Soundwave (Transformers: Prime)

* Prime
* RID

**Soundwave** is a major antagonist in *Transformers: Prime* and *Transformers: Robots in Disguise*.

He is the most loyal follower of Megatron and a deadly enforcer who enacts complex plots to fulfill the Decepticon agenda, inspiring respect and fear in all of his colleagues as even if he's a Cybertronian of few words, he is among the most efficient of the Decepticons and acts as the eyes and ears of the organization, with no information evading him.

In his rare instances of speaking, he is voiced by Frank Welker, his original voice actor in Generation 1.

## What Makes Him Magnificent?

* He is the epitome of silent, but deadly, being immensely charming through his body language and creative methods of communication through replaying words of others.
* He lacks any detracting traits that nearly all the other Decepticons and villains have and notably doesn't display any inherent hatred of humanity like his Decepticon compatriots.
* He detected transmissions from deep space and forced Starscream to open the space bridge to allow Megatron to finally return after years away.
* When the Nemesis navigation system was damaged, he broke into the Giant Sized Array telescope in Texas to pinpoint Cybertron's location so the Decepticons could enact their plan to raise an undead army from Dark Energon. He foiled an attempt by the Autobots kid allies and their tech expert Rafael to stop him and had them at his mercy, but ultimately decided to spare them and leave once his mission was complete to return to the Nemesis.
* He spied on Starscream through Laserbeak to discover the severely damaged body of Megatron and forced him to take Megatron back for repairs, foiled the backstabber's plans to kill him once and for all.
* He repeatedly foiled attempts from Starscream and later Knock Out from trying to kill Megatron and saw through their lies and discovered that a cortical psychic patch was attached to Megatron, soon exposing the Autobots who were on the ship. He stopped Starscream from using the Autobot intrusion as an excuse to take Megatron off of life support and his efforts allowed Megatron to be revived and return once more.
* He secretly kept tabs on Starscream following Megatron's return to know what he was up to.
* He located the parts the Decepticons would need to build a new space bridge and went on a stealthy robbing spree against highly secure military bases to successfully obtain the parts with the U.S government not even knowing it was him and instead suspected MECH for quite some time and he located the last part for Megatron to obtain.
* He figured out Unicron was the core of Earth and when Megatron left to talk to Unicron, he was the only Decepticon who stepped in to confront Airachnid when she tried to take advantage of the situation to usurp leadership of the Decepticons and abandon Megatron, engaging her in an epic duel and defeating her, putting the treacherous PE hate sink in her place and barely limiting a finger to do so.
* He erased all incriminating data from the Nemesis to prevent an amnesiac Optimus named Orion from learning the truth about the Decepticons when Megatron tricked him into joining and when Arcee infiltrated the Nemesis and went on a rampage to rescue Optimus, he stepped in and opened a space bridge right when she charged at him to strand her in the Arctic and foil her plans.
* After Orion became Optimus, he was the one skilled enough to decrypt the Autobots Iacon database to continue the Decepticons hunt for the Iacon relics on Earth.
* He successfully distracted Ratchet and Wheeljack with Laserbeak to get to the third Iacon relic and when Wheeljack confronted him, he engaged him in an epic duel, being totally unfazed when Wheeljack cracked his visor and when it seemed like Wheeljack had finally gotten the upper hand and was about to kill him, it turned out he had used his tentacles to grab the relic called the Resonance Blaster from behind him and immobilise Wheeljack, becoming the only Decepticon to successfully obtain an Iacon relic. He also found the grenade trap Wheeljack implanted in Laserbeak so it could be disposed.
* He infiltrated a military base in Colorado to hijack the satellite superweapon Project Damocles and download the codes to the Nemesis, engaging the Autobots with the satellite and successfully preventing them from interfering with his download. He also detected Rafael's attempt to hack into the satellite and nearly destroyed him in his house had Rafael not redirected the satellite at the last minute.
* He figured out that the last Omega Key was related to the Autobot's new recruit Smokescreen and kidnapped him while he was out, successfully getting away just when the other Autobots arrived.
* He discovered the location of all three of the Autobots human kid allies and kidnapped them with Starscream after the Autobots obtained all the Omega Keys to successfully force the Autobots to hand the Omega Keys back to the Decepticons and allow them to activate the Omega Lock.
* His efforts at tracking the Autobot base would finally succeed in the Season 2 finale, allowing the Decepticons to destroy the base and score a major victory against the Autobots.
* He monitored communication worldwide to track any surviving Autobot communication and successfully tracked down Jack and Arcee after Jack sent a message to his mom.
* He realized Starscream had been falling for Autobot tricks to spread Decepticon forces thin and deduced the Autobots were temporary held up in the crashed and abandoned Decepticon warship, the Harbinger.
* He came to Shockwave's aid when he was attacked by the Autobots while trying to retrieve a Predacon fossil for his Project Predacon, successfully taking down Optimus Prime and managing to bridge a piece of the fossil back to the Nemesis.
* He exterminated the zombie outbreak on the Nemesis and single-handedly defeated Airachnid and her Insecticon army when they returned for a rematch, stranding them all on one of Cybetron's moons.
* He oversaw a mission to recover some parts to rebuild the Omega Lock with the help of some Vehicons and when the Autobots arrived on the scene, he bridged the Vehicons back to the Nemesis with the parts even though he ended up being captured, showing selflessness he placed the mission and the Decepticon cause above anything else, even himself.
* When the Autobots tried to interrogate him, he proceed to gloriously troll them before proceeding to infamously talk for the first and only time to proclaim his superiority, crashing his own hard drives and shutting himself down to prevent the Autobots from getting anything from him.
* Upon being reactivated by Laserbeak, he single-handedly took down Bulkhead and Smokescreen to kidnap Ratchet to assist the Decepticons in perfecting a formula for alternative cybermatter for the Omega Lock.
* In the series finale, when the Wreckers stormed the bridge, he bridged them all out straight into a Decepticon ambush when they tried attack him and when Miko came aboard the ship with the Apex Armor and Jack, he nearly succeeded in stranding her too, only being defeated by something he could have never expected with Jack and RAF trapping him in a alternate dimension called the Shadowzone the kids had accidentally discovered before.
* He took advantage of Team Bee accidentally opening a portal to the Shadowzone to escape, easily defeating them and throwing Bumblebee into the Shadowzone. He stranded Strongarm and Grimlock when they freed themselves. He successfully built a transmitter using scrap parts in the scrapyard to contact Megatron and when Bumblebee was able to return and destroy the transmitter, he defeated and nearly killed Bumblebee with it taking the entire strength of the team to take him down.
* After receiving Mini-Cons from the secretly Decepticon, “Autobot High Council”, he dispatched the Mini-Cons to launch a string of thefts to obtain Team Bee's Decepticon Hunters, sending Goodbar to successfully steal one when Hi-Test failed and ran away. He also contacted Steeljaw's pack after they were freed by the High Council and manipulated Steeljaw to obtain his aid in his goals.
* He reformatted his body and used the Decepticon Hunters to successfully escape the Shadowzone.
* He built a transatlantic beacon generator from wreckage in the Shadowzone that would powerful enough to contact Megatron when detonated in the highest point in the city and while it would unleash a massive amount of radiation that would wipe out all life on Earth, this at least wasn't Soundwave's intention and he took no pleasure in it, simply dismissing it as collateral damage and he easily defeated Steeljaw and forced him to retreat when he tried to stop him
* He sensed the Autobots arrival to stop him and engaged them, dispatching Laserbeak to deal with Optimus while he put up a good fight against Team Bee, counteracting Sideswipe's attempts to sneak up on him. Even when, Bumblebee reclaimed the Decepticon Hunters and cut off his tentacles, he bypassed Bee to activate beacon and nearly succeed until Optimus suddenly appeared and destroyed the beacon.

## What Makes Him a Baddie?

* He is a loyal Decepticon who has assisted all of Megatron's plots of violent conquest and war.
* He has orchestrated strings of thefts to obtain space bridge parts or Team Bee's Decepticon hunters.
* He kidnapped the Autobots human kid allies and threatened to kill them with the other Decepticons to blackmail the Autobots into handing over the Omega Keys.
* He threatened to kill Hi-Test when he failed to obtain a Decepticon Hunter and ran away and later threatened Steeljaw's pack into assisting him.
* He nearly wiped out all life on Earth with his transatlantic beacon generator which although not his intention, he didn't care and simply dismissed as collateral damage necessary to complete his goal.

## Trivia

* He's one of two MB versions of Soundwave, alongside his *Animated* counterpart.

## Navigation

*Generation One* Continuity
**Megatron**

*Transformers: Animated*
Shockwave

*Transformers Film Series*
Quintessa

*Transformers: Prime*
Shockwave

*Other Continuities*
Shockwave