Artifacts of the Primes

Created at the dawn of time by Primus to battle his ancient foe Unicron, the Thirteen original Transformers employed many powerful weapons and icons in their battles. Many of these were crafted by Solus Prime, the smith of the Thirteen, while others were made by Primus himself. Nearly all of them are now considered the stuff of legends, but sometimes legends have a way of turning up again...

The artifacts with known users include:


 * Alchemist Prime
 * The Lenses
 * Alpha Trion
 * The Covenant of Primus
 * The Quill
 * Amalgamous Prime
 * The Scythe
 * The Transformation cog
 * Liege Maximo
 * The Liegian Darts
 * Megatronus
 * The Requiem Blaster
 * Micronus Prime
 * The Chimera Stone
 * Nexus Prime
 * The Chaos Edge
 * The Cyber Caliber
 * The Enigma of Combination/Infinite Combinatoric
 * The Omni Saber
 * Onyx Prime
 * The Triptych Mask
 * Prima
 * The Matrix of Leadership/Origin Matrix
 * The Star Saber
 * Quintus Prime
 * The Emberstone
 * Solus Prime
 * The Forge of Solus Prime
 * The Creation Lathe
 * Vector Prime
 * The Blades of Time


 * Other artifacts with no one user include:
 * The Apex Armor
 * The Terminus Blade

Aligned continuity family
The Artifacts of the Primes were forged by Solus Prime for usage in the upcoming battle against Unicron. They did little to deter to the Chaos Bringer before Optimus Prime exposed his own spark to Unicron's anti-spark, knocking both beings into stasis lock. In the aftermath, Quintus Prime used the Emberstone to revive Optimus while Vector Prime used the Blades of Time to form a time-loop around Unicron so as to lock him in stasis forevermore. The more potent of these artifacts would only activate in the hands of Primes.

When war broke out on Cybertron, Alpha Trion launched several Artifacts of the Primes into space and onto the planet Earth for Optimus Prime to eventually make usage of them. The database containing the coordinates of these relics was raided from the Hall of Records by the Decepticons in the final days of the Great War but they were unable to break the encryption.

When the Ark launched, Alpha Trion indulged in fantasies of Optimus returning to Cybertron with the AllSpark and lost artifacts of his brothers. During their voyage, the Ark crew came across several of Cybertron's long lost colony worlds and found the fragments of the Cyber Caliber which eventually led to Nexus Prime reforming on Junkion. Simultaneously, Junkion itself was discovered to formed around the gravitational pull of the Requiem Blaster which was stolen by the Star Seekers and affixed to the Tidal Wave. In a later space battle against the more agile Nemesis, the pirates were forced to detach the Requiem Blaster after it threatened to overheat and destroy their vessel.

Unknown years later, Optimus Prime and Megatron discovered Alpha Trion's work with Megatron managing to claim the Forge of Solus Prime only to discover he could not access its power. After Optimus Prime acquired the Star Saber, Megatron took drastic action and stole the arm of the deceased Liege Maximo to access the Forge. Via the Star Saber, Optimus learned of the Omega Keys and their potential to revive Cybertron via the Omega Lock. Upon Starscream rejoining the Decepticons, Dreadwing gifted the Forge of Solus Prime to the Autobots who used it to upgrade their GroundBridge into a Space Bridge. When Megatron threatened to use the Omega Lock to cyberform Earth however, Optimus destroyed it with the Star Saber. In retaliation, Megatron destroyed Autobot Outpost Omega One, wounding Optimus Prime to the point of death before Smokescreen used what little power remained in the Forge of Solus Prime to revive him. In the aftermath, Ultra Magnus claimed the Forge as a standard war hammer, before it was shattered by Predaking.

Discovering an alternate method to synthesizing cyber-matter, the Decepticons began rebuilding the Omega Lock. Once completed, they attempted to use it to cyberform Earth once again only for the Autobots to claim the device and instead use it to revive Cybertron.

Shattered Glass
As Ultra Mammoth and Ultra Magnus dueled on the dimensionally-displaced "Classicsverse" Earth, each boasted of possessing an Artifact of the Primes, evil Magnus with the Terminus Blade and good Mammoth with the Origin Matrix. When Magnus tried to stab his heroic counterpart in the spark, the Blade suddenly reacted with the Matrix, recharging the Blade. Soon afterwards, Nexus Prime arrived to take custody of the Star Saber and the Terminus Blade.

IDW Generation 1 continuity
Some of these legendary artifacts, such as the Matrix of Leadership and the Enigma of Combination, predated the rise of the Thirteen. Following the unification of the Thirteen, Solus Prime forged the Star Saber. Some believed these artifacts to be magical in nature while others thought them merely the products of advanced science. In truth, these artifacts were, according to Alpha Trion, more akin to "metaphors made real" with their universe bending powers being beyond the comprehension of modern Cybertronian science.

Following the conclusion of the First Cybertronian Civil War, the warrior Galvatron launched the Enigma of Combination off Cybertron with it eventually crash landing on Earth. The only artifact that was known to remain on Cybertron in the era that preceded the Great War was the Matrix of Leadership.

Circa 2012, Alpha Trion deduced the location of the Enigma and set out to retrieve it. In the process, he sparked a three-way race for it with Scoop eventually bringing it to Starscream.

Though the religious symbolism regarding the Primal artifacts had lessened on Cybertron, they remained venerated on the colony worlds, Caminus in particular. Victorion eventually questioned Optimus Prime on what the Matrix of Leadership meant to him who revealed he saw it as nothing more than a piece of technology.

Prime Wars Trilogy Cartoons
In addition to the Matrix of Leadership, several artifacts were crafted by Solus Prime to help battle against Unicron, such as the Enigma of Combination and the Requiem Blaster. When Solus was accidentally killed by the Blaster, it was sealed away in Primal Swamp. Eons later, the Enigma of Combination caused the outbreak of the Combiner Wars, while the Matrix proved instrumental in stopping a rampaging Trypticon. These were ultimately revealed to be part of a grand plan by Megatronus, which ended with him obtaining the Enigma and Matrix for his own. He later regained the Requiem Blaster, intent on combining the three into a device capable of draining the life from all Transformers and resurrecting Solus. However, these artifacts were removed from the device by a team of heroes before they could complete this task.

Transformers: Universe
In addition to the Matrix of Leadership, several artifacts were crafted by Solus Prime to help battle against Unicron, such as the Star Saber, the Enigma of Combination, the Forge of Solus Prime and the Requiem Blaster.