Moral Event Horizon / Transformers

Moral Event Horizon in the Transformers franchise.

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Animated series

• Transformers: Super-God Masterforce:
  • Devil Z crossed the line when he ordered the Death Para Machine to destroy the Earth's stratosphere and thus destroy humanity.
  • Hydra and Buster crossed it where they kidnap Lightfoot's father and use him as a hostage, giving Lightfoot the choice of either joining the Decepticons, getting his arms cut off, or having his father murdered.
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise: Galvatron cemented himself as not just some generic evil conqueror but as one of the most heinous iterations of the character to date the moment he sent his batswarms to brainwash hundreds of human children all across the world and placing them in immense pain and while enjoying watching them suffer. Doesn't help that he intends to repeat the process on countless other planets. What a scumbag, really.
• Transformers: Animated:
  • In "Predacons Rising", Blackarachnia jumps off the slippery slope by mutating a mentally unstable Wasp and then casually admitting she doesn't care if he lives or dies so long as she could find a cure for herself. Her oft-teased redemption was pretty much dead by that point.
  • Prometheus Black decides to use the child of his "arch-nemesis" as the test subject for making an organic Transformer. This is after he already tried it on two adults and permanently left them in misshapen bestial forms.
  • In "Five Servos of Doom", Lockdown was revealed to have crossed it a long time ago when he betrayed and murdered Yoketron, his own mentor, to steal the protoforms under his guard to sell to Megatron, something he gleefully brags about to Prowl when confronted about it.
    "If my first act as a bounty hunter was betraying my sacred sensei, everything since has been easy."
• Transformers: Rescue Bots: Dr. Morocco crosses his when he basically orders the Morbot to kill Cody and Frankie.
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015):
  • Guilty As Charged: Nightra crossed it when she was about to eject Strongarm's friends out of Blastwave's ship.
  • Collateral Damage: Soundwave crossed it hard the moment he declares that he will summon Megatron, even if it means obliterating all life on Earth. This strongly angers Steeljaw (who wants to rule Earth, not destroy it), as well as the Autobots.
• Transformers: Cyberverse:
  • Even though he's already a Decepticon, Starscream shows how much of a piece of slag he is when he murders his Seekers (the same Seekers who willingly betray Megatron following his presumed death and demotion) in cold blood after merging with the Allspark. It gets even worse when he's rebuilt as a Quintesson Judge, and personally tries to destroy not just Cybertron and all who live on it, but the entire universe, simply out of spite for his well-deserved mistreatment.
  • The Scientist crosses it when he kidnaps hundreds of Soundwaves from the universes that were destroyed thanks to him, immobilizing them and forcing them to be nothing more than souvenirs. All while continuing to assist the Quintessons' omnicidal goals even when it no longer brings sadistic pleasure to him. It's no wonder just the sight of this was what led to Soundwave's Character Development and Heel–Face Turn.
  • Megatron X crosses it either when he kills Optimus Prime for refusing to join him then proceeding to wipe out all the Autobots and Decepticons, or when he brutally kills his other counterpart out of sheer contempt.
• Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy: Galvatron crossed it when it's revealed he's willing to let Cybertron die by using the Allspark to kill Unicron rather than restore the planet.

Films

• The Transformers: The Movie: Megatron famously crossed it when he killed Optimus, though one could he say he crossed it far earlier with the Robo-Smasher (aka. the device he used to horrifically brainwash the peaceful Constructicons into Decepticons and destroy Crystal City). For Blitzwing at least, the deal with the Quintessons was the point of no return for Galvatron.
• Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen: The Fallen choosing to wipe out a populated star system because he wanted to probably lands him pretty far on the other side of this.
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon:
  • Sentinel Prime brutally killing Ironhide. Also, the Decepticons' genocidal attack on Chicago in the same movie might have finally driven home the point that yes, the Decepticons really ARE evil.
    • In the novel at least , Megatron redeems himself in the end when he helps Optimus do Sentinel in and then announces his intention to sue for peace. Unlike in the film, he actually lives to see the end of the novel as a direct result.
  • Laserbeak: "Is your daddy home?", said right before killing the poor girl's parents right in front of her.
  • When Soundwave brutally executed Wheeljack after the Autobot had surrendered and was begging for mercy, you knew he deserved everything that happened next.
  • Any sympathy for Dylan leaves when one sees the lengths he's willing to go to ensure that he isn't harmed by the coming Alien Invasion. Like when he reassures himself that he's safe... while watching hundreds of innocent civilians be slaughtered by the Decepticons.
  • Towards the end, Gould, after repeatedly claiming his position as The Quisling is just "business" ^note He inherited the 'Cons as "clients" from his dad, doesn't want to die, and they've made him fantastically rich, and have promised him a position as the administrator of the human slaves on Cybertron., tells the Decepticons that they should just kill the Autobots instead of making them prisoners. He specifically says it's personal now, and has no objections when Soundwave muses "No prisoners. Only trophies."
• Transformers: Age of Extinction: Lockdown crosses it in his first scene by coldly murdering Ratchet.
  • If he didn't cross it already (allowing Tessa to be threatened or refuse to allow paramedics during Galvatron's out of control rampage), Attinger crossed it big time when he allowed Savoy to kill witnesses and gave Lockdown the okay to level Hong Kong to hide his plans.
  • Any sympathy Savoy would want people to show him die out when he threatens Tessa to make Cade give Optimus Prime's location.
• Bumblebee: Shatter and Dropkick cross the line early in the film with their vicious murder of Cliffjumper.
• Transformers: Rise of the Beasts examples:
  • Nightbird crosses it when she kills the museum security guard For the Evulz.
  • Though Scourge is established as a Hero Killer in the opening scene, he truly crosses the line when he mortally wounds Bumblebee and infects Airazor with a Hate Plague.

Other media

• The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers: One can pick and choose when Overlord crossed it. There are three big standouts: his earliest actions which were murdering Skyquake, storming the prison, and tossing the Warden to the inmates. When he casually murders Rotorstorm by blowing his cranium open, or at the very end, when in the climactic fight, he tells Springer that all the guards and Autobots they were trying to save he ordered killed as soon as they landed.
• In the Dark of the Moon Foundation prequel comics, Shockwave crosses it at least once an issue. He starts issue 2 off by killing Chromia, finishes off issue 3 by killing Jolt, Knock Out, Dune Runner, Longarm, Salvage, and Galloway and then in issue 4 he kills Elita-1, then mocks Optimus about it. He didn't think the last part through.
• Transformers: Beast Wars (2021): The Predacons, sans Dinobot cross it when having Nyx tortured for information about the other Maximals, and attempting to execute her when she's unable to escape. Dinobot is understandably disgusted by this.
• Transformers: War for Cybertron: After gaining control of Cybertron via Dark Energon, his victory seeming secure, he warns the Autobots to leave Cybertron or be destroyed. After Optimus shuts down the core, purging the planet of Dark Energon and cuts off Megatron's control over it, he has Trypticon destroy the transport ships evacuating the Autobots from the planet, murdering thousands of Autobots trying to escape purely out of spite that anyone dared to defy him.
• Transformers: Fall of Cybertron:
  • When Optimus sees that Megatron is as desperate for energon as the Autobots, he proposes a truce to resolve their mutual problem. Megatron refuses, blames Optimus for everything, and insists that he alone is Cybertron's future, swearing to kill Optimus and the Autobots.
  • Shockwave's experiments cross this, as he surgically rips apart and rebuilds whoever he experiments on. To make it worse, he keeps them functional and aware while he tears them apart and rebuilds them. While most of the Dinobots seemingly don't remember, Grimlock does.
• Transformers: Devastation: Megatron is quick to cross this with a plan to turn Earth into a new Cybertron, gleeful at the thought of wiping out the planet's indigenous life.