So they're all competing for an honor that has a high probability of driving them insane? Yikes! It wouldn't shock me if the functional Judges weren't their own batcrap kind of crazy as well, albeit functional and hidden behind a mask of sanity. I imagine that the lower-level guys and the Lords really run the show, like nurses in a hospital or NCOs in a military organization. Also, what's Eye's standing with regard to the Quintessons? Is it an artificial construct, or a mutant that arose in natural one-faced Quintessons?
Oh, even the functional judges are completely batcrap, they're just also barely sane enough to act as a cohesive being and do stuff like...demand attention and hold trials (spoiler alert: Everyone's always guilty. The trials are completely pointless but they can't stop doing them! It's a sort of species-wide psychosis, a social structure so ingrained in their society that they must hold the trial they mu̙st continue t͞h͉̜͇̤͝e̴ ̙ṭ̡͍̩r͏̫̦͍ia̵̞̘l̞͙͖̤̮͓s the g҉̹͙̖u̟̜̯̩̣̯͘i̳͎͔͖̖̟L҉̝̩̹̱̮͔t҉̮͈Y̰̩̦̫ m̯͉̭͇̖̗̥u̦̥͇͓̟ͅs͙̜̫̣̱̟̗t͖̤̩ be fo̙̙̭̻͉̐͊ͧ̓͊ͨund- *ahem* Yeah, they got some issues. Lesser Quintessons (1-3 faces) make up the majority of the population, and tend to have much longer lifespans (Judges often times burn out what sanity they have left after a few decades) so they really do run the show, especially older individuals like scientists, or those who hold titles that translate to stuff like "Lords", "Duchess", "Viscont", the like. The trick is making sure that they can do so without cheesing off local Judges, who would still be able to order them placed on trial for perceived slights. Because Quintessons really do have some of the greatest technology in this branch of the galaxy, they're still pretty close with their neighbors- whether or not said neighbors want them to be, mostly because Quintessons like to make everyone else's business their own- the second they catch wind of a new species out and about they tend to swoop in to make contact and contracts. Same as when resources are discovered- Quintessons have turned more than a few planets inside-out to get the resources they wanted from inside. Quintessons thrive on business, though, and with their incredible ships, terrifying weapons, and all manner of engineering and bioengineering, they can always find customers willing to pay their steep prices. Most species have come to the conclusion that Quintessons probably actually designed most of their technology ages ago, and have since somehow managed to go mad as a species since then- but their tech is just so good that it's kept them alive despite them being kind of a trash fire of a society. (And true enough, a newborn Quintesson can't survive for long without extensive engineering- perhaps why they all look so variable and unsettling. Even the greatest Quintesson historians don't know what the original Quintessons looked like...but they certainly weren't always hovering eggs with tentacles.) Eye is kind of in a class of their own for this crew- their abilities are in part a natural mutation but amplified by the engineering of their body. Upon their birth they would have been tested for any particular flaws or mutations, found to have a rare mutation that allows for a more powerful connection to machines and other minds, and then their body was designed and grown around that. A sort of...more organic functionism, from a TF point of a view. So they're an incredibly useful tool! Their abilities are rare and the jobs they can do are in high demand, since it means they can overtake alien bodies or intrude upon computer systems and brains alike in order to strip out useful information, but by the same token...they're a tool. So they live a life of relative luxury, but at the cost of basically having no autonomy, since they're constantly getting traded between jobs. More specialized Quintesson "headmasters" are out and about, but similar to her, most are rare commodities so they don't have much say over where they go and what they do. Some are pretty wild, though. Some are designed to be small enough to take on aliens human-sized or smaller (Scale is not constant, after all, scale is scale) while others are big enough to overtake even a Cybertronian! (Which I fortunately have some old artwork of.) Quintessons don't see anything morally wrong with owning, trading, and controlling other sapient beings, in fact: they see it as their right, claiming to be the oldest species in the galaxy! They think. Or was that just the best? Listen what matters is that they're right, everyone else is wrong, you're all guilty. But even their own kind tend to be held in servitude to one another, and it's a pretty messy, scrappy fight to get to the top of the pile where the Judges and elders sit. Eye knows that they don't really have a chance to get to the top, being a mutant single-face, and they'd rather live a pampered life of body hopping for business than either risk losing all their clout (or being disposed of) or pairing up with other Quintessons- raising their status with more faces, but losing their ability to headmaster in the process. Naturally, the Holy Attorney would REALLY like Eye to join up because even if they'd lose their abilities, they'd still be part of a Judge! Wouldn't that be great?! We could be a judge, Eye! We could be on top! Hey where are you going Eye come back I have an incredible proposition for you all you have to do is become a part of me! ((My apologies to everyone for worldbuild dumping, but it's fun to work with these guys. They're kinda based off the prospect of "what happens when you have an alien species for whom cumulative insanity is the norm" as well as bits of Lovecraftian and Wells sci-fi/horror and stuff like Cenobytes. They're very inhuman, but specifically inhuman in ways that mean when Humans make contact with them, the Humans go "Wow! Thanks! I hate it! Put it back!!!!"))
I figured that it was something like that. The Quints are a species and culture on a rendezvous with total collapse, which is probably what happened in the past, when they controlled Cybertron. At least, that's my guess. *** While I sympathize with Eye's situation in the brutal, abusive Quintesson hierarchy, she and her kind are still horrifying - your old fan art is haunting. It's actually how I'd picture Headmasters operating in my fan continuity. *** I don't really see the Quint culture being alien or inhuman, just evil. I've no doubt in my mind that if the tech were possible, there are people who'd do the same thing on Earth. It just so happens that that particular kind of person won out on Quintessa. It's a shame really, especially given their technological advances.
More or less, you're pretty right. I'm not settled on what happened, and I don't think I ever will be because it's more fun if there's multiple theories- some of which could be accurate together and some of which conflict, but they definitely collapsed as a civilization well before their current history- and what rose back up from the ruins was a bit of a nightmare. Well, a lot of a nightmare. One of the most advanced, brilliant species out there...and they're just kind of a gaggle of evil bastards. A shame! But it makes them a lot of fun to work with in terms of how they interact with other species. And they're certainly capable of charity, of humanity, of tenderness and empathy, but it makes it all the more startling and striking when they exhibit these qualities against their own nightmare backdrop. What I'd like to do is work out a couple different cultures within' the Quintessons- they're hardly homogenous, though quite a bit moreso than many other species, but there's territories and families and religions...something to tinker with, I guess.
You ain't kidding. I imagine that any Quintesson counter-culturalists cling hard to their individuality. Something I've noticed for a while is that while a lot of people dismiss evil as something simplistic, if you dig into the details about their evil, you can still flesh it out and create something compelling. After all, evil comes in many, many flavors. It's less shades of grey and more shades of black. You did that here, rather well, I think. Individual Quints might be capable of goodness, but the entire culture is a walking nightmare factory.
Absolutely nobody: Me: What if characters in TF: Rangers could fuse together? Go full, like, combiners-meets-fusion. Call it chimerization or something. Optimus and Moonracer's fusion, Noble Ranger Optimoon (I've been giving all the fusions dorky titles) The Megatriplets all rolled together into one solid Megabastard- Decepticon Heir Vainglorious Omegatron Been working on other things but at least I have some stuff?
not sure if its been asked before, but what do you use to draw with, graphics tablet and pc? android tablet? im curious because im looking to transition my own drawing from paper to digital
Oh! For digital art I currently have a refurbished Wacom Cintiq 13HD (a gift I was super lucky to get as my first display tablet) and I use a PC, generally with Clip Studio Paint because I don't do anything fancy and I just like quick, clean lineart. But prior to that I've also had a Wacom Bamboo Create (and way back in high school I had a tablet I can't remember the name of but it had no pressure sensitivity and a drawing zone about six inches wide which should tell you how long ago THAT was). Otherwise I still do about 50-50 traditional art, just most of that is either sketching and figuring out designs or painting non-fandom stuff. I'm not super well-versed in what tablets are the best or work for different people's style. I've heard good things about Huion in some of the more artistic Discord servers I'm in, but it's something that you'd have to research I think.
It's honkin' cold in Wisconsin all I want to draw is warm snuggles and friendly hugs. Optimus and Moonracer manage to get a call out to Elita, who's busy with her military career. Frend....frend is when you have a bud. And Prowl could really use a friend, given that her closest workplace associate, well, just betrayed her for Megatron. She takes it pretty, uh.... ....pretty hard. Barricade will just have to learn to deal. He'll be fine.
Been working on a Wreckers thing for a TFAU, set post-war, about the new Wreckers and a team that recruits both Autobots and Decepticons to help clean up the messes left behind, that comes with...some character cards! Here's the first two of six. Kup is older than Robot Jesus and couldn't leave the Wreckers if he tried, at this point. Not that he'd want to. Oil Slick is the first of the team's two Decepticon recruits, a master of chemical weaponry. This design has been crazy fun to draw, too, so I've been doodling up a lot of Oil Slick lately. hee hee hoo hoo this is not the proper use for erwyn-meyer flasks but anything's a molotov if you're crafty enough!
Two more members of the crew! First up: the big sweetie of destruction himself, Bulkhead! And everyone's favorite intel guy...Minimus Ambus, in his fully fluffy glory!
