<P> After Autobot leader Optimus Prime and Decepticon leader Megatron disappeared in a Space Bridge accident several million years ago, the Autobots and Decepticons split up into several factions . One of those who broke away was Ratbat, who quickly took the opportunity to form his own power base . Gathering loyalist followers and setting up their HQ in the Polyhex region of Cybertron the Ultracons quickly came into conflict with the Autobot splinter faction The Wreckers . However, Ratbat added a secret weapon to his ranks - the combiner team the Constructicons, in flagrant defiance of treaties banning their use in the civil war as both Autobots and Decepticons splintered . </P> <P> When the Ultracons attacked the Tagan Heights in order to seize its factories for themselves, they were opposed by the Wreckers . Ratbat quickly unleashed the Constructicons in their combined form of Devastator, routing the Wreckers . However, Ratbat was prevented from executing his rival Springer by the arrival of the Protectobots in their combined form of Defensor . The Autobot combiners were hoping to prevent an arms race between the various factions by stopping combiners signing up with the factions . After the battle devastated the very manufacturing facilities the two factions hoped to acquire, the Protectobots separated and defeated Devastator via sabotage . With their most potent weapon gone, the Ultracons retreated . </P> <P> Later, the Ultracons joined with the Decepticons under Shockwave to support a peace accord with the Autobots, fighting off Starscream's Predacon faction . However, Megatron's return with an army of Seeker clones would bring a halt to the peace proceedings, and the Ultracons would be reabsorbed into the Decepticons . </P> <P> The origins of the Decepticons in the IDW continuity would be explored in The Transformers: Megatron Origin, which confirmed Megatron as their founder in this timeline . A lowly miner, Megatron penned a manifesto against Functionalism, the forcible assignment of cybertronians to jobs based on their vehicle modes, which was in force at the time on religious grounds . Megatron began to work against the practice through peaceful protest, but following imprisonment and a brutal beating by police, he determines that force is the only way to bring about equality . Ironically, on his way out the station after having been saved from a government ordered' accidental - death - by - interrogation', he first meets the future Optimus Prime, who would go on to use his original writings as the basis for the Autobot movement . </P>

Why do you think evil transformers were named decepticons