Let’s get into some Ben 51 angst today lads, and hopefully little me’s cruelty is watered down and given decent explanation. Oh it’s still definitely cruel but probably not mindless.
Firstly, let’s set the situation, the tech-xperts of the facility rigged up a cheap Omnitrix controller. It’s not the highest quality, but it’s relatively bug free. Unfortunately it requires a receiver. How is this unfortunate? Because the Omnitrix has retreated into Ben’s systems. This means an embedded receiver, hard to remove and easily adaptable, needed to be installed.
As a collar.
The Omnitrix is never put into rest mode so it can help be Ben’s life support system, and while that does mean he gives off an energy signature at all times, it reduces the signature of his transformations. This I believe is because there’s a degree of separation between canon Ben and the Omnitrix that the alien forms are kept at their peak.
Ben 51, who would be energy deficient, can’t afford to be peak performance nor without the support, so the Omnitrix is less effective at its peak than canon.
SO! Moving on to the specifies, Ben’s stay at Area 51 consists of 3 rotating activities with varying times and lengths. Starting off we have the Isolation stage. As it implies, this ‘activity’ as Ben calls it out of sarcastic boredom has him spending a nonspecific but long duration of time in his claustrophobic cell.
However, that’s not the main event. This is a chance for the faculty to observe Ben’s behaviour... without invasive intervention, relatively speaking. During the isolation period, the Omnitrix remote is set to random selection, changing Ben into a different alien every time. He used to constantly try to escape, using the abilities he had as an alien to find any weaknesses, but he only accidentally helped Area 51 develop better tech to keep him in.
How did they stop him?
Well, the collar is not only a receiver, but a ‘disciplinary tool’ (read: shock collar).
So, overall, Ben doesn’t try to use his Isolation activity as a time to escape. Unless he randomly unlocks a new alien. Which finally worked when he got Alien X, who he would probably name Freyd (based on freed and frayed, yeah I know, on the nose and everything, but it’s BEN) after how Bellicus and Serena are named.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The second activity is the most energetic, Physicals! And by energetic, I ACTUALLY mean life threatening, because unlike PE at schools, this little activity is designed to find physical weaknesses of Ben’s alien selection.
What this involves typically are either battle scenarios or environmental scenarios, depending on what the suits up top wanna test. This isn’t meant to train Ben to be better, this is meant as a test for any tech the science team have developed, before sending them off to any dispatch team for on field use. Of course, they can’t just kill Ben, that’ll leave them with highly inefficient leftover alien test subjects, who have less chance of survival than Ben.
Needless to say, quite horrific.
New aliens get subjected to nonspecialised but definitely dangerous bots and environments, and the longer this goes for, the longer Ben refuses to play along. Of course, he’s ‘disciplined’ into doing as he’s told eventually.
Freyd was spared of the experiment, but it’s not like they could ever begin to try.
Last but not least, the Medicals! Probably the most gruesome, so proceed with caution, this sounds exactly like it does on the tin. This is the activity that Ben spends the least awake out of all 3, and at least there’s enough mercy to do so. Sure, Area 51 is cruel and inhumane (or perhaps the term should be xenophobic) but at least logistically, it would be a detriment for them to do live surgery.
Unfortunately, aliens have quite the different biology in comparison to humans, so sometimes the types and dosages of anaesthetics don’t... exactly... last through the dissection.
New aliens may have this issue, especially species with wildly different physiology to humans and even other aliens. Ben can’t count on his fingers how many times he’s awoken to glaring fluorescent lights and bloodstained silhouettes, but he can’t exactly list an exact number either. But he’s definitely got some bad memories about that, and knows a little more about alien biology that canon Ben does.
Whenever he’s Big Chill, using a more gender neutral name Ava (lanche), he mourns.
And feel free to beat me until I’m blue for that one this addition wasn’t even on baby me’s mind this is recent angst laddies!
In Ben’s escape, however, does he accidentally leave behind a treat for Area 51’s medical and biological staff. Having violently removed the embedded collar, the hidden tracker less effective if it’s taken out before teleporting, the faculty of Area 51 now have a sample of a Celestialsapien.
The missing chunk of Freyd’s neck.
With that piece of DNA.
They are now one step closer to capturing a God.