The first part starts off with the portal opening the Maximals around the first ship that comes to the portal with the Predacons chasing them. The Maximals are in a small survey vessel that is lightly armed. The Predacons score a direct hit on the hall of the ship, the Maximals are forced to eject their crewmates into space around the planet. The Maximals do manage to return fire. Both ships crash on the unknown planet and both ships are heavily damaged the Maximals crash land somewhere on the African savanna, the Predacons crash land in an extremely volcanic region a few miles away from the Maximals crash zone. The Predacons land in what looks like a lava field. The two groups realize that they cannot survive in their current form. So, it is decided that they will take on forms of the native species. When the Maximals run a scan for life nearby, the scan picks up mammals. When the Predacons run the same scan they detect mostly dinosaur bones with some i insects thrown into the mix. Megatron orders that his underlings find and destroy the Maximals. The Maximals, Cheetor, is the first to fight one of Megatron's aerial scouts, Waspinator, and attempts to blow him out of the sky. However, Megatron and the rest of the Predacons soon arrive in the area and begin to fire on Cheetor. Then Optimus Prime and the rest of the Maximals engage the enemy, but the first engagement is not too long because both sides get overloaded with energy. The power source that both sides need to power their weapons and ships is found in abundance on this planet. But in this case, both sides withdraw. Optimus Prime and the others realize that not all the Predacons were part of the battle. They meet the absent Predacon on their way back to their base. Dino Bot challenges Optimus Prime for leadership of the Maximals. Megatron takes that opportunity to fire a missile at Optimus Prime and the traitor. The missile ends up blowing up the platform where both were standing. Dino Bot ends up saving Optimus. This Predacon actually has some honor and believes in a fair one-on-one fight. He decides to follow-up Optimus Prime’s leadership in the second part. Both sides detect a huge mountain composed almost completely of the energy crystals they use for power. Both sides realize they cannot transform well in the vicinity of this mountain, so they do their best to use their beast forms to their fullest potential. Also, in this episode, both sides discover Stonehenge with which is a good mystery that persists through the first season.
The Maximals are descendents of the Auto Bots, and the Predacons are descendents of the Deceptocons. Evidently after the first conflict, both sides sign some sort of peace treaty, which has been in effect for several thousand years. The Predacons steal two golden discs that have coordinates to earth, but since the Predacons used some kind of time travel technology, by the time they ended up on Earth, it was the wrong time. I recommend this series to anyone who likes the Transformers franchise. The animation might be dated, but the story is extremely well-written.