Chaar

The original inhabitants were very big on domes.

Chaar is the planet where the Decepticons settled after being driven from Cybertron. It is a burned-out, barren husk of a planet. The planet is far from dead, however; in its caves lurk energy leeches and a Chaarantula. It has at least one metal moon and what seems to be a blue-white sun.

Fiction

Generation 1 cartoon continuity

The Transformers cartoon

Sure the rent's low, but would you want Galvatron as your landlord? Or Soundwave as your neighbor? And you know the Predacons are just gonna mess up your yard.

After the battle against Unicron in 2005, the Autobots successfully drove away all the Decepticons occupying Cybertron. With Galvatron missing, the Decepticons became directionless and chose to seek refuge on the burned-out world of Chaar. Starved of energon, they were reduced to scrounging for scraps. Rodimus Prime and Grimlock visited the planet in search of kidnapped Autobots and found their old foes in this sorry state. Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1 While Cyclonus and Scourge went to retrieve Galvatron from his resting place on Thrull, the rest of the Decepticons were recruited by the Quintessons to take part in an assault on Cybertron. Thus when Galvatron arrived on Chaar, the only one left to greet him was Blitzwing, who explained what had happened. Five Faces of Darkness, Part 3

Reinvigorated, the Decepticons gradually transformed the planet into a suitable place to live, Starscream's Ghost though some ruins still littered the landscape. Ghost in the Machine The Decepticons made use of the damaged buildings, even for delicate medical procedures. Webworld Eventually a substantial portion of the planet was altered to be Cybertron-like. The Burden Hardest to Bear

Not even Chaar was safe from the Hate Plague, and Galvatron found himself the only Decepticon left uninfected. A group of Autobots led by Optimus Prime arrived there in search of the samples of an alloy stolen earlier by the Decepticons. Galvatron guided them through one of Chaar's caverns, infested with many examples of the planet's native wildlife, until they found the storehouse containing the metal. The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 2

Robotmasters

The Autobot Road Rocket resided on Chaar before coming to Earth to be Optimus Prime's bodyguard in 2004. Road Rocket's Robotmasters toy bio

The Headmasters cartoon

The Decepticons continued to use Chaar as a base of operation into 2011, The Mystery of Planet Master although by then it had lost both its moons and was considerably more desolate. The Decepticons operated out of a single small city, though their facilities were sufficient to reconstruct Soundwave as Soundblaster after he was killed. The Great Cassette Operation

The planet apparently occasionally experienced heavy fog, such as when Scorponok arrived to report to Galvatron. The Four-Million-Year-Old Veil of Mystery Their security was not particularly efficient however, as demonstrated when Twincast managed to sneak through the space bridge and spy on a Decepticon meeting. Explosion on Mars!! MegaZarak Appears The Decepticon ranks were also infiltrated by the Autobot Punch. Return of the Immortal Emperor The Decepticon early warning system was sufficient to detect the incoming Horrorcons though. Daniel Faces His Biggest Crisis Ever!!

The Decepticons continued to use their planet as a base of operations though their quest for power would see them occasionally leaving the planet to carry out tasks on other worlds, such as when they went to Master to forge the Zarak Shield. The Zarak Shield Turns the Tide Following a failed attempt to destroy Earth, The Final Showdown on Earth (Part 2) the Decepticon main force abandoned that world completely and consolidated on Chaar. They continued to operate from there as they battled the Autobots based on Athenia. TV Magazine prose epilogue

Victory

The Dinoforce hailed from Chaar. Dinoforce's toy bios

The Big Broadcast of 2006

By the year 2006, the Decepticons under Galvatron's command had claimed Chaar as their home base of operations. The Big Broadcast of 2006 (US)

Dreamwave Generation One continuity

Once a populated planet, Charr became a barren wasteland crisscrossed by lava flows as a result of natural disaster. More than Meets the Eye #8

Animated cartoon

Chaar is a world within the once mighty Decepticon Empire, ruled by General Strika. Team Chaar is stationed there. The AllSpark Almanac II

Knights of Unicron

The Trypticon Dinobase, located on Planet Chaar, was the eighth venue for the Knights of Unicron on their 2014 "Till All Are One" tour. The planet also inspired the title of their studio album, "Bot Out of Chaar". Knights of Unicron

War for Cybertron Trilogy cartoon

The Quintesson Judge Deseeus was based on Chaar, meeting there with Doubledealer who had captured the Ark at Deseeus' command. When it became clear that Deseeus would not be paying Doubledealer and his crew, they aided the Autobots in escaping Chaar. The Autobots quickly flew away from the planet, unaware that Doubledealer had already sold out their position to Megatron. Earthrise episode 2

Energon Universe

Skuxxoid was summoned to Chaar by Bosch, the latter hiring the former to steal from Gyconi on Monacus. During the discussion, Skuxxoid briefly glanced a robotic figure following him but dismissed it as a trick of the light. Void Rivals #11

Games

Transformers Roleplaying Game

Chaar was a barren world that orbited a high-radiation star, located close to Cybertron. Long ago, Cybertronian settlers colonized and partially terraformed the planet by installing an artificial metal moon, which protected the planetary surface from radiation and maximized the productivity of the planet's abundant geothermal energy. At some point, the planet was abandoned by its original inhabitants; millions of years later, it became a temporary fallback point for Decepticons fleeing Unicron’s destruction, as abundant radiation made it difficult for enemy scanners to track them. Decepticon Directive

Notes

It's a pretty rough place. No, literally.

• Floro Dery's original design for Chaar was considerably more gnarly and sinister-looking than the version that made it to screen. The planet was jagged (its moon even more so) and had those weird rocky rings similar to the ones that appeared around Quintessa. The caption on Dery's production art describes Chaar as, "a burned-out, Hellish and God-forsaken planet".^[1]

The Decepticons broke Chaar while Galvatron was away and tried replacing it with Cybertron, hoping he wouldn't notice.

• It's not clear there was a final design for the planet; Chaar hardly ever appears the same way twice on screen. In one case, it's portrayed by a stock shot of the planet Goo; another time, it's shown looking like Cybertron itself.
• The image at the top of this article is the very first establishing shot of Chaar, animated with an absurdly fast simultaneous sunrise/moonset. The two bodies pass into and out of frame in about five seconds. Then later in the same episode, another establishing shot shows the moon stationary in the sky. Make of that what you will.
• According to the audio description on the DVD release of Revenge of the Fallen, the crash site of the Nemesis is on Chaar.
• The spelling "Chaar" (two As, one R) was first revealed in the Marvel Comics adaptation of The Big Broadcast of 2006. Years later, the same spelling was found in internal Sunbow Productions documents, such as the dialogue scripts. This means that the planet's official spelling has been known since 1988... yet "Charr" still persists in the fandom to this day, even cropping up in Dreamwave's More than Meets the Eye guidebook. Oh well.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Jaar (ジャール Jāru)^[2]
• English: Jolo (Omni Productions dub)
• Mandarin: Chaar (查尔 Cháěr)
• Russian: Yurona (Юрона)
• Spanish: Estrella Mortis (American The Headmasters)

References