The Aligned Binder of Revelation has been REVEALED

So, a user uploaded to mega. nz a VERSION of the infamous Binder of Revelation. Assembled back in 2009 on the back of Transformers’ newly elevated status as a “media franchise”, the intention was to have a more unified brand continuity going forward with the Binder being used by Hasbro and licensees as a “road map slash reference guide” for the franchise. Referred to as a “living document”, the binder reportedly saw a number of revisions over the years. An unknown individual uploaded a version from around 2015 for us all to nerd over.

While interesting to see something so “not for public consumption” get leaked out…good GOD is this something.

I totally get the necessity for some sort of “Hasbro sanctioned” reference point for a brand like Transformers, I really do. But I’m glad this has seemingly been left in the dust with the rest of Aligned as a brand focus. It’s hard to grasp how something can be so pedantic in some section, but so ill-defined in others. Offering some really compelling material like Cybertron maps, locations, and relics…and then giving half ass wiki entries for stuff on Earth and live action films. While pointless, the “Transformer Zodiac” is surprisingly well thought out. But then you have entries for both Hound AND Bulkhead…even though they are pretty darn interchangeable depending on usage. Plus an entry on a Decepticon named “Clamp Down” which almost sounds like Blackout in some sense, but there is no art to determine anything significant.

The fascinating thing to me is how much actually HAS dripped into the brand in a post-aligned brand direction. The Dinobot entries were clearly mined for the final batch of content for Cyberverse, and even Age of the Primes and it’s “descendant“ angle comes largely from the Binder (Arguably more clearly defined than the final product has done).
Some of the newly seen character designs offer some interesting design cues I wouldn’t mind seeing explored in new media or toys. I love the Animated/G1 Prowl (possibly the inspiration for Prime Smokescreen’s retool?) and there are design notes on Jetfire and Ratchet that would be really novel to see.


But even for something just for internal Hasbro use or for licenses? I fail to see how useful a source this really would be. If I’m coming onto a brand fresh, the pedantic history notes, questionable character notes, the UNNECESSARY human material makes this feel too much like someone’s (Rik Alvarez?) half ass fanfic Transformers history thing.

Nudge nudge, wink wink.

Eh, we can discuss it here as its own topic I think. Steevy offers some interesting talking points to start with.

Sabrblade said:

Nudge nudge, wink wink.

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In fairness, that thread has become a permutation of Mayhem’s all purpose “Transformers Discussion”

Besides, we’re nerds. We’ll spend PAGES on an Aligned post-mortem which this provides plenty of fuel for!

Frankly I thought Sabr would like that it has a thread of its own.

Fair. Might as well share my own thoughts from back when it first leaked eleven months ago in December.

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There are so many things in this document that totally don't jibe with the final products we got. Like Dark Energon being described as like a poisonous substance that corrodes everything it comes in contact with, yet Exodus, WFC, and Prime have Megatron and the Decepticons just gorging on the stuff like addictive candy.

All the weird planet inclusions read like someone just went and picked out every planet listed on the wiki's Category: Planets pages at the time, which would explain how and why planets from The Headmasters and Beast Wars Neo's manga got in there.

The mention of "Angolmois" as the name of a space being kinda goes against the claims at BotCon 2011 that the people who were writing about Dark Energon had been unaware of Angolmois Energy. But the more I think back to that, the more I begin the realize that the specific people who weren't aware of Angolmois Energy were Aaron Archer and the TF: Prime creators. Archer told me upfront back at BotCon 2024 that he wasn't very knowledgeable of Transformers fiction that he didn't have a hand in, and what he specified back at BotCon 2011 was Japanese Transformers fiction. Meanwhile, in the TF: Prime creators panel that was held virtually for TF Nation 2021's livestream, Jeff Kline said that he and Duane Capizzi specifically wanted writers for the show who were not already familiar with Transformers lore, singling out Mairghread Scott as the sole exception, as she was the main TF lore expert on the writing team.

Reading over the profiles of the Thirteen, I can't help but notice a few things. Namely, the Thirteenth Prime's profile reads very eerily as though it's implying that Rodimus Prime would be revealed to be the reincarnation of the Thirteenth, only for the final two-sentence paragraph to just drop all pretense and just say Optimus is the Thirteenth instead. Meanwhile, Prima's profile reads as if Optimus is meant to be the metaphorical reincarnation of Prima, which would have fit better if the writer had had Rodimus in mind for the Thirteenth instead of Optimus.

Throughout the document, what we now call the "Aligned continuity" is instead called the "Modern continuity". This was another term used by Hasbro at the time, and was applied to such things as Power Core Combiners and the 2010 toyline.

An early name for Solus Prime was "Pandora Prime". Originally, I thought this was an early name for Alchemist Prime because of some confusing text on Ratchet's profile that treated Solus and Pandora as separate Primes, but every other instance of Pandora's name is in regard to compassion, which is what other instances of Solean polarities are all about, so the confusion in Ratchet's profile was likely an error.

The whole "Bruticus Maximus" thing was likely because that was the main trademark Hasbro had for the character at the time. The Universe/ROTF toy also used that name. And the Energon cartoon was at the time the most recent mainstream use of the character, so it likely made sense to the writers of this document back then to pull from that series for Bruticus's depiction in here. Aaron Archer was also one of the people responsible for this document, and the Energon character would have been the version of Bruticus that he would have been most familiar with back then.

I was really disappointed that Sunstreaker wasn't included in this, as his inclusion could have potentially revealed if the Sunstreaker seen in Transformers: The Ultimate Pop-Up Universe really is Aligned Sunstreaker or not. But since not every character was given new Aligned artwork (something else I was disappointed by), I guess we'll never know at this point.

The "Ultimate Transformers" idea read to me as if it was meant to be an analogue of the technorganic Transformers from Beast Machines, but without the whole technorganic aspect itself. A prophesized evolution revolution minus the furry-ness.

So many places and things were said to have originated from continuities that they totally did not. Namely, a lot of places from the comics were said to have been from the G1 cartoon, the AllSpark Cube is said to have been in the G1 cartoon/G1 comics/Beast Wars, Protoforms are said to have been in the G1 cartoon and G2 comics, and so on.

Several misspellings from Transformers: The Ultimate Guide are featured prominently, such as "Carlee" and "Sean Burger" (for the latter, they even included the correct spelling of "Shawn Berger" but as an alternate spelling, with "Sean Burger" treated as the proper spelling).

And what is the key art on Page 231 supposed to even be? It's seen behind Liege Maximo on his profile art, but it looks like some kind of space probe or satellite. If it's supposed to be the Hub it looks awfully small compared to how sprawling that structure looked in the original G2 comics, Alignment, and even Regeneration One. Or if it's meant to be his Liegian Darts, then... that thing sure doesn't look dart-like.

It's finally made clear what Vector Prime's Blades of Time are supposed to be. They're not some hourglass-shaped object as IDW2 would later lead us to believe, they're his swords, based on the two hands of a clock.

It seems the whole messed-up idea of Solus Prime's corpse melting into Cybertron's surface and becoming the planet's baby-making Well of All Sparks really did originate from The Covenant of Primus book independently of the Binder of Revelation, as the Binder instead describes some of Solus's blood bleeding out from her corpse onto her forge, spurring its creative energies to create the first of the Transformers to come after the Thirteen (though the Well is also credited with creating the first post-13 Transformers, so either it's an oversight from a lack of proofreading, or Solus's forge created the first post-13 TFs and the Well created the rest afterward). The Well is also described as the chamber from which the 13 first emerge when Primus created them, so it already existed beforehand in this version. It is also inconsistently called the "Well of AllSparks", the "Well of Sparks" and at one point the "Well of Souls".

Liege Maximo manipulating Megatronus into killing Solus is still here, but it's heavily implied that Maximo did it because he was jealous of Megatronus and Solus's relationship, as though Maximo was also interested in Solus but she rejected him. Meanwhile, the Exiles novel said that Solus and *Nexus* were in a relationship and it was Megatronus who was the jealous one, yet both here and in the Covenant book Nexus has nothing to do with this messy love triangle.

We get different art for Megatronus in contrast to the art featured in the Covenant book, but I think this art may have been what was shown back at BotCon 2010 and 2011. Specifically, at both events, there were two pieces of art shown, one representing Megatronus before he fell and one representing him as The Fallen. IIRC, the art for The Fallen wasn't colored in, a sketch of him in black surrounded by white flames. It very well might be that the art seen here was the "Megatronus" art while the art from the Covenant book was "The Fallen" (albeit, uncolored).

I get Hasbro really wanted to push the live-action movies as the main Transformers fiction, but the integration of the movies' present-day events with the new history lore described in this is really slipshod and forced. There is zero compatibility between the backstories of DOTM and AOE with any of the Binder's lore. They clearly wanted to have their cake and eat it too without ever taking into consideration how nothing lines up at all. Someone mentioned above the idea of Rise of the Dark Spark covering two time periods instead of two universes. Yeah, no. No matter how much the 2015 updates to the Binder want to think so, it doesn't work.

For how much fuss the Aligned novels made about the launch and later search for the AllSpark, it's barely a priority in this document's lore. Its launch is barely even touched upon, and when it is it's Alpha Trion who's said to have launched it, and seemingly long before the Autobot/Decepticon war began? Huh? Then how were new Transformers coming online after its departure if it's still the main source of TF life creation?

It's revealed here that Sentinel Prime and Zeta Prime were originally supposed to be two separate individuals, with Sentinel preceding Zeta. Sentinel is described as a pretty decent guy who ushered in the Golden Age and perished under mysterious circumstances, while Zeta was a corrupt individual who seized power for himself and was considered a false Prime. It appears the conflation of the two happened as a result of the video games and the novels not only using two different names for the prime who immediately preceded Optimus, but also because both of them treated the prime who preceded Optimus with certain qualities of both individuals (e.g. - The Sentinel Prime of the novels was a flawed leader who tried to do his best for the good of the people, but still enforced the oppressive caste system, while the Zeta Prime of the video games was characterized as a pretty decent guy). Both of them also sort of had the "false Prime" vibe in how neither of them held the Matrix of Leadership.

It's strange what additions were made to this 2015-era updated Binder. Some characters from AOE and RID 2015, but to all the timeline and chronology sections the events of DOTM and AOE were added in while not a thing from either Prime or RID 2015. The Sentinel Prime from the Golden Age and the Sentinel Prime from DOTM have nothing in common, yet the document makes no attempt to reconcile the two. Nor does it attempt to reconcile the DOTM Ark with the "Project Generation One" Ark, with the DOTM Ark's crash on Earth's moon never mentioned at all in the chronologies until the present-day events of that movie.

Heatwave's profile is also nothing like the character we know from Rescue Bots. It describes him as being very compassionate, playful, cracking jokes with his friends, and having a deep love for the Earth. That is a far cry from the ill-tempered, impatient, Grumpy Gus that Heatwave really is, and sounds more like Boulder than anything. His profile page was one of the 2015 additions, lacking the white border that all the original pages have. The cartoon started years before then, giving ample time for the writers of the updated pages to better understand his cartoon personality, especially since the cartoon had by then superseded the original toyline designs and characterizations.

And now, some additional Binder info I obtained from Aaron Archer back at BotCon 2025 earlier this year:

I had a very big conversation with Aaron Archer. We mostly talked about the Thirteen and the Binder of Revelation. He revealed that the one who actually wrote the Binder's lore was not the often-speculated Rik Alvarez, but actually Fabian Nicieza. He did the actual writing of the text. And the act of bringing together all the past TF lore to create a singular, more concise and streamlined master lore was done by a company called Starlight Runner, who specialize in that kind of thing for media that have expanded-universe material (Aaron cited Pirates of the Caribbean as a notable example, as the first movie was supposed to just be a one-and-done before it got four sequels and a host of other non-movie fiction).

Regarding what he said about Micronus Prime at his panel the other day, Aaron actually regretted saying Micronus's face was meant to resemble that of Hideaki Yoke, as he used the wrong words when he said that. He actually meant that Micronus's face was meant to evoke a sense of Zen-like calmness, as if Micronus was always in a state of meditation. Micronus's face didn't physically resemble Yoke-san's facial feature, it instead was merely inspired by the kind of vibes one familiar with Yoke-san gets from his easygoing, Zen-like personality.

Aaron also clarified that he was not referring to the Covenant of Primus art of Micronus by Ken Christiansen, but rather to conceptual sketch art that was made much earlier than than the Christiansen art. Aaron found this early concept art on his phone and showed it to me, which did have a face that had more Zen-like spiritual vibes to its appearance. The RID2015 cartoon's design for Micronus that the Age of the Primes toy used as a base had no resemblance to this concept art design. I asked Aaron if he might put this sketch art online at some point like in one of his YouTube videos. He said he might but would actually really want to publish an art book of some kind that could compile a lot of this early concept art in it instead. Wishful thinking on his part, though, rather than anything definite.

I also asked him about back when these new designs for the Thirteen were first shown off in a panel back at BotCon 2010 and told him about The Fallen's artwork that was shown at that panel currently being lost media, since The Fallen had had two art pieces: A pre-Fallen piece of him as Megatronus, and a post-Fallen piece of him on fire. The former was featured in the Binder, while the latter hasn't been seen since a similar panel at BotCon 2011. Aaron suspects Ken Christiansen might have it, as he's sure Christiansen worked on all of those then-new designs for the Thirteen, even though the one published in the Covenant book wasn't the same piece as either of the ones shown back then.

However, a few days after the convention, I found out the Binder's art of Megatronus had actually been made by Don Figueroa, so it's possible he might have the missing Fallen art.

I did also talk to Aaron about the idea of making the 13th Prime be Optimus and how unpopular that decision ultimately was. He said that that actually wasn't supposed to be the case. The original plan was to deliberately lean into the mystery and ambiguity of the 13th's identity and make him just some vague, legendary figure destined to appear when the time is right according to an ancient prophecy that may or may never come true. He also emphasized that the art they produced for the 13th was deliberately faceless and vague in shape. The decision to make Optimus Prime the reincarnation of this nameless, faceless figure came much later, and it was one of those things that just happened to come about when there's a bunch of cooks all working in the same kitchen.

I even brought up to him the idea of how the Last Autobot from Marvel G1 would have been a perfect fit for the 13th since the Last Autobot's whole thing was being the final original creation of Primus before the rest of the Cybertronian race came about, and Aaron said that he simply didn't think of the Last Autobot at the time when he was working on the definitive roster of the Thirteen. His research at the time simply hadn't been thorough enough.

I did actually ask him about the possibility of whether it was ever considered to make Rodimus Prime be the 13th reincarnated, since the Binder described the 13th in a very similar way to the Matrix's Chosen One prophecy from TFTM. Aaron said that he's not certain but did say that it might have been something that they may have possibly considered at one point. But I do recognize that that's a vague enough answer to not have any real weight to say either way.

We also talked about how the Thirteen originally weren't Primes and how Alpha Trion being made one came as a surprise to many (I avoided mentioning anything from Fun Pub like SG Alpha Trion in this case). As originally described in Transformers: The Ultimate Guide from 2004, the Primes were said to be specifically the Autobot leaders chosen to bear the Matrix, with the "Prime" title derived from the first Matrix-bearer, Prima. Aaron explained the decision to make all of the Thirteen be Primes was simply to make them seem extra special, but agreed that by making them all Primes without all of them being Matrix-bearers did thus beg the question of what it now meant to be a Prime if not being a Matrix-bearing Autobot leader (but he also chuckled at the fact that that's no longer a concern of his).

As for Alpha Trion, the idea behind making him one of the Thirteen was simply because the dude was just so old. He figured that it made since for Alpha Trion to have been one of the Thirteen if he was the oldest living Autobot. This is when I brought up how Simon Furman originally established in The Ultimate Guide that the Thirteen Original Transformers all died in the ancient battle with Unicron (minus The Fallen) while Alpha Trion was alive and well in the present day. Said book and Dreamwave's profile for Alpha Trion both strongly implied that he was among the first generation of normal Cybertronians born after the Thirteen, which Aaron honestly didn't know about. So it was all simply a result of Alpha Trion being known for being old as dirt that promoted him to Thirteen status.

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Huh...


Timely.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at that panel.

In my own head canon reading this is what caused my version of Kup to start chugging unfiltered tap water.