Centuries after the end of the Great War between the Autobots and the Decepticons (Transformers: Generation One), an uneasy peace remains between the successors of the two sides, which have evolved since then into the Maximals, peaceful explorers and scientists, and the Predacons, who still harbor a grudge over their Decepticon ancestors' defeat. Cybertron is still home to both races, but they are much smaller and more power-efficient than their forebears. Conflicts which were once resolved on the battlefield are now handled politically… usually.
All of that changes, however, when a Predacon rebel called Megatron steals an historic artifact, the Golden Disc, and flees from Cybertron with a small band of followers; the only Maximal ship which can chase them is the Axalon, on a scientific survey mission. The ships engage in battle; a transwarp jump takes them across space and time to crash-land on an unknown world, so rich in Energon that neither Maximal nor Predacon can survive unprotected for long. To survive outside their ships, both sides assume new alternate modes, based on the indigenous life-forms around their ships' crash sites.
And so, the "Beast Wars" began. Stasis pods from the Axalon's cargo, ejected into orbit before it crashed, become a source of new warriors for both sides; while Optimus Primal and his crew work to survive and wait (and hope) for rescue, Megatron puts his own plans in motion - for he alone knows where the transwarp jump was meant to take them. And then there are the constructs which both sides discover, suggesting that other aliens are at work on this unknown world…
