S.T.A.R.S.

S.T.A.R.S. is a group of Autobot-allied humans during the Generation One era.

S.T.A.R.S. members received the most advanced Cybertronian cardboard technology available.

"Earth allies like you are desperately needed. We must thwart the forces of evil now!"

―Optimus Prime

The Secret Transformer Autobot Rescue Squad is an underground organization of Autobot-allied humans on Earth. S.T.A.R.S. members keep watch for potential Decepticon activity in their sector and alert the Autobots if any is detected. They are expected to be ready at all times in the event a Decepticon alert is issued. Their membership is a secret even from their families.

Note: Nearly all information about S.T.A.R.S. comes from toy pack-in flyers which, unlike most Transformers fiction, were written in the second person. The reader was being actively "recruited" into the fictional organization. What this meant in real-world terms was membership in a fan-club with a few special trinkets and toys. But for the purposes of this article, we include elements like the membership card and the recruitment flyers themselves as part of the fiction.

Fiction

"We appreciate your vigilance, but that car parked across the street isn't a Decepticon either. Do your parents let you out much, Johnny?"

S.T.A.R.S. was created in the mid-1980s by Optimus Prime after a major defeat of the Decepticons following the arrival of Reinforcements from Cybertron. Though badly hurt, the Decepticons were not beaten. They initiated a massive building campaign, constructing hidden bases all around the world from which to strike.

When the location of a secret base was uncovered, Autobot strike forces worked in concert with human allies to neutralize it. The Omnibots seemed to be the primary strike force employed by S.T.A.R.S., though the main Autobot force also participated in S.T.A.R.S. actions. Known S.T.A.R.S. members include Spike Witwicky and the singularly-named Johnny.

Despite being ostensibly "secret," the organization actively recruited, targeting young humans in particular. Potential members were promised benefits like being able to "command your own Earth sector" and "get instant respect from Autobot allies." One later pamphlet even promised leadership of the entire S.T.A.R.S. organization, from Ultra Magnus himself. Whether these promises were genuine is unknown; what is known is that the membership kit included:

• A Transformers Control Console with Communication Center for monitoring their sector
• A booklet including information about Cybertron and some Transformer engineering diagrams
• An iron-on patch
• A S.T.A.R.S. ID card that could switch between displaying an Autobot symbol and a Decepticon one. The purpose of this function is unknown, but one might speculate that since "legitimate" Autobot sigils include encoded verification data, (Double) Deal of the Century! the Decepticon badge may do the same, and a counterfeit Decepticon badge may be used to gain entry into their bases. To prevent the Autobots from being similarly fooled by Decepticon sympathizers, the card included personal identification data on the reverse side.

When the Autobot army rolls into town, S.T.A.R.S. members wear patches so they don't get shot.

If a S.T.A.R.S. member detected Decepticon activity, he or she was to:

• Alert the Autobots.
• Meet the arriving strike force, prominently displaying the issued patch on a shirt or hat
• Be prepared to direct them towards their target

In a typical strike against a hidden Decepticon base, the Omnibots would drive up in the dead of night, transform, launch a volley of missiles at the base, get back into car mode, and get the fuck out of Dodge before the Decepticons could retaliate.

S.T.A.R.S. members were required to fill out Interplanetary Transmission Reports detailing the events.

Time Warriors were also made available to human allies. It's unclear whether S.T.A.R.S. members specifically were given them, but their association with the Omnibots and their presence in the some of the S.T.A.R.S. recruitment material suggests that they were.

Not all human allies were part of S.T.A.R.S., of course, but sometimes the nature of S.T.A.R.S. seemed to be evident without the name being used. For instance, a network of human allies once alerted the Autobots to a series of Decepticon sightings across Idaho Menace at the Dam

By the year 2006, S.T.A.R.S. still existed in some form, but it's unclear how much - if anything - had changed. The only direct reference was a passive one: Rodimus Prime regaled a young S.T.A.R.S. member with the story of Digital Doom on the Highway to Destruction, the quest for the location to build Autobot City.

Perhaps the most oblique possible reference is when Blaster contacted the EDC base on Mars, referring to the humans there as "the stars on Mars." Five Faces of Darkness, Part 3 Whether he meant "stars" or "S.T.A.R.S." is open for conjecture, especially since S.T.A.R.S. may or may not even exist in that branch of continuity.

Non-Fiction

The Autobot base gets very drafty in the winter.

S.T.A.R.S. was the Transformers fan club. It started in 1985, and the price of membership was $6.50 (or £4.99 and 4 Robot Points in the UK).

The Transformers pack-in inserts featured an ongoing storyline. The established S.T.A.R.S. organization is detailed in the second pack-in story, and subsequent pack-in inserts (which eventually moved to the year 2006 along with the cartoon) also mentioned S.T.A.R.S.

S.T.A.R.S. members received the following:

• S.T.A.R.S. membership card.
• Transformer Control Center (a cardboard communications panel which doubled as a toy display case)
• Iron-on patch
• Transformers poster
• Tech Specs booklet containing information about Cybertron and engineering drawings of Transformers.

The Japanese Transformers fan club also included a cardboard command base, which many label the "Japanese S.T.A.R.S." This is inaccurate. The Japanese command base was a cardboard environment for the toys to play in, not a roleplay center, and there was no equivalent of the S.T.A.R.S. story in Japan (at least as far as the fan club went.)

Trivia

• The appeal for human allies, initially attributed to Optimus Prime, would later be repeated by the Omnibot Overdrive and Ultra Magnus. Though theoretically a grass-roots campaign, its status as mass-distribution pack-in causes it to read more like a 4-1-9 scheme. "Dear Sir or Madame, I must solicit you in the strictest confidence for this alliance, I am the leader of an alien army..."

• The operational model used by S.T.A.R.S. seems to be lifted almost point-for-point from American Cold War paranoia about Communist fifth columnists who keep Stalinist posters, radio transmitters and little red books of ideology hidden in their attic. The ones who'll put on their identifying armbands and rush out to guide troops towards vital infrastructure when the Russkies invade. The description of (probable) members in Menace at the Dam even invokes leftist intelligentsia!

• The status of deep secrecy (bordering on outright obliviousness) surrounding Transformers existed in neither the cartoon nor the comics at the time. However, it was reflected in several micro-continuities, like the Find Your Fate Junior books and many odd one-off stories. The atmosphere is probably best captured by the UK comics story Man of Iron!, in which the Brits are unrealistically unaware of the giant alien robots who've been the top story on CNN overseas since their arrival. (Unrealistic if you think that that story is in-continuity with the rest of the Marvel UK universe.)

• The "Transformers" in the acronym is not just superfluous (since "Autobot" already implies Transformerdom), but actually incorrect (since S.T.A.R.S. members are explicitly not Transformers).

• For some reason, Nemesis has a real grudge against S.T.A.R.S.