Hate Plague

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The Hate Plague is a fictional disease within the Transformers universe, featured primarily in the third season of the animated television series The Transformers and the comic books produced by Marvel.

[edit] G1 Cartoon

The Plague occurred sometime during or after the year 2006 and resulted in such significant events as the return of Optimus Prime, a temporary truce with Galvatron and the Decepticons, and the long-standing temporary depletion of the Autobot Matrix of Leadership.

The Hate Plague is a seemingly non-sentient contagion that breeds dormant contempt, violence and hatred in any living entity it comes in contact with, including mechanical and organic life. An infected individual can be easily identified by a dark red glow emanating from their being. Although physical contact is usually required to contract it, sufficiently high atmospheric densities of the spores can also result in transmission. Apparently not fatal itself, resulting behavior increases the possibility of a violent death. Upon further study, it was found that the spores are immune to heat, radiation, and pressure. However certain composite metals (perhaps similar to Electrum) can contain the spores and shield individuals. It was known to be released at least once before in the distant (pre-Cybertronian Civil War) past, and a Transformer scientist was somehow able to contain the spores and release them onto the surface of a distant star.

The spores were accidentally discovered by Dr. Jessica Morgan and her partner, Gregory Swafford, while testing a heat and radiation-resistant alloy on their ship by taking it close to the surface of a star then going nova (interestingly enough, this is also the same expedition that recovered Optimus Prime's stasis-locked body). The spores swarmed, covering the hull, though it was observed that they could not penetrate. They then lay dormant, allowing Dr. Morgan to collect enough samples of them, until introduced to the presence of a living being - an Earth rat - in an aerosol form. It is at this time that the Decepticons attacked the laboratory to acquire the radiation-resistant alloy under development, and Dr. Morgan was injured during the attack, losing the function of her legs. The Autobots fitted her with an exoskeleton concept that allowed her to walk again, though (either through human prejudice, fatherly guilt, slight contact with the spores, or a combination of all these factors) her father was furious with them.

After attempting to revive Optimus Prime on their own for reasons--in particular, turning him against the Autobots to destroy them--and subsequently failing, Dr. Morgan (Jessica's father) and Gregory devised a devious trap for the Transformers; they placed Prime's shell in a sealed room where Autobots could easily attempt to retrieve him. Once they entered, Morgan released the spores in aerosol form. The contagion spread from there across most of the planet. Eventually, members of the Earth Defense Force (EDF) and other Transformers capable of off-world flight inadvertently spread the spores to other worlds; a galactic epidemic was in progress.

Sky Lynx, one of the very few Transformers able to escape infection (other than only Metroplex, Blurr, Kup, Wheelie, Blaster, Steeljaw and Bumblebee, albeit all of them save for Metroplex were eventually infected), was given direct orders from Rodimus Prime to find a Quintesson who may be able to truly revive Optimus Prime (as they had done before, seen in the episode Dark Awakening) again. After finding a Quintesson, Prime was successfully revived and a plan was soon devised to recover the Matrix of Leadership from the now-infected Rodimus.

In order to make contact with Rodimus, Optimus coated himself with the alloy created by Dr. Morgan that he acquired on the planet Chaar with the surprising assistance of Galvatron. Once in possession of the Matrix, Optimus Prime proceeded to commune with the Oracle to try to find out as much as he could about the Plague; after finding that a construct of the Matrix of Leadership had knowledge of it, and learning that only the raw power of wisdom could negate the spores existence, Optimus reawakened and released the essence of the The Matrix, the collected knowledge and wisdom within it proving enough to seemingly eradicate the plague and cure all those infected. However, as a result of this extensive cure-all, the Matrix of Leadership was rendered unusable until it could theoretically be refilled with the power of wisdom yet again.

[edit] Beast Wars

The infection Megatron used on the Maximals eons later (as seen in Beast Machines) could either be a different strain of the Hate Plague, or a completely new contagion designed to accurately mimic the historical accounts of the original's symptoms. As is his style, Megatron imbedded this new contagion within his Spark-harboring Vehicon Generals as not only the ultimate fail-safe against natural free will, but also as a valued counter-point to its continuous chaotic existence. The newly-resurrected Silverbolt (previously the Aero-drone General Jetstorm) realized he was a carrier soon after the entire group became infected. In the end, the Maximals' new techno-organic vessels (as well as their sharpened minds) proved too advanced for this particular strain, whatever its origins, and soon overcame its affects, wiping it out completely.

[edit] Notes

The only characters in the episode Return of Optimus Prime who definitely never get infected by the Hate Plague are Optimus Prime himself, Metroplex, and the Quintesson that Sky Lynx brought to Earth.

The disease Rage which was featured in the movie 28 Days Later bore similarities to the Hate Plague, as the symptoms of both diseases were almost the same.