This post contains minor and major spoilers, minor about Conrad, major about TIM. Viewer discretion is advised.
Conrad Verner is obsessed with Commander Shepard. That's not the spoiler, that's like the main pillar of the character everyone knows. Conrad seeks your approval, wants to be like you, even as far as recruiting for Cerberus in ME3 (that's a spoiler but not the spoiler I mean). He's recruiting for Cerberus in 3 cause you were working for them in 2, he uhhh, didn't get the memo.
The Illusive Man is also obsessed with Shepard. He literally moves mountains of cash to bring you back from the dead. He also seeks your approval, especially [MAJOR SPOILER] at the end of ME3 on the Citadel when he's trying to argue for controlling the Reapers. That's what drives him, he wants to control the Reapers, sure, but if you're a Goody-two shoes he ends up giving up, Saren style *cough cough*.
Now you maybe thinking Conrad Verner and The illusive Man are so different in position that they could not be further apart. Conrad Verner is a bum trying to impress people with his Shepard Fandom, TIM is the head of a galactic underground terrorist organization with enough sway to bend the law when they need to (or break it if it they can't). How can they be so similar? TIM got to be the head of Cerberus by his cunning and ruthlessness, but in his drive to bring Shepard back, you think Conrad wouldn't have done the same thing in TIM's place?
TIM is very smart, you don't get to be head terrorist of a galactic underground org without having a good head on your shoulders.
[MINOR SPOILER] Doctor Conrad Verner is a doctor. "A doctor honey" - Turanga Leela, wait wrong series. But I feel people underestimate Conrad. He's gota good head on his shoulders, he's a Doctor in Xenotechnology and Dark Energy Integration. If TIM knew this guy he'd hire him on the spot, instead Conrad likely got recruited by some local schmuck who didn't care about his education. TIM would have looked at that resume and locked Conrad into some outpost where he could do Dark Matter stuff and Xenotechnology research, to be fed as many pictures of Shepard as he wants.
But I think Conrad Verner and The Illusive Man are more alike than people used to think. Now that I've said my piece, you will tell me I am correct because you are INDOCTRINATED.
Look, I'm not saying that the entirety of the Galvan race would be gamers. That would be ludicrous. I'm simply saying that if they found out about the existence of video games as well as how to program them,
Damn if only they didn't have tadpole children otherwise they'd totally have iPad toddlers smh smh- no doubt on Galvan Prime (or whatever edition of planet they're on if you don't retcon it's destruction in the Highbreed arc) they'd already found an interest in many variations of video games, even if predominantly it's not socially acceptable in most galvan cultures to be an adult in full pursuit of a gamer, not that there isn't a market for it because expectations breeds exceptions.
Because of the majority of galvan intellects steer towards the sciences, galvan video game developers probably tend to target younger fresh-out-of-the-pond adolescents with educational games, a combination of fun and learning. But these are galvans we're talking about, so no Mario Teaches Typing or Leap Frog levels of baby smarts games, more like Brain Training and significantly more difficult than what you get here. It's not to say 'fun for fun's sake' games don't exist, just that these are really the only games that early learning galvan really get until they have control over their own financial responsibilities.
I'm not saying that galvan who prefer more entertaining games later in life are unintelligent, but I am saying that Blukic and Driba seem the type to game for fun-
The Empire spans across large parts of the milky way galaxy, with Earth currently on the very edge of its reach.
There are several ways a conquered planet is used by the Imperial government. First, the planet, if inhospitable to Alternian life, must be terraformed. This includes planting Alternian species of plants and animals, and changing the composition of the atmosphere, sometimes installing one wholesale. After the planet is hospitable, citizens are shipped to colonies and the planet is officially declared part of the Empire. Generally, a planet will only have one major export, which will fall into one of three categories.
These are Brood Planets, which export trolls - bodies to go to the other forms of planets, Farming Planets, which export food and material goods, and Scholar* planets, which export knowledge and technology.
Scholar and plantation planets are often the largest in terms of land actually livable, but have the lowest density of populations. Brood planets, much like Alternia itself, have something of a catch-call society, with minor industry and agricultural cultures only to support the local caverns and whatever companies choose to place down roots there.
Alternia is in the center of the Empire l, but the planet holds very little importance in the politics of the Empire. Instead, it's considered a very minor Brood planet, with its main export being live bodies for the Army and Navy.
Trolls from Alternia are generally considered to be weird or odd, as their upbringing is very different from the norm of the rest of the Empire. Alternians are both considered incredibly martially adept, but lacking in some social graces. Sort of like that person you may know who didn’t graduate highschool, but is insanely good at mechanics and practical knowledge. A bit of a ‘sure, you got that fancy degree, but I graduated from the school of hard knocks’. You don’t really argue with it.
*’Scholar’ comes more from the fact that these on-soil cities hold a large amount of material collected over the millennia from artists and scholars, usually mostly highbloods. These planets however, are also host to most of the factory and industry in the Empire, with a great deal of the higher learning based on the ground there going into engineering and construction.
I’m having some thoughts on universal translators, and though I know absolutely nothing about programming or generalised tech, I might as well share- I have a language headcanon in the drafts.
Also, while this is mostly in reference to Ben 10 (mainly for the brief mention of R&D), the actual translation programming can actually apply to Transformers too, considering that they’re most likely built into a Cybertronian.
I, in making this, wanted to have a balance of sci-fi and sci-fantasy (ben 10 is already heavily sci-fantasy, try as i might to star trek the shit out of its logic), so in that sense, I decided upon two types of translators;
Full translators - native language to foreign language through speech alone; does not require understanding of the foreign language, but can have cultural misunderstandings and translation errors.
Full translators are simple, take what you say and (with delay or no, depending on how much coin you can spend) translate it for others to hear. And by being audio based, this translator can work two-way.
This doesn’t matter the price, the translation will always be yours and yours alone, the price only really affects how you hear it. The cheap alternative is simple, an earpiece or some other suitable listening device (depending on of course your biology and whatever the shape of your ear is). More expensive devices uses a one-way thought reader that provides the translation to the mind already. It looks the same as an earpiece, but it just skips the audio prompt and conveys meaning.
And again, full translators translate EVERYTHING you say, and while things may be semantically correct, native speakers of your chosen foreign language can notice something off with your speech. Plus, not all words have direct translation, and across the universe there are some concepts that don’t even have words in other cultures, so translations can be conflated with confusing words or words that don’t quite sound right in the sentence that you are trying to speak.
And that leads us right along to the second translator type;
Semi translators - native language to foreign language with foreign language thoughts and native language speech (i.e. thoughts marked as ‘intended speech’ with vocal imput); prevents cultural misunderstandings and translation errors, but an understanding of the foreign language is required.
Semi translators - I’m not a fan of the name but I’m the worst at making them - are used by individuals who physically cannot pronounce the foreign language they want to speak in (someone with vocal chords speaking a language with striation). Semi translators are typically a one-way translator - mainly due to the thought reading required - so even if the foreign language thoughts were not required for more accurate translations, a new speaker would still need to learn to listen.
Galvan’s have produced a lot of intergalactic tech used by the wider universe - and I think they have made some translation tech canonically - so why not be the ones to make semi translators a real thing?
R&D’s first attempts at making the semi translators initially lacked a line distinguishing intended speech and stray thoughts. A particularly detailed screenplay of a subject’s thought process was identified and consequently translated through, and while the subject was given points for creativity, researchers found the need for an intended speech market; why not use speech itself as the marker?
Taking the one-way thought receiver of the full translators and flipping it, again in the form of a wearable headset (of some form or another), the receiver has a proximity noise sensor that activates the mind-reading. This is far more sci-fantasy that I’m used to talking about (and far more programming shenanigans than i have any knowledge on to actually make a thing hypothetically possible), but essentially galvan smart and yada yada monkey thought translator a la Cloudy and the Chance of Meatballs, the foreign language thoughts are converted to sound thanks to the audial trigger of native language speech.
Of course if you’re a Cybertronian you can skip a few steps. It’s probably a median between full and semi translators that has its route in a Cybertronian’s processor; foreign words enter an audial and - if the planet has global network or some form of internet - words are translated on the fly. It’s prone to errors and misunderstandings - Ultra Magnus’ “What’s a ‘kilt’?” comes to mind - but unlike full translators, they have the opportunity to quickly fact check a word they don’t understand.
And uh… I think that’s it?
well for ben 10 there’s magic- skips all the steps and goes straight to ‘i mean to say this, and this has a certain meaning’
Keep an eye out for my alien language headcanon post- it’s fully drafted and is waiting on a good release time.
Some sketches of some Early and Late Imperial weaponry. Trolls have used the power of psionics long before the discovery of anything resembling gunpowder and true pyrotechnics, and it remains the main form of firearm to the modern era.
The bag at the side of the troll here is, colloquially, a ‘brainbox’ - an enforced casing for...well. A psionic’s brain to power the device. (An early version of this can be seen in the ‘early’ rifle in the bottom image, with the box being quite literal.)
One, it's majority joystick-mechanism controlled for the smaller, one-person drive, and two, it typically runs on rails more than roads, and the ones that do drive directly on terrain have gyroscopic wheel systems or catterpillar treads.
For smaller vehicles, they use electrical batteries or semi-bioware.
