The true-life tale is set shortly after the instigation of the Clampdown, beginning with the assassination of Senator Sherma, and reveals how, thanks to one Autobot, all those present played a role in a greater story than they ever realized.Ĭhromedome begins the story by recalling how he and his partner in Mechaforensics, Prowl, were called in to investigate Sherma's murder, easily deducing the Decepticons as the culprits from the presence of their insignia, graffitied on Sherma's back. In the present day, aboard the Lost Light, Ratchet arrives late to a meeting called by Rewind in Swerve's: the archivist has called him, Drift, Chromedome, Whirl and Skids together (with Swerve and Tailgate as an audience) to help him tell a story that will aid in Rung's mental recuperation. but their argument ends when a drop of energon lands in Quark's drink, and the pair look up to discover the dead body of Senator Sherma, suspended from the Interstate Bridge! Nightbeat is sympathetic to the worker class cause, while the science-class Quark fears for the future.

On Cybertron, before the war, Nightbeat and Quark meet outside Maccadam's New Oil House to discuss the increase of violence in the face of the Clampdown and the rise of the Decepticon movement.

Shadowplay