Chapter Text
The Decepticon movement has existed for countless eons, and though Megatron of Tarn may be its most (in)famous leader, many warlords, kings, and generals before him have held the title of Emperor of Destruction throughout the faction's long and sordid history. Sadly, these figures have fallen to the wayside in modern scholarship, becoming little more than historical footnotes, their names all but forgotten by their Predacon descendants. Even now, the Great War robs us of proper historical documentation of these towering personalities, while centuries of Maximal censorship has severely handicapped the current generation's knowledge of Cybertronian history. Thus, to help restore public knowledge of some of the most influential leaders in our planet's history, and to make my earnest contribution in reviving the field of Cybertronian historiography, I have taken it upon myself to provide a brief overview of the most prominent ancient Decepticon leaders (hereon defined as those honored in the faction's ancestral Hall of Heroes), the key events of their lifetimes, and how they each met their end.
The first Decepticon leader was Gladiaron, the founder of the movement. By the time of the faction's rise nearly 10 million years ago, Gladiaron was already a respected figure in Cybertronian society, having fought valiantly in the Great Rebellion against the Quintessons. He earned his name from the gladiatorial battles he was forced to wage for the amusement of his five-faced masters, in which he proved himself a natural-born warrior and tactician. When word that slave revolts had broken out across the planet reached him and his fellow pit fighters, Gladiaron rallied the slaves of Kolkular and successfully captured the sprawling complex, systematically clearing its labyrinthine corridors, production facilities, and storage vaults, capturing a large amount of weapons and energon in the process. Gladiaron's hardened forces would use their stockpiles to defend Kolkular for the duration of the war, repelling thirteen Quintesson counterattacks and enduring seven stellar cycles under siege. In the aftermath, Gladiaron led his forces out of Kolkular, which they had come to dub their "Cradle," and founded the city of Kaon, built upon a strong martial culture of soldierly camaraderie, discipline, and duty to the Cybertronian race.
As Cybertron entered its first era of true independence, however, Gladiaron and his comrades, those robots originally constructed as military-hardware by the Quintessons, found themselves growing disillusioned with the peace they had fought so hard to win. Their life's purpose, wired into their very programming (perhaps--we shall examine this claim in greater detail shortly), was to serve as soldiers for a cause; they had found that cause in defending the freedom of Cybertron and emancipating their race from the yoke of Quintesson slavery. But with their oppressors defeated and the planet at peace, it was the view of many Cybertronians, predominantly those originally constructed as consumer goods robots, that they no longer needed a standing army. This view was codified into law by Guardian Prime, successor of the famed Nova Prime, who formally abolished the Revolutionary Guard in the infamous Edict of Disarmament, with the expressed goals of encouraging peace amongst the planet's burgeoning city-states and freeing up funds to be spent on infrastructure and industrial development. While the majority of the Edict has been lost, a fragmentary passage was salvaged from the Library of Alpha Trion after its bombing during the Great War; it reads:
"-shall henceforth honorably discharge the valiant warriors of the Liberation from their posts, and bestow upon them all the honor and riches they are entitled; they shall never want for energon nor be denied any public service upon registry with the civil-"
It was this decision that proved the final straw for Gladiaron and his kinsmen; though Guardian Prime had promised generous pensions and high honors for veterans, the military-hardware bots took the Edict as a grievous offense, an insult to their honor and a crippling blow to the defense of Cybertron's fragile independence. As soldiers, they believed it was not only their right, but their duty to stand ready against any potential threats to Cybertron, Quintesson or otherwise; within more radical circles, it was even suggested that Cybertronians should go on the offensive, taking the fight to other worlds in order to cull any future rivals, and claim the land and resources necessary for Cybertron to become a respected galactic power. Though originally a fringe viewpoint, this expansionist sentiment quickly gained traction throughout the disaffected ranks of the soldier caste and was endorsed by many leading figures, Gladiaron chief among them. In protest of the Edict, soldiers began rioting in the streets, loudly decrying the authoritarianism of the Primacy, destroying public offices, harassing pro-disarmament counter-protesters, and refusing to give up their weapons or pay taxes. In response, Guardian Prime publicly denounced the unrest, dismissing calls for expansion as "petty warmongering by dangerous upstarts," and began work on the first draft of what would become the Autobot Code, a manifesto for his vision of peacetime Cybertron.
Guardian Prime would never finish his work: a scant five solar cycles after dismissing the rioting soldiers, he was murdered in the streets of Iacon by Gladiaron and a cadre of his Warriors Elite, who had snuck into the city. When news of the Prime's death was revealed to the public, Gladiaron used the opportunity to broadcast his rallying cry, calling for the abolition of the Primacy, the remilitarization of Cybertronian society, and a campaign of aggressive expansion under the leadership of the military caste. In response, the remnants of Guardian Prime's government, represented by Alpha Trion--then known as A-3--himself, implored the populace to resist Gladiaron's hostile takeover and take up arms in defense of the hard-won peace. Dubbing themselves "Autobots," a truncation of "autonomous robots," the defenders of the old order hastily scrambled impromptu militia forces and prepared themselves for the coming war.
For this act of betrayal against their former brothers, Gladiaron and his followers were dubbed "Decepticons," a name the insurgents readily adopted, both out of spite and to represent how they and Cybertron were betrayed by the foolish pacifism of the Autobots. Across the planet, bands of military-hardware bots pledged themselves to the Decepticon cause, capturing forts, armories, energon refineries, and a scattered handful of city-states. In Kaon, meanwhile, Gladiaron was marshaling his forces, assembling an army forty thousand strong and striking out across the Badlands; within the stellar cycle, all the city-states south of the Sonic Canyons had fallen or sworn fealty to the Decepticons, while isolated strongholds in Tarn, Polyhex, and Simfur wrought havoc on Autobot logistics and communications, carving up the planet into a patchwork of disconnected holdings.
Before continuing the historical narrative, however, we must confront one of the most divisive questions among scholars: was the war inevitable? The question is arguably one of the most important in Cybertronian history--though they could not know it, the ramifications of Guardian Prime and Gladiaron's actions would condemn Cybertron to countless eons of civil war, caste division, and galactic infamy. The orthodox thesis argued by partisans of both factions, though predominantly among Autobots, cites the innate programmatic differences between the military and domestic castes as the root cause of the conflict; indeed, Rodimus Prime himself described this view as the consensus among most Autobot leaders while recounting his spiritual experiences in the Matrix Tapes, saying, quote:
"The way the Primes spun it, war was inevitable--should we really be surprised the guys built to kill started shooting? Don't look at me like that, it's just what they said. I think. Look, I was almost dying at the time, and- are we done for the day?"
Autobot historical films (though this author hesitates to call them anything but shameless propaganda) dating immediately prior to the First Golden Age present a similar narrative, with one disk narrating that:
"Millions of years ago, Cybertron was a planet of peace...until the Decepticons, lusting for power, began a terrible war. Not designed for combat, the Autobots were overwhelmed and subjugated by their evil opponents."
While the orthodox thesis has remained the prevailing narrative throughout Autobot history, evidence suggests that the Decepticons took longer to adopt the "programmatic position." By what can only be described as a miracle of Primus, a sliver of uncorrupted police audio of a conversation between a proto-Decepticon and proto-Autobot at a demonstration was preserved in the subterranean ruins of Iacon. The transcript reads:
Decepticon: "You think just because the Quintessons have fled, we're safe? Look up--imagine how many races are up there, stronger than the squids. You think they'll just ignore us? Let their "products" go? They'll smother our flame before it catches!"
Autobot: "Oh come off it! All you could ever see is treachery and hostility--you were born for battle, of course you'd say that."
Decepticon: "Yes, I was, which is why you should listen. My brothers and I know war better than anyone, and we know that it is what creates peace. How long will our freedom last if we don't continue the fight, until every threat to Cybertron is destroyed? Does the Revolution mean anything to you?"
Autobot: "Don't you dare talk down to me--you speak as if only the military caste did any fighting, but it was we, the working class, who suffered the highest casualties! We are the Revolution! I was at Hive City; I stared down the barrel of a Guardian's cannon. You don't get to lecture me about 'knowing war,' understand?"
While not entirely avoiding reference to programmatic differences, the conversation suggests a clear philosophical division in Autobot and Decepticon worldviews. The Libertarian Programming School has taken this transcript as proof that rational free thinking played a substantial, if not predominant, role in causing the war. Furthermore, a recent dissertation by Amphibot of the Ibex University has argued that Guardian Prime's failure to provide new careers for veterans, and Gladiaron--whether by ignorance or conscious decision--not seizing the Matrix of Leadership to legitimize his rule, each contributed substantially in the escalation of the conflict to planetary civil war. Programmists have retaliated by citing Megatron's usage of the Robosmasher to convert Autobots to Decepticons through crude mnemosurgery--brainwashing--as proof of Decepticon acknowledgement and weaponization of innate programmatic differences between Cybertronians, a process developed to new heights by modern science via shell programming. I leave it to the reader to weigh the evidence, and come to their own conclusions.
Regardless of the particulars of its cause, civil war was upon Cybertron, with Gladiaron's forces at a decisive advantage. Despite the best efforts of the Autobots, the Decepticons held the advantage in firepower and training, forcing Autobot city-states to fight desperate defensive actions rather than striking back against the insurgents. In the absence of a Prime, Alpha Trion and the High Council of Iacon assumed control of the faction, and while the former brought his experience as leader of the Great Rebellion to bear, the latter was plagued with indecision and ongoing internal disputes, which significantly delayed the mustering of Iacon's ample manpower reserves. What's more, Guardian Prime's disarmament policies left the Autobots sorely lacking in the munitions necessary to equip their forces, leaving many cities guarded solely by their lightly-equipped police forces and hastily assembled citizens' militia fighters. Still, they had retained control over the capital and its neighboring city-states, ensuring that, with time, the Autobots could muster the soldiers and munitions necessary to face the Decepticons in open combat.
Until then, Alpha Trion had his forces fight as guerillas, utilizing the same tactics pioneered in the Great Rebellion against the Quintessons. Supply depots were bombed in the night, weapons stolen, and patrols harassed by newly-minted sharpshooters. It wasn't enough to prevent the Decepticons from sweeping across the Magnalium Mountains and pushing through the Sonic Canyons, but it did stymie the break-neck pace of their advance. Gladiaron was no fool, however, and recognized many of Alpha Trion's tactics: he and his Warriors Elite had, after all, pioneered them against the Quintessons during the Rebellion. Autobot guerillas, though brave, often found themselves captured and executed without ceremony, their bodies melted down into more useful materials, just as the Quintessons had done when they ruled Cybertron.
Gladiaron, for his part, allowed his men a degree of freedom in how they treated POWs, though he never authorized the use of slave labor within his lands; Decepticon folk history remembers a tale where, upon finding out one of his generals had been using Autobot POWs as slaves in his factories, Gladiaron had the general disarmed, forced to his knees, and beaten to death by the POWs, who were then offered their freedom in exchange for service in Gladiaron's armies, which most eagerly accepted. Slavery was considered the ultimate indignity by Gladiaron and his inner circle, and no Cybertronian, Autobot or Decepticon, would be returned to servitude so long as he reigned.
Unfortunately for Gladiaron and thousands of Autobot POWs, however, his reign was cut short at the height of the Tagan Campaign--though records are scarce and what information is available highly disputed, official Decepticon histories assert that Gladiaron fell nobly in battle at the head of the army while attempting to storm the Great Gates of Tetrahex. This version of events is recounted by the Tesarian scholar Breakneck in his Historia regum Cybertronia, a text that, while an integral work of Cybertronian historiography, contains several claims of dubious authenticity, as well as clear Decepticon bias, hence its widespread distribution and endorsement by many a Decepticon ruler. In it, Breakneck states,
"...the defenders of Tetrahex, outnumbered and without succor from the feckless Iaconians, made their final stand before the Armies of Kaon, fighting to the last atop the Great Gates of the city. The Kaonians surged forward, peerless Gladiaron at the fore, and crashed upon the Gates like Mithril waves upon the shore, the ground stained blue with the blood of heroes. The Autobots, though doomed, fought with the strength of their ancestors, repulsing the onslaught once, then twice, before the Gates crumbled into golden dust and molten metal. Tetrahex burned that night, but the Kaonians did not revel in their victory, for Gladiaron, strongest of all Cybertronians, had perished in the final assault, urging his soldiers onwards to the very last. He was mourned for twelve and one solar cycles before his body was returned to Kaon for internment in what was to become the Hall of Heroes."
Despite its moving prose, Breakneck's account has been vigorously disputed by both Autobots and Decepticons alike. The latter, never a people partial to written history, have instead passed down a myriad of contradictory oral myths, legends, and folk tales. One such tale, which was miraculously recorded in the journalist Rook's invaluable Through Southern Optics series, claims that Gladiaron was slain not on the frontlines during the battle, but in his command post, lured in and murdered by his three highest ranking generals, who will be discussed more later in this volume. While one might be inclined to believe Breakneck's written account over mere folk history, archaeological research in Tetrahex reveals little indication that the city was sacked following the battle, nor is there evidence that the defenders were unsupported; on the contrary, contemporary Iaconian records reveal that a force eight thousand strong was sent to reinforce the city garrison, who had been holding their position thanks to advantageous geography and the legendary Great Gates.
The largest hole in Breakneck's account, however, is that there is no confirmation that the Decepticons actually won the battle, and in fact, archaeological evidence suggests that the Autobots managed to drive the Decepticons back, with subterranean remains and weapons from the battle giving the appearance of a hasty retreat from the city. These glaring discrepancies, coupled with similarly dubious claims throughout the Historia, place serious doubt on the veracity of Breakneck's account, leading this author to believe the oral folk history is in fact the more accurate telling, for reasons we shall soon delve into. Lastly, it should be noted that contemporary Autobot propaganda took credit for the killing of Gladiaron, although this is extremely doubtful given the disorganized state of the faction, Gladiaron's well-known battle prowess, and lack of supporting evidence from other sources. It is likely the Autobots simply used the confusion to try and raise morale within their ranks, and prove to remaining fence-sitters that their cause was not lost.
Whether by the hands of friend or foe, it is certain that Gladiaron met his end during the Siege of Tetrahex and was succeeded by his three highest ranking generals--Floron, Dery, and Pinoy--who would become known as the First Triumvirate. The three were spark-brothers, supposedly hailing from a lost archipelago deep in the Mithril Sea, though this anecdote too comes from the Historia and evidence of this archipelago's existence is disputed. Under Gladiaron the brothers had masterminded many successful campaigns, and each had established notoriety within the Decepticon ranks, albeit for varying reasons.
Dery was the strategist of the trio, a ruthlessly cunning general who studied the key battles of the Great Rebellion and Gladiaron's campaigns, learning all they could teach him. His mind was constantly formulating new stratagems, building upon battlefield gains and reacting to losses almost instantaneously, as if by instinct. Despite this mastery of strategy, however, he was arrogant and uncompromising, only promoting sycophants who wouldn't dare challenge his ideas. As a result, he became deeply unpopular among the rank and file officers, who believed he and his advisors were turning High Command into little more than an elitist clique.
Where Dery planned battles, Floron led them, reveling in the glory and action of war. He was the most publicly seen of the three brothers, fighting alongside the troops in their campaigns, celebrating their victories together, and enduring the same hardships and triumphs as the bots he led. For this, he earned the favor of his troops, and was immensely popular within the martial society of the Decepticons. To the Autobots, however, he was a remorseless butcher who didn't bother taking prisoners and actively encouraged brutality from his soldiers.
Last was Pinoy, the trio's silver-tongued schemer, sent in to negotiate with enemy city-states and maintain the delicate balance of the Decepticon hierarchy. City-states would always meet with Pinoy first, who would offer them the simple choice of collaboration or resistance. If the city surrendered and chose to cooperate, its people would remain unharmed and wealth unplundered, with only the Autobot leaders being killed. If the city resisted, it would be subjected to pitiless sacking and have its citizens pressed into slavery, in violation of Gladiaron's staunch anti-slavery policy. Many times, the Decepticon military wouldn't even be in the vicinity, with the mere threat of violence being enough to subdue many cities. Floron's fearsome reputation proved a most useful negotiating tool.
Within the Decepticon ranks, however, it was Pinoy's job to ensure the Triumvirate stayed in power, undermining potential rivals through all manner of trickery, charm, and secret murder. Many ambitious generals and upstart consuls sought to overthrow the Triumvirate and claim leadership of the Decepticon cause for themselves; Pinoy used this to his advantage, pitting rebellious officers and politicians against one another through misdirection, rumor, and staged acts of provocation. His methods proved successful in preventing coup d'états, though at the cost of dozens of competent officers and adept city-state consuls, who were not easily replaced. The famed Warriors Elite, in particular, were targeted by the new regime, which feared their fierce loyalty to Gladiaron and his principles would lead them to revolt. Thus, Pinoy dismantled the unit, assigning its members to far flung sections of the front where they couldn't cause trouble, or perished in mysterious "accidents."
Following their rise to power, the Triumvirate momentarily halted all offensive actions in order to consolidate their forces and solidify their rule. This pause gave the Autobots, still scrambling to organize themselves following Guardian Prime's murder, a brief period of respite, which they used to reorient their industry towards war production, shore up their defenses, and reorganize their antiquated city garrisons into fast-acting militia forces which could repel assaults on their city-states until reinforcements arrived. These efforts were coordinated by a Sistexian librarian named Zeta, who, while not described as charismatic nor a great warrior, possessed a strategic acumen and calm, analytical disposition that the Autobots sorely needed. It was these organizational talents that brought Zeta to the attention of Alpha Trion, who, with the High Council's blessing, declared him Zeta Prime at the summit of Nova Peak. Autobot accounts of the ceremony, though almost certainly dramatized, describe Trion passing the Matrix to Zeta, who opened it in a spectacular display before the whole assembled crowd to prove his legitimacy as a Prime. Ascribing a personality to Zeta is difficult, however, due to an acute lack of primary sources--the only documents by Zeta himself are laconic troop dispatches and logistics reports to the High Council, while secondary sources describing his disposition alternatively characterize him anywhere from "compassionate, but reserved" to, in the words of an especially disgruntled High Councillor, “detached in the manner of a sparkless droid; cold enough to crystalize the energon in your circuits." What is known for certain is that he was capable enough as a strategist and organizer to keep the Autobots from collapsing under the weight of the ever-growing Decepticon Empire.
Even with these preparations, the Autobots found themselves hard pressed to repel the renewed Decepticon advance. Under Dery's direction, the Decepticons had been reorganized from a series of ad hoc militia units to a great, roaring machine of conquest, establishing a degree of rigid military professionalism that Gladiaron, while a master tactician and charismatic leader, had failed to impose. Floron, meanwhile, was at the head of this new army, leading from the front just as Gladiaron had, to the respect and adoration of his soldiers. Decepticon loyalty has historically proved a fickle force, but to Floron's credit, the bond between him and his soldiers was genuine, with oral histories and fragments of surviving primary sources alike affirming this to be the case. As for Pinoy, he continued serving in his roles as chief diplomat and internal security director, accruing a small army of turncoat Autobot collaborators, deadly assassins, and silver-tongued speakers like himself. These bots, alongside his own aforementioned talents, were his instruments of choice for undermining Autobots and Decepticons alike, and were used to great effect.
With the war having now resumed in earnest, what few Autobot strongholds there were began to crumble, each city terrified of the newly reinvigorated Decepticon war machine. Harmonex and Hyperious gave up without a fight, falling to Pinoy's words; Ur-Raya and Old Rydion stood their ground and were razed, their soldiers lined up and shot, their citizens enslaved. Their horrific fates compelled yet more city-states to abandon the fight, and struck terror throughout the Autobot ranks. This is not to say the Autobots simply rolled over without a fight--on the contrary, in Kalis and Altihex, the Autobots cost the Decepticons dearly, making them bleed any time they dared to assault Zeta Prime's impressive fortifications. The great anti-aircraft guns of the northern states proved especially critical, rendering any Decepticon air raids a costly endeavor, while dashing hopes of surrounding the fortress cities by air-deploying forces behind enemy lines.
In the end, however, these battles proved only temporary obstacles to the seemingly inexorable Decepticon advance; Kalis was taken from the very foundation, its Quintesson-era sewer systems stormed by Decepticon commandos, whose sudden emergence behind enemy lines broke the Autobots' stalwart defense. Altihex, meanwhile, was taken from within, its defense sabotaged by Pinoy's carefully cultivated spy network, its air defenses brought down just long enough for Decepticon pilots to destroy them, leaving the city vulnerable to a lengthy terror bombing campaign, before eventually being surrounded by elite Decepticon skyraiders. Within the decacycle, the city fell, and soon Iacon itself was put to siege, the last great bastion of Autobot resistance on the cusp of falling. Anyone at the time would be forgiven for believing the war was all but over, as the Triumvirate most certainly did.
And yet the winds of history, as they so often do, changed direction, and the Decepticons' ultimate triumph was not to be. For within the Triumvirate, discord had been brewing for some time between the brothers, first manifesting only in minor slights and disagreements, then open arguments and insults, and finally, a total breakdown in command, culminating in all three leaders turning on one another in a bloody, senseless game of thrones. Despite the particularly sparse documentation of this period, the Fall of the First Triumvirate has remained one of the most dramatized moments in Cybertronian history, enduring in both Autobot and Decepticon popular culture well into the Golden Age through theater, poetry, and the aforementioned Decepticon oral tradition. While not primary sources, and full of contradictions when directly compared, these sources do nominally agree on the broad strokes of what happened, which modern scholars can use alongside archaeological evidence to paint a rough picture of the events leading up to the Fall of the First Triumvirate. As this historian understands it, events proceed as follows.
It begins with Pinoy. Always the least popular of his brothers and ambitious to a fault, Pinoy fought hard to maintain his status within the Decepticon ranks. Using his sharp wit and network of saboteurs, spies, and assassins, Pinoy maintained an iron grip of fear in the sparks of his enemies, be they Autobot or Decepticon. While undeniably a master at his work, the treacherous tactics he employed made him deeply unpopular with the Decepticon soldiery, who saw his methods as dishonorable in comparison to his brothers, and lived in constant fear of his frequent purges of "malcontents." What's more, his position of authority as one of the three ruling members of the Triumvirate was coming into question: though the brothers had agreed at the beginning of their reign to share power equally, it was clear that Floron and Dery possessed greater popularity and de facto authority than their third sibling. With the end of the war in sight and questions of the post-war order being raised, a degree of tension had formed between the brothers for who would ultimately rule Cybertron.
Sources differ on which of the three first began the chain of events to follow. In Crosscut's famous play Warrior, Thief, King, Floron, in what was either an earnest effort to maintain peace between the trio or solidify his own authority (or perhaps both), advocated a simple continuation of the status quo, but received noncommittal responses from Dery each time he brought up the issue. As Crosscut tells it, Dery had grown greedy and conceited within the ebony halls of Castle Darkmount, believing himself superior to his brothers in intellect, and thus desiring to claim leadership of the Decepticons for himself. This telling is supported by Dery's well-known ego and cult of personality within High Command, though it is contradicted by the poet Provoke, who instead asserts in her Ode to the Threefold Tragedy that it was Floron who aspired to power, believing in true Decepticon fashion that he who stands at the forefront of conquest has earned the right to rule, a sentiment echoed by his devoted armies. Various oral retellings, meanwhile, insist it was Pinoy who set the fall in motion, misinforming both Floron and Dery that the other coveted the title of Emperor.
What all the accounts agree upon is that, instigator or otherwise, Pinoy used the rift between his brothers for his own benefit, seeing it as a prime opportunity to claim power and status for himself. To that end, he whispered lies into the ears of Floron and Dery, twisting or outright fabricating messages from one another so as to fuel a burning hatred between the two. With communication breaking down between the frontline and the capital and rumors spreading amongst the officer corps and rank and file soldiery, the seemingly unstoppable Decepticon advance ground to a halt, and the First Siege of Iacon, the last campaign to end the war, was delayed. This proved to be a tremendous mistake--while Pinoy had considered the Autobots all but crushed, Zeta Prime and his forces were far from beaten, and capitalized on the situation and went on the offensive against the confused and directionless Decepticons, reclaiming Kalis and Altihex in a fierce counterattack.
Outraged, Floron directly contacted Dery, railing against his perceived botching of the situation, to Dery's incredulity. Communication between the two ceased entirely, and Floron assumed de facto control over the army, isolating Dery and High Command. A scant few solar cycles later, an assassin attempted to kill Floron as he recharged. Here, the sources again diverge; in The Threefold Tragedy, the assassin fails and is beaten to death by Floron, who assumes that it was Dery who ordered the attempt on his life. In both Crosscut's play and the oral histories, meanwhile, Pinoy is pointed to as the culprit, having known Floron would assume Dery had been responsible. Regardless of the assassin's true employer, this proved the final straw for Floron, who marched south to Darkmount with eight thousand of his most loyal soldiers, intent on removing Dery and High Command from power. With word of Floron's advance brought to him by Pinoy's intelligence network, Dery prepared the capital's defenses, utilizing what forces he had on hand to fortify Polyhex and dig in for a siege. When Floron reached the gates of the capital, however, Dery's forces did not fire--instead, they threw open the gates and switched sides, allowing Floron to march unopposed with eleven thousand troops at his back. Panicking, Dery scrambled to prepare a defense of Castle Darkmount, barricading himself inside with High Command as Floron put the fortress to siege.
What happens next is, again, disputed: in the play, Pinoy capitalized on the frustrations of the officer corps, who resented Dery's promotion of spineless sycophants to High Command, and convinced them to stage a coup d'état, killing Dery in exchange for parlay with Floron. The officers agreed to the plot and, in the dead of night, stormed the Throne Room of Castle Darkmount, slaughtering High Command in a bloody massacre. Dery, upon seeing it was Pinoy who had betrayed him, did not try to escape, and was slain personally by his brother with an energon blade through the spark. His body was tossed from the windows, and Floron was invited inside by his brother, who claimed to have killed Dery as proof of his loyalty. Floron took the bait and came to celebrate with his brother over their triumph; he was instead met in the Throne Room by Pinoy and his personal cadre, who surrounded Floron and hacked him to death with energon blades. Floron did not go quietly, however, and his struggle alerted the officer corps, who had believed Pinoy was going to negotiate with his brother. The sight of Floron's mutilated corpse appalled them, and they turned on Pinoy and his forces, starting a shootout within the throne room. With a full-blown battle now raging in the fortress, Floron's forces flooded in to find the throne room a warzone, and the body of their beloved commander bleeding out on the ground. Enraged, they did not hesitate to open fire, making no distinction between the officer corps and Pinoy's supporters, despite the former's dying cries of innocence as they were gunned down. Pinoy himself was thrown screaming into the smelting pools, his body melted down into the alloys of his own grave marker.
The play's depiction, while undeniably dramatic, is almost certainly exaggerated for the sake of spectacle, somewhat convoluted, and reeks of anti-Decepticon bias on account of its playing up of the Triumvirate's savagery and treachery to almost comical extremes. This is perhaps unsurprising, given it was written nearly a million years after the fact by an Autobot playwright. Provoke's account is comparatively simpler, and half a million years closer to the original event: instead of Pinoy convincing the officer corps to revolt, they storm the Throne Room on their own and take Dery prisoner, offering him to Floron in exchange for promotions to his new High Command. When Floron enters Darkmount to accept their offer, Pinoy descends upon them all with his cadre of spies and assassins, taking his brothers by surprise and executing them. Now the only member of the Triumvirate left standing, he addresses the army outside, claiming Floron and Dery killed each other and that, as the sole survivor of the trio, he was the rightful Emperor. The army, however, was suspicious of Pinoy, who they had always resented; opinion turned fully against Pinoy when several members of the Warriors Elite emerged from the crowd, denouncing him as a traitor and conspirator who organized the deaths of Gladiaron and Floron. Incensed, the army stormed the fortress. Fearing for their lives, the traitorous officers told the soldiers what really happened, who proceeded to rip Pinoy limb from limb alongside his supporters. This account is closer to those of Decepticon oral legends, and is thus the more likely version of events, although the exact details of each brother's death tend to vary from story to story. A personal favorite is the one in which Pinoy was slain by his own trickery, playing dead so convincingly that Floron's soldiers entombed him alive in Darkmount Crypt; urban legend claims his remains may lie there still.
In the end, however, the outcome is the same: the First Triumvirate, successors of Gladiaron, were destroyed by the very treachery that had brought them to power. The Decepticons, now leaderless and with most of their experienced commanders dead, were left scrambling as Zeta Prime led the Autobots back from the brink of destruction. The next volume of this work shall cover the fallout of the Triumvirate's collapse, the rise and fall of Zeta Prime, and the sinister players of Cybertron's first dark age: the Interregnum.