Quintesson

Quintesson
General Information
Homeworld	Quintessa (native; destroyed) Cybertron (immigrant; formerly) New Quintessa (G1 cartoon) Planet Q (Unicron Trilogy continuity) Aquatron ("Aligned" novels)
Sapience level	Sapient
Subspecies/Races	Judge Bailiff Executioner Prosecutor Scientist Soldier Curator Physician High Commander "Humanoid"
Status	Varies by continuity
Behind the Scenes
Universe	Transformers (generally) Star Wars (occasionally)

The Quintessons are an ancient race of bizarre yet evil squid-like mechanoids who are prominently regarded as the creators of Cybertronians.

"[We] are Quintessons! Arrogance is our life’s blood, ambition is our food and drink, but most of all, hubris is the air we breathe!!'"

―Al-badur

Biology

Appearance

Quintessons appear to be mostly (if not entirely) mechanical, although one theory is that they were once organic beings who slowly added more and more cybernetic parts to themselves until they were completely mechanical. There are several body styles seen amongst the Quintesson society, henceforth referred to as their "castes".

Notable Quintessons castes include Judges, Bailiffs, Executioners, Prosecutors, Scientists, Soldiers, Curators, Physicians, and High Commanders. There also exist an unnamed caste of humanoid Quintessons whose role is unidentified.

Curators

Quintesson Curators are manipulative managers and/or overseers who can disguise themselves as different subspecies of Cybertronians to invade Cybertronian colonies. Unlike other Quintessons, Curators appear to possess some form of transformation abilities as they can turn into "fish-bots".

Physicians

Quintesson Physicians are medical specialists with enormous black mustaches. Unlike other Quintessons, Physicians appear to possess some form of transformational abilities as they can turn into robotic pufferfish.

High Commanders

A Quintesson high commander

Quintesson High Commanders are high-ranking techno-organic Quintessons who handle Energon tributes from Cybertron as part of their partnership with the false Prime Sentinel. Unlike other Quintessons, High Commanders appear to possess some form of transformation abilities as they can turn into a downscaled version of their starships.

"Humanoids"

Humanoid Quintessons

Humanoids are an exceedingly rare type of Quintesson.

Powers and abilities

Quintessons have a tendency to fly and shoot lasers from their tentacles.

Certain types of Quintessons share similar transformation abilities as Cybertronians, namely Bailiffs, Curators, Physicians, and High Commanders.

Weaknesses

Regardless of what universe they hail from, the Quintessons themselves have absolutely no fighting abilities whatsoever. Ultimately, they are absolute cowards if they have nothing to hide behind.

Culture and society

The Quintessons' history and clandestine machinations are tied together with that of the various subspecies of Cybertronians, along with connections to Primus, Unicron, and even Quintus Prime. They are generally regarded as one of the few unforeseen dangers ahead of the Autobots and Decepticons in their civil war.

In the Primax and Uniend universal clusters, the Quintessons prefer subtle manipulation combined with scheming and advanced technology over brute force. If neither of them works, they can fall back to their fleets of battle-ready starships or legions upon legions of mass-produced vehicular warrior Terrorbot drones or deadly animalistic Cybertronians affiliated with their empire.

Many of the Quintessons' armies include Sharkticons, Allicons, modern Predacons, Cybertronian Terrorcons, Overcharges, Noisemazes, Guardminders, Dropkicks, and Planet Q Terrorcons.

• The Quintesson insignia (primary design)
• The Quintesson insignia (War for Cybertron Trilogy design)

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In some universes, the Quintessons travel across the multiverse using their multiverse drive and passed judgement on which universes deserved to live or be destroyed. If the universe was found guilty, then the acting Judge would oversee the destruction of the universe by using unspace matter to obliterate everything it touches.

In negative-polarity universes, the Quintessons are portrayed as an enigmatic and benevolent species holding sway over a large section of space known as the Quintesson Collective. They share their technology and cooperate with many other species, regardless of whether they are organic, technorganic, or mechanical. They use culture itself as a unifying notion instead of evolutionary origins.

In the Malgus cluster, the Quintessons had founded their own interstellar government, the Quintesson Pan Galactic Co-Prophency Sphere. It has a very confusing name because there is no record of it being in effect beyond the Milky Way. It is unknown if these Quintessons have a connection to Alpha Q's Realm, a small and unclaimed group of neutral worlds lying just beyond the galaxy.

Besides their home planet Quintessa and its successor, notable planets within the Pan Galactic Co-Prophency Sphere include Andellor, Alaxuu, Aquatron, Brobdingnag, Corata-Vaz, Fabricon, Lanarq, McColamo, Menonia, Mirtonia, Neutronia, Prysmos, Rotan, Sandokan, Spindrift, Skuxxos, Taxxos, Tixlara, Tlalak, Torkulon, Tyroxia, Vrob, Xeptos, Xetaxxis, Zamojin, Zeotopia, and Zull.

Additionally, the Quintessons' territory includes the Epsilon Iridani System, the space station Exton IX, and the asteroid Monacus.

Technology

Dimensional-travelling Quintessons possess a multiverse drive, allowing them to travel from one universe to the next. Across the universes his kind of passes judgement upon, the Scientist has developed a fondness for collecting the native iterations of the Decepticon known as Soundwave.

Negative-polarity Quintessons once perfected zero-point energy engines, food and parts replication technologies, and advanced biomedics, thereby allowing any individual to change their features, organs, and overall designs. As such, this would eliminate such things as scarcity, mortality (which they consider "material value"), and even the concept of "species".

The technological advances of negative-polarity Quintessons are shared and freely available to all those who join their "ultra-species".

Gallery

Alpha Quintesson a.k.a. Alpha Q

Quintesson High Commander (toyline design)

"Two-faced scientist"

Quintesson hand

Notes

• The name "Quintesson" appears to be a play on the word "Quintessential", meaning "Representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class", indicating their perceived perfection.
  • In various media, the name is pronounced as either "quin-te-sohn" or "quin-tess-in".
• Quintessons are commonly known by their associated racial slur "squids".
• Alpha Quintesson was not officially identified as a Quintesson until an "Ask Vector Prime" entry published in 2015.
• The validity of Quintessons being the creators of the Cybertronians varies between continuities. In some continuities, they are confirmed as such, with Cybertron being conceived as a factory-like planetoid. However, this is not the case for continuities where Primus is stated to be the Cybertronians' creator.
• Although the Quintessons went unnamed in the 2019 IDW continuity before its conclusion, multiple lines of dialogue and a single panel in the Transformers: War's End miniseries heavily imply that the Quintessons are the aliens responsible for mutating Exarchon into his present-day self.
  • Had IDW Publishing's license over Transformers continued, Brian Ruckley would have expounded on the "Quintessence", which he described as a quarantined region of space populated by Quintessons and barricaded behind a shield of electrical energy.
• Ruckley also stated that while "not intrinsic, there [either] was [or] would have been a connection of some sort" between the Quintessons and the Voin, another race of squid-like creatures featured in the 2019 IDW continuity. Part of his original conception was that "they tend to get involved, usually as individuals, somehow, sometime, in pretty much everything."
• It is often speculated that the enigmatic Creators glimpsed in Transformers: Age of Extinction are a live-action incarnation of the Quintessons.
  • Quintessa, an equally enigmatic mechanoid sorceress featured in Transformers: The Last Knight, likewise is speculated to be a rouge member of the Creators' species. While her characterization is loosely based on the Quintessons' portrayal in Generation 1 lore, her name is similar to their home planet whereas her design is reminiscent of Quintus Prime, who is often portrayed as having a connection to the Quintessons.