Dominus Ambus died on the way back to his home planet.

 

"A very distinct facial insignia."

If it turns out Ambus is Tarn, considering his Decepticon faceplate, this will become one of the funniest damn lines in the history of MTMTE and the best example of putting the answer right under our collective noses.

 

Could Dominus Ambus also be a load-bearer? Could he be wearing Tarn's body as a suit of armour ala Ultra Magnus and Minimus Ambus?

 

Those are some incredibly keen observations and deductions. Very impressive theory.

It seems only logical that megatron would implement some sort of loyalty test to ensure that those granted the power to keep even Phase Sixers in line would not themselves fall victim to the same "corruption" which the P6s did. Your reasoning is sound.

I think this has more to do with plot flaws and mistakes by the editorial team than intentional design. That is, in juggling such a huge cast they probably forgot that they established this as one of Soundwave's capabilities. Plus the ability to read minds is so powerful, it tends to get neglected by authors, because it would circumvent so many plots. They just don't consider that it would be likely to be applied in a given situation.

I'm not saying the editorial team or authors are doing a bad job. No one bats 1000, and this is the easy sort of thing to miss.

 

All this could explain Rewind's survival as well

 

Man, there are so many good theories in this thread. I really need to try to catch up on MTMTE, life happened and I haven't had a chance to really read in quite a while.

 

So Dominus is actually Poochie?

 

Rewind's survival is due to them pulling a Voyager.

 

I've been thinking about the Dominus = Tarn idea too and going forward from the theory that Chromedome had modified Rewind's memories about Dominus at some point puts a lot of the narrative around who he was and where he ended up in question. Resulting crackpot theory below describing an alternate narrative.


Living in the early to mid war years clearly messed up a lot of bots in the head. What if Dominus developed Tarn's known transforming addiction somehow as a result of war stress. Replacement cogs seem to be as hard to come by as human heart transplants so his ability to replace them as he burnt them out would have been tough. Like any junky needing a fix he begins doing what's necessary to feed the addiction... murdering bots for their cogs. In war killing people is expected, but harvesting their cogs too would look weirdly suspicious. Imagine a solider tearing out someone heart after a kill. He'd be able to do that covertly for some time as an Autobot but it wouldn't be sustainable, he'd be found out eventually with Rewind finding out about his addiction in the process.

He is found out then goes off the grid and gets a job at a relinquishment clinic, harvesting cogs from the bots he helped kill themselves. Even this was unethical causing him to need to move around between clinics to keep from being discovered. When Rewind and Chromedome met, Rewind had found out this was what Dominus was up to and was examining the corpses at clinics looking for stolen cogs. He found such a collection of bots that day causing him to freak out and meet Chromedome.

Dominus was found and Rewind tried an intervention with him to bring him back from his addiction but it didn't work and Dominus disappeared completely from Rewind's life after that. He had really joined the Decepticons which Rewind would never have believed so he didn't look for him in their ranks. Dominus became an increasingly ruthless killer to keep getting cogs until he got attention from Megatron and eventually became Tarn and the rest is history we know.

The reason Chromedome eventually modified Rewind's memory is that he found out that "Tarn" had a transforming addiction and had the revelation that he must be Dominus. Rewind was so distraught at the idea that Chromedome had no choice but to modify his memory. He had to remove everything about Dominus's addiction otherwise Rewind would have been able to reach the conclusion again. Prowl being Prowl would have been involved in outing Dominus when he was an Autobot, hence him knowing that Dominus is Tarn by drawing that same conclusion. Prowl is smart enough to figure out that Chromedome had modified Rewind's memory to keep him from knowing the truth.

Rewind originally started collecting snuff films looking for Dominus as the killer, not the victim. He didn't know that Dominus was Tarn at the time and didn't know he was a 'con. He just thought maybe he'd find video of him murdering someone in a back alley for their cog. When Chromedome modified his memory, Rewind already all of these movies collected so Chromedome simply changed his memory to think he was looking for Dominus as the victim. In Rewind's modified memory reality, Dominus just disappeared and was possibility suicidal causing him to be in that relinquishment clinic in the first place.

 

Under our noses.

Like a moustache.

This... this may very well work.

 

Dominus Ambus is... star saber. *shrugs* i mean dominus does mean master in latin, and star saber is a brain master. If you take star sabers love of all life forms it matches up with dominus' fighting for right of disposable class transformers, plus the unyielding beliefs. there is a passion there that matches if you just twist it to the side of evil.

 

I guess that could work too.

 

What if Dominus Ambus is a deep-cover Tarn post shadowplay, and the person who performed said shadowplay is Chromedome?
That's what Prowl has over him. He has let Rewind believe Dominus is gone because he knows what really happened because he did it to him.
Roberts, you magnificent bastard.

 

Dominus Ambus should be the bot inside the Delta Magnus armor.