So your PCs found Time Traveller and Cambreaker--good for them, good for you. i think it sucks that Makeway and i weren't able to be a part of that (or even Thundergun), but i'm glad you didn't wait for me.
i'm strongly leaning towards the idea that Makeway was left behind in a CR chamber in Iacon,
although i suppose it's possible the other Autobots took his Comatose-Under-Repairs Body (CURB? or CURing Body?) along for the ride, either out of concern for what would happen to him if they abandoned him and/or in the hopes that when his repairs were finished he could rejoin them on their Important Quest.
As a reader and/or as a writer, i would have hoped that the search for Time Traveller and Cambreaker would take longer; back when i was still in the game, i was thinking of suggesting the importance of the plot having several false leads for our PCs to chase down and ultimately disprove, before finally finding one or both of them. (i was also going to suggest introducing
Abraham Dante to go along with Scorponok-sans-Zarak, and see what happened when Zarak returned and he and Dante butted heads, so to speak... but oh, well. Shame, though, to have missed the opportunity to have
Blackjack simultaneously RPing Scorponok/Dante & Inferno.) However, i can understand a player's desire to move on to the next phase. (Even writers can sometimes want to skip to the next phase, and sometimes do, and then go back and fill in the missing chapters later. Readers, too, come to think of it.)
The next phase, it seems, derives from events in the "Beast Wars" cartoon, which i basically never saw. i suppose the majority of our characters are as ignorant as i am of what happened in that era, so if i rejoin the game i should fit right in--but is there anything i would
need to know about "BW" in order to participate? and/or, will i be exposed to any major spoilers that might discourage me from playing? (Probably not; even if the entire series is repeated here word-for-word, i'd probably rather get back in the game than wait until i finally, someday, get around to watching the second-oldest Transformers cartoon in existence.)
As for me, i have an idea about bringing Makeway back into the game, likely tying in with a Threat To Both Factions idea... but would TTBF be premature at this point? ...i'll throw this idea at you anyway, see how you respond. The idea revolves around Daiclonus (who looks like G1 Cyclonus with red hands and red wingtips) and Triclonus (who looks like G1 Cyclonus in dark blue instead of purple). Daiclonus and Triclonus know that Galvatron used to be Megatron, and that Delita-1 used to be Elita-1, and that Goldbug used to be Bumblebee, or maybe Bumblebee used to be Goldbug. Daiclonus thinks that Optimus Prime used to be someone named Optronix, a.k.a. "Orion Pax"; Triclonus thinks that Optimus Prime used to be someone named Convoy. The thing is, Daiclonus and Triclonus are convinced that they themselves used to be other Transformers, but they can't remember who. Are they members of Cyclonus's armada, sent back in time? Or did Galvatron create them based on his memories of having Cyclonus around in the future? Trying to find out who they used to be has driven them insane. This might not be such a threat if they had not concluded that the way to find out who they used to be is to find someone who knows and force them to tell using mind control; Daiclonus and Triclonus have rebuilt the
Robo-Smasher, and learned a little bit about how to make and use
cerebro-shells. (i know i've mentioned mind control before and it hasn't sat well, but i think it could be done if we limited its victims to NPCs and willing players' PCs.) Their next intended target would be Time Traveller (who better to tell them about their origins, their past?), and searching for
him would lead them to the rest of our PCs. Part of the threat would be how our PCs could defend themselves from their own allies--this is how i imagine bringing Makeway back into the game, flying Wheeljack's
Turbo Racer, probably alone or with one or two passengers, attacking the Autobots, all the while trying to warn them that he's being controlled by a cerebro-shell and can't stop himself. But a larger threat might be the sizable resources (i'm thinking cerebro-shelled Metroplex and/or Sky Lynx) that Daiclonus and Triclonus have put into some sort of excavation project, the nature of which even i have not yet determined--although
this comes to mind as a possibility.
i've also done a little something with Thundergun, and i have a few ideas for him, too. For one thing, what if he becomes obsessed with getting revenge on Rattrap for blowing him up? Or, perhaps more interestingly, what if Thundergun's memory was damaged when Rattrap blew him up, and Thundergun now believes everything Rattrap told him--that Thundergun is actually an Autobot named Makeway, and that he and Rattrap worked together with the Nebulos planetary defense force--but then, Rattrap blew him up, such that the delusional Decepticon would now believe
himself to be an Autobot, and Rattrap to be a
traitor to the Autobots! Regardless of the state of Thundergun's memory, what would happen if he ran into Pinstripe or any of Pinstripe's minions? Or, maybe Thundergun never encounters any of them, or avoids them--and maybe he steals the modified Royal Flush from them, before they get to it themselves? (Actually, if he thinks he's an Autobot, he might not even think of it as stealing...)