The Ultimate panel of the current penultimate Penny Arcade comic, as of the writing of this comic, has your third way answer.

Edit 3: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2026/11/06/musical-scares that is the comic in question.

Edit: etymologists help me out. Why is it that Prime refers to first in all cases, except mathematics, and ultimate refers to the last thing, except for sometimes in mathematics?

And yes, I did have this thought because I started thinking about what the antithesis of Optimus Prime (First Best) would be, and was coming up with Pessimus Ultimate (Last Worst.)

Did mathematics use Greek as a base rather than Latin or something?

Edit 2: just realized that a prime number might be called that because it's the first number that is only divisible by itself on an infinite timeline, but that still doesn't help with ultimate, as some of the time that's just a best guess.

Edit 4: wait, does that mean that there's a possibility that Pessimus Ultimate actually did/does exist? Would they make Megatron look competent or useless?

I’m not saying that the solution is to stick your head in the sand, I’m saying there’s no real tenacity between the two of us. Neither country actually fights for anything. The US had nothing but the limpest possible protests against the most insane shit and, like I said, up here we literally have a third party that Canadians refuse to vote for despite them being super available.

We’re not trapped in an abusive relationship, we’re here voluntarily. The good news is that that means we still have some level of control but the bad news is that it also means way too many of us are full-fucking-stupid.