THEORY: How was JG1 Cybertron rebuilt?

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Giving this its own thread since it ended up ballooning to astronomical proportions (in other words, spread across five posts).


I have a new theory that pertains to the existence and history of Cybertron, as depicted across the sprawling Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity (or "JG1" for short), and it's quite a doozy.


Introduction

In the beginning, Planet Cybertron (or セイバートロン星 Seibātoron-sei "Planet Seibertron" in Japan) was presented in the G1 cartoon as a metallic planet, which would become its traditional iconic appearance.

But then, in the tenth episode of The Headmasters, "Planet Cybertron in Grave Danger, Part 2" (which was set in the year 2011), Cybertron was blown up and destroyed, leaving behind only a ruined husk of its outer shell.

For the remainder of the 1980s-early 1990s Japanese Generation 1 fiction (Super-God Masterforce, Victory, Zone, The Battlestars, and Operation Combination), Cybertron was never seen again, nor mentioned in the context of the planet ever existing again.

That is, until the Japanese version of Generation 2. In "G-2" (as it was known in Japan), a political body known as the Cybertron Alliance (セイバートロン連合 Seibātoron Rengō) was introduced as a peaceful union between the Autobots and Decepticons, having finally ended the eons-old conflict between the two (only for war to soon break out again, but I digress).

While the term contained the same name as the planet, there wasn't yet any evidence that the planet had returned to the story.

Then Beast Wars rolled around.

For the first time since its destruction in The Headmasters, Cybertron was back, shown infrequently but fully intact in the Beast Wars cartoon, with no explanation.

Now, of course, this was because the Beast Wars creators weren't going off of any knowledge of the previous Japanese Transformers fiction, as they obviously weren't aware of anything that happened in it.

The same was true of the creators of the Beast Wars sequel series Beast Machines, which likewise depicted Cybertron in one piece with its traditional outward look.

And, from the perspective of the English version, both Beast Wars and Beast Machines didn't actually take place in the exact same continuity as the original G1 cartoon, but in a world up made of elements taken from both it and the G1 Marvel comics, which were merged together to create a new universe that was similar to both but still different enough in its own right.

But, that was not the case in the Japanese dubs. In Japan, both Beast Wars and Beast Machines—renamed "Beast Wars" (season 1), "Beast Wars Metals" (seasons 2–3), and "Beast Wars Returns" (Beast Machines)—were part of the same universe as the G1 cartoon and its various Japanese-original sequel series (The Headmasters, Super-God Masterforce, Victory, Zone, The Battlestars, Operation Combination, and G-2). This meant that Cybertron was somehow restored back to its original form at some point in the distant future long after it had been blown up in the year 2011. Yet, no explanation for this was ever given at the time.

It wouldn't be until 2015–2016 when the Unite Warriors manga rolled around that we'd finally get some real information about Cybertron's restoration. In the first chapter, it was revealed by Unicron that Cybertron had finally been rebuilt by the year 2021, ten years after its destruction in 2011. The second chapter then revealed that not only was its restoration recently completed in that year, but that the ones mainly responsible for rebuilding the planet were a special team consisting of Sky Lynx, Hound, Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Trailbreaker. And the fourth chapter saw Hound confirm that it did indeed take the whole ten years (2011 to 2021) to rebuild the planet.

Here is the page from the second chapter showing Sky Lynx's team being tasked by Vector Sigma (who miraculously survived the Cybertron's explosion) with the planet's restoration:

<<<<Reads right-to-left<<<<

And here is a collage of the relevant parts of the other aforementioned chapters:

And yet, while this told us when in the timeline Cybertron was rebuilt, and which individuals were personally involved in its reconstruction, the exact means through which the restoration was performed still remained undisclosed.

Some guesses and speculation did exist, though. But before we get into those, I feel it would be best to first explore some of the history of Cybertron's physiology.


Physiological history

In the G1 cartoon episode "The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 1", we were introduced to Vector Sigma, which Megatron described as "The megacomputer deep in the core of Cybertron... which gave us all life!"

While the episode didn't give us a full view of the Vector Sigma Chamber which housed said computer, interior shots showed the chamber's walls and floors to be just as metallic as the rest of the planet.

The only real look we got of the chamber's exterior was this shot:

It wouldn't be until The Headmasters that we'd finally get a complete look at the exterior of Vector Sigma's chamber, providing us a full view of the very core of the planet.

By the show's third season, the episode "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4" revealed Cybertron to have originally been "a factory, built by the Quintessons to manufacture..." the "lineal ancestors of the Decepticons and the Autobots." The episode also showed that, even back then, the planet looked like this:

So for all those millions of years, it was a world made of metal.

Fast forward to the Beast Machines cartoon, wherein some new revelations about Cybertron were given. While the planet's exterior was its traditional look, what lay beneath the surface was something else entirely.

Vector Sigma was brought back into the series, but in a totally new form.

By this series's time, Vector Sigma had evolved into the Oracle, which was now found within a brand new chamber no longer located at the planet's core.

Why? Well, because this is what the core now looked like:

That's a pretty stark contrast from how the very metallic, very-much-not-organic Vector Sigma Chamber was the planetary core in both the G1 cartoon and The Headmasters.

Yet, Beast Machines remained adamantly certain that the Cybertron in that show was the very same planet it had always been since the time of Cybertron's initial creation so many eons in the past. And the show's Japanese dub would have likely reflect that stance.


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Beast Machines also stated that Cybertron had originally been an organic planet with a lush green ecosystem and animal wildlife, before the first Transformers came about on the planet.

The planet was later transformed into the traditional metallic world it was known to be.

With JG1 placing all of these shows in the same continuity, it is fortunate, then, that certain episodes of the G1 cartoon actually seemed to show hints and traces of a past organic nature for the planet.

In the episode "Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 2", we see that the floor of the Cybertonium salvage pit appears to be made of rock.

Later, in "The Dweller in the Depths", Galvatron leads the Decepticons down to what he refers to as "the lowest level of Cybertron," whose walls very much resemble rock or petrified mud, and some with organic patches embedded in them:

Granted, these were all total coincidences that just happened to align with what Beast Machines would later establish, since the very idea of that show was still several years away from when the G1 cartoon was still in development, and the creators of Beast Machines likely didn't review every single episode of the G1 cartoon. But it's coincidences like these that the Japanese took advantage of and used as puzzle pieces to make everything fit together into the vast tapestry that is JG1.

Consequently, we are left with an expanded narrative in which the very same Cybertron...

• was originally an organic planet with plants and animals (according to Beast Machines),
• was later turned into a metallic world with Vector Sigma's chamber at its core (in the G1 cartoon),
• was then blown up (in The Headmasters),
• and was finally somehow rebuilt back into a metallic world, but also with brand a new organic core (by the time of Beast Machines).

So then, in addition to the question of how the planet got rebuilt, we also have to wonder how this new organic core came about, too. And, if Beast Machines (or rather "Beast Wars Returns") wants us to believe that the planet also originally had an organic core in the past before it was turned metal, we are left to wonder what happened to that first organic core and how it was replaced by the Vector Sigma Chamber.

In order to figure that out, let's first examine the current official origin of this particular version of Cybertron, as knowing how Cybertron was originally built in the first place may offer some further insight as to how it was rebuilt.

Cybertron's JG1 origin

In 2006-2007, around the time Takara began to finally assemble and organize the massive JG1 timeline, a decision was made to bring the character of Primus into this Japanese continuity. Why this decision was made is a story for another day, but regardless, the decision was made.

How this was done was by a series of retcons that brought together the various appearances of Vector Sigma across the G1 cartoon, The Headmasters, Beast Wars Neo, and Beast Wars Returns, along with the Matrix of Leadership and the assistant of Primacron from the G1 cartoon episode "Call of the Primitives" (said assistant was given the designation of "Oracle" in the episode's dialogue script). Through these retcons, an elaborate backstory was crafted for this new Japanese version of Primus.

The relevant parts of this backstory begin with the creation of Unicron by Primacron and his assistant, Oracle, who possessed life-giving abilities.

When Unicron lashed out against his creators, Oracle's body was destroyed.

Oracle's essence within the Matrix then escaped from Primacron and fled into space.

He eventually found and arrived on the barren planet seen in "Call of the Primitives" and emptied his essence within the Matrix into this planet.

He then used his life-giving essence to create a lush organic world filled with greenery and animal life (aligning with what was given in Beast Wars Returns).

But this peaceful paradise was eventually discovered by the Quintessons, who used a mechanization ray (which would later come to be known as the Key to Vector Sigma) to terraform the planet into the metallic world of Cybertron.

The Quints imprisoned Oracle's essence within the Vector Sigma computer, and used the empty shell of the Matrix to control his power and create the Cybertronians.


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This backstory was finally actually illustrated in full across two sources in 2018 and 2021. The first was the Legends pack-in manga included with the Grand Maximus toy:

<<<<Reads right-to-left<<<<

The second was the finale chapter of the Generations Selects manga.

>>>>Reads left-to-right>>>>

In the Legends one seen above, notice something in the leftmost panel of the second row. That sphere of glowing energy being released from the Matrix into the core of the planet? That's Oracle's essence.

Now, the planet he came to reside within already existed on its own, so it would have most likely had its own normal, molten core made of magma before Oracle came along and merged with the planet. So then, Oracle's arrival to the planet likely changed the core into an orb of magical life-giving energy.

Sound familiar?

In both Legends and Selects, we also see the Quintessons change the Oracle's planet into Cybertron, completely overhauling the planetary core into the Vector Sigma Chamber, meaning it isn't a mystical energy orb anymore. That, at least, explains what happened to the original core of Oracle's essence; the Quints encased it within Vector Sigma and mechanized its surroundings into a hollow chamber.

So, now we know that JG1 Cybertron...

• was originally a barren rock of a planet with likely a molten core,
• became a lush organic planet upon the fusion of Oracle's essence with said molten core, which changed it into a magical glowing orb of life-giving energy,
• and was transformed by Quintessons into a metallic planet whose core was completely altered into a metal chamber housing a spheroid life-giving computer that, itself, contained the aforementioned magical life-giving energy.

With all of that preamble finally out of the way, let's discuss some of the suggestions that have been raised over the years as to how Cybertron was possibly restored following its destruction in The Headmasters.


First suggestion: Nucleon

In 2001, a black redeco of the 1988 Powermaster Optimus Prime toy was released as a Toys R Us exclusive in Japan. Dubbed "Nucleon Quest Super Convoy", this figure represented G1 Optimus Prime (or "Convoy" in Japan) in a new Powermaster body form now named "Super Convoy", and his accompanying toy bio stated the following:

Background: Once there was era in which the planet Seibertron had been struck by a fatal energy shortage. At this time, Convoy and Hi-Q, a scientist from the planet Nebulos, undertook a perilous journey in search of a new energy to replace Energon.
Abilities: In order for him to extract the super-energy "Nucleon" that exists in black holes, his entire structure is now protected by a phase modulation shield. He can now carry out activity in super-gravitic environments.

The black hole mission for Nucleon was a reference to the backstory of the Action Masters given in a packaging blurb found on the back of their toys' packaging:

Because of this, the Nucleon Quest was placed as an event that was set prior to the events of G-2, to coincide with the Japanese story pages for G-2 that featured illustrations of Optimus Prime and Megatron as co-leaders of the Cybertron Alliance, in which they (and Blaster) were drawn with designs based on their Action Master toys.

So, for a time, the energy crisis described in the Super Convoy bio could have been in reference to the state of lifelessness that Cybertron had been left in following its destruction in The Headmasters, with the Nucleon retrieved by Super Convoy potentially having been the power source used by Sky Lynx's team to restore the planet to its proper form.

But then, Unite Warriors came along in 2016 and debunked that theory.

As mentioned above, the Unite Warriors manga placed the completion of Cybertron's restoration in the year 2021, meaning the Nucleon acquired by Super Convoy couldn't have been what Sky Lynx's team use to restore the planet. Since the Nucleon Quest took place right before G-2, it also took place after Operation Combination, The Battlestars, Zone, and Victory. With Victory being set in the year 2025, the Nucleon Quest then didn't occur until several years after 2025, while Cybertron was already back to normal by 2021, four years before Victory and many more years before the Nucleon Quest.


Second suggestion: Zodiac

Another guess as to how Cybertron was restored is that Zodiac was possibly involved. According to the single-episode of Transformers: Zone, Zodiac is a supermineral that possesses a mysterious energy capable of creating stars, planets, and other celestial bodies. In other words, it's the power that created the whole universe, from the time of the Big Bang itself.

A fragment of Zodiac was located in a cavern deep within the Earth, and served as the main plot device of Zone that was fought over by its characters. After Zone, this same piece was then given to characters of The Battlestars to let them use it to resurrect the deceased Optimus Prime as Star Convoy (this was before the aforementioned Nucleon Quest in which he became Super Convoy).

However, like Nucleon, I don't believe Zodiac was used to restore Cybertron, either. While it can create entire planets (meaning the ruined husk of Cybertron ought to be no sweat for either one or multiple Zodiac pieces to fix), Unite Warriors has once again thrown a wrench into the works.

The final chapter of Unite Warriors ended with some foreshadowing to the events of Zone, and which hinted that none of the characters are supposed to know about the existence of Zodiac just yet, not until the time of Zone, which is set at some point after the year 2025 (when Victory is set).

<<<<Reads right-to-left<<<<

The same is also implied in the Legends pack-in manga that came with Scourge (linking to it instead of embedding since the embed would make the text too small to read), in which he only first learns about the existence and power of Zodiac from the Matrix after he briefly steals it in that comic. And the time period Scourge hailed from within the G1 World before he came to the Legends World was also 2021, the same year that the aforementioned Unite Warriors story took place in. So, Zodiac was still a relatively unknown thing by the time Cybertron was repaired.


Third suggestion: Primus did it

Okay, so, there's a big elephant in the room that I've been avoiding thus far; that being Primus himself.

In the Marvel Comics in which Primus was introduced, he was a god who displayed the wondrous ability of psionically creating Planet Cybertron from out of a dead asteroid.

And with the Japanese G1 cartoon continuity now having him exist as the true identity of both Vector Sigma (the life-giving creator of the Transformers) and Primacron's Oracle assistant (seemingly the progenitor the Matrix of Leadership), couldn't he have also played a part in rebuilding the planet? I mean, he is a god, after all.

Well, once again, we go back to Unite Warriors, wherein the second chapter had Vector Sigma (who is JG1 Primus) mention that he only returned to full strength once Cybertron was finally restored, in 2021.

This would suggest that, during the ten years it took to rebuild the planet, Vector Sigma had been in a weakened state, no longer at full strength and not capable of performing any godlike feats on a planetary scale during that time. Sure, that same chapter also showed Vector Sigma reformatting Sky Lynx and his team into their new body-forms shortly after the explosion in 2011, but that's small potatoes compared to completely rebuilding an entire planet.

The same scene even showed Vector Sigma to have sustained severe damage from the explosion that took out Cybertron. Considering the fact that Vector Sigma was at ground zero when bombs went off (as they were literally attached to the platform that lay directly beneath Vector Sigma's globe-like form), he definitely should have been totally wrecked by the ordeal.

As stated before, it's nothing short of a miracle that he survived the planet's destruction; and he really shouldn't have. It's only because of its later appearances in both Beast Wars Neo and Beast Machines that his survival became a necessary plot point, despite all logic and sense saying Vector Sigma should have been blown to smithereens.

So anyway, with Vector Sigma not being back to full power until Cybertron had finished being repaired in 2021, I don't think Vector Sigma (A.K.A. Primus) could have been that heavily involved in the planet's revival. Partially involved? Maybe. But only in small part, at the most.

Like... maybe making a new core for Cybertron...?


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Fourth suggestion: A new colonized world

In the same episode of The Headmasters that saw Cybertron destroyed, Rodimus Prime decided to leave the Autobots and depart on a journey into space. Accompanied by Kup and Blurr, the three would venture out to search for "a planet without war for the Transformers to settle on." In their absence, Rodimus left Fortress in charge, appointing him the new Commander of the Autobots.

A new planet for the Transformers to settle on, hmm? Well, that certainly seems to be implying something.

At the time this episode was written, the Autobots were primarily based on a neighboring planet called Athenia (as well as still on Earth), while the Decepticons continued to reside on Chaar. With Cybertron now out of the picture, it seemed Athenia and Chaar had, respectively, become the dominant planets for the Autobot and Decepticon forces for the foreseeable future.

But then, Victory rolled around and introduced a few new planets under the Autobots' jurisdiction: Planet Victory and Planet Micro. The former became the headquarters for the Universal Peace Alliance held between the Autobots, Earth, and many other allied worlds, while the latter was the homeworld of the Micro Transformers (better known outside of Japan as "Micromasters"). Between these two, Planet Micro sure did look Cybertron-esque:

By the time of Zone, Micro was further fortified by the Autobot Powered Masters and renamed Planet Zone, complete with a new headquarters called the Zone Base:

Surely a planet such as this could have become a new Cybertron altogether, right? Following a mass immigration by the Autobots? Well, as it turns out, there actually is some merit to this idea.

In 2015, there was an online chapter of the Legends manga (early into its run when the online chapters were still short, jokey, and in black-and-white) that actually revealed that Rodimus had indeed found a new planet for the Transformers, andconfirmed a longstanding fan theory that that planet was none other than Micro. Rodimus was even drawn in the body-design of his Micromaster toy, which came with the original Star Convoy toy in 1991.

However, both the planets Micro (later Zone) and Victory already appeared in the Victory and Zone fictions, which means neither of them could have become the new Cybertron since Victory and Zone took place in 2025 and after, whereas Cybertron (say it with me) was shown by Unite Warriors to have already been restored in the year 2021, meaning both Micro/Zone and Victory coexisted with Cybertron as three separate planets during 2025 and onward.

So if not Planet Victory or Planet Micro/Zone, what about any other planet? Could another planet have become the new Cybertron? Well, the thing is, that same Unite Warriors story that shows Cybertron to be back to normal by 2021 really seems to be insinuating that that ruin planetary husk left in the wake of Cybertron's destruction really was turned back into a full planet, that the restored Cybertron we see from 2021 onward is the very same Cybertron that was blown up in 2011. So it's probably not very likely that a completely different planet fully replaced the original.


MY suggestion:

So if it wasn't Nucleon or Zodiac that restored Cybertron, and if it wasn't replaced by a totally separate planet that just took the name of Cybertron for itself, how then do I think Cybertron was restored?

Well, what if another planet was involved, but in a way that didn't entirely replace Cybertron? What if the ruined husk of Cybertron left behind after its destruction was grafted onto another planet that was used to fill in what was lost in the explosion, serving as a new body for the remains of that outer shell? Yep, I think it was rebuilt by integrating another planet with that shell

In Beast Machines, so much of the innermost interior of Cybertron was shown to be filled with soil and rock. If Cybertron really had been rebuilt to be exactly the way it was before it was blown up, then it's very weird that there would be so much soil inside the planet.

While I did mention before that the G1 cartoon had some episodes that showed there to be soil within the lowest level of Cybertron, they were far outnumbered by other episodes that showed the majority of the planet's interior to instead be metallic and mechanical, such as the aforementioned "Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 2" and "The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 1", in which characters traveled all throughout Cybertron's underground depths, which were shown to be fully metallic.

Some of Cybertron's interior was also metallic in Beast Machines (mainly its upper layers), but not to the same extent as in the G1 cartoon. In other words, the G1 cartoon showed the planet's interior to be more metallic than organic, while Beast Machines showed it to be more organic than metallic. It's an inverted ratio.

Taking a completely separate planet and merging it with the ruined shell of Cybertron could thus account for all that new soil found inside the planet following its destruction and subsequent restoration.

What's more, I have an idea as to which other planet in particular might have been used for this restoration.

In the first episode of the G1 cartoon's third season ("Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1"), the Autobots hosted the first Galactic Olympics on this strange-looking planet:

The episode's script reveals that this cheese-wedge-of-a-planet is named Athenia, and the episode's Japanese dub even referred to it by that name.

The script also reveals that the scene where Perceptor first examines some Sharkticon remains and then suggests Rodimus take Grimlock with him to investigate the Decepticons on Chaar near the end of the episode... was also set on Athenia. Said scene was also set within an Autobot base, which means the Autobots had enough good relations with (or perhaps even some sort of claim of ownership of) the planet to have been able to establish a headquarters there.

Fast forward to The Headmasters where even more was revealed about Athenia. Not only did the Autobots still have a base there (which even became their main base after Cybertron got destroyed), but a prologue in the first episode that recapped the events of the G1 cartoon (from 1:20 to 3:12 in the following video) even gave a rather bold declaration about what the Autobots' true plans for Athenia were:

サイバトロンは第二のセイバートロンも建設する平和の星アセニア

Which translates to into English as "The Cybertrons (Autobots) also build a second Seibertron (Cybertron) on the peaceful planet Athenia." (The subtitle text in the above video words this phrase a little differently, but the gist of it is the same.)

So, the Autobots weren't simply living on Athenia, they were building "a second Cybertron" there.

While I'm sure that, at the time, that was meant more metaphorically than literally, the idea of using another planet to rebuild Cybertron doesn't make the literal approach seem entirely out of the question, especially since it seems that the Autobots had done some MAJOR terraforming to the planet off-screen.

The previous picture of Athenia as viewed from outer space shows what it looked like in 2010 (the year the Japanese dub of G1 season 3 took place in, in contrast to how it took place in 2005-2006 in the original English version).

But by the year 2011, only a single year later, it suddenly looked like this instead:

Talk about a major overhaul.

And if they didn't have some degree of jurisdiction over the planet, I doubt they could have even altered its appearance so radically. They must be its main owners, which would mean Athenia isn't just a Cybertronian ally, but a full-blown colony world.


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What's more, the same prologue that said the Autobots were building a second Cybertron on Athenia even showed it to actually be right next-door to Cybertron, so it's even in a very convenient location were it to have been used for Cybertron's reconstruction.

Something else to consider is another point from Unite Warriors. The same chapter that showed Vector Sigma to be back to full strength by the year 2021 also showed its chamber to have become identical to how it would chronologically later look in Beast Wars Returns, the very same chamber that would house the Oracle (in fact, it even looks like Vector Sigma is in a transitional state between its Vector Sigma and Oracle forms).

This would suggest that the planet's core had, by this time in 2021, become as it was in Beast Machines, a magical orb of organic life-giving energy.

Recall that I said above that the original organic planet that became Cybertron had to originally have a molten core made of magma, and that it was likely converted into a magical energy core when Oracle's essence merged with it.

If Oracle could do that to the original molten core of the pre-Cybertron planet, and with Vector Sigma both being that very same being and still around, what's to prevent Vector Sigma/Oracle from merging again with another planet's molten core and changing it into another magical energy core?

Of course, we know that Vector Sigma/Oracle was not actually at the planet's core anymore during Beast Machines but instead within a new chamber situated away from the core, since it had by then evolved into a new computer form also named "the Oracle". But, that organic core in Beast Machines was very much still related to the Oracle since it lay at the heart of the whole technorganic prophecy that the Oracle was trying to bring about in that series.

So, Vector Sigma/the Oracle could have simply poured some of its power into Athenia's core in order to convert it into a new magical energy core (playing only a "small part" in the planet's revival ), while Vector Sigma/the Oracle proper remained within its own chamber physically separate from the core.

But is there anything that could actually link the version of Cybertron seen in Beast Machines to the planet Athenia? Like something from Athenia's past history left over on Cybertron? Well... possibly yes!

In a few episodes of Beast Machines, we were shown several layers of ruins that Optimus Primal deduces (in the English version) must be "what's left of the earlier Cybertronian civilizations."

In the English version, we're given no reason to think otherwise. But because the Japanese version is part of the larger JG1 continuity that saw Cybertron destroyed in The Headmasters, we have to question if these ruins really were from early Cybertronian civilizations (as Optimus assumes) or from whatever planet was used to repair Cybertron after it was destroyed.

Of particular importance are the specific ruins that the Maximals used as their main headquarters in the first season of Beast Machines, from Episode 3 ("Fires of the Past") to Episode 10 ("Survivor"), and which Tankor later used as his own base after the Maximals relocated to set up a new base in a cave of organic fossils, from Episode 10 ("The Key") to Episode 13 ("End of the Line").

Said ruins were an underground amphitheater that looked to have been primarily made of stone and brick in addition to metal. Most notably, this amphitheater bore a striking resemblance to the architectural designs of real-world amphitheaters originating from ancient Greece.

It's the mother of all coincidences, yes, but it would make a whole world of sense that ruins of an ancient Greek-styled amphitheater found deep within the ancient levels of Cybertron had actually originally been a structure from the Greece-influenced planet of Athenia (a planet the Autobots were already building "a second Cybertron" on), and that the amphitheater was lost buried beneath the planet's surface when Athenia got integrated with Cybertron's husk to become one with Cybertron as its new body, with the husk covering over most of Athenia's surface. It's like one big puzzle all fitting together.

Now, for this theory to work, we must also check to see if Athenia is ever shown to exist in the future of the JG1 cartoon timeline. Because, if it does, then that tosses this whole theory out the window since it would mean that Athenia continues to coexist separately from Cybertron after 2021 just like Planet Victory and Micro. Well, looking over things from other JG1 cartoon media, it seems that Athenia has only made two other appearances after The Headmasters, and both are work-around-able.

I'll start with its second post-Headmasters appearance since that's the easiest one to work around. In 2016, the Legends pack-in manga included with the Leader class Blaster toy featured a brief scene on Athenia in a flashback, set "several years" before 2021. It was also set not long after the last episode of The Headmasters, so it's in that little gap between that series and Super-God Masterforce, but a little closer to the time of The Headmasters. For an estimation, let's say it's around 2013 at the latest.

This scene is brief and mostly inconsequential, and only serves to show that (in regards to this specific topic) Athenia continued to exist as its own planet for a little while longer after 2011. It could have been that the integration started at some point after this scene and still finished by 2021.

For Athenia's other appearance, however, we'll need to think a little more creatively. In 1988, it was mentioned in a printed text story released in Japan prior to Masterforce as a bridge between it and The Headmasters. Titled "Master File No. 1", this summary of events was set during the early episodes of Masterforce, right around the time of the debut of the Headmaster Juniors' transtectors (and Masterforce is itself set in the year 2020, according to the Generations Selects manga from 2019).

While it mentioned that the Autobots were still headquartered on Athenia at that point, it was obviously written with early ideas for Masterforce in mind, as it also mentioned the Trainbots keeping tabs on Earth, on the Autobot Pretenders, and on the growing threat of Devil Z. Yet, the Trainbots were never seen in Masterforce outside of a brief cameo in the theme song's first opening sequence.

Clearly there were supposed to be more ties between The Headmasters and Masterforce in the earlier stages of the latter's development, but those didn't pan out in the final version. Thus, if we wanted to imagine that Athenia was the planet that was used to restore Cybertron, we could say that Master File No. 1 is still technically correct (the best kind of correct) about the Autobots being based on Athenia during that time, as Athenia would have been integrated into Cybertron, making the two planets become one and the same.

Oh, and if I don't mention it here, someone might point it out: Athenia was also featured in the sixth chapter of the 1988 Masterforce manga published in TV Magazine, but while manga series shares some conceptual DNA with its counterpart animated series, it is not in the same JG1 cartoon continuity as the Masterforce cartoon. So its relevance to this topic is null and void.

Thus, other than the Legends Blaster comic and Master File No. 1, Athenia is never seen or mentioned again in any of the other post-2011 parts of the JG1 timeline.


Conclusion

So, yeah. I theorize that Cybertron was rebuilt by having had another planet integrated with its remains following its destruction in The Headmasters (explaining how the planet's interior was primarily soil-based in Beast Machines when it was primarily metallic in the G1 cartoon), with the specific planet used for said integration being Athenia, the Autobots' main colony headquarters from The Headmasters and a close neighbor of Cybertron.

Athenia's molten core would have been changed into the orb of magical organic energy from Beast Machines by having Vector Sigma/the Oracle pour some of its energy into said core, and the ancient ruins seen in Beast Machines (including the underground Greek-styled amphitheater) would have actually been from Athenia's early civilizations unbeknownst to the Maximals of Beast Machines (who instead think they're ancient Cybertronian civilizations, not knowing about Athenia or its role in Cybertron's history).

But hey, that's just a theory!

A TOON THEORY!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand cut!

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Wild. And plausible.

Kinda disappointed that they'd pave over a planet as nice as Athenia in such a way, though.

 

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it was rebuilt when primus activated creative mode so he couldn't be killed this time

 

[NovaSaber]

Cybertron and Athenia are so close together (in Headmasters) that I'm wondering...is Athenia's larger "moon" Cybertron?

Because it really looks like they're about as close together as Earth and our moon.

 

[Sabrblade]

Cybertron and Athenia are so close together (in Headmasters) that I'm wondering...is Athenia's larger "moon" Cybertron?

Because it really looks like they're about as close together as Earth and our moon.

You can see that moon next to Athenia in the big panning shot away from Cybertron.

Athenia's actually bigger than that, it's just perspective being used to show distance.

 

[Gizmoboy]

This is a fun topic.

 

[NovaSaber]

You can see that moon next to Athenia in the big panning shot away from Cybertron.

Athenia's actually bigger than that, it's just perspective being used to show distance.

There's only one moon in the panning shot, so I thought it might be the smaller one.