This is a what if scenario that would have happened, and the question would be in this case. Remember when the Autobots faked their exile to get them the element of surprise in Dark of the Moon? The Decepticons surely would have never left the planet alone, so why not have the Decepticons went through with their threat to humanity of wiping out the human race? We all know the Chicago attack, but what if as a fix… The Decepticons tells the humans of the world that the Autobots faked their exile, and as a result, they failed in their agreement… so now the entire human race will perish.

How do you think the Decepticons could have made good on their threat? 3 ideas I had for this.

1. The Decepticons use the pillars from around the planet to not only bring Cybertron to Earth, but actually open a portal and a massive Decepticon army comes through those portals and lay waste through all the major cities across the planet.

2. The Pillars that bring Cybertron to Earth begins to cause gravity manipulation across the planet, and almost like in Moonfall or in other movies, the earth is hit with colossal disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis that wipes out big chunks of the world.

3. And this is a long stretch, somehow the Decepticons intend to use a weapon on Cybertron when its in the atmosphere to absorb a piece of land (a huge chunk of Chicago) into the sky and send it falling like a meteor to wipeout everyone in one colossal blast.

What do you think you would have done as a Decepticon leader yourself?

 

I'll answer but I have to dissect this for a moment.

1.) This is the most likely scenario, but not at first.

2.) Just the appearance of Cybertron in the atmosphere would've caused those problems right off the bat and they didn't in the film (which is ridiculous), so that wouldn't work if it hasn't to this point.

3.) That's too much work and too much effort for Megatron and his minions. Repower the planet, blast Earth into smithereens and leave 'em all to die.

Now, if it were me?

I'd have enacted the plan they had all along, but add to it the following:

-When no one was looking, I'd have sent Soundwave and the troops around the world to destroy military bases, one by one, first and nix communication between all of them. That way the first couldn't warn the 2nd, the 2nd the 3rd, and so on.

-Then, I'd go after all world leaders, such as presidents, prime ministers, etc. You have to remove any and all sources of power beforehand.

-After that, I'd level any problematic areas (depending on what's going on at the time), etc. They're most likely already at each other's throats and I wouldn't want anything to disrupt or get in my way.

-I'd then force the humans toward coastal areas and get all sources of hydroelectric, nuclear power plants, coal, all of it, and make them work 'round the clock to produce Energon day and night.

Finally, I'd then get more than what I needed, for a surplus and then some. Complete greed, you might say. Then, when it was all said and done, like any insect, I'd crush them all by wiping out the planet. I wouldn't leave bacteria behind. It would be a ball of dust, at best, and lookin' like Fantasia at the end of The NeverEnding Story at worst.

I got this idea from Independence Day. They came really, really close to that scenario except they dropped the ball on the military bases and world leadership overall. Had they been more efficient and thought it through all the way, their plan would've worked better, if not completely.

 

Number 3 is out because gravity doesn't really work that way. Unless they have a way to focus gravity so only a small area like a city is affected and is attracted to cybertron with much more force than surrounding areas. Cybertron being close to earth would be sort of like how our moon affects the earth, but much more intensely. Even if they did drop a chicago sized meteor on earth, it wouldn't necessarily kill everyone (life on earth has survived big meteor impacts before, even if a lot of species went extinct), and it would cause a lot of damage to the planet that the Decepticons might want to avoid in order to use the resources of earth to rebuild cybertron.

If you've got an entire planet and advanced, spacefaring technology, there's basically no end of ways they could wipe out the human race. Even if they didn't want to hunt down humans with their army like they did a bit of in the film, they could just launch kinectic projectiles from their own planet (big spikes, or even just rocks) towards earth and let gravity accelerate them so they hit the surface of the planet like a meteor. You don't need one that big to do a lot of damage. But they could also use things like neutron bombs or biological weapons to wipe out humans on a mass scale without damaging the planet's resources they want to use.

 

The point of DOTM is that the Decepticons want the humans alive, to dominate them as much as to keep them as slaves to rebuild Cybertron. Every other film they'd just massacre them all off.

Maybe Sentinel would decide to kill them, but only enough to set an example and obviously not all of them. The Chicago massacre was proof of that.

 

I could say that perhaps he could show the attack of Chicago to the entire world for them to witness as a warning sign for what is coming, and perhaps he reveals to them that he has an entire army force waiting to attack the moment they refuse to comply.

I could imagine him giving the humans a warning that if they don’t surrender soon, Chicago will only be the start, and he could even reveal a chilling message to them, its not just the Decepticons that want Cybertron restored, its the Autobots as well! (This could lead into Age of Extinction)

 

That's what the attack on Chicago was meant to do in the movie, warn the world to get in line, and also give Sentinel some breathing room to get the pillars finished and cybertron summoned.

 

mass human genocide with the worlds militaries not being able to do anything... unless optimus prime does some dragon ball thing by powering up and destroying everyone

 

If humans wouldn't comply they'd have Sentinel instantly transport a group of Decepticons into a random city and repeat Chicago without warning. I imagine he'd keep doing this until humans got the message.

Megatron: The insects are bothersome. Which city today?
Starscream: Let's do Paris
Megatron: We did that two years ago
Sentinel: New York
Megatron: Be original
Sentinel: London then

 

Why not just make it easy and he just declare he will transport every single Decepticon fleet to every single major city across the planet. New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, Paris, everywhere. The biggest attack in human history.

The other possibility is that he reveals that Cybertron has the technology to assimilate Earth, absorb the planet’s contents and its people, and finish them off in addition to all the Earthquakes and what not that will follow from Cybertron entering Earth’s atmosphere.

 

What happens? Honestly, it becomes worldwide Vietnam War. The Decepticons gravely underestimate humans and it would be the equivalent of the Viet Cong with NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

 

Why bother? Sentinel used an army to take Chicago because he wanted to use it as a staging ground for the pillars and because he wanted to terrify and enslave humanity to use as a resource. Why expand his attack, stretch his forces, and risk humans coming together around the world when he could just use the threat of violence and deception to get them in line bloodlessly?

If he didn't care about holding the other cities, and for some reason wasn't interested in using humanity for slave labor, just teleport a Cybertronian large scale weapon to those cities and wipe them off the map. Why risk Cybertronian lives and energy in a protracted campaign when it doesn't further Sentinel's objectives?

Just like your last thread, you seem fixated on a 'bigger' version of DOTM that, I'm sorry, doesn't really fit what the movie needed to be in that moment, and which I don't think aligns with the thinking/motivations of the characters driving the action.

 

Maybe you have a point.