Winged Moon

That's no space station. It's a moon.

Imagine, if you will, a race of beings with the vision, the capacity, to reshape a moon into the greatest energon harvester in the universe. For those of you with no imagination, or are simply curious, the answer to that lies in the Winged Moon, designed to filter energon from the very fabric of spacetime and keep Cybertron healthy by beaming its collected energy down to stations planetside. It is connected to the planet by the Tether.

Fiction

2019 IDW continuity

The Winged Moon was conceived by the Ascenticon visionary Termagax; two thousand workers laboured for kilocycles on one of Cybertron's moons, strip-mining the planetoid and rebuilding the hollowed-out planetoid into a gigantic energon-production facility. Once the work was done, the Winged Moon was moved into a low geostationary orbit over Iacon and equipped with a thruster array to keep its position constant, ensuring that it only ever skimmed Cybertron's atmosphere. The great space elevator known as the Tether, built from the ore harvested by the miners, connected the two worlds and allowed for the easy transport of workers and material to and from the Winged Moon. The World In Your Eyes Part Two

The moon first came online three hundred kilocycles before Brainstorm's murder, with both Orion Pax and Megatron visiting it. As the moon began its inaugural harvest, Megatron opened their elevator to the vacuum so he could make a more convincing metaphor before he and Pax free-fell from the moon and back onto Cybertron. Orion Pax: Free Fall Though the moon represented a masterpiece of engineering, some would come to feel it was not particularly efficient at its job, finding the harvest of energon crystals to be a better way of refuelling the planet.

On Rubble's forty-second cycle of existence, Bumblebee brought him to meet Wheeljack at the Tether where he was employed for the day. When evening fell, Bumblebee took his protege to a nearby rooftop so they could watch the moon commence its harvest, though Bumblebee felt compelled to point out some of the moon's criticisms. When the harvester sprung into operation however, its surface transforming to "wings" to allow for operation, Rubble declared it the most amazing thing he'd ever seen, a statement Bumblebee was hard pressed to challenge. The World In Your Eyes Part Two

When Bumblebee was teaching Rubble about alternate modes, he found his protégé's attention had been captured by the moon finishing its harvest cycle. The World In Your Eyes Part Three

At some point, Enemy snuck onto the moon and attached an energon siphon that beamed the fuel to a relay on Vigilem, Wheeljack: Orbital Decay which then diverted the haul to the Rise base near the Memorial Crater on the outskirts of Iacon. After the base had been raided and the energon stockpile found, the engineering corps deactivated the siphon. Concurrently, Skystalker had been peer pressured to rouse Vigilem from his slumber and direct the Titan to the Winged Moon so he could destroy the Tether. Though Lodestar tried to stop him, the old warhorse's arsenal proved too formidable and managed to touch down on the moon, severing it from Cybertron. The Change In Your Nature Part Five The moon spun off into an unstable solar orbit, the entirety of the staff, save Wheeljack and a small team, being evacuated. All Fall Down

After the moon had been evacuated, Wheeljack, Gears, Cosmos, Huffer and Lancer began brainstorming ideas on how to save it, finding Enemy and locking him up. The quintet eventually hit on the idea of opening the moon's wings and detonating two of them off. The second explosion triggered a high pressure energon explosion, diverting the satellite's trajectory. As they celebrated however, Team Stream Mark Two arrived to steal the moon. Wheeljack: Orbital Decay

The Decepticons' efforts were quickly hampered by the engineers sealing off the main control room and Novastar's team arriving to counter them. While the Autobots and Decepticons fought on the surface, the engineers jury-rigged a singularity, that detonated the majority of the moon's energon reserves and further damaged the satellite. After the Decepticons retreated, the Autobots evacuated all of the engineering staff save Cosmos who remained to safeguard the moon, inviting his friend Blast Off to join him. Moon Upon receiving the message, Blast Off flew off before the other Combaticons could stop him. War's End Part One

With Blast Off's help, Cosmos managed to restore power to the moon, the two spending some quality alone time. After the Autobots fled Cybertron, they made for the Winged Moon. While Cosmos eagerly waited to greet the new arrivals, Blast Off groused that they'd lost their privacy. Fate of Cybertron