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This article pertains to an Inconsistently Admirable with more than one version who is Inconsistently Admirable! |
| NOTE: This page only discusses the "Aligned" Megatron in what pertains to the Covenant of Primus, the Aligned Novels and the cartoons, not the War For Cybertron Video Game series as the Megatron from those games does nothing admirable or heroic and is Pure Evil. |
| “ | Join me in defeating our shared enemy. Unicron the Chaos Bringer. Unicron's lifeblood runs through me. Only I can hear his thoughts, anticipate his movements. Optimus, our past alliance Autobot and Decepticon no longer matter, not while Unicron lives. | „ |
| ~ Megatron teaming up with Optimus against Unicron. |
| “ | Because I now know the true meaning of oppression...and have thus lost my taste for inflicting it. Enough! The Decepticons are no more, and that is final. | „ |
| ~ Megatron's redemption |
D-16, renamed to Megatronus, and rechristened as Megatron, is one of the main characters of the Transformers Aligned continuity, serving as the deuteragonist of the prequel novels and the main antagonist of the rest of the franchise.
He is a powerful gladiator from Kaon who rapidly rose among the ranks of the ring and quickly became a revolutionary in search of a better Cybertron, working with his best friend Orion Pax to start a cause for the council, however after being ultimately rejected by the council who instead favored Orion, a betrayed Megatronus formed the Decepticons to wage war on those who opposed him and remake Cybertron through his terms. After centuries of war and having become lost in bloodshed and violence, Megatron was restored to life as a thrall of Unicron and after being freed and understanding the truth of oppresion, returned to his old self and set off in permanent self-exile as an act of redemption.
He was voiced by Frank Welker.
His Good Ranking[]
What Makes Him Admirable?[]
Background/The Covenant of Primus[]
- Many years before the war, Megatron originated as a miner named D-16, with genuinely noble intentions. During his time working at his mining sector, D-16 befriended multiple nameless bots and realized the importance of a name after getting sociological inspiration from a nameless miner.
- As detailed in the "Retribution" novel, D-16 was among the many Cybertronians who joined Sentinel Prime in the war effort that overthrew the corrupt Quintesson regime, though many Cybertronians, including Megatron himself, would forget this event.
- When Gladitorial Combat became a growing sport in Kaon, D-16 interested by the duels entered as a contestant and renamed himself "Megatronus", being inspired by the legend of the Thirteen Primes. Megatronus saw the pits as a way to escape the enforced caste system and thrived as a powerful combatant, gathering hope that Cybertron's corrupt regime could eventually be fixed.
- Using his newly gained status, Megatronus became a visionary and politician who used his victories in combat to adress the audience with ideals of change and revolution, inspiring millions of bots to work to overthrow the corrupt government that oppressed miners as slaves.
- His actions inspired the librarian Orion Pax, who sought out Megatronus and the two became best friends and allies, working together to absolve the corruption in Cybertron, with even Alpha Trion observing that Pax tempered Megatronus' excesive anger.
- Megatronus would also motivate Orion to learn self-defense and treated him cordially unlike other gladiators, inviting him to Kaon and giving him a warm welcome. Even after his fall, Megatron would still privately refer to Orion as his brother.
Novels[]
- In the "Exodus" novel, it's shown that during the early years of the war, Megatron still had moments of kindness before he completely lost himself to violence, such as forgiving Starscream for hiding the Dark Energon within Trypticon and acknowledging it could be dangerous or later when he pardoned him after releasing Sentinel Prime to kill him and take over, it should be noted that unlike other pragmatic moments, he had literally nothing to gain from instances like this.
- In the "Retribution" novel, he also briefly helped Optimus when he was being trialed by the Quintesson Inquarata, speaking in his defense during the trial by shutting down the claim that Quintessons had made the Cybertronian race after regaining his memories of the battle against them.
Transformers: Prime[]
- Even during his time as a villain, he still had some minor redeeming qualities, such as being a fair and benevolent boss to Soundwave and Shockwave and still respecting Optimus Prime as well as being disgusted with Starscream's cowardly ways.
- After reviving himself with Dark Energon, Megatron saved Optimus Prime from getting killed by Starscream.
- Megatron admitted that he made a few mistakes and that no one was perfect.
- Succeeding in his goal of awakening Unicron from within the Earth but being denied by the Dark God for failing to kill Prime, Megatron decides to instead join the Autobots and aid them to defeat Unicron, which while pragmatic and more of a matter of pride than wishing to genuinely do good, is still admirable.
- He appeared in the nick of time to save Optimus' life from the titan Unicron made from Earth's rubble, shooting the titan to stop him from crushing Optimus and destroying the titan, later helping Optimus stand up and declaring his intentions.
- To prove himself as an ally, Megatron led the second titan Unicron Avatar away and fought him and more that arose single handedly while the Autobots returned to base and discussed working with him.
- After arriving at the Omega One Outpost, Megatron provided Ratchet with the necessary coordinates to enter Earth's core, which allowed the Autobots and him to enter Unicron from within and stop him. Once there, he warned the Autobots that Unicron was already aware of their presence.
- Megatron then guided the team throughout the confines of Unicron so they could reach his core safely all while resisting the Transformer god's influence and attempts to control him.
- He warns the Autobots of Unicron's retaliation as the group is attacked by Unicron's antibodies and manages to take out most of them by working together with Optimus, later shooting at them while the Prime saved Bulkhead from falling.
- When Dreadwing was about to kill Starscream, he killed Dreadwing and spared Starscream's life, also giving him one more chance to rejoin the Decepticons.
- He then resisted Unicron's attempt to control him and saved Optimus from being attacked by more antibodies, then using his Dark Energon to fool Unicron's defensive system into not seeing him as a threat and gaining access to his core, allowing Optimus and him inside.
- When Unicron finally took control of his body, he still resisted long enough for Optimus to defeat the mad god by using the Matrix to purify his core.
- Although partially pragmatic, Megatron would have the Cybermatter formula perfected by Ratchet and Shockwave with the intent to use it to restore their planet to life, which led to Cybertron's restoration.
- Megatron would be restored to life by Unicron in order to use as a vessel and head to Cybertron to destroy Primus, with Megatron unable to do anything but watch. Megatron was indeed against Unicron's plan to destroy Primus and began to think of ways to render his body useless so Unicron would abandon it, even at the cost of his own life, showing he does care about Cybertron.
- After spotting a beacon set by Predaking, Megatron tricked Unicron into thinking the Predacon would obey so it would initiate a fight, being willing to be once more killed or sufficiently damaged to an inefficient frame so Unicron would be forced to leave his body and be unable to destroy Cybertron.
- After Unicron was ultimately defeated and sealed away by Optimus, Megatron regained control of his body. Having truly experienced oppression and understood its effects, he lost his desire to inflict it on others. In a bid for redemption, he chose to disband the Decepticons for good and went into self-imposed exile in parts unknown.
- When Starscream tries to convince him to start the Decepticons again he refuses to heed Starscream's advice of restarting his feud with the Autobots and tells him that they are finished at that is final.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- To start in the first place, his vast ammount of crimes make him far too heinous as he was directly tied to every major crime in the series and is also responsible in part for the actions of Starscream and Shockwave. Among his many crimes are starting the Great War on Cybertron and rendering the planet completely uninhabitable forcing the Cybertronian race into a great Exodus across the galaxy and poisoning the planet's core, wounding Primus himself, creating the Cybonic Plague which would wipe out thousand of innocents across the planet, torturing Bumblebee for information and crushing his voice box, desecrating Cybertronian burial grounds with Dark Energon to create a Predacon army, infecting Raf an innocent 12 year old human with Dark Energon, and attempting to terraform Earth to wipe out the human race and rule over two planets.
- While he did save Optimus from Starscream, this was just for revenge on his second-in-command when he unleashed his wrath upon him.
- While he did help the Autobots stop Unicron, this was completely pragmatic as he tried to be Unicron's herald first and only turned against him after Unicron rejected him. Not to mention how quick he was to go back to his conquest after their temporary alliance was finished.
- He's not helped by the fact that he doesn't show remorse for most of his crimes after redemption, only briefly expressing some guilt over the oppression he inflicted upon others.
- He is also a horribly, and extremely abusive boss to all his subordinates, except for Soundwave and Shockwave. He treats the Vehicons as if they are merely tools, demonstrating a clear disregard for their lives. For instance, he showed no hesitance when the Terrorcon Cliffjumper attacked two miners, and he even threw some of the Vehicons overboard to catch Smokescreen. Moreover, he threatened to remove the voice box of anyone who referred to Orion Pax as Optimus Prime.
- His horrible leadership is also what ultimately led to some of his subordinates turning on him and even becoming much more vile than him (e.g. Starscream and Airachnid).
- He's incredibly lethal and has no respect for life, human or cybertronian, viewing everyone as pawns to use to forward his goals, reanimating the corpses of fallen transformers with Dark Energon and trying to consistently kill Optimus Prime several times.
- He also has multiple corrupting qualities such as being incredibly wrathful and violent, immediately attacking the council and killing Halogen after they showed preference to Orion over him and savagely beating Starscream any chance he gets, even when not deserved. All of this is without getting into his unhealthy obsession with Dark Energon, consistently using it on himself recklessly and at the cost of rational thought and further corrupting himself.
- Even if he did start off as a genuine extremist who wanted to reform Cybertron's corrupt system, he slowly becomes worse and worse and truly fell to villainy, being a completely irredeemable tyrant for most of the series who rejected redemption multiple times and only pragmatically helped the Autobots to his own gain before getting an actual redemption in the series finale.
Trivia[]
- He is along with Wheeljack and Predaking, one of the three IAs to come from the Aligned Continuity.
- Megatron is very heavily inspired by his IDW Counterpart in that they were both born to a lowly caste within Cybertron's caste system and founded the Deceptions. Both of them also ultimately redeemed themselves after being forced by a greater evil (Unicron and Galvatron) to experience true oppression and being then called out by someone else for how far they fell, making them realize the error of their ways and change. They are also both Inconsistently Heinous and have a turbulent relationship with their respective Optimus Primes, both of which are Pure Good.
- Megatron for most of the series would not have been Inconsistently Heinous, much less admirable as he was from the very start a power hungry tyrant with no redeeming qualities at all and would've been Pure Evil if it weren't for his redemption in Predacons Rising. His WFC Video Game counterpart is indeed Pure Evil due to lacking the redeeming qualities present in other depictions of the "Aligned" Megatron since the video games have contradictions with other media.
External Links[]
- Megatron on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
- Megatron on the Inconsistently Heinous Wiki
- Megatron on the Villains Wiki
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 Aligned Inconsistently Admirable
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Autobots Decepticons | ||
 Inconsistently Admirable
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Films TV Series and Anime Comic Books Manga Crossovers Fanon See Also | ||