“WhO’s YoUr DaDdY?!?”
“A-actually, I see you more like my... cool but really, really weird uncle.”
I didn’t see a need to give Technus a costume redesign for ZoneSwap AU, but he definitely gets a bit of a twist under the circumstances!
Well, Tucker’s been locked in the Ghost Zone for two years by the time the “series” begins, and what else is a twelve-year-old ghost boy to do but seek out kindred spirits? Canon Technus seems to be very easily persuaded by whatever happenstance crosses his path, so I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch for him to latch on to wandering Tucker and become SUPER BESTIES!
In this AU, it’s probably three episodes before Danny and Sam actually meet Technus, and Technus does NOT take it well. Who are these fiends coming to steal away his buddy? Better grab Tuck and run for the hills, using every trick he knows to slow the Amethyst Ocean duo down! So in ZoneSwap, his debut episode (I’ll call it it “Tech and Tuck” for now, although “Home Tech-er” was my first choice) would likely be a mix of “Danny Phantom”’s “Attack of the Killer Garage Sale” and “ChalkZone”’s “Future Zone”, and it would take place entirely in the Ghost Zone.
The thing about Technus is, if you catch him without a plan, he’ll likely take the first suggestion someone gives him (such as “That’s a great idea! Have you considered becoming my apprentice?”) But if you straight-up try to challenge him after he’s made a decision, like when he was insistent in “Identity Crisis” about not screaming his plans to the sky anymore, he can be a stubborn ox.
So I feel like no matter how many times he’s persuaded, he’d never accept that Danny and Sam will take good care of Tucker (at least not for a LONG while), and it would be a thing that Tucker has to sneak out of the electronics/repair/pawn shop/garage place where he and Technus live sometimes when his friends pay a visit to the Zone.
Technus is mostly a friendly guy, but he has a sharing problem. He’s the kind of shopkeeper who’ll try to sell something, but in the process realizes he can’t bear to part with it and tries to reclaim it. If you don’t give it back, he’ll likely start pulling together one of his usual giant robot forms.
Tucker’s kind of given up on interfering. Depending on who the target is, he may try to redirect Technus’s fire, but otherwise he’ll probably just sit behind the counter flipping through whatever comic books or tech stuff Walker hasn’t revoked while his boss drives everyone out with laser beams and cackling.
You could say ZS!Technus’s defensiveness for Tuck is a parallel of Craniac being ultra-defensive of all the bad inventions that make the Future Dome their home. Technus and Craniac were D E S T I N E D to parallel one another.
Along that line of thinking, it might be funny if Danny was the one to accidentally force Technus into his 2.0 form (or I could do something where Technus 2.0 and 1.0 are somehow separate entities and 2 obliterates 1, reminiscent of how Craniac 4 took out Craniac 3), but I’m not sure how I’d do that yet. Likewise, ZS!Craniac 3 may have designed himself the Craniac 4 form and transferred all his brains into it. But, I dunno if that’s worth doing or not even for a goofy AU like this one, so I may just leave them as they are.
Anyway, cool dead surrogate uncle/nephew bros!