Armada TFP

Armada is tenth episode of the second season of Transformers: Prime, and the thirty-sixth episode of the series overall. It aired on April 21st, 2012.

Synopsis
Bulkhead wakes up to find himself aboard the Nemesis, then tries to escape. Airachnid battles to end Megatron's life.

Plot
Bulkhead recovers from his consciousness, and realizes he's on board the Nemesis. Unable to contact the base, he begins to explore, but while hiding from Vehicons, he runs into Starscream. Starscream is reluctant to help, and strikes at Bulkhead, so Bulkhead returns the favor by jumping on Starscream and literally beating the life out of him. Guiltily justifying his actions by muttering that Starscream left him no choice, Bulkhead returns to his exploration of the ship.

Some 24 hours before, Starscream reaches the wreck of the Harbinger in his search for energon. Instead, he finds a laboratory containing five protoforms. Elsewhere, Bulkhead picks up a strong energon reading. Starscream finds information in the Harbinger's computer on cloning and after examining the equations concludes that they are straight forward enough, and fires up the lab equipment and takes some of his own Energon and adds it to the equipment. Soon, five duplicates of himself stand before him. Meanwhile, Bulkhead, clambering into a hole he's found, realizes there's boxed energon at the bottom of it, and that the Nemesis is arriving overhead, ready to pick it up. As he struggles, he falls among the energon and losing consciousness, is transported up to the Decepticon ship with it.

Starscream discovers that his clones are complete duplicates of himself, personality, memories, and all. The one significant difference seems to be that the clones genetic code provides them with intact Transformation Cogs, and thus can fly. As the Harbinger is able to track where the Nemesis is, he sends his clones to eliminate Megatron once and for all. The five clones board the Nemesis and split up, one of them running into Bulkhead, who terminates the clone. The original Starscream is dismayed to discover that he feels the same pain his clones feel. Bulkhead locates a comm unit and attempts to use it to contact the other Autobots, only to set off an alarm and bring Vehicons running. As he escapes, the Vehicons are distracted by another Starscream clone, but unbeknownst to anyone, Bulkhead has inadvertently triggered a Decepticon beacon.

The beacon is detected by Airachnid, who releases her Insecticon army from their stasis pods to go terminate Megatron. The activity is detected by the Autobots, and Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Arcee Ground Bridge to the location to investigate, discovering Airachnid in the middle of sending her troops. She sets some of the Insecticons after the trio, but Arcee bursts through the explosions and begins pursuing her. Optimus and Bumblebee begin mowing down Insecticons.

Bulkhead crawls through a service duct, and spots Megatron. Megatron starts heading for the bridge in response to reports that Starscream's there.

Arcee continues her pursuit of Airachnid, despite having to contend with two Insecticons. After the Insecticons are taken out, Airachnid disappears underground, and Arcee follows.

On the Nemesis bridge, Megatron finds himself face-to-faces with the four remaining Starscream clones. He offers to make them all second-in-command if they terminate Starscream for him, but the clones are stable enough to keep to the mission. Before they can open fire, the ship is attacked by Insecticons. The distraction is all Megatron needs, and he starts taking out clones. The last of the clones manages to escape as the Insecticon attack intensifies, and Megatron finally checks on what's going on outside.

Optimus and Bumblebee finish off the last of the Insecticons that were attacking them, and start looking for Arcee. Their comrade is currently deep underground hunting Airachnid. Arcee exchanges fire with her foe, and manages to maneuver Airachnid onto one of the open stasis pods, which promptly closes and puts the rogue Decepticon on ice. The Insecticons attacking the Nemesis all immediately stop their attack, drop on to the ship's hull, and proclaim their loyalty to an amused Megatron.

Within the Nemesis, Bulkhead finds the ship's power core, and severely damages it with his mace, causing it to explode. The ship slowly begins its descent. As he runs to the exit, Bulkhead encounters the Starscream clone, who promptly takes off. Bulkhead is puzzled at the fact that Starscream is alive and can transform. Once the Nemesis has crashed to earth, Bulkhead is able to drive off and speed away. He soon reaches base, where the Autobots are inspecting the stasis-locked Airachnid.

The last Starscream clone returns to the Harbinger and lets the original Starscream know the mission failed. He's about to shoot his progenitor, when Starscream turns and blasts his clone, complaining about the shared pain he experiences as he finally terminates him.

Trivia

 * The Insecticons speak for the first time.
 * Soundwave, Knock Out, and Dreadwing do not seem to be on board the Nemesis to defend it from its Insecticon assailants for some unknown reason. While you could argue they were present and simply off-screen (e.g. when Megatron arrives, Vehicons are seen in the background firing on the Insecticons), considering how prominent the three of them are their absence is rather odd. Dreadwing, in particular, would most likely be heading the counterattack because of his position as second in command.
 * Oddly, immediately after he laments the lack of energon on the Harbinger, and after spending episodes going on about how he needed to scrounge for scraps just to survive, Starscream, on finding the protoforms, takes some of his own energon from his arm to power the clones. Perhaps his ambitions got the better of his common sense, or he was counting on the clones winning and he could then resupply on the Nemesis.
 * This is the second time Arcee has basically "saved" Megatron. Even though she couldn't think of a reason why she would want to stop that, Arcee's greater hatred towards Airachnid then starts a chase after her trying to kill her and Airachnid got trapped in a stasis egg freeing the Insecticons from her control, making them loyal to Megatron again. Arcee defeats Airachnid but saves Megatron and boosts the Decepticon ranks in the process.
 * In "Grill", Agent Fowler said the next time Arcee and Airachnid meet, only one is going to walk away. That's exactly what happened in Armada.

Gallery
Main Article: Armada Gallery