Vehicon

Vehicons are a faction in the fictional Transformers, appearing in the animated cartoon series Beast Machines. However, most Vehicons are non-sentient drones, controlled entirely by the will of Megatron or their respective general.

History

The origins of the Vehicons came about when Megatron returned from the Beast Wars ahead of the Maximals and unleashed his transformation freezing virus, robbing the populace of Cybertron helpless to fight back as it sent them into stasis lock. As more Cybertronians fell to the virus, Megatron had their bodies melted down and used to create his ideal army - the Vehicons, a vehicle based army of sparkless drones with no organic elements, controlled totally by him, calling them, "the wave of the future". In time, nearly the entire population of Cybertron fell, leaving the Vehicons in control of a deserted Cybertron.

Eventually, Megatron's erstwhile captors returned to Cybertron. The Vehicons assaulted them with canisters of the virus, capturing Rhinox and Silverbolt and reverting the rest from their Transmetal forms into their original beast modes. They were then reformatted by the Oracle into the thing Megatron hated most - partially organic beast modes. The Vehicons proved unable to stand against the newly powerful Maximals, and Megatron resorted to a new strategy - imbuing three Vehicon drones with the Sparks of Silverbolt, Rhinox and Waspinator, creating Jetstorm, Tankor and Thrust. They led the Vehicon forces against the Maximals with some success, but Megatron's insistence on using the Sparks of Rhinox and Silverbolt came back to haunt him. Tankor betrayed and tried to kill Megatron, and both were seemingly destroyed during an explosion in the Plasma Energy Chamber. After this, with Megatron's control severed, the Vehicons simply shut down.

Megatron's return would mean a fresh campaign against the Maximals. During this time, Blackarachnia managed to turn Jetstorm back into Silverbolt, leaving Thrust's forces to be repeatedly overwhelmed. Megatron accordingly created two new generals - Obsidian and Strika, two of the greatest Cybertronian generals who ever lived. They quickly turned the tide against the Maximals with their tactical and strategic brilliance. However Megatron's fortess was soon destroyed once more, and the Vehicons again shut down. Megatron had in fact survived in the body of his Diagnostic Drone, and had his factories produce masses of new Vehicons for a final assault. In the final battle, all three Vehicon generals fell, the factories were destroyed and Megatron was finally destroyed in battle with his foe Optimus Primal. This last act reformatted Cybertron into a technorganic paradise, with the Vehicons being turned into the new bodies of the populace, their Sparks now free from Megatron's control.

Types of Vehicon

There were six basic types of drone shown in the show:
*Tank-Drones, controlled by Tankor
*Aero-Drones, controlled by Jetstorm
*Cycle-Drones, controlled by Thrust
*Assault-Drones, controlled by Strika
*Copter-Drones, controlled by Obsidian
*Mole-Drones, controlled by Megatron

All types of drones (except the mole-drones) were commanded by a general who shared their basic structure, although their Sparks meant they possessed a higher intelligence of the drones and had more free will. Each type of Vehicon was specialized for a particular role; for example the tank drones were used for heavy assault, while the Cycle drones were often used for pursuit. Although they did not appear in the show, three more types of drones were introduced in the toyline: the Mirage drones, who turned into race cars; the Scavenger drones, who transformed into Demolition Vehicles; and the Blastcharge drones, who turned into Six Wheeled Attack Vehicles. However, the drones' lack of Sparks or any kind of free will made them easy prey for the reformatted Maximals.

Vehicon Generals

Vehicon Generals were a new type of Vehicon created by Megatron when he realised the Maximals were defeating his forces due to their free will. To this end, he implanted Sparks in a set of drones, giving them free will and the autonomy to command their drones as they saw fit, creating Tankor, Jetstorm and Thrust.

The Vehicon Generals were completely obedient to Megatron and were single minded in their pursuit of the Maximals. This is mostly due to Megatron erasing their memories of their past lives. It was only when they regained these memories that they became a wild card. Tankor, once he regained his memories of being Rhinox, betrayed Megatron and attempted to rule Cybertron himself, while Silverbolt became one of Megatron's bitterest opponents after being reformatted from Jetstorm. The third, Thrust (in reality carrying Waspinator's Spark), was happy to re-suppress his Predacon memories and be a "cool biker-bot". By the second season, however, this was no longer a problem. The second generation Vehicon Generals, Obsidian and Strika, willingly joined Megatron, believing service to Cybertron at this point was service to Megatron. At the end of the war on Cybertron, Thrust became Waspinator again, and Obsidian and Strika were sent into orbit by Cheetor using gravity generators.

3H Enterprises

The "-Wreckers" BotCon comic featured several other types of Vehicons and their generals not seen in the TV show. To combat the rising threat of the various groups on Cybertron including the Mutants, Dinobots and Wreckers, Megatron created two other Vehicon Generals to deal with them Blastcharge and Quake (implied to be the original). These two were sent after the Wreckers, managing to kill Fractyl, but failing to stop the Wreckers' escape, They and another general, Spy Streak, took their drones (including Mirage drones, Scavenger drones and a third bomber type based on Spy Streak) to confront the Wreckers at the crash site of an old Autobot shuttle. All three were killed, and most of their forces wiped out.

Several other Vehicons appeared as members of the Wreckers, having managed to retain their individuality. These included Cyclonus, Skywarp, Rotorbolt and Devcon. The original Mirage drone also appeared battling Apelinq, and being sucked into a wormhole.

Robot Masters

The term Vehicon would later be used in the backstory for Takara's Robot Masters line, as the name of the planet of Transformers led by Reverse Convoy, a Transformer whose body was possessed by G1 Megatron.