Name: Astra 

Gender: Female 

Faction: Autobot 

Function: Field-medic/Assistant Mechanic 

Motto: "I like to work hard, and party harder"

Alternate Mode: Red and black Honda CBR954RR Fireblade 2002 motorbike 

Robot Mode: Astra is mostly coloured red, with black highlights. Red metal makes up her helmet 
where an Autobot insignia rests, framing a silver face with pale blue optics. 
She has black streaks running down her sides. Her legs and arms are entwined with red streaks 
while pieces of her alt. mode, composed of both red and black metal streaked together hang on 
her stomach area, shoulders and back. 

Weaponry: Though Astra is not a fighter, her main function often pits her in battle situations. 
She carries a pair of dark grey hand-blasters stored on her robot mode hips. These weapons are
not overly powerful, but coupled with her experienced aim, they are enough to make Decepticons 
think twice before engaging her. 
If the situation calls for it, Astra can also make use of Wheeljack's extensive weapons store, 
though past experiences have taught her to stick to her much safer and more reliable blasters. 

Specialities: Astra is a trained medic, and has spent most of her life fixing busted Autobots. 
Her skills and training have translated into this innate ability to quickly diagnose and prep 
most battlefield injuries, an essential skill for a front-line mechanic. 
A long time in the battlefield has resulted in the capability to operate under extreme stress 
without loss of focus. 
She's become adept at improvising, tying off systems, re-routing power lines and jury-rigging 
shock systems from scrambled circuit-boards, anything to keep the fallen warrior functional. 

Abilities: Astra's motorbike form can reach speeds of 180 kph on tarmac. She is very agile in 
this mode, being able to perform daring turns and brakes at dangerously high speeds. Vehicle 
range: 500km. 
She doesn't have access to her blasters in bike mode but can carry specially fitted weaponry 
on her driver seat. In robot mode, Astra carries her dual hand-blasters and a small tool-kit. 
She has very advanced systems powering her, resulting in both higher endurance to damage and 
better reflexes. 
She has keen senses, which aid her in diagnosing damaged Autobots. Astra has great technical 
ability that she uses to help Wheeljack with his inventions, and Ratchet with his patients. 
Sometimes she likes to tinker around with things, which results either in a short-circuited 
mess or a highly reliable upgrade. 

Weaknesses: After millions of years in battle, the stress is slowly starting to show. 
Whenever Astra returns from a combat mission, she is particularly volatile and violent. Her 
mood could swing from hostile to despondent on a whim and she will whack anything or anyone 
that annoys her with the nearest turbo-wrench. 
Astra is also willing to go to any lengths to save a friend, and any sharp-witted Decepticon 
could use that against her. 

Personality: Astra is a little 'strange', as Spike said once. While her technical prowess is 
unquestionable, her sanity isn't. When on duty, she is fearless and resolute, taking her role 
as an Autobot seriously, always proving helpful and supportive. 
She takes dangerous chances to ensure the life of a friend, and she'll not back down from any 
challenge. 
She works with both Wheeljack, her mentor and creator and Ratchet, her 'Chief' (or boss), and 
has developed a close relationship with them, and holds them both dear to herself. 
However, whene Astra is off-duty, she's excitable, reckless and extremely free-spirited. She 
will do anything short of openly disobeying direct orders, causing a good deal of irritation 
to Higher Command as a result. 
Whether it's pulling pranks with Sideswipe, dirt-racing with a macho Minibot, or cruising the 
highways, Astra takes her leisure activities to the same extremes as her work. Those close to 
her note her wild, carefree antics help to offset the harsh reality of her life. 

History: Astra was the creation of Autobot engineer Wheeljack when he decided to build one of 
those rare 'female' Autobots. 

Before the war started, Astra had became a worker in one of Iacon's energy depots, then when 
the Decepticon rebellion took full swing, her depot was unfortunate enough to be targeted. 
Unprepared and totally caught by surprise, the place was razed to the ground. 

Several Autobot rescue teams came after the Decepticons left and helped the survivors. 
This was to be Astra's first encounter with the Autobots who would later gather under Optimus 
Prime, as she was pulled from the rubble of the depot by a pair of 'Search-&-Rescue' Autobots 
known as Inferno and Firestar. 

Astra was in shock for weeks afterwards and since her quarters had been in the destroyed depot 
complex, she sought out her creator. 
Finding Wheeljack, he kindly offered to let her stay in his garage until she'd fully recovered 
from the initial shock. 
When she had finally recovered, Astra considered exactly what to do as civil war was engulfing 
Iacon, Vos and Tarn - she could either leave and live in one of the cities on the far side of 
Cybertron, or stay and help out the survivors. She stayed. 

Meanwhile, the flood of refugees was growing to the point where all the repair workshops were 
overflowing with patients. 
As she was smaller and more nimble than the boxy labour mechs, Astra soon found herself being 
used as a 'damage scout', wading through the queues of injured Autobots to do quick hack jobs 
on the seriously wounded and keeping them alive long enough for any of the medics to properly
fix them. 
Many lives were doubtlessly saved by her growing medic skills, as Astra patched up fuel leaks 
and fixed shorted-out circuitry before the injuries became irreparable.
Eventually the refugees stopped coming in such in large numbers as Decepticon weaponry became 
more lethal. 

Now that Autobot combat forces had been mustered, they began an operation to recruit civilians 
for military roles. 
Wheeljack, who'd always been a well-respected engineer amongst his peers, was quickly drafted 
into the high-level science laboratories, designing secret weapons and who-knows-what for the 
war effort. 
Meanwhile Astra became a 'maintenance worker', helping keep both Autobot fighters and weapons
in optimum operating status. 

When the war started gettting truly nasty, a lot of Autobot installations were overwhelmed by 
superior Decepticon firepower. 
The installation Astra was stationed at got hit too, but at least they put up a fight before 
it succumbed, and relief forces managed to force the Decepticons back. 
The few survivors of these attack had little hopes of being repaired, such was the extent of 
their damage. Wheeljack somehow found out about the attack and requested that the remaining 
mechs be transfered over to his facilities. Using new and untested procedures, he managed to 
rebuild these fallen Autobots. 
They were the first of a new generation of Transformers with superior battle systems and new 
'core consciousness housings', one of Wheeljack's science colleagues designed a new Subtronic 
Personality Algorithm Redux Kernel and Wheeljack used it to save their very souls. 
With Astra once more without a home, Wheeljack introduced her to his closest friends Ratchet, 
Perceptor and Grapple, to keep her from becoming totally depressed. 
She picked up a lot of engineering ideas from them and discovered a love for tinkering. 

Using his influence as one of the Autobots' top science officers, Wheeljack quickly had Astra 
assigned as a lab technician in his facilities to make sure she did not get caught in another 
Decepticon attack, the science facilities were heavily defended from attack. 

In time, the Autobots were overwhelmed. 
The Decepticons were too ruthless, too powerful, and the Autobot army soon became a shadow of 
itself, fighting from the shadows and running from conflict. 
As with many others, Astra lost some hope with the downturn in the War but she didn't give up 
entirely. She was an Autobot, and would keep on living. 
But with energy at a critical shortage, much of Cybertron was shut down to conserve power. 
Autobot and Decepticon alike were placed in stasis in secure locations, while waiting for the 
time when Cybertron lived again. 

A few million years later, the top Autobot Elite were selected to accompany Prime in a final,
desperate energy mission on the Ark. 
Meanwhile the remaining resistance cells dug further underground to escape Decepticon raids. 
But years passed, and no word of the Ark's return. 

It wasn't until the late 20th century (Earth time) when the Ark Autobots finally made contact 
with Cybertron. 
Using Shockwave's Space Bridge, several attempts were made to get energy back up to Cybertron. 
Some succeeded and dozens of Autobots who had been left in eons-long slumber were reactivated. 
Then a daring raid by Elita-1's resistance cell allowed this team of raw recruits led by Ultra 
Magnus and a veteran soldier called Kup to escape to Earth. 
Astra, Hot Rod, Springer, Blurr and Arcee are now all stationed within the Ark, living amongst 
legends.