Megatron's History
Megatron was the leader of the Predacons during the Beast Wars. His body was upgraded by the quantum surge that resulted from the destruction of the Vox Planet Buster.
After sabotaging Optimus Primal's stasis pod and seemingly killing his greatest opponent, Megatron partook in a brief celebration. The Darksyde was soon overtaken by the quantum surge from the Planet Buster's destruction, which bathed Megatron in quantum energies, upgrading him into a Transmetal and giving him the ability to fly. Megatron quickly rallied his forces and attempted an all-out attack on the leader-less Maximals. He, unfortunately, had to retreat once he realized most of his troops were incapacitated. The discovery of two more downed stasis pods provided Megatron with two new men, the Fuzors Silverbolt and Quickstrike. Megatron immediately led them into combat against Cheetor, and they headed for the Axalon. Battling their way to the Maximal ship, the Predacons were confronted by a resurrected and upgraded Optimus Primal, who drove them all off. Returning to base, Megatron discovered that in his absence, the two golden disks had been stolen by Dinobot, and the backup copy of their data he kept on his personal system had been destroyed. Though Blackarachnia blamed Dinobot for the backup's destruction, Megatron clearly suspected the truth: that she herself was responsible, having downloaded a copy of the backup for herself first.
Megatron sent Tarantulas, Blackarachnia and Quickstrike to secure a cave full of energon. They later reported back that it had been destroyed in a fight with the Maximals. Megatron was not pleased. Captured by the Predacons, Dinobot opted to defect back to their side. Megatron forced him to prove himself by staging a fight between him and Quickstrike, and the original Golden Disk was soon back in Megatron's hands. Unfortunately, Dinobot ultimately opted to remain a Maximal.
The discovery of another alien site gave Megatron the opportunity to take a shot at retrieving the alien Golden Disk. He distracted Rhinox long enough for Inferno and Blackarachnia to incapacitate the Maximal, and managed to take the disk back into his possession. Returning to base, Megatron encountered Tarantulas, who declared himself no longer under Megatron's command, but was willing to cooperate. As the Predacons put their new plan into effect at the alien site, the Maximals arrived, only for a domed spaceship to appear. After using a force field to prevent the Maximals getting in, Megatron ventured into the spacecraft and was able to use the alien Golden Disk to take control of it. His first act was to bring aboard the other Predacons (bar Tarantulas, with whom the alliance was terminated) and Optimus Primal, the latter as a prisoner. Installing Transwarp cells into the ship, Megatron intended to take it back to Cybertron and conquer the world. Tarantulas arranged for a Maximal attack, infiltrating the ship and causing it to self-destruct.
After another stasis pod was found, Megatron bugged Blackarachnia and sent her and Waspinator out to find it. He soon learned that the pod contained Protoform X, a powerful Transformer with an indestructible spark, made during a Maximal experiment. With this information, he used an energon blade to cut out a piece of the creature's spark using it to control the beast, which he renamed Rampage.
His options growing limited, Megatron chose to test alternative, "safer" means of altering history. Using the Golden Disk, he discovered the location of a valley full of early humans, who would someday evolve into the humans who helped the Autobots defeat the Decepticons in the great war. Determining by empirical experimentation that the future could be altered, Megatron mounted an attack on the valley. The Predacons were prevented from razing it entirely by the interference of Dinobot. After defeating all of the Predacon troops singlehandedly, Dinobot knocked the disk from Megatron's hand, and destroyed it. Megatron ordered a retreat as the rest of the Maximals arrived. Though fascinated at the discovery of a badly-mutated Transformer, Megatron wasn't impressed when it failed to transform, and ordered it destroyed, but Rampage successfully convinced him to let Transmutate prove itself. It didn't go so well.
Calculating that the Transwarp wavefront would soon reach Cybertron, alerting the Maximal High Council and resulting in a rescue ship being sent, Megatron realized he would have to implement a potentially final gambit. The Predacons attacked the Maximal base, but were fought off when help arrived in the form of Predacon covert agent Ravage, sent by the Predacon Tripredacus Council to apprehend Megatron. Returning to the Predacon base, Megatron sent Waspinator on a secret mission, while the other Predacons attempted to increase the fortifications. The impending attack went off without a hitch, however, and Megatron was captured. Megatron was placed in a cell and was informed by Ravage that Tarantulas was a member of the Predacon Secret Police. Megatron didn't seem too surprised by the news, and still had a hand to play—using a fragment of the Golden Disk which Dinobot had destroyed, he played back a portion of the original Megatron's hidden message, convincing Ravage to side with him.
Megatron and Ravage subsequently led an assault on the Axalon, which only failed through some extremely daring work by Rattrap. Megatron fled, not back to the Predacon base, but to the Ark, prepared at last to enact his namesake's plan to change the course of history by killing Optimus Prime. At the ship, he discovered Blackarachnia and her paramour Silverbolt, the former having deduced Megatron's plans by studying the stolen backup of Golden Disk data. This proved fortuitous for Megatron, as he was to coerce Blackarachnia into helping him by threatening Silverbolt. The she-spider provided the access codes necessary to shut down the Ark's security grid and grant Megatron access to the ship. After delivering a powerful speech to the unconscious figure of Optimus Prime, Megatron blasted the Autobot in the face at full power, triggering a timestorm that began to unravel history. As reality whirled around him, he confronted the Maximals outside the Ark to gloat that, by slaying Prime, he has erased them from existence. Unfortunately, he failed to account for Blackarachnia; having been created from a Maximal protoform, she too would cease to exist if Megatron's plan succeeded, so she used her access codes to reactivate the Ark's security, causing Megatron to be hurled from the fact. With Blackachnia's help the Maximals were able to use Teletraan I to repair Optimus Prime, while Primal took the Autobot's spark into his own structure to protect it, in the process transforming his body into a more powerful form. Confronted by the new "Optimal Optimus", Megatron beat a retreat, but not before shooting Blackarachnia. Heading for the Axalon, he, Inferno and Waspinator were attacked and downed by Primal and Cheetor, however, Megatron radioed ahead to Rampage, who was able to destroy the Maximal ship.
Rampage disappeared while supposedly on a mission to attack the Ark with Inferno, and Megatron's scanners were unable to locate him. Monitoring the Maximal attempt to salvage Sentinel, Megatron sent his men out to retrieve the device. The mission was surprisingly a success, and Megatron later installed Sentinel in the Predacon ship. Megatron had also developed Cyber raptors, which were sent out occasionally to harass the early humans. When he spotted Blackarachnia and Cheetor accompanying two of the humans, he sent Waspinator and Tarantulas out with three of the raptors to attack them. It didn't go too well for the Predacons, but Megatron was brewing a new plan.
Having obtained a Transmetal driver through unknown means, he embarked upon an experiment, the fruition of which was the creation of a Transmetal 2 clone of Dinobot. However, thanks to the interference of Depth Charge and Cheetor during the experiment, the Transmetal driver was lost, and the Predacons captured Depth Charge in order to interrogate him. Before they could extract the information, they were attacked by a strange feral beast, which eliminated them one by one. Megatron accidentally slagged Waspinator before being attacked by the creature himself, and sent flying off a cliff. Returning to base, Megatron detected the beast roaming in the night, and realized that Cheetor had been exposed to the Transmetal driver's energies and upgraded into a new form. He dispatched Dinobot and Waspinator to capture Cheetor, but they failed.
Megatron had his men build a new weapon—a disruptor cannon constructed in a cave on a mountain top. Unfortunately due to the bi-polar energon source that the weapon used, the Predacons were unable to get close enough to install the shielding. Megatron sent Waspinator and Inferno out to capture one of the early humans, and they came back with Una. With great difficulty, Megatron instructed her on installing the shielding and installing the stabilizer crystal. After the Maximals had rescued her, the Predacons fired the cannon, only to discover too late that Una hadn't installed the stabilizer after all. The cannon exploded in their faces. Alerted by Taratulas that the Maximals were attempting to remove Blackarachnia's Predacon shell program, Megatron assigned Inferno, Rampage and Quickstrike to help Tarantulas disrupt the Ark's power, and hopefully terminate Blackarachnia. This failed and Blackarachnia ended up with a new Transmetal 2 body.
On a later occasion, Megatron had Waspinator attack the Ark as part of a diversion. Tarantulas was able to place Optimus Primal under Quickstrike's control, enabling the Predacons to defeat the Maximals easily, and allowing Megatron to enter the Ark once more. There, he deliberately took the spark of the original Megatron and placed it in his body. Before he could do anything more, Quickstrike used Primal's body to dump in him the nearest pit of lava—a double-cross engineered by Tarantulas. Megatron did not die, but was upgraded into a new form, with a dragon as his alternate mode
