The first thing I'd probably suggest is an OC I created; his name is James, and he would've been from a different outpost on Copper-9, and was banished after he sent out a beacon to the Autobots (in my headcannon, the Transformers exist in this universe, but are a bit like bigfoot, where it's debated on Copper-9 whether they really exist or not), and it instead attracted a new group of murder drones who go to town on the place, and would end up walking all the way to the worker drone bunker, where he'd come into the events of S2.
Caption this Meme