Ark (Transformers)



The Ark is a fictional spacecraft in the Transformers Universe.

The Ark left Cybertron with Optimus Prime and a contingent of Autobots 4 million years ago in search of the fuel Energon. Shortly after launch, it was attacked by the Decepticons on the Nemesis. The Nemesis attached itself to the Ark using tractor beams. The Decepticons, including their leader Megatron, boarded the Ark and attacked. During the battle, the Ark was damaged and crash landed on Earth, into the side of a mountain in what one day would be called Oregon. All transformers on board were placed into stasis lock.

In the earth year 1984, the volcano erupted, causing a transformer to shift and the onboard computer Teletraan I to be activated. Teletran One eventually revived all the stasis-locked Transformers.

The Ark was severely damaged in the impact and battle. While it could fly again (Ref Episode 3, MTME), the Autobots left it in the side of the mountain where it served as their base on Earth until 2006, when it was destroyed by Trypticon.

The Ark in the Beast Wars
The Beast Wars series, taking place in prehistoric Earth, references the Ark towards the end of the series. Megatron discovers it, and hijacks Teletran One using encryption codes he found on a Golden Disk, left behind by the original Megatron.

While his ancestors, the Decepticons, and those of the Maximals, the Autobots, slept in stasis lock, he fired his weapon upon the face of Optimus Prime, disrupting the time flow in the universe. The Maximals foiled his plan, by placing the spark of Prime within Primal, once again changing his body. Repairs were made on Prime, and the Ark remained until its emergence in 1984.

The Ark II
Name of the Autobot ship in the Dreamwave comics storyline that would have carried the Transformers back to Cybertron. However Lazarus blew up the craft as a means of capturing the Transformers on board, whomm he took control of. A group of seven human ambassadors known as the Magnificent Seven (including Sparkplug Witwicky) were casualties of the explosion. It is later revealed that the Ark II's explosion was entirely the engineering of Shockwave.