Silas

Silas is a human from the Prime portion of the Aligned continuity family.

You wanna know how I got these scars?

Silas, real name Leland Bishop, is the stone-faced leader^[1] of MECH, whose lethal obsession with Cybertronian biology would border on insanity, if his iron-mask of absolute control didn't obscure the sinister conspiracy percolating within.

Proclaiming the desire for a new world order, Silas and his supporters systematically usurp Decepticon and Autobot agenda alike in the name of research and experimentation to further Project Chimera, the product of their horrific campaign.

Expenditures be damned, Silas and the soldiers of MECH will exploit every crack in Cybertronian armor to insure their promise of chaos and terror...

Fiction

Prime cartoon

Voice actor: Clancy Brown (English), Unshō Ishizuka (Japanese), You Jun (Chinese), Alexander Kovriznyh (Russian), Axel Lutter (German), Oliviero Corbetta (Italian), Sang-hyeon Eom (Korean), Humberto Solórzano (Latin American Spanish), Hamilton Ricardo (Brazilian Portuguese), Rafael Calvo (Spain-Spanish), Juhani Rajalin (Finnish, seasons 1 and 2), Philippe Résimont (French), Gábor Vass (Hungarian)

Colonel Leland Bishop Grill was once a member of Special Operations of the United States military. Nemesis Prime Part of "special tactics", he was the architect of Project Damocles, which ultimately caused his discharge from the armed forces. After leaving the military, he went rogue, adopting the codename Silas and becoming part of MECH. Grill

From his helicopter, Silas shot down William Fowler's plane transporting the Dynamic Nuclear Generation System. Soon, Fowler was transporting the device aboard a civilian trailer truck. Fowler evaded Silas's men, and when they attempted to open the trailer door, a motorcycle driver drove onto one of their cars, causing it to flip over and explode. The convoy passed through a train tunnel, and as it emerged, mysterious purple planes fired on the trailer. Since there was no radiation emanating from the explosion, Silas realized Fowler must've transferred the device onto the train. Then Silas witnessed the civilian convoy and planes transform into robots, and a fight ensued. Silas was pleased to confirm the rumors of living technology on Earth, but flew off to retrieve the DNGS.

A hacker caused the train to diverge onto a forked track, but Silas's pilot cut the connection. Silas prepared to land on the train as his men finished cutting open the appropriate car's roof, but retreated when he saw the truck robot on the move. He wasn't going to let the enemy leave with his prize, and so fired on the train tracks to cause a crash. The truck robot managed to stop the train, and from the safety of his helicopter, Silas watched his new enemy stare back. He privately congratulated the alien visitor, but noted MECH had the home advantage and vowed to level the playing field, even if it meant dissecting the robot. Silas then flew off. Convoy

Blue and orange morality, blue and orange decor.

Silas had his men capture Breakdown during a battle on the Kamchatka Peninsula, taking the captive 'Con to a makeshift base in a deserted railway tunnel so they could dismantle him in peace. He had one of Breakdown's eyes removed and converted into a two-way transmitter, leaving it somewhere obvious, so he could talk to Breakdown's rescuers, and was surprised when Optimus Prime came looking for the Decepticon. Though a bomb waylaid Prime's team, Bulkhead broke into the tunnel and Silas retired to his helicopter outside, where he directed the MECH forces in an attempt to stop Bulkhead and Breakdown from escaping. He was forced to order a retreat when Starscream arrived with Vehicons, however they had gained enough information from their examination of Breakdown that Silas could initiate Project Chimera. Operation: Breakdown

What a cute human... shame about the scars.

When MECH detected a Decepticon distress signal, Silas took a team to try to secure the Decepticon for MECH's use. Unfortunately it was bait, and Airachnid was the trap. Airachnid bargained with Silas — find Jack Darby and she would allow them to keep Arcee after she was done with her. Silas used MECH technology and the web to find information on Jack and had his mother June Darby kidnapped. Arcee and Jack were lured to a temporary MECH base in a factory. While Airachnid played with Jack, Silas, not believing the Decepticon would keep her part of the deal, ordered his men to extract Arcee's heart. Though the Autobot escaped before they could extract the part and Jack stole Silas's radio to contact Fowler, Silas at least got to witness Airachnid scanning a new alternate mode. Crisscross

Silas & his yellow employee.

A MECH team led by Silas successfully lured in Bumblebee, who was stunned by their equipment. While Silas kept an eye out for Bumblebee's partner, the MECH Surgeon procured a T-cog from the subject, and Silas called a retreat. They installed it into the robot they'd built as part of Project Chimera, but to Silas's disappointment, it failed to work. Starscream, who had followed them to their base, pointed out that they required Energon to power anything Cybertronian. Starscream proposed an alliance to allow them to find Energon for them to share, which Silas accepted on the condition that there be enough for the army they intended to build. Operation Bumblebee, Part 1

After securing a supply of energon, they made another attempt to activate the robot, only for Bumblebee to attack the MECH base. Silas was knocked over during Bumblebee's assault, and instructed Starscream to collect the T-cog and meet them outside. When Starscream arrived without the cog, Silas had the MECH troopers ambush him and take his. Operation Bumblebee, Part 2

MECH found the remains of Breakdown and reported their find to Silas. Crossfire

He thought of ten good reasons to never let go of a dime.

With the completion of Nemesis Prime, Silas attempted to use their experiment to bump off Agent Fowler. When this failed, he instead used it to attack Alden Military Base to turn the military against the Autobots. This inevitably drew the Autobots to their base, and Silas used Nemesis Prime to deal with them, but while he was using Nemesis to fight Optimus, Fowler infiltrated the base and attacked him. While Silas was distracted, Optimus defeated Nemesis Prime, the mech falling through the roof on top of Silas. Gravely injured, Silas was spirited away by MECH and hooked up to life support. While the surgeon stated that nothing could be done for his body, Breakdown's body provided an alternative. Nemesis Prime

Great, now I'm a pretender!

The operation was eventually completed, with Silas fully installed in Breakdown's body and brought back online. Redubbing himself Cylas, or "CYbernetic Life Augmented by Symbiosis", the first thing he did was kill the rest of the MECH team. Cylas then attacked a military base to retrieve the results of Project Damocles. When Knock Out arrived to look for Breakdown's signal, Cylas took the opportunity to use the Damocles satellite as a bargaining chip to join the Decepticons. Megatron was skeptical at first, but had Soundwave dispatched to a base in Colorado to get the satellite control codes. Cylas assisted in the operation and when Raf tried to hack in, was sent to Jasper to deal with the boy. Before he could do so, he was attacked by Bulkhead and later Smokescreen, who kept him busy until the satellite was destroyed. Cylas was called back to the Nemesis where he was promptly shocked into immobility and hauled away to Knock Out's dissection table for his failure. The Human Factor Despite his initial promise to dissect Cylas, Knock Out instead decided to keep him around as a guinea pig for any experiments he might want to try. Thirst

When Megatron looked into Starscream's memories, he found out Starscream was no longer able to transform because Silas and MECH stole his T-Cog. Patch

If anyone makes that "rust in peace" joke one more time...

While testing Synthetic Energon on him, noting the increased aggression from exposure, Starscream decided that combining the unstable formula with Dark Energon might provide Megatron with an alternative to his forthcoming Predacon army. Unfortunately, mixing the two only served to create an energy-hungry Terrorcon that could not be controlled and spread his condition to all he fed upon. As Cylas stumbled through the halls of the Nemesis, infecting numerous Vehicons along the way, he came upon Airachnid's stasis pod. Cylas tore the pod open to feed upon her, but she got the better of him, causing critical damage before tearing away Breakdown's chest to reveal the human within. In his last moments, Cylas thanked Airachnid for terminating him and ending his pain. Thirst

Titan Prime comic

Right in the mean bean machine.

Soon after the bungled operation in which MECH teamed with Airachnid, Silas set out to get his revenge on Jack, directing his men to blow up schools. This eventually succeeded in drawing out the boy and Silas encountered Jack while blowing up Franklin High School. Trapping him in flames, Silas headed for the roof to evacuate by helicopter, only for Jack to follow him via the fire escape and deliver a kick to his nether regions. After taking a moment to recover, Silas took advantage of the helicopter to leave Jack on the roof of the burning building. School Is... Out!

Silas was pleased when Agent Novo discovered a neuron refractor in China and retrieved the schematics. As a reward, Silas gave Novo the privilege of being the one to have their mind transferred into the results of Project Mechanoid, but as the refractor was in danger of overload, Silas's callous disregard for Novo's life resulted in his subordinate rebelling. Despite Silas's attempt to regain control of the situation, he had to retreat and the facility was destroyed. The Novo Incident

Eaglemoss Prime comic

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Toys

Prime

We demand Sierra next.

• Bumblebee vs. Starscream: Ultimate Opponents (Entertainment Pack, 2012)

This Prime: Robots in Disguise multi-pack comes with figurines of Silas and a MECH soldier, both armed with non-removable assault rifles. Although sculpted in the same style and scale as the previous Entertainment Pack figures of Jack, Miko, and Raf, Silas has neither an articulated head, nor is his figure stand removable. Silas' distinctive facial scars are not represented by either sculpting or paint operations.

Also included in this set are Deluxe Class figures of Bumblebee and Starscream, as well as a DVD containing the episodes, "Convoy", "Sick Mind", and "Out of His Head". This Entertainment Pack was also available in Australian markets virtually unchanged, except the DVD was replaced with a booklet including short (and by that, we mean one sentence) bios as well as Tech Specs for most of the characters.

Black tuxedo, a monocle, and polished metal. Classy. Just don't show them your chest tattoo.

• Silas Breakdown (Voyager, 2012-11-24)
  • ID number: AM-24
  • Accessories: "Magi" Arms Micron

Part of the eighth wave of TakaraTomy Prime toys, "Silas Breakdown" is a black and gray redeco/retool of AM-12 War Breakdown, and transforms into a massive armored truck. He uses stickers for some of his details.

As part of the line-wide Arms Micron gimmick, Silas comes with Magi, a robotic praying mantis who transforms into a dual-bladed weapon. Silas has a single C joint bar at the rear of the truck, and is covered with an incredible number of 5mm post-holes to attach Arms Microns to. Magi is also covered in 5mm posts and holes.

Since he's intended to depict Silas after being merged with Breakdown's severed body, he has been retooled with a few additional details. He has a new, bashed-up head, with his right eye being modified to depict Breakdown's missing optic. His grill has been replaced with a large, vacuum-metallized, spiked bullbar (preventing it from folding inside his chest for robot mode, despite it still being jointed). Finally, an additional sculpted plastic panel depicting Silas' head being surrounded in machinery has been attached to the inside of his chest.

The original version of this mold was redecoed/retooled into Swerve, and this version was retooled further to make Timelines BotCon 2015 Megatron.

Notes

• Silas seems to have a penchant for naming his projects after Greek myths.
• Leland Bishop's surname was originally going to be Sumdac.^[2]
• Silas became part of Breakdown's chest in order to give Prime a new character (sort of) and a new story arc without having to make any new models.^[3]

Foreign names

• Japanese: Silas (サイラス Sairasu), Leland Bishop (リーランド・ビショップ Rīrando Bishoppu)

References