Aside for unicron or any rogue transformers, what do you think would be a big enough bad to not only cause fear in both factions, but cause them to unite?

I would love to see if not both teamed up, just the bots fight some type of organic army or creature(s)

 

Humans. It's basically the plot of AoE after all.

 

Something similar to Lovecraft's or Starcraft's Old Gods

 

A pissed off Primus coming to kick everybody's ass?

 

that would be cool!

 

I had imagined IDW setting the stage for a Galactic Council + earth union on one hand and the Black Box thingimagig putting pressure on the viability of the Council of worlds and thought it would be
Interesting seeing Cybertronians trying to convince earth and the Council that they can cause other things than destruction. With the BB trying to maliciously break up the unity of the CoW and the Autobots and Decepticons trying to live in peace, but i guess that'll never happen.

 

Also:Quintessons trying to form a coalition of organic peoples against Cybertron.

 

The Galactic Council.

 

I'd like to see the Vok personally since they haven't got a role since Beast Wars and having them be the next big bad or at least a common enemy for both sides would be cool.

 

This would be great.

 

My friend and I had a story that was set in the Marvel G1 Universe where Primus's "first children" return to claim their rightful place on Cybertron. These were twisted techno-organic beings that were unable to transform...but were twice as powerful as the typical Transformer. Primus banished them when they became corrupted and evil...but their numbers grew over time on the outer fringes of the galaxy. (Okay, so we were using the ugly manga Spawn figures for this...LOL!)

 

I remember that happening in the Marvel comics, yeah.

 

I'm not into the whole 'both sides uniting against a greater enemy" thing, but I would love to see the Vok come back. I think it would be more interesting to have both sides run their own schemes on how to defeat this enemy, either after an alliance falls through or with both sides realizing that they disagree too much even to unite against a common foe. Heck, you could have a Decepticon go rogue and work with the Autobots, not because he or believes in their cause, but because he doesn't think that Megatron's plan is going to work, or the cost is too great.

 

For all the ferocity of their conflict, the cybertronian wars have been pretty 'clean'. Before humanity, there isn't much established talk of bringing in other races to help one side or the other, the marvel comics establish that while there's trade with other races, the cybertronians seem to keep mainly to themselves (the g2 comics go in a different direction, with the G2 cybertronians explicitly butchering other races to expand their own empire), and with the exception of the Swarm in G2 and Unicron, I can't really think of any 'doomsday weapons' developed during the war that have had much of an impact on the galaxy outside of earth and cybertron. The IDW comics establish that the cybertronian wars aren't even the most impressive conflict in the galaxy.

That still leaves a lot of narrative room for another race to waltz in and upset the status quo, however. Maybe they're a race of conquerors more depraved and merciless than any Decepticon, and earth or cybertron are now at the doorstep of their expanding empire. Maybe they're a species who has experienced spillover from the cybertronian conflict onto their own people, and are looking for payback (and not distinguishing between Autobot and Decepticon). Maybe they're a race that can't abide the seemingly endless conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons, and the implications on galactic stability it poses, and are willing to put an end to the conflict permanently and by any means necessary. Maybe they're, as others have suggested, a force of nature in the universe or near-supernatural beings, and that particular mysterious entity has had the unlucky chance of running into the Transformers. The list goes on and on, and the only common denominator being that they need to be a force dangerous enough to both sides that an urgent (and likely temporary) alliance makes sense.

 

I was never a big fan of the whole uniting against a common foe myself, but i do like the idea of another powerfull group to complicate matters especially if that group has enough legitimacy to last some time without either side being able to defeat them because they are just some big bad.
The Vok have the potential to be such a group and the Galactic Council had it before Roberts made them corrupt.
What such a group needs to be is morally upright according to their own values, so they cannot be dismissed as evil or corrupt.

 

It didn't. It was personal fanfiction between my friend and I. I brought it up as an example of an outside threat that would unify Autobots and Decepticons.

 

I think the larger issue comes from the inherent nature of being based on a toyline designated as "Transformers"...implying everything involved needs to be a transforming toy. If an outside threat has no relation to transformation, then Hasbro probably won't support it. To this day, I'm still surprised we even got an Alpha Q toy.

So, if Hasbro won't support non-transforming toys in the toy line, then media featuring a non-transforming threat kind of acts like a banging gong in a vacuum. The comics are probably the only place where you could pull something like that off, really...and even then, it'd be a limited time event before Hasbro wants their toys featured again.

 

Or - and i am playing devils advocate - such a threat would have to be part of another Hasbro toyline: tying into the revolutions thing.

 

A cross-brand event would be interesting. Basically taking the comicbook "event" model and applying it to toylines...hmmm...

 

I remember now. It was something similar, but not quite like your idea: the Demons.