What happened on Cybertron between the time the Ark crash landed on Earth and the Transformers subsequent return sometime during the mid 1980s?

I mean, was Shockwave just having a long snooze? It seems that without Prime and Megatron around, not much was going on, yet there were a lot of Transformers still active on the planet who did not travel to Earth initially.

Is there any canon to fill this gap in the story or is it something that has just kinda been overlooked?

 

The Micromasters storyline from Dreamwave is kinda full in the gaps of the story.

 

Hasn't this been asked before?

 

Pretty much every question has been asked before, but since its Auto Morph and we all like him he should be allowed to ask again.

I'm guessing Shockwave just made everyone take a very long nap  

 

I bet Shockwave and his buddies had a stash of very wild energon somewhere and had ton's of parties when Megatron was away.
That's why when we see Shockwave he look's tired and stoned.  

 

I say that he was just biding his time, until Megatron come again..... But eventually became mad after waiting for four million years.

 

Longest game of charades ever.

 

Trying to answer this in a serious matter ( which I know is hard around this place   ) I think that Shockwave ruled Cybertron until he exhausted all its resources completely. I believe he might have even explored cybertron terrains left and right, beneath the surface and above it looking for autobots and scraps of energon. He might have even sent droids to outer space to collect energon from other planets around Cybertron.

 

I think Shockwave did exactly as he told Megatron and lmade sure it stayed exactly as Megatron left it.

 

I love Shockwave. Thinking back to him on the show makes me laugh. I know it's just bad storytelling, but they don't show Cybertron for four million years, then they show him wasting energy by blasting away in his gun mode at nothing, then he transforms and complains that they are low on energy and just so happens to finally try to contact Megatron. You could argue that he was trying to contact him all four million years, but wouldn't you give up after a million years or so of no answer?

 

Comics: Depending on continuity either Shockwave ruled everything or shut everything down

Cartoon: EVeryone just ran out of energy and did what they could, some like the female Autobots/Alpha Trion stayed on Cybertron and fought Shockwave. Others like Dev(f)con and the season 3 characters were on other planets. Jetfire was frozen in ice.

---->I think that's what happened anyway

 

Good point! I mean he must have tried and I guess that at one point he gave up. He might have tried contacting Megatron as a last resort. I think that Shockwave got homing beacon signals from the Nemesis for all these years. Maybe that gave him hope that Megatron is still out there. To remind you that that the Nemesis was buried in South America, still powered by the "heart for Cybertron".

 

lots of great answers lol. ill agree shockwave just ruled cybertron because it was abandoned at that point right? its g1 so its pretty much whatever you want it to be. nothing is really concrete in that era

 

If Cyberton was abandoned, what is their to rule? Maybe he just lay dormant for a while to reserve whatever energy he had left.

 

Shockwave spent the best part of it entombed in tar in the comics, after chasing the Dinos.

In the cartoons, his excuse was probably his experiments on creating triple changers, as they came to Earth after Shockers had manged to contact Megs on Earth.

They also watched Telly Tubbies on a regular basis and played twister a lot.

Probably.

 

4 million years of episodes where the bad guys' plans are foiled and everything is exactly the same as it was when the story started.

 

Cartoon: Seems to me Cybertron is incredibly desolate, and Shockwave spent the entire time trying and failing to stomp out the last embers of resistance. In the cartoon, Shockwave's just not very imaginative or capable.

Marvel Comic: There is actually a large Decepticon Council running the planet, again, stomping down on a rather more energetic Autobot resistance. We meet some of their high-ranking officers like Ratbat and Thunderwing. Straxus seems to wield a lot of power before Blaster kills him. Optimus and Megatron are within living memory as inspirations to the respective sides but have passed into legend...that is till they show up again. Soundwave's first radio message from Earth is BIG news on Cybertron.

Dreamwave: Meh, dunno.

 

Well, the UK comics give a much more detailed history of the "middle years". Lots of background fleshed out. Basically, the Autobots got trashed and went into serious hiding and most of the Deceps grew fat and lazy.

 

what if, in the cartoon, when megatron brings cybertron to earth, he moves it not just through space but also through time, bringing it forward millions of years? It's not really what the writers intended but it makes a certain amount of sense if you watch the episodes while keeping it in mind...