The origin of the Transformers

For those planning to or have watched the 'Transformers' movie, you might be interested to find out more about the origins of the Transformers. I found the following article from About.com:

It should be noted that the Transformers history has become very convoluted over the years with the many different incarnations of cartoon series, comic books, and movies. What follows is a basic overall origin that is mostly from the original series of comics and cartoons.

Millions of years ago, a planet known as Cybertron housed workers and soldiers. The planet was a factory which created robots to serve and robots to fight. At one point in time, the workers rebelled against the oppressive soldier robots. The soldiers eventually became what we know as the Decepticons and the workers became the Autobots. The battle ravaged the planet and when their precious energy known as energon began to run out, the Autobots decided to leave Cybertron and seek out alternative sources of power.

The Autobots departed in a spaceship known as the “Ark” with the Decepticons following behind in their ship know as “Nemesis.” During a subsequent battle, both ships were forced to land on primitive Earth, where they laid dormant for four million years.

They awoke in present day time, finding that Earth had the energy source called energon. Their fight became a battle that raged all over the earth and brought in the forces of the world and sometimes Marvel characters, such as Spider-Man and Nick Fury into the fray.

The two forces opposed each other at every turn but the Autobots banded together with the earth’s forces to work to stop the Decepticons from destroying Earth and its inhabitants.

The current comic book storyline from IDW Publishing has rebooted continuity as well, having the Autobots and Decepticons fleeing a destroyed Cybertron and coming to Earth, which was seeded with energon by the Decepticon Shockwave. The Autobots and Decepticons use their transforming abilities to occupy Earth unnoticed, until the time is needed.