Dread slaves


 * The Dread slaves are aliens from the cartoon portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

When the Orbs figured out that the death crystals growing on the behemoth Chaos were, like, the greatest ammo ever, they also figured out it would be both wiser and easier to get others to do the collecting for them. So they captured every defenseless robot that they came across and forced them to mine the crystals lying around the entrance to Chaos's lair. In the span of several millennia, the Orbs brought together hundreds of slaves on Dread, only one of whom ever managed to escape.

The Transformers cartoon
About 100,000 years ago, Kup ended up on Dread and was captured by the Orbs. Made to work in the mines of Queeg Mountain as one of the many slaves, his chance for escape came when he first encountered Chaos. During one of his shifts, the group of shrikebats entered the mine and attacked the workers, the sound rousing Chaos from his part of the cavern. Kup used the, uhh, chaos its arrival created to make a run for it, during which he came by the slave cells. The occupants begged him to free them, but because Chaos showed up again, Kup couldn't afford to stay long enough to do so.

MUX History
Kup's act of selfishness would haunt him until the Earth year 2012, when the Decepticons learned of the death crystals and took over the Orbs' business.