Robert Epps

**Robert Epps** is a Chief Master Sergeant in the United States Air Force, under the command of US Army Ranger William Lennox. He frequently demands the bringing of things, such as "it".

## Biography

Sergeant Epps and the other soldiers in Captain Lennox's US Army Ranger squad were returning to SOCCENT Forward Operations Base after some hard duty. When Lennox revealed that he wanted to go home to see his baby girl more than anything else, Epps joined in with the men in teasing their commander. As night fell, a mysterious MH-53 helicopter arrived at the base, and after being surrounded by dozens of troops, it suddenly transformed and revealed itself to be the Decepticon Blackout, who proceeded to attack the base. Epps ran and ordered other soldiers to ready combat stations as they were under attack. Blackout narrowly missed crushing him as he used his digital recorder to take footage of the Decepticon. Fellow soldier Figueroa saved Epps by firing a sabot round at the robot, which allowed Epps to escape. Epps linked up with the rest of Lennox's team and the Captain's young friend Mahfouz and abandoned the exploding base as the only survivors.

The next morning, the survivors discussed the previous night's events, with Epps sharing with them the images he captured, as well as theorizing that the weapons platform was generating some sort of force field. Sergeant Patrick Donnelly expressed disbelief at this. Epps then shared the unnerving feeling that as he was recording the thing, it stared right back at him, causing an ominous silence to settle among the group. Later that day, as they made their way to local boy Mahfouz's village, Epps spotted a giant metal spike coming out of the sand aimed at Lennox's back and began firing wildly into the sand. After Sergeant Donnelly was impaled and killed by the robotic scorpion, Scorponok, the rest of the men ran for their lives to the cover of the village. Lennox managed to borrow a cell phone from Akram, Mahfouz's father, and asked for Epps's wallet for a credit card to make the call. In between firing rounds from his rifle, Epps barked that it was in his back pocket, prompting Lennox to protest that he had ten back pockets. Epps loudly clarified it was his left-cheek back pocket.

 File:Bringit!.jpg
When contact when the Pentagon was established, Epps coordinated with the E-3 Sentry AWACS plane to give orders for the incoming A-10 Thunderbolt IIs of Strike Package Bravo, indicating the target area killbox one-alpha with orange flares and laser guidance markers. As the A-10s arrived to provide air support, he gave them clearance to fire by shouting, "Bring it!" When their weapons failed to so much as dent Scorponok, Epps called upon the biggest barrels the Air Force had: the 105 millimeter cannons of an AC-130 Spectre gunship. This was signaled with a shout of "Bring the rain!" The resulting fusillade pounded Scorponok into the sand. As the dust settled, the scorpion got up and dove underground, but not before leaving part of its damaged tail behind.

In the aftermath of combat with Scorponok, Epps and the rest of Lennox's Spec Ops team were ordered home to American soil by Secretary of Defense John Keller, who had thought everyone at the SOCCENT base was massacred. They took the end of Scorponok's tail with them on the flight. Doing their own analysis of the piece of robot body, they discovered that its Self-regenerating molecular armor didn't regenerate where hit by sabot rounds, which Epps confirmed were "something like" a 6000-degree magnesium burn. They called the Pentagon again, telling them all gunships had to be loaded with sabot rounds to fight these things.

Later, Epps and the team landed at Nellis Air Force Base. Instead of them being debriefed on site, agents from Sector Seven arrived and ordered them to come with them. This was confusing, since Sector Seven didn't exist.

Epps and the team were driven to Hoover Dam, alongside several others who knew about the Transformers. Everyone filed inside Hoover Dam, where Sector Seven had been hiding the Megatron, the Decepticon leader and the AllSpark for eighty years. Upon seeing a thick steel door with triple claw marks in it, Epps jokingly pondered whether Freddy Krueger had been in there. Glen Whitmann pointed out that Freddy Krueger had four claws—that was Wolverine! Shortly thereafter, as the Decepticons launched an attack on the Dam, Sam Witwicky got in a argument with Seymour Simmons of Sector Seven over whether or not to release the captive Autobot Bumblebee. Lennox attempted to settle the argument by putting his sidearm to Simmons' chest, and Epps backed up his Commanding Officer in the geometrically complex standoff that ensued. When Simmons ordered them to stand down under S7 jurisdiction, Epps pointedly reminded Simmons that S7 didn't exist. They won the argument when Keller warned Simmons that "Losing's really not an option for these guys."

While everyone was still inside Hoover Dam, the Decepticons knocked out all communications as Megatron thawed out. After calling the Air Force with Morse code, the only thing left to do was get the AllSpark to Mission City, where it could be hidden in the urban jungle until the military arrived to evacuate it by helicopter. Epps complained when handed a couple of very large shortwave radios that they were "Radio Shack dinosaur radios, won't be able to work more than 20 miles." His group then stopped in Mission City after spotting an F-22 Raptor, which turned out to be Starscream, the Decepticon lieutenant.

Epps gave their location to Blackhawk helicopters send to extract the Cube, but the humans came under attack from the Decepticon Brawl. As the Autobots attacked the tank, Epps and the rest of the team scrambled to provide support fire and clear the area. Epps instructed the 'copters to pick Sam and the AllSpark up from the top of a nearby building. Meanwhile, Epps's group continued to fight Brawl from the cover of a shop. They narrowly escaped death when Bumblebee zipped in on the back of a tow truck and blasted Brawl to death.

Approaching the fight between Megatron and Optimus Prime, they encountered Blackout, the Decepticon who nearly killed Epps back at SOCCENT. After Epps called in the fighter jets, he laser marked Blackout, only for him to notice the soldiers and ire at them until Lennox shot Blackout dead. The team then took part in an attack on Megatron which ended in Sam killing him with the AllSpark.

Two years after the battle of Mission City, Epps had joined NEST, and was promoted to the rank of USAF Master Sergeant. Epps was deployed to Shanghai, China to follow a lead on the Decepticons Demolishor and Sideways. Sideways was pursued and dispatched by the newest Autobot arrivals, but Demolishor had escaped the soldiers. Epps called in Optimus to be air-dropped in, and the Autobot leader conquered Demolishor with ease.

 File:ROTFepps.jpg
Upon return to NEST HQ at Diego Garcia, the liaison to the President, Theodore Galloway, made his very negative position towards the Autobots very clear. Galloway also made it clear he didn't care about whatever defense the soldiers testified, which disgruntled Epps particularly.

Epps' tension towards Galloway only grew stronger after Optimus Prime was killed by the resurrected Megatron: the Decepticon leader's master, The Fallen, came to Earth in full force, killing thousands, and threatening to wreak further havoc should the humans not turn over Sam Witwicky. In response, Galloway returned and declared NEST deactivated, taking Lennox's badge, and ordering the Autobots deported to Diego Garcia.

However, sometime later, Epps and Lennox received a phone call from Seymour Simmons, who through clues revealed Sam had the means to revive Optimus in Egypt. NEST packed up and flew to over the Atlantic, where, much to Epps' delight, they had Galloway thrown out of the plane. NEST airdropped into Egypt, and Epps pondered disbelief at the fact Sam could revive Prime. After some time, a signal flare to Sam's group caught the attention of the Decepticons, who decided to attack NEST in a massive firefight.

During the battle, Epps and Lennox finally met up with Sam and Mikaela, and got the Air Force to carpet bomb the area, killing all Decepticons. Unfortunately, Epps had a bad throw, and the marking smoke where the air strike was to hit was right where they were. Epps and the others made a mad dash to NEST's location, but Megatron broke through the offense, and seemingly killed Sam. However, the boy lived, and revived Optimus with the Matrix of Leadership. Epps bore witness to his subsequent battle and defeat of The Fallen, and congratulated Simmons and Sam's friend for their efforts in helping them fight the Decepticons.

At some point after 2009, Epps quit being a soldier of NEST, and was offered a position working on the *Xantium* at a NASA launch site. He worked along with the three Wreckers, Leadfoot, Roadbuster and Topspin, whom he would often run interference for their abrasive nature towards other workers.

When the turncoat Sentinel Prime demanded humanity to exile the Autobots, Epps helped to prepare the Autobot ship for launch. He greeted Sam Witwicky warmly, but was confused by his strange behavior. He then witnessed the Autobots leave aboard the *Xantium*, and their supposed annihilation by Starscream. In the event's aftermath, Epps heard that Sam was planning on rescuing his girlfriend Carly Spencer from Dylan Gould, the Decepticon liaison who was holding her captive in Chicago. Seeking revenge on the people who had helped kill his friends, Epps decided to go with Sam, and gathered a few friends who had worked with him in NEST and they headed to Chicago.

But when Epps and the others arrived at the Decepticon controlled Chicago, he thought it would have been impossible to rescue her after witnessing the Decepticon's fortification, and attempted to convince Sam that they didn't stand a chance. They were then attacked by a Decepticon fighter, which was brought down by Optimus Prime and the Wreckers. As the rest of the Autobots arrived, they revealed that they had known the Decepticons would never let them go or leave Earth alone and so had hid in a booster rocket that disengaged before the ship was destroyed. Once they had infiltrated the city and Carly had been rescued, Epps managed to get a message through a crashed military drone of the Decepticons' scheme to bring Cybertron into Earth's solar system. He then came up with a plan to destroy the control pillar with a rocket shot from a high building while the Autobots attacked the Decepticons.

 File:DOTM Epps.jpg
Epps and the others made it into a tall building, but before the rocket could be launched, Decepticon fighters began firing at the skyscraper, causing it to tilt, and a Decepticon protoform came in looking for them. Escaping by jumping out of the window and sliding down to a lower floor, the group's presence was discovered by Shockwave. As Shockwave sent his pet Driller to finish the building, Epps complained that Decepticons always got the best stuff and ordered his group to try and escape. After their tower slammed into another, Epps and the others escaped as Optimus arrived and killed the Driller. They began rushing toward the building with the pillars, which had started to activate, but Epps and his men were separated from Sam and Carly, which Epps noted had been Eddie's responsibility.

They soon met up with Lennox and a large force of soldiers, and once the bridges had been lowered helped join in the attack. Epps and his team lay in wait as the NEST forces began attacking Shockwave and his forces, and once he was weakened enough Epps ordered his men to open fire on Shockwave, helping to severely damage him. As he and the others attacked the remaining Decepticons and the Space bridge process was stalled by Optimus's attack on the control pillar. As Gould reactivated the Pillar, Epps and the other soldiers were unable to help Sam as they fought, being too busy with the remaining Decepticon forces. But once Sam had killed Gould, Epps, Lennox and the other soldiers arrived, and Epps called for Bumblebee and Ratchet, who destroyed the pillar, causing the partially-formed Cybertron to collapse in on itself.
After Optimus had killed Sentinel Prime and Megatron, Epps then joined the Autobots as they stood as heroes for saving the world.

## Trivia

* Despite having been named "Robert" in the course of the first live-action movie (he is referred to as "Bobby" by Figueroa within the first few minutes of the film), and despite the frequent, widespread use of this name on websites describing Tyrese Gibson's role in *Revenge of the Fallen*, other media has given Epps two different first names.
	+ A set of Top Trumps game cards released in Europe in 2007 gave the character the first name of **Julius**. This name would later be re-used in the "Revenge of the Fallen: The Movie Universe" guidebook.
	+ The *Revenge of the Fallen* novelization gives Epps the first name of **Raymond**; this was corroborated by his wife calling him "Ray" in Revenge of the Fallen issue 3, suggesting that the name was in the original script for the film, despite what the previous movie established.
* In theory he could be Raymond Robert Epps, or Robert Raymond Epps. Or Julius Raymond Robert Epps. His friends call him Bobby, his wife calls him Ray... but he's called Julius in Europe.
* Originally Epps was going to appear in The Last Knight, being forced to work with the TRF alongside William Lennox. However Tyrese Gibson was unable to reprise his role due to scheduling conflicts with The Fate and the Furious.

*This article uses material from the Transformers Wiki and Teletraan I*.