More on that Ben v Rook thing on the Humans Are Space Orcs Idea and stamina where Ben’s human traits bleed into his alien transformations and there’s something terrifying about any one of them just slightly nudged towards persistence predator traits/habits.
Like, I’m sorry, but what do you mean the species that famously took over its planet and outcompeted the other sapient life there by exhausting things to death can now turn into anything between a Vulpimancer and a goddamn Celestial Sapien?? What do you mean it can hunt me for days on end as an Ectonurite because his transformation doesn’t burn in sunlight? What do you mean he has a one of its kind species that’s barely visible to the naked eye because of its size (Nanomech) that shoots lasers and flies around?
Worse still if he uses an Echo Echo or Ditto strategy because humans are also terrifying in packs and Ben can be one all his own.
yessss this exactly! The Omnitrix would be formidable in the hands of many lifeforms, but humans? Who drink poison for fun? And put holes in their bodies for style? And rearrange their mouths with metal anchors and wire??? Like????
Humans in the Omniverse aren’t noted as being particularly strong, fast, agile, or smart. But it is heavily implied that humans are uniquely creative, given Azmuth says Ben used the Omnitrix in ways he himself had never considered. It’s also generally shown that particularly strong beings lack some agility, particularly fast ones lack strength, etc.. They tend to rely on whatever trait they have the most of, which makes sense, since that trait probably evolved for a very good reason.
But Ben? He makes good use of all the abilities he works with, not just because the abilities are powerful but because he knows how to use things like leverage, friction, momentum, etc. to his advantage. Humans, due to not having super abilities, are better equipped to use their environments in physical altercations.
And also, since humans are more prone to injury than, say, tetramands, things like recovery time and pain tolerance will be way higher!
Humans are also used to traveling in a way that requires reaction time much higher than what we would need while running (see: riding a bike, driving, etc.). So it also stands to reason that someone used to having slower reaction time than their vehicle would, when their reaction time is proportionate to their vehicle (as in, any species with superspeed Ben can become), they would make better use of that reaction time! Not because a human would be better at being a kinecelaran, but because a kinecelaran wouldn’t have the experience of compensating for a lack of speed. If that makes any sense.
Anyway. There’s this narrative of “humans suck and are super weak” that shows up a lot in sci-fi, which is part of the reason I like “humans are space orcs” in general, but even in a universe where humans aren’t considered particularly tough (like the Omniverse), the ways humans adapt to lacking certain things gives them an advantage whenever they have those things.
And that’s why Ben is, in the form of any given alien, capable of beating that type of alien in combat.
(And also the “peak physical condition” thing, but I’ll point out that he beat a female tetramand of royal ranking in OV, explicitly stated to be naturally stronger, so clearly he can work around a disadvantage).
(The constant adherence to sexual dimorphism in the worldbuilding of the Omniverse is its own rant. I’ll leave it for now lol)
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