Excerpts from Transformers Exodus, by Alex Irvine

A rumble of approval and discontent swept through the Council hearing chamber.  Halogen gaveled the audience back to silence and pointed the gavel at Orion Pax.  "Here is another come to testify," he rumbled.  "What say you, Orion Pax, clerk at the Hall of Records in Iacon?"

...

Moving from his spot next to the wall, Orion Pax worked his way through the crowd and down the center asile, speaking as he walked and as other members of the audience made way for him.  He thought he could see subtle signs of encouragement from many of them, and he knew he could see simple hate on the faces of others.

"You claim for the Guilds the power to determine the lives of every Cybertronian,"  Orion Pax said.  "Is this what The Thirteen would have wanted?  Is it any conincidence that as the Guilds rose in power and the castes became entrenched, Cybertron lost contact with the rest of the Transformers worlds?  As you confine each Cybertronian into a smaller and smaller space, with less and less room to go and see and do what he might want, you create a world in which no one knows how to look beyond anymore.  No one knows how to imagine."  

"I can imagine an end to this session."  Senator Ratbat called out.  Laughter boomed through the chamber.  Orion Pax looked around, fearing that he had lost the goodwill of the audience... and that was when he saw Jazz, squarely in the middle of the lowest balcony, his bright colors standing out.  Jazz put one hand out and made a fist.
Be Strong.

... He began simply.  "Fellow Cybertronians, members of the Council, hear me..  Megatron speaks harshly but true.  He has seen the truth of the life for many Cybertronians whose lives are all too often invisible, and if he is angry, it is anger born of love for an ideal and Spark-deep pain at our failure of that ideal.

The recent attacks were savage and inexcusable -yet they were only symptoms.  The unrest spreading across Cybertron will not stop with these attacks because it is the natural expression of a people who for too long have been held in check, their potential forever unrealized because of the false constraints of the caste and Guild. 

It is natural for a being born with Spark to know that it should be free.  And it is natural that Cybertronians, who are born to change from one form to another, should want to be able to change their roles within Cybertronian society as a whole. If castes and Guilds fight change, they fight their own nature -and the nature of Cybertron itself.

...Have we driven the Quintessons off only to enslave ourselves by caste and Guild?  And will we crush this new movement toward freedom, sacrificing freedom for order?  I say no.  Order achieved through force can never be a true peace.  There can be no peace through tyranny.

The time has come for all Cybertronians to be united again, and I say we need a new Prime to unite us.  We do not need a Prime who moves us as if we were parts of a great machine, who demands that we be drones and slaves as the price of a peace that is only stasis.  The Guildmasters and Keepers of the Castes do that more than adequately, and look where they have gotten us.  Cybertron needs a leader of the free, a Prime who recognizes that all Cybertronians are autonomous robots owned by no one but themselves, masters of their own fates.

I will say it again.  Autonomous robots!  

We will remember this moment, in the council Chamber as the moment where free robots broke the welds of oppression that has taken the beauty of the Spark away from us.  We are all autonomous robots today -Autobots, if we need a name to rally around and we Autobots declare that a Spark once freed will never again stand to be oppressed.  

...He knew he has spoken well because when he finished the Council Chamber was silent.  Even those bots Orion Pax knew to be his enemies were forced to consider what he had said.  The knowledge of this overcame him in the nanokliks immediately following that last sentence; Orion Pax raised both arms, fists clenched, and thundered, For Cybertron! Autobots!"

Over the ponding of Halogen's gavel, the crowd erupted. AUTOBOTS!

"For freedom!  Autobots!"  AUTOBOTS!

It started high up in the gallery, beyond where Megatron's oldest and most loyal followers were clustered.  AUTOBOTS!  And from there it spread.  AUTOBOTS!  AUTOBOTS!  AUTOBOTS!

This time it took nearly a full cycle before Halogen and the other Councilors could gavel the gallery back to silence.  And Orion Pax noticed something odd.  When he cauught Megatron's eye, he was expecting approbation.  Instead he saw anger on his friend's face, and did not know why.  Surely, brother, he thought, it is more important to accomplish our goal than it is for us to agree on every mote of our method?

He did not know if that was what had angered Megatron, but Orion pax knew his friend, and he knew that they would have words.  If not during the course of the high Council hearing, then after.  Megatron clearly had something on his mind and he was not a Cybertronian who kept his emotions to himself.  

At least not for long.

...

...

"The Matrix of Leadership is yours to seek, because from this moment forward," said Halogen in a voice that filled the chamber even over the astonished outbursts of the gallery, "you are Optimus Prime.  Unite Cybertron and all of the Cybertronians.  Usher in this new era you have spoken of so eloquently."

...

READ MORE in Transformers Exodus by Alex Irvine.  On sale now!

>>character profile from packaging:

When he first became Leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime was not certain he wanted the responsibility.  The war with the Decepticons was going badly, and it looked like there was no end in sight.  He vowed to himself and to the warriors under his command that he would never surrender, never retreat and never stop fighting until the Decepticons were defeated.