During the Great War, the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime, devised a plan that would end the war once and for all. They would craft an escape shuttle, manned only by a handful of Autobots and a crew of drones, and launch into space. By sending false communications to the Decepticons, their leader, Megatron, would attack the ship with his own, manned by his strongest forces. The two factions battled, and were both warped to the edges of the universe via the massive Space Bridge in the planet Cybertron's atmosphere. With both leaders missing, the war ground to a halt, and it was soon ended in a peace treaty, the Pax Cybertronia. However, this peace would be a false one.

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A few million years ago, during what they would end up calling the "Silver Age" of Cybertron, a faction of the populace grew upset and impatient at the current government, The Cybertronia Council, which was then under the rule of Zeta Prime. After a previous war, the council had decided to create strict laws regarding space travel and energy consumption. As Cybertron was one of the four "pillars" of the greater galactic civilization, these stricter laws affected the economy of the planet, with only high status Cybertronians being able to travel outside of the planet's atmosphere, period.

In addition, great pressure was put on robots with high-energy consumption alternate modes. Most were forced to either work in Energon mines, supplying fuel for more fuel efficient bots, but very little for their own use. Others made their way in underground and brutal gladiator combat arenas. Both had significant death tolls, making neither a great choice for work. As the laws persisted, robots with extremely low fuel needs became marginalized, as this was already attributed to smaller bots with stranger, less useful alternate modes. The prejudice against this class had already been builder over the years before and after the war, causing it to become far more prevalent when the laws were put in place.

It was then that one lone miner would rise to challenge the laws, creating the Ascenticons. The charismatic leader managed to talk hundreds of Cybertronians of all alternate mode styles into realizing how abstinent the council had been, and how the new laws were only breeding cruelty and resentment in the people. The party started out with peaceful protests, which the council met with police brutality. In addition, as the protests continued, the council proceeded to put out propaganda calling the Ascenticons' accusations "deception". This in turn sparked the nickname "Decepticons" among the common people, discrediting them more.

More protests were met with more violence, and the Ascenticons became fewer and fewer as it looked like any hope of getting the laws repealed was futile. However, a small sect of Ascenticons, unknown to the leader, managed to perform a strike on the council's base, killing Zeta Prime in the process. This left the council without a Prime to lead them, so the rest of the council concocted a plan. They would gift the Matrix of Leadership, an artifact that grants great power onto whoever would hold it, to the leader of the Ascenticons, with this hopefully ending the party and everything going back to the status quo.

The leader of the Ascenticons, Orion Pax, was previously a librarian before the laws were implemented and he was forced into mine work. He was a bot of peace and knowledge, with a dream to unite the universe together, and quickly made friends with a gladiator, who then helped form the Ascenticons. When the council declared him the next Prime, he took the offer, seeing it as a chance to make things better in the large scale, hopefully starting with the laws and moving on to even more.

However, the leader of the sect that had killed Zeta Prime, who also happened to be the friend that helped form the Ascenticons, saw this as a betrayal to the cause. He believed that Orion had simply used this as a means of gaining power. As Orion took on the Matrix, becoming Optimus Prime, his friend took on the name of a legendary and destructive entity: Megatron.

Taking the propaganda to heart, Megatron quickly took "Decepticon" as a new name for the faction. No more were peaceful protests an option, the first things the Decepticons did was murder the remaining members of the council, sparking the largest civil war in the history of the planet. Thanks to the Decepticon ranks consisting mostly of larger, powerful vehicles like tanks, they began to take over cities, Megatron believing that the only way to bring peace to the planet... was through tyranny.

Optimus was horrified at what his friend had become, and decided that there was only one thing he could do: fight back. He formed a resistance faction called the Autobots, named so for Optimus' belief in freedom. The Autobots quickly gathered forces, and fought valiantly against the Decepticons for many years, but eventually they were unable to match the power the Decepticons had, leading to the above mentioned end of the war.

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Modern day Cybertron is much different. It is a functioning and lively planet, and war or any form of major conflict has been seen in millennia. Gladiator combat has become a safe and respectable sporting event, energy consumption is kept in check, and its citizens are free to leave the planet as long as they have a permit. However, the Pax Cybertronia peace treaty only truly positively affected one side of the war: the Autobots. While Cybertron itself may seem at peace, it has a dark secret hanging above it.

The Pax Cybertronia granted the Decepticons their own civilization, ostensibly with a democratic government and enough accommodations and entertainment to keep them all happy. However, this was never really the case. Previously an unused moonbase from the pre-war silver age, New Kaon, named for the largest city the Decepticons conquered during the war, is a prison disguised as a city. Guards patrol nearly every area at all times, security drones observe the streets from the skies, and strict and ever-changing curfews are implemented. The place is crowded to the brim, so much so that nearly the entire moon has been renovated into more prison-like apartments. There are even secret plans to turn a second moon into another New Kaon.

This was all implemented by the Supreme Chancellor. After the war, there was an attempt to recreate the Cybertronia Council as the Autobot Council, but through power plays and democratic decisions, a single Autobot made his way to supreme power. The identity of the Supreme Chancellor is unknown to most of Cybertron, though rumors state that he was a robot under Optimus Prime's command back in the war. His power over laws is immeasurably, turning what would be a democratic government into a purely autocratic one. Even the members of the council have been replaced by cronies of his, and the "leader" of New Kaon is a bribed Decepticon acting as a warden.

In addition, prejudice is still alive, yet only aimed at one catch-all group: Decepticons. Decepticons are now a very broad term, whether it be bots who simply chose to be Decepticons, actual criminals, dissenting groups, or even just bots born with militaristic alternate modes, all are branded as Decepticons and sent to New Kaon. Of course prejudice towards smaller bots and bots with odd alternate modes still exist, but on both sides.

Despite its seemingly peaceful surface, Cybertron is filled with more underground criminals than ever before - all of whom are allowed to exist by the Supreme Chancellor. Whether it be illegal gambling, bounty hunters, black market sales, or pre-war style gladiatorial combat, all are known about by the Supreme Chancellor, both on Cybertron and New Kaon. Allegedly these are independently run, but rumor has it that some are allowed to exist for economic reasons. Another reason they can be allowed to exist is so that more blame can be pinned on Decepticons.

New Kaon itself, despite being a prison planet, can be very lax on whether residents escape. While all unfairly branded citizens are kept under strict surveillance, actual dangerous criminals are all but free to come and go. Presumably this is to feed into Decepticon fear-mongering more and more. The only exceptions are the high profile prisoners kept in the Fort Max detention facility, one of the  most heavily guarded prisons in the galaxy. Lower profile escapees tend to make bases on distant planets, constantly on the lamb from police forces.

While some Decepticons are decent but ostracized people, some are genuinely bad. There are also a good number of bad people on the Autobot side as well, but also good people. The lines are blurred as the factions begin to mean very little. And while things may seem bad for both sides, eventually, they will need to Unite.