How would G1 Transformers play out if...

[Tribble]

Being Beast Wars 20th anniversary this year, I thought we should celebrate with a few scenarios!

For those of you who don't know, Beast Wars was a sequel to the G1 animation series. In a nutshell, 300 years had passed since the Autobots (now Maximals) had defeated the Deceptions (now Predacons) in the "Great War." Beast Wars Megatron (a different character who took the name of the original) and his crew steal a Golden Disk which reveals the location of Earth, which they plan to travel to ostensibly because it has large amounts of energon. A Maximal exploration ship under the command of Optimus Primal (again different character from the original) is sent to stop them, and the two ships end up crashing on what appears to be a strange and unknown planet. There are two moons, powerful alien structures scattered around and much more energon than expected, to the point where they had to use biological "beast forms" over regular robot forms or they'd die after a few minutes exposure outside. Over the course of the series the characters gradually realise that they were on Earth all along (the 2nd moon was an alien Planet Buster), and Megatron's orginal plan is revealed: he went back in time to when the G1 transformers were still in stasis on the Arc, and wanted to change history so that the Decepticons win the war. Fortunately the Maximals were ultimately able to stop him, but not before most of the main characters on the show were killed. The show ends with the surviving Maximals capturing Megatron and heading back to future Cybertron (which leads to the events of Beast Machines... unfortunately). IMO it's one of the best transformer shows and still worth watching today, even if the CGI is pretty dated by today's standards.

Scenario 1:

BW Megatron succeeds in killing Optimus Prime. How would the war play out if Optimus Prime had been killed? Would BW Megatron's scheme actually changed the course of the war in the Decepticons favour? For the purposes of this scenario assume that another Autobot gets knocked into the repair beam by Starscream's blast, so that the Autobots still wake up.

Scenario 2:

The roles are reversed. BW Megatron fails to kill Optimus Prime, some of the Maximals decide that turn-about is fair play (I wouldn't put it past Rattrap), and kill the original Megatron. How would the war pan out with Megatron dead? Again, assume that the Decepticons are revived first and leave, but not before Starscream knocks Optimus Prime into the repair beam.

Scenario 3:

Both Optimus Prime and Megatron end up being killed. Would the war be any different without either of them being in charge?

Scenario 4:

Megatron succeeded in killing the proto-humans, but was unable to go further than that. How would the lack of humanity during the war affect things?

Scenario 5:

Tarantulus's plan to kill everyone on the Arc succeeds. Or alternatively, Optimus Primal fails to stop the Planet Buster. Either way there is no war on Earth. How would that impact the war on Cybertron?

Scenario 6:

BW Megatron failed to steal the Golden Disk, and the events of BW never happened. As a result, the aliens "experiment" is never contaminated, and humanity develops with all the energon, alien structures etc left intact. How would that change humanity's development, and how would that change the war when the Autobots and Decepticons wake up? Would the Decepticons try to capture the structures for use? Would the Aliens get involved at some point? Would they still be pissed off about the transformer's "contamination" when they find out and try to sterilize things, or would they be a bit more civil now that there were 20th century humans milling around?

For all of these scenarios assume the timeline can be changed since that was what the show was implying. As Dinobot more or less put it, the recordings from the future only contained what may be the future, not what was guaranteed to be the future.

[Tribble]

Alright, well maybe 6 scenarios is a bit much, I figured at least one might be interesting

[Solauren]

Scenario 1: The Autobots didn't have a leader amongst them that matches Megatron, or that matched Megatrons power.
The Autobots would either be defeated in the opening of the series. Either way, Optimus can't shot down the Decepticon space-vessel. They make it back to Cyberton, and come back with more forces to conquer Earth and strip it of resources.

Scenario 2: With Megatron dead, the Decepticons fracture. The Autobots take them down peace-meal

Scenario 3: Pretty much the same as #2. The Decepticons fracture, and the Autobots can take them down peace-meal.

Scenario 4: Hard to guess. Without any technology on the planet, would Teletran one rebuild them as Earth vechiles, restore them with their Cybertonian forms intact, or would they get 'Beast' Forms in the line of the original Dinobots?
Without humans to ally with, the Decepticons might win the war. (They did in G1 canon even with human allies, after all...)

Scenario 5a: Tarantualu's takes the Nemesis back to Cyberton, and summons his ancestors/master, Unicron. There is no war for Cyberton, as Unicron destroys it. Unicron ends up eating the Universe.
Scenario 5b: The War on Cyberton seemed to be limited to Shockwave ruling over the nearly empty planet, occasionally getting harassed by the female autobots. Eventually, Unicron shows up and eats Cyberton in 2005.

Scenario 6: The Vok are supposed to be descended form the Swarm from the Transformers Comic continuality. We have no idea what their experiment actually was. For all we know, after 1 or two interactions with early humans, everything would have been pulled up.
No way to know.