Each side is governed by a council ; the Maximals governing body is known as the Maximal Imperium while the Predacons ' version, the Tripredacus Council, operate out of a satellite orbiting the planet or star, quietly working to their own agenda ... an agenda that was sorely disrupted by the rise to power of the renegade, Megatron, who stole a ship and escaped to prehistoric Earth with the intent of altering time.

Predictably, he failed due to the efforts of the Maximals and Blackarachnia's own treachery, and his spark was cast out once again.

Wandering Cybertron in a purely organic body that transformed from humanoid wolf to dragon, Megatron took the name Noble, feigned innocence, and was taken in by the unwitting Maximals, and then exploited them to enable him to return to his citadel, where he transferred his spark into a new, purely technological body, a massive fortress in the shape of his own head, which transformed into a space cruiser.

Breaking free, he killed his father and his army, and vowed to kill Megatron and all the Maximals and Predacons, but met his own end at the hands of Optimus Primal.

Starting off, Starscream manages to fomulate a successful attack on the Maximal spaceship, forcing the Maximals to flee in defeat, leaving the Predacons to take control of the ship.

The Maximals witnessed this as they were tossed about the ship with every klik ( earth second ) it spent traveling through Transwarp space.

The Maximals became unconscious at the time their ship was attacked.

A retaliatory attack by the Vehicons crashed the ship, and the Maximals subsequently fell one by one until only Primal was left to face off with Megatron, who had installed his spark in a copy of Primal's old " Optimal " body.

Planning to take the ship back to Cybertron, he was thwarted by an unlikely alliance between the Maximals and Tarantulas, which succeeded in destroying both the ship and the second Golden Disk.

Megatron predictably pulled a double-cross, forcing Tarantulas ( who had planned to do the same ) to form a wary alliance with the Maximals to stop him from returning to Cybertron with the ship, actually helping them to stop Megatron due to his hatred of the Vok.

In Beast Wars and Beast Machines, the Maximals were first introduced as the crew of the starship, Axalon ( led by Optimus Primal ), pursued the Predacons ( led by Megatron ) to prehistoric planet Earth.

Maximals were first introduced as the crew of the starship, Axalon ( led by Optimus Primal ), pursued the Predacons ( led by Megatron ) to prehistoric planet Earth.

This sets up the Pax Cybertronia and the evolution of the Autobots and Decepticons into Maximals and Predacons.

The script of the episode depicted an encounter between Rattrap and the clone of Dinobot, where Rattrap finds the data tracks of the original Dinobot in the Maximals ' ship's computer, and goes on a suicide mission to install it into the clone, in a desperate bid to bring his old friend back.

The one exception was Beast Wars, by which time most Autobots had been retrofitted into Maximals.

Subsequently, new energy-conservation methods resulted in what was termed " The Great Upgrade ", a planet-wide upgrade of Autobot and Decepticon into new, smaller, more energy-efficient forms, leading the races to rename themselves " Maximals " and " Predacons ", respectively.

Reformatted into new technorganic bodies by the Oracle-the shell program that now surrounded Vector Sigma that enabled users to commune with the afterlife dimension called the Matrix-the Maximals subsequently discovered that Cybertron had indeed been an organic world before it acquired its current metallic shell.

When the Maximals and Predacons came to investigate, another signal emerged from the depths of space, converting the plant into the Metalhunter base, which Megatron then used the Golden Disk to control, only to have both artifacts be destroyed in a Transwarp explosion.

Megastorm, enhanced into his new Gigastorm form attacks the Maximals, but the combined missiles of Magnaboss and Leo Prime are able to defeat him by blowing the rocks out from under him and dumping the Predacon into a pool of angolmois energy.

But the destruction of the planetbuster brought the quantum surge that evolved several Maximals and Predacons into transmetals.

It was not long before Rhinox sprang into action, using the residual transwarp energy to access the Matrix, from which he plucked Primal's spark, installing it within a blank protoform ( which was also a victim of the quantum surge, but remained blank until a spark with a beast form was installed ) Emerging in a new transmetal body at a moment of great crisis, Primal used his new powers to save the Maximals from a massive Predacon attack with the aid of the Fuzor, Silverbolt.

Primal and his Maximals pursued him, but failed to stop him from delivering the deadly blast into the autobot leader's head.

After some encounters with remnants of their technology left on the planet, and the discovery of a second Golden Disk of alien origin, which foretold their coming to Earth, Megatron entered into an alliance with the Maximals in hopes to stopping the Vok's plan to sterilize the Earth with a massive heat beam.

After throwing the astonished traitor into a lava pit he engaged and almost defeated Optimus Primal, before the arrival of the other Maximals drove him away.

According to his biography published in the Beast Wars Sourcebook Scorponok actually survived the events of season 2 and was turned into a transmetal scorpion, but he remained trapped in the magma, unable to escape until after Megatron was defeated and the Maximals left with him for Cybertron.

He matures into one of the more competent and dependable Maximals outside of Optimus, becoming second-in-command and leading the team during Primal ’ s bouts of weakness, instability and over-reliance on the Oracle during the middle run of Beast Machines.

According to his biography published in the Beast Wars Sourcebook Terrorsaur actually survived the events of Season Two and was turned into a Transmetal, but he remained trapped in the magma, unable to escape until after Megatron was defeated and the Maximals left with him for Cybertron.

The origins of the Vehicons came about when Megatron returned from the Beast Wars ahead of the Maximals and unleashed his transformation freezing virus, rendering the populace of Cybertron helpless to fight back as it sent them into stasis lock.

Dinobot's early story would continue in the Timelines tale Dawn of Futures Past, where he was seen escaping with the disc alongside Megatron and Scorponok, outraged because he was not able to battle the Maximals honorably, having to be cowed into fleeing by Megatron.

In the 2006 BotCon story and the accompanying tech spec for the Laserbeak toy released, it was revealed that after the end of The Great War, Divebomb of the original Predacons had rebuilt Laserbeak, Buzzsaw and Ravage into Predacons as part of a secret project to overthrow the Maximals.

Pretending to be dim and fairly weak, a ' la Tankor, the two lured the Maximals into a trap, cutting off their every option with countless numbers of new Vehicon Drones.

In the final battle with the Maximals, Obsidian and Strika were tricked into standing on an antigravity unit by Cheetor, who launched the pair into space, where neither were affected by the reformatting of Cybertron.

Pursued by a crew of Maximals, both ships crashed on the planet, with only Megatron truly aware of when and where they were.

Systematic defeat by the Maximals eventually left all his options exhausted, and he proceeded to strike at Optimus Prime, only to be once again thwarted by his enemies.

When he was finally defeated by the Maximals, the original Megatron's spark was returned to his body ( in a deleted scene from the television series, that is available on the season 3 DVD 2 in the " Scene Selection " menu ), and history carried on as before.

Throughout the series, stasis pods lose altitude and crash-land on the planet, and the Maximals and Predacons race and fight to acquire them, as protoforms acquired by Megatron's forces can be reprogrammed to become Predacons.

Delighted, Starscream took her under his wing to teach her the ways of treachery, and at the same time, he wards off Scorponok and forced the surrendering Maximals to attack the Predacon base by threatening their leader Optimus Primal and Dinobot with death, revealing his true intentions to rule both Maximal and Predacons.

Relieved, Primal and the Maximals return back to their base, and Waspinator is repaired back to normal by Megatron, who is informed by Blackarachnia of the reasons of her betrayal were to find out Starsceam's true intentions.

Diver and the Kid were able to ambush the Maximals, allowing Galvatron to gain the upper hand on Lio Convoy, but the Maximals were aided by Dirge and Thrust.

The Maximals are opposed by the Predacons.

In another it was surrounded by a program known as the Oracle in an age where Maximals and Predacons had taken the place of their ancestors as the primary residents of Cybertron.

The rival teams of Maximals and Predacons ( led by Lio Convoy and Galvatron ) both tried to acquire it, but the Predacons succeeded, and summoned the monstrous Transformer to the present.

Ravage aided Primal and the Maximals in finally capturing Megatron, but switched sides when he discovered that Megatron was following instructions left by his former commander, the original Megatron ( decepticon commander ).

Setting up base around the Ark to protect it from further Predacon attacks, the Maximals were soon joined by Depth Charge, an old acquaintance of Primal's, who harbored some degree of hostility for him for his role in the preservation of Protoform X's life.