#powerclaw | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cravitus426 · 5 years

Photo

Greetenings!

Today we have a headcanon ramble, and also a couple redrawn canon elites from the Alexovich Concepts!

Some time it has been since the last krevrant, and while I still haven’t done big Irken biology headcanon rant, I’ve been playing around with Elite designs as of late! Thus, I figured what better time to ramble about a military force such as them - one that we both know less of and more of than we do of the actual Irken Armada, in fact!

So what, exactly, is an Irken Elite?

Well that’s the funny thing - it seems self explanatory, like how Almighty Tallests are the tallest people and are the almighty rulers, or how Invaders invade,or Frylords lord over fast food establishments. So, by that logic, the Irken Elite are, well, elite.

What exactly is that supposed to mean? The better question would be, ‘What do we know about the Irken Elite?’

Well, we know a few things, and in particular things around the Elite.

1. To join the Irken Elite, you must pass a trial.

In other words, you have to take a test. ‘But krev,’ you say, ‘That’s nothing new!’

You would be right, flesh-creature, but in particular the Irken Elite trials seem to at the very least have a seventy year wait period before it can be retaken as seen in Tak’s episode, aside from being held on a military fortress world.

As a side note, Devastis is in fact a legitimate example of Irken architecture and fortifications that aren’t pink or red or deeply purple in color.

Granted, this is kind of debatable given that Zim fragged over half the planet’s power grid and caused mass chaos, but I doubt that would stall all Elite recruitment for that long - this is either a standard ‘fail, wait, and retry’ period where you can improve your skills akin to real world militaries, or it could in fact be the actual timespan between times that Elites open recruitment.

Thus, we reach my first headcanon - the Irken Elite trials are, when there are no horrendous casualties or other shortages of personnel - held every few decades, giving plenty of time for a new generation of soldiers to arise and for the washouts from last gen to brush up and succeed.

So, what else do we know?

2. The Irken Elite are the ranks from which Invaders are often selected.

More from the Tak episode, as well as implications from things such as The Nightmare Begins, wherein Invaders are stated to be, effectively the best. Given how much Tak wanted to be an Elite and how they said that one day they could even become an Invader, it seems like a pretty clear line of progression.

From any walk of life you undergo the Elite trials; should you succeed, you prove that you’re among the best. Should you be the best of the best (or at the very least conveniently the best at sneaking and espionage), you become an Invader.

Now, this isn’t to necessarily say that Invaders are more elite than the Elite, but at the same time given that you are deploying an agent alone into no mere enemy lines, but the heart of their homeworld to effectively conquer it, it probably helps to have been an Irken Elite beforehand.

Regardless, point is, you level up to Elite, then you kind of side-level to Invader.

This brings us to the second real headcanon - the idea that you are not promoted into the Irken Elite, and that in theory anyone from any walk of life - scientist, servant, soldier, or actor - can become an Elite should they succeed in the trials.

Also implied - Invaders may or may not actually be the best of the best, and instead may just be the best suited from the Irken Elite for infiltration.

Anyway, onto the next one! This one may surprise you - or it might not, I dunno. We’re getting into interpretation territory here, which leans more to headcanon.

What do I mean by that? Why do I think this’ll surprise you?

3. The Irken Elite are equipped with personal power armor.

Because, quite bluntly, I think people get Elite gear wrong. I’ve seen their boots treated as big shoes with glowing bits, their pauldrons treated as just plain old cloth gubbins, their little tubed chestpiece forgotten, and their gauntlets in particular treated as spherical boxes worn over the whole forearm with three little holes for their fingers.

It feels as if people aren’t thinking about what these could be, and it does do me an anger because I feel like I’ve figured out the design.

Look at the claws on the first, third, and fifth elites (13, 15, and 17) - note how, aside from being way more well defined and sharp-looking than normal gloved Irken fingers, there is a gauntlet with the fingers missing.

Or, more fittingly, retracted. Those are mechanical fingers, and I’d bet on it! They look nothing like normal Irken fingers, and the Irkens here are too small to have the big spindly fingers of the Tallest despite having similar gauntlets.

Think back to the Hobo 13 episode - remember Zim’s big powerfists and overall power armor, and recall how he absolutely yeeted the instructor!

This technology exists in similar forms used by other alien races as part of training equipment - Irkens would absolutely jump on the opportunity to supercharge metal claws, and if anybody would get them it’d be the Elite.

Canon precedent for power armor that looks very similar aside, it’d explain what those tubes coming from the PAK are - they’re likely power cables, and aside from this giving me an excuse to call the gauntlets something way cooler like powerclaw, the idea that these are mechanical also opens the door up to things like jetboots, minigun hands, and other crazy things!

Plus, I mean, if you want to bring Peridot and Steven Universe into things, well

they’re basically limb enhancers and you have to admit that’s a pretty clear and logical parallel

Anyway, third obligatory formal headcanon - aside from thinking that Elites have power armor, which they probably do - is that Elites are offered some of the best tech around, and have the opportunity to perfectly customize and personalize equipment to their specific liking and skill set.

That aside, we now basically run out of canon information about the Irken Elite!

So, in summary, the Irken Elite are:

1. Selected every few decades through mass testing

1b. Implication that they are the best of the best overall given that testing doesn’t seem inherently restricted to ranks or existing military service; supported by 2.

2. The group from which Invaders are selected

3. Armed with advanced personal armor

Now that that’s out of the way, what of actual denser krev headcanon?

When it comes to the way I think about the Elite, I generally equate them to the Spectres from Mass Effect - specially selected, special equipment, special skills, and special freedoms to do their jobs.

Given the infrequency of recruitment aside from what i can only presume is emergency ‘we’re going through soldiers like free nachos’ measures, as well as how each one is branded and literally called an Irken Elite on top of all the neat toys they get, the point of big gaps in trials is likely both to give time for the best of the best to thin out through attrition, be it death or retirement.

By only recruiting once every half generation or so (outside of emergency ‘going through troops like free nachos’ scenarios), this allows the best of a generation to be evaluated, compared, and contrasted at one time. This ensures that only the best of the best get in, and it also ensures that the ranks don’t bloat through constant recruitment.

Bloating the ranks would likely reduce the allure of the Irken Elite considerably, as Elite usually implies that you are the cream of the crop. Arming an entire army of Elites would also likely be obscenely expensive, not to mention how tedious it would be to track every individual properly - if everyone’s roaming around and selecting their own missions, then you just have roaming warbands and no concentrated campaigns, no Irken Armada to power through the galaxy.

Thus, recruiting in one go and waiting for the numbers to thin out keeps you from having too many expensively well-armed independents running around, as well as ensures that you get the absolute peak of years of training and combat.

As such, an Elite is basically expected to be prepared for any situation and to possess general skills in every category.

For an active Irken Elite, a number of classifications exist indicating things such as your specialty, freedoms, and general qualification level. A squad of lower level Elites, for example, may operate as a more traditional military unit and choose to deploy to campaigns as yet another pawn for generals and admirals to use in their pursuit of total Irken conquest.

A higher level Elite, however, typically an officer, may be trusted enough by the Control Brains to effectively go off and do their own thing, and in some cases successful deep recon, research, and infiltration missions have been conducted by freelancing Elites and their hand-picked crews.

In other words, basic elites can choose their missions but still have to act as part of a squad. Meanwhile, the better of an Elite you are, the more willing the Control Brains are to let you go and do Mass Effect, building a merry band of misfit-loyalists and plundering pirate bases to fuel your need for bigger, better guns.

Just remember to come back when the Control Brains yell at you to, otherwise you’ll get erased from the history books and hunted down for treason!

As far as equipment goes, while there is a general standard template for Elites, usually including powerclaws, powerboots, and some form of chestplate that acts as the core of armor functions, there can be a fair degree of variety.

Overall, what does this mean? Well, it means that Irken Elites are well-armed, well-armored, well-trained, highly skilled, independent and are not in fact just wearing tin cans for gloves!

there’s probably more here but I’m hungry and it’s almost time for lunch

#invader zim #iz #irken #irken elite #irken empire #headcanon #ramble #rant #reference #irkens #invader #alien #zim #long #i want food #fanart #Character Design

83 notes · View notes