ironhide and the others discovered that they'd been teleported into orbit around an unfamiliar green world, but the trip through the Dead Universe left both their ship and the Nemesis disabled. When the Decepticons boarded their ship, Ironhide and the other Autobot proved able to repel the invaders, only for the mercenaries to arrive aboard their own ship and open fire on both sides—in reality, they were mind-controlled by Deseeus. Though the Autobots were able to repel the Quintesson, the battle ended with the Ark and Nemesis crashing on the planet below. Soon after the crash, Ironhide reported that they'd marooned themselves on an organic planet; when some of the native creatures invaded their ship, however, the Autobots encountered a group of Maximals: time-travelling Cybertronians from a future timeline in which the AllSpark had never been returned to Cybertron. After a brief misunderstanding, the group agreed to join forces with the Maximals to find the AllSpark and repair the Autobot ship. After Optimus retrieved both the Matrix of Leadership and the AllSpark, Ironhide took part in the final battle against the Nemesis and Megatron's new Predacon allies. Following their return to Cybertron with their new captives, Ironhide participated in the battle against Nemesis Prime and Galvatron, and, following the rebirth of their world, stood with Optimus Prime as the Autobots, Maximals, Decepticons, and Predacons marked a tentative end to their war.
