I don't think it's unreasonable. Defiance seems to suggest after the Fallen betrayed his brothers on Earth, nearly traces of the 7/13 were covered up, most likely by those we now know as The Fallen's pre-Megatron servants (perhaps the Seekers). Ratchet reported that the sarcophaguses of the other Primes were deliberately smashed.

They do remember the legend of the Dynasty of Primes, though.

 

I'm not sure where you're pulling 'less than a million years old' from. There's no indication. Neanderthals have been shown to be a divergent species, not our last evolutionary step before homo sapien. Homo sapiens appeared sometime between 100,000 and 300,000 years ago, and controversy has raged over whether there was a single African origin or whether other hominids such as Homo erectus and Neanderthals made a significant contribution to the evolution of modern humans by interbreeding near the end of Neanderthal's existence prior to them dying out as a race entirely. Archaeologists determined the age of tools discovered in the Ethiopian Rift Valley to be at least 276,000 years old. The age of the human race seems to increase as the decades of discovery go on. However, that said, I believe the film stated something like 17,000 years ago for the opening scene?

Regardless, by the time Fallen & the other Primes had shown up they had this sunbuster/energymaker deal down cold. Had directives on how to use it, it wasn't a new device, and methinks recharging the Allspark wasn't something that had to be done daily. After all, Prime's narration in the first film, "Before time began, there was the Cube. We know not where it comes from, only that it holds the power to create worlds and fill them with life. That is how our race was born."

I'll give you the possibility of a ballpark on Optimus' age being 'young' in comparison to the entire species, but there's a lack of historical specifics of this brand of Transformers to fill the millions or billions of years its existed. If Prime can look at our race and say the word 'young', then explain 'For a time, we lived in harmony' in regards to his reign with Megatron at his side, ruling Cybertron in peace before their war broke out & lasted for however long, and we take into account we don't know when the Primes & Fallen left Cybertron, plus recognize the Primes had an obvious knowledge on how the Allspark may have worked what with the whole reengerizing the Allspark with the sunbuster bit - something in constrast to Prime's era of ignorance on what the Allspark is and how it functioned, and even to the Transformers The Fallen is an ancient entity, well, I'd have to wager the race and Prime's era of comrades & enemies is far older than being given credit.

 

you are not going to find a better response than this.

 

17,000 BC

19,000 years ago. Given the descendant line Optimus is 19,000 years old. He was still a hatchling incubating somewhere when the battle of the Primes happened.

Optimus sent the Allspark in space at least 12,000 years ago. According to Tom Banachek said the the carbon dating was around 10,000 BC.

There are several thousand years where the ancient Autobots erased the Fallen from history except the Allspark.

The Autobots are comparably ignorant about their own history compared to the Decepticons. (An interesting parallel to Beast Wars and Animated.)

 

I believe the intent of carbon dating was regarding the rock surrounding the Cube rather than the Allspark itself, otherwise Optimus' opening dialogue of the first film would have said "10,000 years ago" instead of "before time began".

And there's zero indication that I'm aware of that the ancient Primes are 19,000 years old. They didn't begin as a species the moment The Fallen set foot on our world. Our race is anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 years old, something the Autobots on Earth for the film would know given they've scanned enough data from the world wide web to speak our language and Prime gives indication he sees us as a young species. The Primes (including the one who eventualy became The Fallen) have an understanding of the Allspark that indicates it wasn't such a mystery to them, what with them having specialized tech that recharges the Allspark even from their distance of Cybertron where it was until launched into space, yet the current era of Bayformers know next to nothing about the Cube and how it works. Earth wasn't the first stop to recharge the Cube, there were protocols indicated in how the sunbuster was to be used, lines of dialogue that implied there had been other stars throughout time converted to energy. And we don't know when the Primes left Cybertron. It was long before Optimus Prime's time, many generations of Transformers could have come & gone. We also don't know the manner in which the Primes left ages ago. It's unlikely they just soared through space as comets with their sun-sucking machine in tow. There may have been a vessel, other Transformers set to serve, etc.

The only indication we have in timeline is likely that some 20,000 years ago the Allspark was due to be recharged on Cybertron, a process no one on the planet understood, and that the Primes stopped on Earth to set up their sunbuster. However, upon seeing the human species the recharge was cancelled and shortly after The Fallen attempted to kill his brothers, leaving the Allspark with slowly failing power. Cybertron and its species began to suffer, war broke out (its even possible this the moment when Decepticons came into play, perhaps by sudden contact with The Fallen from afar) between Optimus and the mounting forces of Megatron, the Cube was eventually shot into space, and around 10,000 years ago it crashed here on our world.

You cannot date the age of this brand of Transformers species from that.

 

There, Fixed It For You. 

 

Suppose the Human's were born 10,000 years ago, and the TF's 10,001...

That's not much, but in comparison, it's still "younger" then the TF's...

Like an 8 year old and a 9 year old... same difference...

 

I'm thinking 70,000 to 100,000 years ago is a pretty good estimate

 

Interesting...maybe it's possible the original Primes left their planet to go on a recharge mission while Cybertron flourished? In this time most people on Cybertron forgot about the Primes, so even though they were still around, nomads looking for energy for their homeplanet, they were forgotten..

There's still one slight flaw, though. The prequel comics state that harvesting a star's power recharges the Allspark, but if this is the case, why do the Fallen and the Decepticons think harvesting our sun will give them the Energon to build a new army, when the Allspark is already destroyed?..I guess in this case the comic is non-canon, but it also debunks the idea of the Primes harvesting to recharge the Allspark on Cybertron...

THIS - IS- CONFUSING!!

 

This is where I'd probably tag back to The Fallen being one of those lost Primes that had knowledge on the Allspark where Optimus & Megatron's era of Cybertronians did not. After all, the Fallen did imply the Allspark could not be destroyed, only transformed. He quite likely knew something, but evil faceless corpses tell no tales.

 

Seems about right.

 

i am so confused!

 

the allspark was probably used to store and transport the energon from the harvesters so, in rotf, the decepticons were trying to just create the army using soley a sun harvester. which brings me to another question. why did the decepticons try to get the allspark, when they could have just created a sun harvester on random solar system number 3

 

Those sun-eating machines are obviously ancient tech from the times of the forgotten Primes. The Fallen was the only one living that knew of its existence. The Allspark, according to him, could not be destroyed only transformed, so...

 

yes but the fallen is a prime from that time that helped construct it and he is the leader of the decepticons(or master of the leader depending on how you see it

 

Answer they needed a related item of power to the Allspark. The Matrix.

It was emphasized the Matrix was the key to the sun harvester and has great power.

The Allspark also contained the memory of the Primes that is why Sam got clues to the Matrix's location.

 

Well, in ROTF, OP is a "decendant" of the Primes and the Primes were still around during 17,000 B.C. so OP can't be more than 19,009 years old.

 

Well, in seeing that they had been harvesting suns for their energy, I don't believe one sun could only last them a couple days. I'm pretty sure the energy from one sun could last them thousands upon thousands of years. Maybe when they had to reenergize, then they had to find a new sun. In seeing that their directive stated that they not destroy a sun that supports life, I could see where their race could be millions upon millions of years old. Maybe the Primes were like the neatherthal forms of the transformers. A former race maybe.

 

Don't ignore the picture the info provided by the films paints. The Primes didn't leave Cybertron a scant 20,000 years ago. The Cube has existed either as long or longer than the physical universe, meaning its well over ten billion years old. It birthed the Cybertonian species of the film continuity. The Primes, the original Transformers, left either just the lot of them or followers as well (we don't know that one fact) ages & ages ago, one of their purposes to use that sun harvesting machine to convert stars that didn't have life on their surrounding worlds into energy that recharged the Allspark. It's implied this has been done more than once. It's unlikely the Allspark has to be charged on a daily or weekly basis. But at some point the power of the Cube began to wane, Cybertron began to die, war broke out for the remaining power held within the Allspark, Megatron sought it with a passion even following it into space.

Again, you cannot get Optimus Prime's age from that provided information. The only thing you can learn is that he's a descendant of the original Primes. We don't know exactly when in the billions of years of their existence they first left Cybertron, leaving behind a Prime lineage to rule in their absence bot by bot. Assuming the energy harvested from stars need not be physically returned to the Allspark but merely transmitted by one of those many magical seeming means, Optimus could very likely be hundreds of thousands, a million, several million, perhaps a billion or two years of age. He called us "a young race", meaning he sees a species only one to three hundred thousand years old and sees a race in someplace between its infancy and its adolescence.

Well, he's the first Decepticon. He created them. Not likely physically, but in a banding of them together under his ultimate rule, yes. We're never told when. Considering he didn't feel betrayed by his brothers and 'fell' into the role of him being an evil sob until Earth (around 19,000 years ago), and the Allspark landed here around 10,000 years ago, that means sometime between possibly 17,000 BC and certainly 8,000 BC is when the Allspark was shot from Cybertron. The warring that led to the Cube being shot into space occured for a time prior to that. Now that time of war could extend prior to The Fallen warring with his own brothers elsewhere in the cosmos, but given events I'd say its very likely another possibility that Optimus Prime & Megatron ruled Cybertron as Prime had said, "For a time, we lived in harmony", until The Fallen 'fell'. Upon which he contacted the likes of Megatron and began his movement, becoming the Bayformers version of Generation 2 Liege Maximo, working behind the scenes from his throne.

Now that I think of it, he's very Liege Maximo-ish.

 

They did when found out the Fallen was doing against their code.

I'd go for 19,000 maximum given the info. Plus the Autobots were ignorant of their history.

Jetfire's statements about the Fallen being the first Decepticon and his absence of knowledge about the existence of Optimus implies the factions existed before Optimus' and Megatron's leadership.

Presumably with the Allspark in their hands the older Autobots won over the Fallen's Decepticons. Then came some historical revisionism and sealing their own history. Presumably much like the Maximal Elders of Beast Wars did. A Pax Cybertronia like treaty may have been in place. The Allspark the only repository of truth for the Autobots.

When Megatron came to power in the Decepticon side that is when all hell broke loose.

12,000 years ago. Banachek said 10,000 BC. Today is 2009 AD.

The Civil War may have reignited 12,000 years ago with Optimus fully matured and in Autobot leadership. Megatron having the superior advantage left Prime on choice but launch it.