#nomimus prime

[askvectorprime]

What happened to Damus in IDW2? Did he ever become Tarn?

Dear Tarn Troubled,

Damus was one of the very first Cybertronians to be forged in the immediate aftermath of the War of the Threefold Spark and the ratification of the Nominus Edict. His earliest memories were of emerging into a broken, empty plaza populated by a sparse crowd of war-weary Cybertronians, whereupon a haggard Nominus Prime quickly handed him off into the care of his mentor Derail, who—though well-intentioned—was too busy working construction rotas and helping to track down Threefold Spark holdouts to truly spend time with his new mentee. It should come as no surprise that Damus struggled to relate to the people around him, and so with no clear path forward, he immersed himself in Codexa’s archives, learning everything he could about Cybertron’s past. In the days of reconstruction, some forward-thinking Cybertronians came to realize that their empire had been built upon the misery of other races, but Damus never had to directly confront the cruelty that lay beneath the Expansion’s glorious imperial veneer: as he pored through the Cybertronian archives, he saw unstoppable Titan fleets waging war, brave explorers planting flags on virgin worlds, awe-inspiring works of art and music, verminous alien aggressors brought to heel by their so-called “betters”… and he quickly began to resent Nominus Prime for robbing him of the world he should’ve known, a world had never truly existed.

Damus might’ve become an archivist, or at worst a contrarian academic, but his early education took a turn for the worse when the people of Cybertron discovered his unique, deadly gift. When correctly modulated, his vocal harmonics could subtly interfere with the regular electromagnetic impulses that governed ordinary machines… and those that powered a pulsing spark: with enough time and training, he could literally talk anyone to death. Like the Insecticons who’d preceded him, Damus was foisted off into the care of the Cybertronian Science Ministry, where he became an object of curiosity for many of Cybertron’s intellectuals. Eventually, once they’d learned everything they could from this latest prodigy, Damus was released: however, his newfound reputation meant that few Cybertronians would associate with him, and fewer still would offer him the kind of academic position he’d hoped for. Damus eventually collapsed into the dregs of society, where he spent most of his days chasing one high or another… until the day the idealistic Termagax founded a new political movement intended to return Cybertron to its glory days.

As one of the first Ascenticons, Damus became an ardent adherent to the Ascenticon cause; after all, Termagax was the first Cybertronian he’d met who was unafraid of his lethal talents. However, in time, Termagax’s resolve began to falter, and after a string of political defeats that culminated in Termagax abandoning society altogether, Damus sunk back into depression. Soon, however, a new leader arose to take up the mantle of Ascenticon leader—a charismatic firebrand named Megatron. Determined to restore “Cybertronian greatness” by any means necessary, Damus stood by Megatron’s party even as a string of violent incidents began to turn the public against Megatron’s increasingly inflammatory rhetoric. At first, Damus was repulsed by the kind of thuggish, indiscriminate violence exemplified by “The Rise”. In time, however, some part of him began to rationalize its necessity, then begin to take a kind of perverse glee as more and more Ascenticon rallies collapsed into anarchic violence. After all, had Cybertronians not won their cosmic birthright through conquest, as the strong asserted their dominance over the weak?

When Megatron finally made his true intentions known and overthrew the Senate, the Decepticon leader had already sent Damus to assist Jhiaxus as the ex-Senator spearheaded a Decepticon uprising in the city of Tarn and successfully conquered the region. What Jhiaxus didn’t know, however, was that Megatron—correctly suspicious of the lieutenant—had deliberately sent Damus along as a mole to pass information on his doings back to the Decepticon leader and “bring him to justice” should Jhiaxus’s ambitions get the better of him.

As the triumphant Decepticons tightened their hold over the region, Jhaixus began developing a series of full-body upgrades that would hybridize traditional Cybertronian design standards with an experimental bodytype that metabolized both energon and highly-refined nucleon fuel rods. Jhiaxus successfully tested a prototype version of the design on himself, and it should come as no surprise that Damus was the first Cybertronian who volunteered to become the “perfect Decepticon”. Damus emerged from the surgery stronger, faster, and more alive, his unique abilities now greatly enhanced. To commemorate what he proclaimed to be an inevitable Decepticon victory, Damus adopted the nom de guerre “Tarn”, to honor the city where the future of Cybertron had been created… but, before Jhiaxus could begin mass-producing an army of “perfect Decepticons”, Elita-1’s resistance unit attacked! Along with Hot Spot, Cliffjumper, and Wheel Blaze, Elita was able to sabotage the technology and deal Jhiaxus a crushing defeat, permanently stymying any hope of creating an unstoppable army. That did not bother Tarn, however: he proclaimed himself an army of one, a one-man “justice division” who wouldn’t stop until these unruly Autobot saboteurs faced Decepticon law.

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