Senate

This symbol denotes official Senate dealings on documents and also adorns many buildings and members of Senators' personal staff. Basically, if someone has this, then they're better than you. And will act like it.

The Senate is the legislative body of pre-war Cybertron. While the Prime and the Autobot Security Services may hold military and police powers, the Senate creates the laws they enforce. It was briefly replaced by the New Senate and when that didn't wash, was done away with and replaced with the Grand Convocation.

Fiction

Generation 1 continuity family

2005 IDW continuity

The esteemed members of the Senate were held to be the honorable descendants of the progenitors and custodians of the sacred Primal lineage. By the time of Nominus Prime, however, the Senate had become grossly corrupt and oppressive, overseeing a caste-ridden dictatorship with themselves on top. A few honest Senators remained but kept quiet.

In Cybertron's early age, the 113th Cybertronian Senate went into a private session at the Grand Imperium in order to address the matter of Nominus Prime's attempted assassination by terrorists. They decided that the head of security, Sentinel, was to find the perpetrators of this attack and decided to forgo the rights of the citizens by initiating a Clampdown. Their session was interrupted by the arrival of a security officer known as Orion Pax who spoke out against the corruption, but the outraged Senate had Sentinel place the officer under arrest and remove him from the Grand Imperium. Senator Shockwave, however, prevented Pax from being sent to prison and confessed to him that a faction within the Senate was responsible for the assassination, as they were seeking to discover how the Creation Matrix created life for their own motivations. Chaos Theory #2 Once they found that Nominus's Matrix was fake, they had him killed and released cover stories claiming he died from rust and that their very own Sentinel was suddenly showing signs of being a Prime. Post Hoc

The Clampdown only served to increase discontent among Cybertronian citizens, causing the newly emerged Decepticon movement to grow in popularity. Seeking to put stop to this growing threat to the Senate's stability, Senator Proteus instated a Decepticon Registration Act along with a false promise that if 10,000 Decepticons registered the Senate would recognize them as legitimate political party. In fact, he and Sentinel were only collecting names of Decepticons so that they could send them all to the Institute to be "cured" of their rebellious nature. As part of this plan, agents were hired to assassinate Senators Sherma and Momus, themselves Decepticon sympathizers, so that Proteus could subsequently display how he wasn't biased against Decepticons by proving them innocent of the senators' murders. This would lead to an increase in registrations, followed by an arranged bombing that would be blamed on the Decepticons as proof of their "true colors" and the rounding up of all registrants. Patternism However, this plan was sabotaged by Shockwave and Orion Pax (with a tip-off from Whirl), who secretly removed the bomb.

The senate was quite unhappy with Shockwave, who had been using the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology to shelter outliers from persecution by the functionists. As a result, the academy was burnt by 'accident', and Shockwave was sent to the Institute. An Intimate Beheading

Believe it or not, the Decepticons are the good guys here.

By the time Sentinel had become Prime a short while later, individual Senators like Ratbat had started to manipulate (and damage) the planet's economy for their own benefit, while the Senate as a whole automated the energon mines at the expense of the mining caste. They made only conciliatory gestures to the miners while hoarding energon for themselves. Megatron Origin #1 Sentinel Prime himself found he didn't set policies and the Senate was telling him what to do rather than doing what he wanted; he held a rather low opinion of them, and dumped Senator Decimus' mauling on Prowl rather than deal with people who don't give him "what I need". Megatron Origin #1Megatron Origin #3

When a great number of Decepticons were captured in Kaon, including their founder Megatron, Kaon's Senator Ratbat called for an emergency session to discuss what should be done about them. Soundwaves However, this was all part of Megatron's master plan: once the Senate was all gathered in one place, Starscream claimed to be snitching on Megatron and was allowed access to the council chamber, where he and Soundwave outright murdered the entire Senate. Megatron Origin #4 The only Senators to survive were Shockwave, who had already defected to the Decepticons; Dai Atlas, who couldn't attend the emergency session; Shockwaves and Ratbat, who was forced to defect to the Decepticons. Megatron Origin #4 Because of Soundwave's ability to block out communications the perpetrators of the crime would remain unknown, Soundwaves though his own involvement became known (or at least strongly suspected) by the police. The Hunt for Soundwave

A new Senate was very quickly established by the rising Zeta Prime (who would literally call it the New Senate because Zeta loved calling everything "new") and their first acts were to organize Sentinel's funeral, oversee the passing of the Matrix to Zeta, and generally reassure the planet that they had this "Decepticon" thing in hand. As with the old Senate, the New Senate knew that the "Matrix" held by Zeta Prime was a fake. The Last Autobot Understandably, the new body had a lot to prove to make up for the old one. Omega's Conundrum Remembrance Day

At some point during the Senate or New Senate, Crosscut became famous as a senator who took a stand and liberated Petrex "with wise words and a shovel". The Dead Are Not Enough

The New Senate were apparently a bit more sensible than the old one, as they thought Zeta's plan to use vamparc ribbons on civilians was a bit nutty. One of the more vocal senators was even adamant that they and the Prime were meant to serve the people, not oppress them. Unfortunately, Zeta Prime didn't give a monkey's, knowing that nobody trusted even the New Senate. Around this time, Starscream was considered a "delegate" to the Senate and not known to be a Decepticon. Parasites In spite of their misgivings, the Senate still helped Zeta stockpile outlawed weapons. Endgame Zeta was assuring the worried Senate that his tactics were working, at the exact moment when Orion Pax and a squad of Autobots violently turned on him. Overthrown

Megatron became the new dictator of Cybertron following his murder of Zeta Prime and when Optimus Prime retook Iacon, the Senate were spoken of in the past tense. Transformation Endgame Optimus replaced them with the Grand Convocation, a more democratic body, Derelicts and later with the Conclave of Representatives and the Stratocracy. Towards Peace Primacy #1

Millions of years later, Prowl mentioned that the Decepticons could not legitimately portray themselves as freedom fighters as they had won their war on the Senate and continued fighting and murdering despite that. Dinobot Hunt At Megatron's trial, his war on the Senate was the first charge that was brought up. Towards Peace

After receiving a life sentence, Starscream defended his reign to Bumblebee by stating that, unlike the Senate, he hadn't suppressed the population for eons. Surfeit of Primes

The Functionist Universe

In another timeline, the Senate had been "unseated" by the Functionist Council and Cybertron had become a dictatorship beyond even Proteus's dreams. The Custom-Made Now

Members

2019 IDW continuity

The original Senate convened in the city of Tarn. By Nominus Prime's era, the institution had relocated to Iacon, and although the Iaconian Senate building was destroyed in the War of the Threefold Spark, it was rebuilt at some point afterward. Prime In this era, First Senator Nominus Prime passed the historic legislation known as the Nominus Edict. Under this edict, new colonies could only be established by a unanimous agreement of the Senate. The Senate also had the power to define a frequency of forgings and energon distribution in keeping that there be enough energon stockpiled to last ten kilocycles. Orion Pax: Free Fall

You're on this council, but we do not grant you the rank of Prime.

With vast swathes of Cybertron ravaged by the destructive conflict, the Senate helped to organize the rebuilding of Iacon, Constructicons Rising, Part 3 but soon became worried about Bombshell, Skrapnel, and Kickback. The new regime was involved in exiling the three 'bots to the distant world of Mayalx, where they could put their mutant matter-processing abilities to good use. Constructicons Rising, Part 2 After Iacon was rebuilt, Nominus Prime oversaw a ceremony that commemorated the Constructicons for their role in the rebuilding efforts, along with the many other 'bots who had helped make it possible. However, Nominus Prime harbored concerns about the destructive power that they could pose to an energy-depleted Cybertron; after a prior meeting with Wheeljack and Termagax, he also banished the Constructicons to Mayalx under the pretense of having them build a new energon refinery. Constructicons Rising, Part 3

In the years leading up to the Great War, Nominus Prime had been replaced by the Autobot Sentinel Prime, a headstrong leader who controlled an Autobot majority government The Cracks Beneath Your Feet Part Four and sought to uphold the legislation passed by his predecessor. The Senate encompassed multiple political parties, including Sentinel Prime's Autobots—represented by Sentinel's second-in-command Orion Pax, Megatron, Strika, Ratbat, and Soundwave as representatives for Termagax's Ascenticon faction, The World In Your Eyes Part One We Have Deceived You the Reversionists, led by Heretech, The Cracks Beneath Your Feet Part Four and minor political parties such as the Primals. The World In Your Eyes Part Two Darkmount's Senator Straxxus ran his city-state as an independent polity, and didn't convene with the rest of Senate. Escape Part Two Other nonpartisan divisions included Xenorelations, led by Nautica, Colonial Security, headed by Hound, Starscream's Intelligence division, Nautica: Home and Chromia's Security Operations. The World In Your Eyes Part Two

In this turbulent era, the increasingly volatile rallies of the Ascenticons—and in particular, the actions of the violent splinter group known as "The Rise"—were of concern to other members of the Senate, The World In Your Eyes Part One while the overly restrictive policies of the Autobots and their effort to uphold the terms of the Nominus Edict led to large segments of the population holding resentment towards the Autobot-controlled Senate. The World In Your Eyes Part Five

During one of the Senate's final meetings together it was Orion Pax, taking the lead while Sentinel Prime was offworld, who suggested that the Senate come together to denounce the actions of the emboldened Ascenticons, implicated in the murders of Rubble and Brainstorm. Megatron refused, pointing out that the Autobots had long since enforced cooperation rather than encouraging it, and took his premature leave from the meeting. The Cracks Beneath Your Feet Part Four Following Sentinel Prime's return to Cybertron, the bullish leader pushed back against The Rise as hard as he could, leading to a series of brutal Senate-enforced crackdowns across Cybertron despite mounting protests for a new unity government to handle the crisis. The Change In Your Nature Part One

Finally, after a brutal terrorist attack that saw the Tether destroyed, Sentinel Prime announced that he had no intentions of working with the increasingly emboldened Ascenticon movement and announced his intentions to outlaw the party and convene the Senate without them. During this controversial meeting, however, Megatron pushed through the crowds into the Senate hall itself, forcibly took the floor from Sentinel, and made his own speech—one that ended with members of the newly renamed "Decepticons" storming the building, removing Sentinel from power, and taking everyone inside hostage. We Have Deceived You The Senators were imprisoned in their own building and forced under threat of death to endorse Megatron's rule. Ironhide led a team to free Sentinel Prime and Orion Pax, but the ensuing shootout led to Sentinel's own death. Prime In the aftermath, Megatron ordered Strika to keep the other Senators imprisoned until they accepted him as their leader, while Megatron relocated his seat of power to Decepticon Headquarters. Awakenings

Velocitron had its own Senate but, unlike other Cybertronian worlds, their First Senator was the winner of the Speedia 500 rather than any democratic process. The previous winner, Blurr, had abdicated his position and left Road Rocket to rule the planet. Tread & Circuits Part 1 To conquer Velocitron, the Decepticons entered Knock Out in the race, arranging events for him to become Velocitron's First Senator and make the planet a Decepticon world. Tread & Circuits Part 4

Members

Cyberverse cartoon

The Senate met in the Grand Imperium. After the launching of the AllSpark had caused Cybertron's condition to deteriorate, Optimus Prime took Bumblebee to the Grand Imperium to reflect on the bygone age of peace and the damage the Great War had done to Cybertron. Matrix of Leadership

IDW Shattered Glass continuity

The ruling body on Cybertron before the Great War, the Senate was a heavily corrupt body, oppressing the lower classes of society. Ambitious Senator Orion Pax steadily gained more control over the body, even creating the Autobots as his own secret police. Shattered Glass #2 To build his power, Pax sought out the services of Ultra Magnus, eventually assigning the lawman to take command of a new security unit that would later be dubbed the Wreckers. At Pax's orders, Magnus lead the Wreckers to launch a terrorist attack on the Senate, abducting Senator Shockwave for the empurata procedure. Shattered Glass II #1

By the time of the Great War, the Senate had presumably collapsed. By the post-war era, Cybertron had balkanized into three warring regions led by Optimus Prime, Prowl, and Goldbug. Shattered Glass #2

Members

Notes

• As Megatron Origin was based on the decline of the Roman Empire, the Senate was most likely based on the Roman Senate. Unlike that Senate, according to Optimus, they're not made up of former magistrates but of the descendants of the Progenitors, i.e. they inherit their seats. Although how exactly inheritance works considering how Cybertronians in this universe are made is anyone's guess.
• Origin presented the Senate as meeting in Kaon, and in the same bloody prison building the Decepticons are in.
• The thinking by James Roberts is that by Nominus Prime's time, the Primes had become a less powerful force absorbed into the Senate, rather like the British Royal Family.^[1] The Senate itself, as partly established in flashback stories, is increasingly factionalised body with groups fighting each other out and shifting their allegiances. (AKA, a senate) ^[2]
• Chris Metzen's intention was that nobody knew precisely who killed the old Senate as the Decepticons had suppressed the footage and Starscream wasn't known to be a Decepticon, hence him appearing as a delegate.^[3] This was proven even further in Optimus Prime #3 when Soundwave noted that there existed no recorded evidence to prove exactly who was responsible for the Senate's death.

References