The Alchemor is a spacecraft from the Robots in Disguise portion of the Aligned continuity family.

Were you surprised that a Cybertronian ship crash landed, and on Earth of all places?

There are some who might use the phrase "a wretched hive of scum and villainy" to describe the prisoner manifest of the Alchemor... and they'd be right. A maximum-security prison ship, the vessel was built by the Autobots and designed to hold a cargo of defeated Decepticons inside stasis pods.

Hundreds of Decepticons were captured and interred aboard the vessel before its launch off Cybertron—everything from petty crooks, to disgruntled scientists, all the way up to high-ranking military officers and political agitators. The unenviable duty of maintaining the vessel and its inmates fell to a skeleton crew of Caretaker Mini-Cons, who oversaw the ship's day-to-day operation.

The volatile cargo that the Alchemor carried left it open to attacks from raiders seeking to free their imprisoned comrades. To minimize the risk, the ship carried a cloaking device that allowed it to resupply on a planet without agitating the natives or any local Decepticon cells. Although the Autobots came up with a variety of security systems, most prominently a set of advanced Decepticon Hunters in the ship's armories, they apparently didn't plan many contingency measures in case the ship crashed on an undeveloped planet where the escaped prisoners could easily run amok.

Whoops.

Fiction

2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon

Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.

As the Alchemor passed by Earth, Megatronus—manipulating things from an alternate dimension—damaged the Alchemor, causing the ship to fall towards Earth. Lockout The entry through Earth's atmosphere tore the ship in two. Decepticon Island (Part 1) The front half, where prison guard Fixit was stationed, crashed in the woods near Denny Clay's scrapyard. Lockout The impact of the crash damaged almost all of the stasis pods used to keep the prisoners under control, sparking a mass jailbreak. Pilot (Part 1)

Damaged by the crash, Fixit was able to repair some of the ship's systems and tried to send a mayday to Cybertron. Bumblebee and his impromptu team discovered the wreck before the signal could reach Cybertron, having been led to Earth for then-unknown reasons by visions of Optimus Prime. (Well, Bumblebee was. The other two had just kinda tagged along.) Fixit got the ship's tracking systems online, allowing them to find Underbite, though the crash site subsequently became the scene of a battle between the Autobots and the lone Decepticon. Pilot (Part 1)

Meanwhile, the back half of the ship had landed in a bay near Crown City. Metal Meltdown The Decepticon prisoners aboard quickly rallied under the leadership of Glowstrike, Saberhorn, and Scorponok. Under their direction, the Decepticons overthrew the Mini-Con guards assigned to keep them in line, and enslaved them with inhibitor collars. Glowstrike planned to rebuild the ship, and use it to get off-world. Using the ship's still-intact cloaking function, she managed to hide the existence of her "Decepticon island" from Autobots and humans alike. Decepticon Island (Part 1)

Now stranded on Earth and charged with recapturing the Alchemor escapees, the Autobots and humans relocated large portions of the ship to Denny's scrapyard. From here, Fixit could utilize its tracking function, or consult its prisoner manifest for relevant information. Pilot (Part 2) Strongarm made another sweep of the crash site, and managed to salvage a damaged Decepticon Hunter. As the Kospego Commands! Due to the damage caused to him from the crash, a malfunctioning Fixit returned to the crashsite, repeating the word "escape", only to be found by Sideswipe, Jetstorm, and Slipstream the following morning. Their arrival caught the attention of a bear, which the three Autobots engaged with in a brief skirmish. The Trouble with Fixit During an argument with Denny, Fixit spitefully wired the human's TV set into the Alchemor's computer system. Rumble in the Jungle

When the Decepticon Saberhorn was discovered by Bumblebee's squad, Fixit was unable to find him in the Alchemor's prisoner manifest. Later, by remotely accessing a computer at one of Windblade's bases, he discovered that the Decepticon was listed as having been imprisoned on the ship, raising questions as to just what was going on with Fixit's records. Meanwhile, Saberhorn and Kickback returned to the back half of the crashed ship, the latter being trailed by Steeljaw. Metal Meltdown

Working himself into Glowstrike's command structure, Steeljaw won her good graces by springing a slew of captured Decepticons and returning them to the sunken Alchemor. Misdirection

After overthrowing Scorponok and assuming his place among Glowstrike's inner retinue, Steeljaw accessed an armory and used it to stage a coup. From here, he took command of the hundreds of Decepticons aboard the vessel. A Mini-Con slave and former guard named Toolbox managed to escape captivity, and managed to alert the Autobots to the location of the ship. The Autobots, masquerading as Grimlock's prisoners, slipped aboard, planning to detonate a stasis bomb in the ship's ventilation system. Decepticon Island (Part 1) The Autobots were successful in defeating Steeljaw and detonating the bomb, thanks in part to a mass Mini-Con revolt led by Fixit. With their prisoners safely back in stasis, Toolbox and the other Mini-Cons promised to rebuild the ship and leave Earth for Cybertron as soon as possible. Decepticon Island (Part 2)

Several few straggling prisoners would remain on the planet months later Sphere of Influence The Fastest Bot Alive! Sick as a Bot, though they were eventually taken back to Cybertron onboard Prime Force One. Moon Breaker Freedom Fighters

Original prisoner manifest

And "a couple of hundred" more, according to Fixit.

* — Prisoners that have only appeared in the books and games.

Notes

• Up until "Metal Meltdown", the wreck of the Alchemor only appeared in the longer title sequence, which has only appeared on non-English versions of the show.
• The name Alchemor is probably a fairly subtle pun on Alcatraz.
• Knowing some were also originally in Windblade's caches, it's unclear how many of the Season 3 Decepticons were actually from the Alchemor.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Alchemor (アルケモア号 Arukemoa-gō)