

Sent into space at the same time as Apollo 11 to hide its trail, the ship is sent to orbit the far side of Jupiter to look for any more alien activity. The ship was built by examining and reverse engineering the frozen remains of the Transformer Megatron. The story is set in 1969 and details the account of a top secret space ship called Ghost-1, built by the American organization known as Sector 7. 'It is a prequel to the Michael Bay Transformers film. Transformers: Ghosts of Yesterday is a science fiction novel written by Alan Dean Foster. In the end, the Keepers are defeated when Megatron's reprogrammed Omega Sentinel, turned good by exposure to the Matrix, sacrifices itself and Devastator to close the gate. However, the Keepers are not yet defeated and plan to return to Earth via a warpgate as the US military tries once more to destroy all the Transformers. In Fusion, Prime gives Megatron the Matrix, unwilling to break his word of honor, as the possessed Autobots and Decepticons return to normal. They defeat them, but Megatron claims his "favor" for helping the Autobots - to become the next Matrix bearer. Megatron walks out of the Decepticons with a band of devoted followers to ally with the Autobots against the Keepers (who now possess many of the Autobots and Decepticons). In Annihilation, Megatron attempts to reclaim his leadership of the Decepticons, but is defeated by Starscream and Devastator as Prime attempts to rally the Autobots.

The novel ended with the abducted Transformers returning to Earth - with Bluestreak and several humans possessed by the Keepers. On Earth, Starscream took command of the Decepticons and took over Las Vegas, leaving Grimlock (not trusted due to his actions in the first miniseries) to lead the remaining Autobots to stop him. Set in the Dreamwave continuity at a point between their first and second Generation One miniseries, Hardwired followed Prime, Megatron, Jazz and other Transformers as they were abducted by a mysterious alien race known as the Keepers and forced to fight in gladiatorial combat. Most common are Ballantine Books and Ladybird Books. There have been many publishers of a book (some with accompanying audio cassettes) bearing the name Transformers based on the toy lines of the same name.
