Underbase

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The Underbase was a fictional object in the Marvel Transformers comics.

The Underbase was an unbelievably vast database containing pretty much all information gathered by the Autobots during their existence. It was originally housed in the Boltax laboratory on Cybertron, where it was maintained by Autobot scientists.

However, a little over four million years ago, the Decepticon leader Megatron invaded the laboratory and killed the scientists working in it, attempting to steal the Underbase. He was prevented only by Optimus Prime, who launched the Underbase off to space to prevent it from falling into Megatron's hands.

Upon leaving the Boltax laboratory, the Underbase took the form of a giant cube of light, with its data encoded directly into the movement patterns of the photons. The Underbase did not have any preset course, instead it simply flew aimlessly in one direction. The awesome energy contained in the Underbase caused deadly heat waves in the atmosphere of any planet it encountered, killing off all life on the planet.

In the 1980s, the Underbase came to Earth's orbit. The Decepticon warrior Starscream was aware of this in advance, having studied ancient recordings of Megatron's failed attempts at stealing the Underbase and its current flight path. Starscream decided to intercept the Underbase to steal its power for himself.

Distracting his commander Ratbat by inviting the forces of rival leader Scorponok to Earth (knowing fully that it would inevitably result in conflict) and then distracting everyone by engineering an attack by the Autobots, uniting the two Decepticon factions to decimate the Autobots. With everyone out of the way Starscream flew out into space and absorbed some of the power of the Underbase, but not all.Although Starscream was interrupted by a Decepticon attack before he could fully absorb the Underbase, it still transformed him into an awesomely powerful killing machine. To set an example of his new power, Starscream descended onto Earth, intent on conquering it.

The Autobots, led by Optimus Prime and the Decepticons, led by Scorponok and Ratbat, teamed up with each other in an attempt to stop Starscream. Despite their efforts, they were hardly a match for Starscream's vast new power and scores of them were deactivated. Starscream interrupted his conquest when he learned that Optimus Prime was still in orbit aboard the Ark, intending to destroy the Underbase.

Starscream abandoned his Earth conquest to fly back into space, to stop Optimus Prime and steal the full power of the Underbase for himself. When Scorponok and Ratbat became aware of this, they followed him, also intent on stealing the Underbase. In a struggle for power, Scorponok killed Ratbat by shooting him in the back, and followed Starscream to intercept the Underbase.

At the last minute, Optimus Prime shoved himself and Scorponok out of the Underbase's path, causing it to collide head-on with Starscream, who absorbed its entire power. For a few seconds, Starscream became the most powerful being in the entire universe, but the power of the Underbase was too much for one being to contain, and Starscream seemingly died in a vast explosion. Starscream would later return in the comics by the hand of Megatron as a Pretender.