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.

History and Symptoms

The Hate Plague is a seemingly non-sentient contagion that breeds dormant contempt, violence and hatred in any living entity it comes into 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, the 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.

Animated Series

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 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 they were introduced into the presence of a living being - an Earth rat - in an aerosol form. It is at this time that the Terrorcons 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 re-awakened and released the essence of 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. www.unicron.com

Infection List

Here is a list of those who were infected with the spores that cause the Hate Plague in alphabetical order:

The Aerialbots

Blaster

Blurr

The Combaticons

Cyclonus

Galvatron

Goldbug (previously Bumblebee)

Jessica Morgan

The Predacons

The Protectobots

Rodimus Prime

The Sharkticons

Sky Lynx (the shuttle half of him)

Soundwave

Steeljaw

The Stunticons

The Technobots

The Throttlebots

Ultra Magnus

Wheelie

Wreck-Gar

NOTE: The only characters in the episode Return of Optimus Prime who definitely never get infected by the Hate Plague are Optimus Prime himself, Metroplex (who was deactivated to prevent him from getting infected), and the Quintesson that Sky Lynx brought to Earth to help revive Optimus Prime.

Beast Machines

In the second season Beast Machines episode "Wolf in the Fold", a virus similar to the Hate Plague was used by Megatron to infect the Maximals, using the unwitting Silverbolt as a carrier. It is unclear whether this was a new variety of the Hate Plague or something designed to mimic it, although Nightscream did compare this new Hate Plague to the original. All the Maximals were infected through touch, bar Silverbolt who was immune due to his time spent as Jetstorm, causing them to violently fight one another. In the end, the Maximals realized that the only way to overcome its effects was to work together to save one another, stopping the plague's effects.

Notes

The disease Rage which was featured in the movies 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later bore similarities to the Hate Plague. The symptoms of both diseases were almost identical, though the Transformers version was far less severe; the infected were still able to speak, would cooperate with each other, even wait for the right moment to attack instead of charging in immediately.