When we last left our shape-shifting mechanical heroes in Transformers: Age of Extinction, Optimus Prime had relinquished himself from the shackles of our planet Earth, opting to blast off into outer space for an adventure yet to be determined. Meanwhile, Autobots Bumblebee, Hound, Crosshairs, and Drift held down the terrestrial fort, evildoer Megatron remained at large, and native Texan Mark Wahlberg struggled to suppress his non-rhotic Rs. So where will we pick up with this pack upon their return to the screen in Michael Bay’s forthcoming Transformers: The Last Knight?

In fact, a slew of new plot details unearthed by Joblo.com answers these questions and then some, as we tackle in today’s Nerdist News. Watch above to hear Kyle Hill tear through what might be the oddest set of rumors to attach to a movie in years.

As it turns out, Optimus Prime has covered some serious intangible ground, traveling all the way back to his home world of Cybertron… only to find it totally and utterly destroyed. To pour metallic salt on the robot equivalent of a wound, Optimus Prime finds out that he’s to blame for the decimation of his society. But just as there was when Bruce Willis mounted a renegade asteroid armed with nothing but a nuclear bomb and fatherly love, there’s hope. In order for Optimus Prime to save Cybertron from total destruction, he’ll need to travel back to Earth to retrieve an artifact that is somehow linked to the wizard Merlin. Yes, that one.

Joblo goes on to explain that Merlin, in this franchise’s increasingly baffling canon, was endowed with supernatural abilities thanks to an encounter with a time-traveling Transformer back in the early Medieval period. While we’ve got no definitive information just yet about the identity of the artifact that Optimus Prime must retrieve, nor of how he plans to get his hands on it, Joblo ventures a pretty rational guess: the sword Excalibur, easily the most recognizable symbol in all of Arthurian legend.

To sum up, Optimus Prime will spend a fair portion of The Last Knight traveling back and forth between Cybertron and Earth looking for a centuries-old magical relic, one that is more than likely King Arthur’s all-powerful blade. Believe it or not, that is just one subplot in what promises to be, if nothing else, a mystifyingly strange two (or, lets face it, three) hours at the multiplex. While O.P. is enjoying his scavenger hunt through the space-time continuum, Bumblebee will assume status as the leader of the Autobots at their new base in the Badlands of South Dakota. The aforementioned robotic ruffians—the militant Hound (voiced by John Goodman in Age of Extinction), samurai Drift (Ken Watanabe), and also-there Crosshairs (John DiMaggio)—will once again be along for a round of world-saving.

But from whom? Unsurprisingly, Megatron retains his role as supreme baddie in The Last Knight, though the specifics of his latest plot are still under wraps. The Dinobots will too find a place in the film—with the so-called “Mini-Dinobots” (which just have to be exactly what they sound like, don’t they?) in tow—though details are scant on how they’ll be interacting with the other characters or central storyline.

Also thus far uncertain is how the recently announced new Autobots will come into play. Joblo introduces the names and highway-friendly forms of a few new robotic characters: a British-accented Aston Martin named Cogman, a Vespa called Squeaks, and an enigmatic character dubbed “The Creator.”

As for humans, Mark Wahlberg will return as Cade Jaeger, as will Josh Duhamel as the ceaselessly promotable military man William Lennox (a recurring player through the first three Transformers movies but absent from Age of Extinction). The Last Knight also welcomes Anthony Hopkins to the Transformers series, though we don’t know yet what type of character he’ll be taking on; the smart money has him either voicing one of the new robots (The Creator sounds pretty Hopkinsy), or maybe even playing Merlin the wizard himself. (If ever there were an example of perfect casting…) Despite earlier notice that The Last Knight had established production in Cuba, all this “Britishness”—on top of the casting of Internet-famous British pit bull mix Freya—seems to hint at a predominantly United Kingdom-set Transformers film.

Oh, and sorry, but Shia LaBeouf is all but definitely still out.

That’s all we know at this point, but further info is sure to hit the web soon enough. How do you think Transformers: The Last Knight sounds at this point?

Image: Paramount Pictures