Optimus Prime/Orion Pax 

Transformation: Tractor Trailer (Optimus Prime)

           Unknown (Orion Pax)

 

Orion PaxConsidered to be the greatest of all Autobot Leaders, it is hard to believe that Optimus Prime was once nothing more than a foreman of an Energon warehouse named Orion Pax.  This all changed however when he first met Megatron, who ended up blasting him, his girlfriend Ariel, and his best friend Diode.  Fortunately at that time, the Aerialbots, who were sent back in time by Megatron's time machine, had befriended Orion and his fiends, and quickly took him to be repaired.  They soon find the shop of Alpha Trion, who completely rebuilds Orion into the first of a new breed of Autobot defenders, Optimus Prime After making sure that Ariel, who is rebuilt into Elita-1, and Diode, who many believe was rebuilt into one of Optimus Prime's greatest supporters (could be one of many Autobot's including Ironhide, Kup, or possibly even Ultra Magnus) Optimus Prime goes off to fight Megatron and his forces, which solidifies his right to command the new Autobot forces.

For the next 5 million years, Optimus Prime leads the Autobot into battle after battle, until Cybertron's once rich energy supplies are nearly exhausted.  Both Optimus Prime and Megatron decide that they must go off into space in order to find a new source of energy.  Inevitably, both sides meet up in space, and renew their fighting, only for the Autobot's ship, The Ark, to crash into a volcano on the planet Earth, and resulted in both sides being placed into Stasis Lock for over 4 million years.  In the Earth year 1984, the volcano that the Ark was imbedded in erupted, and at the same time activated the ships computer, Telatran-1, who inadvertently activates the Decepticon's first.  It has been learned since then that the Decepticon Starscream helped to reactivate Optimus Prime, thus allowing him to reactivate the other Autobot's.  It was soon after that that Optimus Prime lead the Autobot's to stop Megatron and his group from attacking an oil rig.  It was during this battle that Optimus Prime met 2 humans that would become major alias in the war, Spike and Sparkplug Witwicky.

For the next 20 Earth years, Optimus Prime would lead the Autobot's through many battles with the Decepticon's.  both on Earth and on other planets.  He would face robotic copies of himself, new Decepticon's, mad Hunters, underwater creatures, and other perils that would define who he was.  It was not till the year 2005, that Optimus Prime would finally fall, fittingly enough, in one last fight with his old rival Megatron during the battle for Autobot City on Earth.  Before he died though, Optimus Prime passed the Matrix of Leadership to the Autobot that the deemed most worthy of the honor, Ultra Magnus.  The Matrix though had other ideas, and shortly after that gave its power to the young and eager Hotshot, who was transformed into the new Autobot leader Rodimus Prime, who used its power to stop the giant transformer, Unicron.

Optimus Prime's body was placed in the Autobot Mausoleum ship with the rest of the fallen Autobot's from the battle at Autobot City, and sent off into space.  Though many would say that this was the last chapter in the story of Optimus Prime, they would all be wrong.  Not long after the Autobot Mausoleum was sent off, it was found by the original creators of all the transformers, the Quintesons, and they repaired Optimus Prime enough to act as their puppet in an attempt to destroy the Autobot's.  This plan failed though, thanks in part to the Optimus Prime's own strong will.  In one last action, Optimus Prime took his ship into the heart of the Quintesons defenses and set off their trap.

Once again one would think that this would have been the end of Optimus Prime, but it was not.  Just before Optimus Prime set off the Quintesons trap, an Earth ship piloted by a young scientist named Jessica Morgan and Dr. Gregory Swafford came into the system and save Optimus Prime from certain destruction.  Fortunately the ship was lined with a new metal that Jessica, her father, and Dr. Swafford had developed and was able to withstand even the destruction of a star.  Unfortunately, the ship was covered with spores that would manifest into what the Humans called the Hate Plague.

Rodimus Prime, upon hearing that Optimus Prime was not destroyed as he had thought, rushed to the Morgan's lab were Ultra Magnus, the Aerialbots, and the Throttlebots were all infected with the plague.  It was soon spread to a group of Decepticon's who had also learned about Optimus Prime, and then on to the human population.  In his last act before being infected with the plague himself, Rodimus Prime sent Sky Lynx to recover a Quinteson to try and repair Optimus Prime.  Sky Lynx was successful in finding a Quinteson, and brought him back to Earth.  With Sky Lynx help Optimus Prime was returned to full working order, and set off to retrieve the Autobot's that were still uninfected by the plague.

With the help of Jessica Morgan, Optimus Prime learned that his only chance was the metal that she and her father had developed, so they set off to retrieve it from Char.  Once coated with the metal, Optimus Prime retrieved the matrix of Leadership from Rodimus Prime, and journeyed deep into it to try and find a cure to the plague, ultimately using the store of knowledge that was inside of the Matrix to free everyone throughout the universe that was infected by the plague.

Not long after the plague was destroyed for good, the Decepticon's went of the rampage again, attacking Autobot City on Earth, and stealing the key to the Plasma Energy Chamber, a storage unit that contains the rawest form of energy of them all, and was were the bodies of the Original Autobot's were forged Millions of years before.  Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus set off for Cybertron with as many Autobot's as they could bring in hopes to stop Galvatron from succeeding.  When they arriving on Cybertron though, Optimus Prime and his group found that the key and several Autobot's were missing.  In the hopes of learning what had happened, Optimus Prime left the battle and journeyed deep into Cybertron to the chamber were Vector Sigma rested.  Using the Shell of the Matrix of Leadership, Optimus Prime merged with Vector Sigma and spoke with his own creator Alpha Trion.

Alpha Trion told Optimus Prime that Vector Sigma himself had let Galvatron know of the existence of the Plasma Energy Chamber, as well as that the missing Autobot's and the Key were now on the planet Nebulos.  Optimus Prime departed at once for Nebulos , leaving a confused Ultra Magnus in charge.  When he arrived on Nebulos, Optimus Prime was surprised to fined that almost all of the Autobot's had merged themselves with members of the Nebulan resistance group to become Headmaster's and Targetmaster's, and not only had they done so, but the Decepticon's had also done so with the evil rulers of Nebulos, the Hive.

Learning that the Decepticon's now had the key to the Plasma Energy Chamber, Optimus Prime lead the Autobot's to retrieve it, only to come face to face with the new Decepticon City Scorponok, which under the control of Zarak, the leader of the Hive, captured Spikes son Daniel and Arcee before fleeing off into space.  Leaving Spike and Cerebros  behind, Optimus Prime lead the Head and Targetmaster's back to Cybertron, which had been moved to Earths orbit, for one final confrontation with the Decepticon's.  The battle was soon joined though by the newly built Autobot City, Fortress Maximus, but even this proved to be to little to late as they soon learned, because Galvatron had already opened the Chamber.  Optimus Prime had to watch as Cybertron and Earth both faced elimination, until Spike drew back all of the energy that had been released, and sent it straight to Vector Sigma, which restored Cybertron back to the Golden Age that it enjoyed before the war.  Optimus Prime then took the Headmaster's and Targetmaster's back to Nebulos, and appointed Cerebros and Fortress Maximus as the planets protectors.

RollerIn the entire History of the Planet Cybertron no Transformer has contributed or sacrificed more than Optimus Prime.  Though it should be noted that he did not do everything by himself, and I am not talking about the other Autobot's.  I am referring to his other 2 parts, the stealthy Roller, and the cannon battery that he stored inside of his trailer.  Without either of them there is a chance that his job would have been a lot harder to accomplish.