Leland Bishop TFP

"I am no ordinary human and this is no ordinary weapon."

- Silas describing himself and Project Damocles.

Former Colonel Leland Bishop, also known as Silas or Cylas, was the leader of MECH who had a lethal obsession with Cybertronian biology and technology. Proclaiming a desire of a new world order, Silas and his supporters systematically usurp Decepticon and Autobot agendas alike in the name of research and experimentation to further Project Chimera, the product of their horrific campaign.

History
Former Colonel Leland Bishop was a member of Special Tactics with the US army with ambitious weapons idea which included Project: Damocles a space operated satellite. However the project was mothballed and Bishop was discharged as a result. Still bent on his weapons ideas, Bishop went rogue and funding the terrorist organization MECH recruiting other Special Tactics soldiers to assist him and adopted the name of Silas.

Cybertronian kidnap attempts
Silas's first known action to obtain more powerful weapons was an attempt to acquire a highly volatile nuclear weapon from Agent Fowler. However the attempt was foiled by the Autobots. Silas however took a scan of Optimus Prime's body and fled. Later Silas abducted Breakdown and took a further look into his body only to loose him to Bulkhead. Silas also attempted to gain Cybertronian bio tech by teaming up with Airachnid but it failed when Fowler showed up with an army of attack helicopters. Silas did however get a look at Airachnid scanning Fowler's copper to which he was impressed.

Much later Silas stuck again and stole Bumblebee's T-cog to install it into their own robot but failed. Teaming up with Starscream to get Energon supplies they almost succeeded but Bumblebee showed up to reclaim his T-cog. Upon doing so, Silas betrayed Starscream and stole his.

Nemesis Prime
Later with Starscream's T-cog Silas created Nemesis Prime, a mindless robot to control at will. He used the robot to frame Optimus Prime for the crimes, but the real Optimus Prime and Agent Fowler teamed up to stop both Nemesis and Silas and crushed Silas body under it.

"CYLAS"
After being heavily injured, he was infused with Breakdown's body in order to save his life. Redubbing himself as CY.L.A.S., or CYbernetic Life Augmented by Symbiosis, the first thing he did was to kill his own men without remorse by Breakdown's shoulder plasma cannon and proceeded to join the Decepticons with a little bargaining chip. CY.L.A.S was ordered by Megatron to stop a hacker, who was trying to disable the whole project. CY.L.A.S. was intercepted by Bulkhead, who was shocked when CY.L.A.S. revealed himself instead of it being Breakdown (which Bulkhead had assumed it was his old foe). CY.L.A.S had the better of Bulkhead but was soon taken down when Smokescreen came to assist Bulkhead. Together, they defeated CY.L.A.S before the latter escaped back to the warship. Project Damocles had failed and C.Y.L.A.S. was turned on by the Decepticons, which Megatron allowed Knock Out to dissect him as long as he wants. The latter gleefully commented that his old friend would be "tickled" and despite CY.L.A.S. attempting to plea to Megatron, he was dragged out of the room by two Vehicons with Knock Out following.

Demise
His fate was later revealed as Knock Out was using him to test a Synthetic Energon formula. However, under the advice of Starscream, he was infused with Dark Energon, in order to create the perfect warrior. This experiment badly backfired, transforming C.Y.L.A.S. into an Energon-hungry Terrorcon who then started a rampage within the Nemesis and turned any Decepticon he encounter into like him. C.Y.L.A.S. would eventually meet his end when he freed Airachnid in his attempt to drain her energon and was killed by her. In his dying words, he thanked her for putting him out of misery, though the latter scoffed it with "Whatever".

Personality
Although not a Decepticon, Silas was still amoral, cruel, thoroughly calculating and ruthless enough to be one. He was a warmonger and had no concern of human or Cybertronian life. Silas' only goal appeared to be to create anarchy, which he tried to steal a powerful nuclear device with the intention of detonating it and was perfectly fine with blowing up the train tracks, which a train that Jack and Miko were on that could have lead to their demise until Optimus Prime saved them. This would show Silas would resort anything to fulfill his goals or ensure the opposite side does not win.

After witnessing Team Prime protecting a powerful nuclear device from the Decepticons, Silas became obsessed with Cybertronians and living technology. Ratchet describes MECH as "savages" and true to this as they are, Silas butchered Breakdown by removing his eye, then attempting to do the same with Arcee but failed and removed Bumblebee's T-Cog. He did this without any remorse as he believes they are not humans and it gives him the right to commit his amoral actions.

Silas surpassed to a borderline psychopath. He genuinely believed that his actions would bring about a new world order and had a desire to become a Cybertronian. Despite hunting them down, Silas could also team up with Transformers, the most successful one became Airachnid in which he abducted her mortal enemies friend, Jack Darby and his mother June showing how much he completely disregards human lives to learn the secrets of Cybertron. The other and least successful one was with Starscream who he insulted and found infuriating and eventually turned on.

He appeared to be treacherous, after the US army had disregarded his weapon plan, Project: Damocles he went rogue and became a terrorist, the same followed when he had been revived by the operatives of MECH and then killed his most loyal followers who saved his life. When he struck an alliance with the former-Decepticon Starscream and when he destroyed his stolen T-Cog, Silas betrayed Starscream, harvested him for his T-cog and left Starscream for scrap.

After nearly being crushed by his own project Nemesis Prime, Silas was left in a critical condition but was revived when the scientists of MECH used the recently deceased corpse of Breakdown as a stabiliser after doing so he became nearly insane, ruthlessly mowing down his own followers and actually believed that his place is with "Titans." He was shown to be arrogant, requesting a place in Megatron's ranks despite him murdering one of his former Decepticons and not addressing him as "Lord" which earned him a piercing glare forcing him to back pedal a little, and also believing that MECH was a serious threat to the Cybertronians, despite the fact that the Cybertronians possessed technology far superior to Earth's.

After his plan to revive Project Damocles was a failure in a twist of irony, Knock Out imprisoned and experimented on Silas as revenge of murdering his friend. As Knock Out's lab rat on their experimentation on Synthetic Energon, Silas has become notably more aggressive and less cunning. Once he was injected with Dark Energon, he lost his mind and basically became a rampaging, violent, ominous, sinister, and mindless beast. Eerily resemblimg a zombie, Silas thirsted for Energon and brutally scrapped any troops in his path however once he was killed by Airachnid he thanked her and died peacefully.

Gallery
Main Article: Leland Bishop/Gallery

Trivia

 * Silas is the first human in the series to become a Cybertronian, though he is technically a human wearing a Cybertronian corpse.
 * He is also the first human to be a Decepticon, though it did not last long.
 * He is also the first main human antagonist to die on screen. His fate however, was more peaceful than bloody.
 * Silas's personality is split into two divisions which are similar to Harold Attinger and James Savoy in Transformers: Age of Extinction.  Silas and Harold both were willing to aligned themselves with enemies of the Autobots, such as Airachnid and Lockdown. Neither Silas or James Savoy both had sympathy to destroy a Cybertronian with their human terrorist organizations nor did they hesitate to nearly kill humans that were involved.
 * It is hinted in the series that Silas may have secretly desired to become a Cybertronian.
 * At one point when fighting Optimus Prime using Nemesis Prime, Silas stated while talking through Nemesis that his body could not feel pain, hinting his desire to become a Cybertronian.
 * After being fused with Breakdown's body, Silas was shown to enjoy being a machine and stated that he would rather be in the company of titans, before eliminating his own human allies.
 * Silas never holds any emotions or regrets of using Breakdown's body as his vessel.
 * Silas and MECH could be considered human counterparts of Megatron and the Decepticons.
 * Silas, being a supervillain voiced by Clancy Brown opposing a red and blue alien can be seen as a reference to Superman: The Animated Series, wherein Brown became the iconic voice of Lex Luthor.
 * Silas and Lex Luthor also shares some similarities.