I'm back and I continue to post my drawings in random order! This time, the choice fell on the drawing's supposed to be posted in November 2019, but I relegated it to the background due to more recent works.
First, I want to stipulate some information. The season 4 made me really sweat. At the time of its release, I had four full-fledged AUs, two of which included Horde Prime who played a key role in the story. I have already formed his character, prehistory, appearance at that time. And then the show is: "No, Horde Prime is absolutely not like that! He doesn't look like Hordak! Let's go again!" And I had to redo everything. Well, not everything. In Queen of Beast Island AU, Prime remained intact (but more about that another time). But I decided to thoroughly remake Clone Prince AU. Actually, the essence is the same, the main events and Prime's personality traits haven't changed, but some details (in addition to changing the appearance of certain characters) had to be added. And I think the AU got only better.
Now, about the idea. In his youth, Horde Prime was an ambitious, very inquisitive ruler who loved science, strove for self-development and wanted to use the accumulated knowledge to make his empire great. His particular passion was the exact and technical sciences, as well as neurobiology (this partly explains his ability to read thoughts and manipulate memories). Horde Prime began to study the issues of cloning after the tragedy that happened to his people.
In order to contribute to scientific and technological progress on his home planet, Horde Prime made a truce with the First Ones and began to study their language and technologies. For years, both peoples worked together for the benefit of their entire civilization, but everyone understood that the already fragile peace wouldn't last forever. And when the conflict escalated, the planet of Horde Prime was the first to be completely destroyed by a new secret First Ones' project - the Heart of Etheria Project. And that's how Prime turned out to be the only survivor of his race, a ruler without a people and a kingdom. And as Horde Prime traveled alone across space on his ship-laboratory, he began to rebuild his empire from scratch by creating his own clones.
P.S. The design of young Prime was developed by me on the basis of Hordak's flashbacks in season 3.