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This is pretty self explanatory... But none the less, there are certain rules that are only necessary to know during certain things, so I will split these rules into three categories in the following posts. Universal Rules, Character Creation Rules, and How to Use the Subforums. After that, I will give a basic run down on what everybody needs to know about Beast Wars.

Character Creation Rules

1) In the beginning each character may only have up to three special abilities/weapons, but progressively throughout the RP upgrades can be performed as certain storyline events take place.
2) In the beginning, all Maximals must have a beast mode of either a warm blooded creature of a sea animal that lacks an exoskeleton. All Predacons must be a reptile, amphibian, dinosaur, insect, arachnids, or crustacean. Characters are allowed to switch teams, but not without actual reason... And keep in mind that the more you switch around, the less trusted you will become. This definitive line seperating the beast modes of Maximals and Predacons may be blurred later on as the RP progresses, seeing as protoforms that fall will scan whatever they can find locally.
3) Although it is preferred that you use real animals that have existed in Earth's history, I MAY make exceptions if you pull off your fictional beast mode well enough. I say this now only beause I have seen some pretty to damn good Beast Wars original characters in the past who's beast modes were based on mythical creatures, Valefor from Final Fantasy 10, and even a few Pokemon. If you have an OC who you think is well done with one of these fictional animals, PM me the details and your explanation of how they got such a beast mode, and I will PM you back saying whether or not this character is acceptable.
4) Don't have an original Beast Wars character of your own? No problem! You can use any design that has appeared in any Beast Wars series, and then you can even either stick to their personality and name that were officially given, or you can make up your own name and personality for them.
5) Follow the supplied profile sheets carefully. DO NOT CHANGE THE LAYOUT ANY.
6) Early on I was rather loose with what I would allow for robot modes... But the looseness ends now. The robot mode HAS to look like it can possibly morph from the beast mode, and it HAS to have Cybertronian features. The two that don't meet one or the other criterea right now are alright, but from here on I will be enforcing this.
7) If you want to make room for a new character but can't bring yourself to kill off any you already have, you can make the ones you want to give up become NPCs instead. As NPCs you will no longer have full control over them however, they will become background characters who appear as random enemy encounters and they will be much easier to truely kill than a player's characters.

Beast Wars Basics

Energon: Energon is what the Autobots and Deceptacons used to refer to any energy source, putting said sources inside of "energon cubes" which would convert the source inside to its potential energy. In modern times however, it seems to be used to refer to a crystaline energy source that is highly mysterious and still needs to be tested before working with it can be perfected, though it is still very useful with the limited understanding of it. This energon is often unstable, but can be refined. The refining processes currently in use however are rather ineffective. In the days of Autobots and Deceptacons, it was referred to as ultra energon.

Cybertron: Cybertron is a strange planet of machinery, and is the home world of the transformers.

The Great War: The war between the Autobots and Deceptacons, this had many important events and spanned over billions of years... Though the actual amount of time is debatable as most of Cybertron spent much of this time in emergency stasis lock over the energon crisis. The war was a great help to the forming energy crisis, and in search of new sources of energon the Autobots started a mission to another world, this world was prehistoric Earth. The went on the Ark but were chased down by the Deceptacon flagship, the Nemesis. Megatron and his crew boarded the Ark and a firefight ensued, both ships crashed and those aboard the ark were put into stasis lock to be awakened billions of years later after humans had come to build great technological civilizations.

The war went on for many years, and had a brief intermission which was a false end when the tragedy of Optimus Prime's death occurred, and the Chaos God, Unicron came to be known then defeated by the Autobot Matrix. However, soon his progeny made from the wreckage of Megatron, Galvatron, returned and took lead of the Deceptacons once again. He was insane, and thus a great threat. But in the end lost to the Autobots.

Pax Cybertronia: The Pax Cybertronia is the peace treaty that was signed at the true end of the great war. Some of the Deceptacons were given amnesty, but the Deceptacons as a whole actually came to be of a lesser caste. To the average person, it wouldn't seem so bad... They were free, but were kept on a short leash. It seems as though the Predacons were not supposed to have access to weaponry, and had a harder time getting into any sort of seats of power outside of exclusively predacon groups such as the Predacon Alliance. And have no seats in the Maximal Council of Elders.

One could take note that, in the show... Megatron stole the Golden Disk from the Maximal archieves, and stole the Maximal experimental ship, then the Axalon was a Maximal ship of exploration, and even Rampage was a Maximal experiment. Many Predacons see this as an injustice, some probably because of their lesser treatments... Others just because their kind are not in control. Megatron seemed to be a combination of both in the show, going as far as saying the Autobots turned them into slaves. Though such a statement is an obvious exaggeration.

Maximal Council of Elders: Composed entirely of Maximals, they make all the final decisions on political and militaristic matters. Legally, even all Predacons must answer to them. They seem to hold information control very high, and have not only greatly restricted knowledge regarding the Great War and Earth, but have made the general region of space Earth is in forbidden. Not much else is known.

Predacon Alliance: This is the collective of the Predacons as a whole, (Though surely some disalligned themselves with the group.) and is split into a multitude of sub-groups. The general consensus seems to be that they must bide their time to overthrow the Maximals, but there is bickering among them over how long they must wait and what actions they must take. One of the most important sub-groups of the Predacon Alliance seems to be the Tripredacus Council, who have been accused of sucking up to the Maximal Elders. And yet, the Tripredacus Council seems to hold more power than any other sub-group, and is most definitely the most active. They're even known to have secret experiments and technological developements going on that replicate those of the Maximal Council of Elders, and some Deceptacons who were given amnesty among their ranks.

Transwarp Drive: This is an experimental type of engine enhancer that has been shown to be rather flexable in use. It uses wormholes for travel, and in theory could even cause travel through time itself rather than merely space. But they're useless without suitable ships with a suitable power supply and flight capabilities.

Stasis Pod: These are pods used to put transformers into stasis, pretty simple concept yes? Under normal circumstances they put a Cybertronian into a protoform state and shield it from most reasonable threats. They contain a scanner which seeks out compatable life forms or technology for a protoform's body to be based on, life forms in the case of this planet due to its high levels of energon. When activated, the stasis pod goes through four major processes.
~Scan for a compatible life form template.
~Protomatter Coalescence. (The merging of particles, in other words the protoform taking its new solid form.)
~Reanimation. (Notable when "the reanimator plugs fire.")
~Release.

Protoform: Essentially, a blank slate. A protoform is a state transformers can be put into that whipes their physical forms clean, though usually they will take ona form with at least some resemblance to their older selves and their personalities remain intact. As do their memories under normal circumstances. Turning most of a ship's crew into protoforms allows for easy transport of them, and allows a transformer to more easily take on their new alternate modes for new worlds. The ability to become a protoform seems to be quite new.

Spark: The spark is a transformer's soul basically, there isn't much else that can be said about it.

The Allspark: Despite what the new Transformers movie said, the Allspark is basically Transformer Heaven. It is where all sparks originate from, and where all sparks eventually go. In essence, it is the spark of Primus, who is essentially the god of the Cybertronians.