Nebulos

Nebulos (sometimes called Nebulon) is a planet inhabited by organic lifeforms, most notably a race of humanoids called Nebulans or Nebulons. These beings have found themselves involved with the Transformers in several different dimensions within the multiverse and are usually responsible for or deeply involved in the Headmaster, Targetmaster, and Powermaster technologies.

The physical appearance of Nebulans varies greatly by continuity, as they originated in the toyline wearing robotic armor. As such, each continuity to feature the planet has had free rein to imagine what the inhabitants looked like underneath.

Marvel Comics continuity
Nebulans appear to be essentially identical to humans from Earth.

A planet of humanoids that had lived without war for thousands of years. A group of Autobots led by Fortress Maximus sought to relocate to Nebulos in order to escape their own millennia-old conflict on Cybertron, but their arrival created dissension and mistrust within the Nebulan community. The arrival of a group of Decepticons led by Scorponok soon afterward only escalated these tensions, and Nebulos' age of peace was lost as citizens binary-bonded to Transformers on both sides of the conflict to become Headmasters and Targetmasters.

Realizing the damage that was being done to Nebulos' once-peaceful culture, the Autobots abandoned the planet to join Transformers already on the planet Earth, believing (correctly) that the Decepticons would pursue them off-Nebulos.

After this the citizens of Nebulos tainted their own energy sources so as to be poisonous to any Transformers that might seek to return to their world. When Decepticons Darkwing and Dreadwindarrived soon after the departure of the other Transformers, they soon found themselves victim of this poisoning, and lay dormant for a time. They were later revived by Nebulan traitors Hi-Testand Throttle, who had stolen power-conversion plans that eventually created the Powermasters. Hi-Q, the creator of this process, eventually binary-bonded with a reborn Optimus Prime, and several of his staff joined with other Autobots, in order to combat the threat posed by Darkwing and Dreadwind. They, too, eventually left Nebulos to join the other Transformers on Earth.

Known locations on Nebulos included: News on the planet was reported by the Nebulan News Network.
 * Koraja, the capital city and home of the Council of Peers and the World Watchers.
 * Splendora, a popular resort city.
 * The Mercury Gardens of Melanossus, the planet's greatest natural wonder.
 * The Nursery, Nebulos's most advanced botanical gardens and agricultural research center.
 * The Gardens of Eternal Peace and Harmony Macrobiotic Restaurant, a multi-level, high-class eating establishment
 * The Arvassian Range, a mountainous region where the Nebulans long ago locked away the implements of war.
 * The Folassian Forest, where Highbrow first encountered Gort and his consort Marita.
 * The Plains of Thok, home of the Grax Communications Facility.
 * An unnamed swamp where the Autobots retreated as the Decepticons gained the upper hand.

American cartoon continuity
Nebulons are extremely human-like aliens who possess green skin and dark green or white hair. Their facial features seem to tend towards a rather Native American cast. Some of the oldest of their ruling class, the Hive, appear to have had cyborg alterations or even taken on fully robotic bodies. (The robotic Hive members look identical to Lithonians.)

Nebulos was a world whose inhabitants were enslaved by the Hive, a group of eleven Nebulon telekinetics whose focus on development of their mental powers had caused their bodies to wither, led by Lord Zarak. The populace was mainly forced to do routine farm work, watched over by the machines which the Hive controlled telepathically.

Several Transformers crashed on Nebulos. A small band of Nebulon rebels, led by Gort, captured the Autobots, believing them to be Hive machines. The Decepticons were captured by the Hive. Convincing the rebels that they were not Hive machines, the Autobots volunteered to help, offering up four of their own to serve as Headmasters, with Nebulon partners inside their heads to serve as secondary operators.

Zarak demanded his own Headmasters, but Cyclonus only wished to offer up the Decepticon animals for this. The rest offered their weapons, which Zarak willingly accepted. The Autobots learned of this and adapted the new Targetmaster designs.

Zarak rebuilt a Hive facility into Scorponok, only to be countered by Fortress Maximus, an old Hive city converted into a Headmaster body by Spike Witwicky and Cerebros. Defeated, the Hive and the Decepticons fled in Scorponok.

Dreamwave comics continuity
No native Nebulan, sans *-master armor, is ever seen in the DW books, and the world itself only appears in the More Than Meets The Eye guidebook and one panel of the War Within comic. Dreamwave's Nebulon, like much of its continuity, is built from a fusion of previous iterations.

Some basics from the More Than Meets The Eye guide: Nebulon is the fourth world of its system. It has a dual set of rings circling it and multiple moons. It is inhabited by many wild organic lifeforms and the humanoid Nebulan species. The moons circling Nebulon contain their own civilizations. One of these is the Hive Moon, which is home to a green-skinned, somewhat insectoid off-shoot of the Nebulan race.

IDW comics continuity
Here Nebulans are a hairless, green OR reddish-pink skinned humanoid race with pointy ears. Their eyes are black where a human's are white and feature large, perhaps light-reflective, yellow pupils. They have a bit of a vampiric look to human eyes.

The architecture of Nebulos strongly favors domes, rounded bulbous towers, and organic curves. Many of the buildings have a "cracked" ancient look to the outside and green moss-like growth can be seen in patches on their exteriors. The technology level appears significantly in advance of Earth, but not yet at interstellar travel.

Scorponok has had ties to Nebulos, having used businessman Mo Zarak's corporation as a front for his own operations: creating a fusion of Nebulan and Cybertronian technology that seems to be a precursor to the various *-master technologies. These operations were apparently foiled by the timely intervention of Ultra Magnus. Scorponok, however, escaped. Spotlight: Ultra Magnus

Nebulos is also the site of operations for a Decepticon infiltration team including Ruckus, Darkwing, Dreadwind, Skullcruncher, and others. It became the first target of the resurrected Thunderwing and was partially, if not totally devastated by his attack. The status of the planet and its inhabitants following Thunderwing's attack remains unrevealed. Stormbringer

Ladybird books continuity
In the series of Ladybird Books published in the UK the Nebulans are portrayed as small robots, similar to the concept used in the Japanese Headmasters series. They live in large transformer scaled, glass and metal cities.

The planet Nebulos derives most of its power from a pulsar at the edge of its galaxy. A fluke of gravity leads most of the pulsar’s radiation to be directed at Nebulos where it is focused on the northern pole. Nebulos’ magnetic field is then used by the Nebulans to guide the energy to the areas of the planet it is needed.

The planet contains a mysterious area known as the Nebulos Triangle, where technology ceases to work. The area is made up of a large metal surface and a huge lake of mercury. It is the metal surface that causes the failure of technology although its origin is unknown.

The planet lacks adequate resources to synthesise the lubricants used by Transformers in sufficient quantities. A vast underground lake of oil does however exist beneath a desert plain between mountain ranges.

The Autobots and Decepticons remained on Nebulos for a lengthy period of time. Hot Rod and Cyclonus were the local commanders at first; Optimus Prime and Scorponok later took direct control. It was on Nebulos where the war ended, when the Decepticons were all sealed underground by Quickswitch and Scoop. Decepticons Underground

Unicron Trilogy
Following the conclusion of the Energon War, the Autobot Jetfire spent some time on the planet Nebulon. There he picked up a new accent from the locals, which to some human ears resembles that of Australians. Sort of.

Little else is known of this version of Nebulon, other than that its pea soup is notably thick. Challenge