Sentinel Prime

Seemingly benevolent and humble, but in reality a sociopathic, power-hungry fraud.

The sovereign leader of Cybertron. Sadly the last survivor of the original Primes, he has nonetheless carried on the legacy of his fallen comrades by leading Cybertron into an era of peace and prosperity. He always encourages the mining class to work harder and harder, because they're those kind of good guys who don't mind working hard for everybody else, right? Sentinel is the kind of leader who inspires everybody with his tales of bravery and heroism. He fended off those nasty Quintessons and now his main goal is finding the Matrix of Leadership so Cybertron can thrive even more than it already is under his rule. He loves workers who can think for themselves, though! They're just what a Prime needs to motivate the rest of their ilk into keeping up the hard work. After all, a Prime is nothing if he cannot inspire his people to stick to protocol and produce for their planet. No siree.

Originally, Sentinel was the chief advisor of the Primes, but not a Prime himself, and always craved more power and control. After Cybertron became entrenched in a war against the Quintessons, Sentinel's jealousy of the Primes was joined by a growing contempt for their repeated defeats and repetitive heroic speeches. Consequently, Sentinel approached the Quintessons with a deal: if he led the Primes into an ambush to be slaughtered, the Quintessons would allow him to appoint himself the new leader of Cybertron under their thumb who could provide them with a constant supply of energon. The Quintessons agreed, and Sentinel reported to the Primes that he'd intercepted a message about an important meeting of the high command of the Quintessons in a distant cave on the planet's surface. The Primes, eager to decapitate the leadership of the Quintessons, followed Sentinel to the cave only to be besieged by the aliens. The Primes nearly triumphed over their attackers until Sentinel chose a critical moment to turn on his superiors, slaying several including Megatronus Prime himself. After killing Zeta Prime, the battle was over. Sentinel went to claim his prize of the Matrix of Leadership, but it faded to dust due to his not being worthy. Down but not out, Sentinel declared himself Sentinel Prime, took the deceased Megatronus' transformation cog as his own, and announced to Cybertron that the Quintessons were defeated and that he was the last survivor of the Primes. With the planet failing to produce fresh energon in the absence of the Matrix, Sentinel removed the transformation cogs of most of Cybertron's lower classes and put them to work mining for energon to produce a tribute to the Quintessons. Over the next fifty cycles, Sentinel entertained the masses with races such as the Iacon 5000 and regularly claimed that he had been on searches for the Matrix to keep up morale, while actually spending the trips hunting for the rebellious High Guard.

ADDITIONAL/OPTIONAL: During one Iacon 5000, Sentinel was surprised when he noticed two miners, Orion Pax and D-16, blast their way into the race and nearly triumph before losing at the last second. Sentinel was amused by the display but was pleasantly surprised when miner production of energon ramped up during the next worker shift. Sentinel approached the two miners and thanked them for inspiring the mining class to work harder and invited them to patch themselves up in his personal quarters, but also instructed them to make a publicity tour among the miners to hype up production even further. However, unbeknownst to Sentinel, Darkwing, nursing a wounded ego from the pair interrupting him during the race, reassigned them to waste management.

The time came for the next tribute to the Quintessons, and Sentinel delivered a portion of the required tribute alongside his lieutenant Airachnid and some troopers. The Quintesson High Commander was very displeased with the unmet quota and threatened Sentinel, who promised to work his miners harder to make up for it. Sentinel ordered the mining shifts to work triple-time until they finally met the quota, unaware the whole exchange had been witnessed by Orion, D-16, Elita-1, and B-127. Sentinel sent Airachnid to investigate their trail, and Airachnid eventually found and delivered the weakened Alpha Trion, who had told the four young 'bots the truth, to him. Sentinel mocked the old-timer for his pontificating and killed him after learning that others had witnessed his true nature, and once again dispatched Airachnid to hunt down the threats to his lies.

Eventually, Airachnid returned with D-16, B-127, Starscream, and a chunk of the High Guard as prisoners to Sentinel's tower. D-16 angrily confronted Sentinel for his treachery, but Sentinel laughed him off and insisted the truth would be whatever he declared it would be for Cybertron, and plotted to publicly execute his prisoners. When D-16 refused to kneel and continued to challenge him, Sentinel noticed his Megatronus decal and sadistically welded the symbol into his chest. Soon, however, an army consisting of Orion, Elita-1, and the remaining High Guard invaded and Sentinel soon faced a freed D-16 in combat. As the situation spiraled out of control, Sentinel was able to best D-16 in combat but noticed too late that Orion, Elita-1, and B-127 were using Airachnid's memories to broadcast his true nature to all of Cybertron, leading to a mass uprising. D-16 turned the tables on Sentinel and had him at his mercy until Orion took a fusion cannon blast meant for him. D-16 allowed Orion to fall to his apparent death and turned his attention back to Sentinel, tearing the false Prime in half with his bare hands and finally killing him for his atrocities. Shortly afterwards, D-16 took back Megatronus' cog from Sentinel's corpse, completing his transformation into Megatron. ———————————————————————— Sentinel's frame is primarily royal blue, with gold featured prominently as a secondary color. Along with numerous silver highlights, his profile is slender with a majestic edge, while his optics are a bright shade of blue. He also has a golden set of wings mounted on his back plate, indicating his aerial alternate mode.