Transformers Beyond: Legendarium (old version)

Chapter IX: The Age of Rust

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The Age of Rust was a period of Cybertronian history marked with by social and societal atrophy, as a demoralized Cybertron sought to recover from the failure of the Golden Age.

Approx. 70 million stellar cycles ago

During the Golden Age, the Cybertronians utilized Space Bridges that allowed them to explore and colonize other worlds, learned and traded with far-away alien civilizations, and their armed forces maintained peace and security within their Great Cybertronian Empire for hundreds of millions of years. It was a great time of joy and prosperity among the Cybertronians, but it couldn't last forever...

One day, the Cybertronian Security Operations was getting reports that Nijita, a frontier colony of the Great Cybertronian Empire, is being ravaged by an outbreak of a deadly and untreatable plague of rust that was picked up on an exploration ship. This plague would be known by future generations as the infamous Rust Plague, a mysterious microorganism that slowly devours any and all metallic surfaces, including the living metal that makes up the Cybertronians, until they waste away to nothingness. The plague's exact origins were never discovered, though conspiracy theorists would claim to this day that the Rust Plague was actually a biological weapon created by the Quintessons as an act of revenge for their countless defeats in the Quintesson Wars, but there is no substantial evidence to this theory. Soon, in less than an orbital cycle, Nijita and all of its inhabitants are consumed by the plague and then disintegrated.

To the horror of the Cybertronians, the Rust Plague was using the Space Bridges to rapidly spread from planet to planet, infecting infrastructure, technology and Cybertronians alike. Over the eons that follow, further outbreaks are reported on far-flung colonies, eradicating all mechanical life. Though Cybertronian scientists and medics search desperately for a cure, none is found and the crisis grows exponentially as colony world after colony world is quarantined and falls silent. The vast majority of the Omega Sentinels and the Titans were killed by the plague.

Approx. 68 million stellar cycles ago

With the Rust Plague accelerating in its spread across Cybertronian territory, the Council of Ancients passes an edict at the urging of Guardian Prime and the Senate to blockade the Great Cybertronian Empire's borders and expel all non-natives from Cybertron and its colonies once it's discovered by scientists that organic lifeforms can become asymptomatic carriers of the disease, infecting any form of mechanical life around them. This action brings an end to Cybertronian cultural dominance of the galaxy as the peace they had maintained among dozens of alien races fractures.

Approx. 66 million stellar cycles ago

With the Rust Plague spreading like wildfire, the Senate and the Council of Ancients orders the closure of all Space Bridges until the crisis has passed. All transit between worlds is limited to ship travel in real-space so that quarantine measures can be instituted on all shipments and travelers. The order slows the spread of the Rust Plague, but doesn't halt it completely.

Approx. 65 million stellar cycles ago

At a loss on how to stop the Rust Plague and with it getting closer to the core sectors of the Great Cybertronian Empire, Guardian Prime makes a controversial decision as he orders Cybertron and its inner colonies to enter a self-imposed quarantine, destroying many Space Bridges and mining all space lanes approaches so to effectively isolate them from the Empire's infected outer territories and the wider galaxy. With all of the Bridges shut down, the Space Bridge Network in orbit around Cybertron was left to crumble in the skies, however, only one was still believed to be operational, but it was eventually forgotten about by the Science Guild under the fear of accidentally bringing the Rust Plague to the planet.