Now that I have made a character for Jacob Blackmon’s upcoming Transformers RPG (though in my case, I made a Joe), I have been thinking about the multiverse of Transformers stories, including multiple animated series (and multiple continuities within some of the series), movies, comics, games, and so on, and what I take away from them to form my own personal, preferred versin of a history and reality for those characters and stories.

And, weirdly, combiners. So, here’s my personal headcanon, for editorial purposes, with no challenge to anyone’scopyright. Also, this article is not Open Content, and is not covered by the OGL.

For my own head canon, I always wanted there to be a total of 3 true gestalt combiners with hard reasons why they aren’t in every battle, and more aren’t made.And it all begins with one of my favorite Autbots, Omega Supreme.

Omega Supreme was a proto-combiner, able to form multiple elements outside of his robot form but still a single Autobot consciousness. Though extremely powerful, he was built long before the Cybertronian Civial War as a true military weaponand thus requires vast amounts of Energon to be active. Ancient and one of the most dangerous of all Cybertronians, his vast Energon needs when in action meant he could only be called on in extreme situations.

Even so, countering Omega Supreme remains a top priority for the Decepticons. When Starscream finds ancient Progenitor Ur-Matrix Tech from the Lost Age of Cybertron, he decides (in order to counter Omega Supreme and prove his superiority to Megatron), to creates a group of new Decepticons who can combine their power to form a mega-Transformer. These are the Constructicons, and when combined into Devastator they are more powerful than Omega Supreme. However, Megatron was able to blow Devastator back into their component parts (not a trick anyone else has ever mastered), and thus the Constructicons accept Megatron as their leader, ending Starscreams bid for power. Devastator remains a major power for the Decepticons, but the Constructions don’t like each other, dislike becoming Devastator, and like Omega Supreme tend to run out of Energon when in Devastator form. Megatron tries to keep them in reserve for pivitol moments in battle.

To counter Devastator, Optimus Prime uses the Autobot Matrix of Leadership to create Autobots for the first time, focusing entirely on bravery, loyalty, and raw power. These turn out to be the primal Dinobots. Though not combiners, they are extremely rugged and as a group they have a fair track record against Devastator. Additionally they are no more Energon-expending than standard Transformers, allowing them to be involved in action regularly, though Optimus often trusts them with defensive positions, where they can be called up to stop Devastator if necessary.

Now in possession of the Progenitor Ur-Matrix Tech found by Starscream, and wishing to create a super-weapon more than a match for either Omega Supreme or the Dinobots, Megatron orders Shockwave to build a war-machine combiner group. These are the Combaticons, who form the extremely powerful (and Energon efficient) Bruticus. However, while the Combaticons are loyal to Megatron and Shockwave, and Bruticus can operate for long periods of time, Bruticus turns out to be a berserker nearly as likely to smash ally as foe. Again, this somewhat limits the cicumstances in which he can be deployed.

Knowing the Decepticons would use whatever they had to create combiners to try again, Bumblebee infiltrated Shockwave’s labs, and recorded the Combiner-creation process. Stealing the very last of the Progenitor Ur-Matrix Tech and returning it to the Autobots, the group’s best minds (including Perceptor and Wheeljack) design the Aerialbots, who can combine to become Superion. Superion is as energon-efficient as Bruticus, and mentally stable, but not nearly as powerful. Superion is a major threat to the majority of lone cybertronians, but can’t match the raw power of any other combiner.

Lacking the ancient Progenitor Ur-Matrix Tech, no other full gestalt combiners can currently be created, though a few efforts have resulted in 2-robot combiners, headmasters, triple-changes, vehicle-mode combiners (where several robot forms combine into one large vehicle, generally a starcraft or ship), City-Class Transformers, and multipart Cybertronians (where one personality can split into multiple smaller robot forms, all still part of the same mind).

And there’s my entirely-personal preferred Transformers Combiner head-canon.

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