Hate Plague

"It's a madness plague, Galvatron! If one of those Transformers touches you, you're infected."

- Rodimus Prime to Galvatron about the Hate Plague.

The Hate Plague is a deadly virus from the original Transformers cartoon. It is a red virus that once it touches any living thing, it will infect them with hate, causing them to attack & infect anyone they see on their path.

G1 Transformers
First debuting in the 2-part season finale of Season 3, the Hate Plague used to ravaged the entire universe but was contained by a wise Prime using sheer wisdom. However, nobody was wise enough to destroy the spores so they were completely sealed inside the sun.

Millions of years later, the Hate Plague were rediscovered by human scientists Gregory Swofford & Jessica Morgan who manages to rediscover the body of Optimus Prime from the sun. Taking them back to Earth, Gregory studied them with his colleague Mark Morgan, Jessica's father. They both soon learned of its properties when they test it on two lab rats. Due to an accident cause by a fight between the Autobots and the Decepticons on their lab which cause Jessica to be crippled & wear prosthetics, Mark, out of anger towards the Cybertronian race as he blames them for his daughter's injury, uses Optimus's body as a bait to lure the Autobots. Upon arriving there, he & Gregory traps Ultra Magnus & the Aerialbots and infects them with the Hate Plague. The Hate Plague soon spread like a wildfire in the entire universe not only infecting Autobots and Decepticons alike, but as well as infecting the human population and the rest of the entire universe.

The Hate Plague was soon stopped when a resurrected Optimus Prime unleashes the wisdom of the Matrix of Leadership, eradicating the deadly disease.

Known Infected Victims

 * Two lab rats (test subject)
 * Mark Morgan (presumed)
 * Gregory Swofford (presumed)
 * Ultra Magnus
 * The Aerialbots & their combined form Superion
 * The Throttlebots Chase, Freeway, Rollbar, Searchlight & Wide Load.
 * The Combaticons & their combined form Bruticus.
 * The Stunticons & their combined form Menasor.
 * The Protectobots & their combined form Defensor.
 * Wreck-Gar
 * Rodimus Prime, who was later reformatted back into Hot Rod to retrieve the Matrix of Leadership.
 * The Predacons & their combined form Predaking.
 * Millions of humans
 * Possibly various lifeforms from across the universe.
 * The Sharkticons.
 * Scourge & his Sweeps.
 * Cyclonus
 * Goldbug, a reformatted Bumblebee.
 * Autobot Blaster
 * Steeljaw
 * Sergeant Kup
 * Blurr
 * Autobot Wheelie
 * Jessica Morgan
 * Galvatron
 * Sky Lynx

Known Survivors

 * Optimus Prime
 * A Quintesson judge saved by Sky Lynx.
 * Metroplex (Rodimus placed him offline to prevent anymore harm).

Beast Machines
In Beast Machines: Transformers, Megatron used a new variety of virus loosely based on the Hate Plague in attempt to destroy the Maximals. Nightscream compared this to the original Hate Plague. The Maximals were able to overcome this new strain by working together & purging the infection out of their systems.

Trivia

 * The only characters in the episode "Return of Optimus Prime" who definitely never get infected by the Hate Plague are Optimus Prime himself, Metroplex (who was deactivated to prevent him from getting infected), and the Quintesson that Sky Lynx brought to Earth to revive Optimus Prime.