Informational about the Reach Empire
The Reach Empire started from a single moon revolving around a desolate planet unable to support life due to high tectonic activity caused by a meteor strike that nearly destroyed the planet entirely. The moon itself was once a part of the planet, a piece of the landscape that was blasted into orbit from the impact, and luck would have it that the microorganisms that on it were able to survive in space until the moon developed its own atmosphere. Go forward hundreds of millions of years, that small moon now supported basic life.
The Reach species grew to dominate the moon but quickly realized that it didn't have the resources to support a large population. This, in turn, gave way to a rigid society where everything is controlled - from the population to the living arrangement, to food with high focus on recycling and avoiding wastefulness. As their society progressed, their natural inclination was to further maximize their meager resources and find a way to one day be able to support a higher population. It would take thousands of years, but they discovered their answer - the planet, rich in resources, but unsuitable.
For the Reach Empire, the space age began early. To those in charge, it was increasingly obvious that with their small population, they were one disaster away from extinction, and channeled all resources into reaching the planet. The act itself nearly doomed the Reach species, but it was a hail mary that worked - they reached the planet and were able to ferry back resources. Time would pass before they learned to tame that planet as well, turning it into the homeworld dominated by the Reach species and none other. And, in time, they turned their eyes to the stars above.
That is the origin for the Reach species.
Their society has both moved on from that rigid society and further embraced it. The Reach empire has a high bar that is expected of all Reach empire citizens, and failure to meet that expectation is punished severely. This stems from how their society developed on the moon, and they carry this attitude towards all those that they meet. Which, in turn, made diplomacy rather difficult. For the lower classes, the citizens of the Reach, there is no advancement. Each is a cog in the machine that is the Reach empire and all are expected to do their part.
That expectation for everyone in the Reach empire to be model citizens without fault is expected of everyone, including those at the top.
Likewise, power congregates where power is. The families that ruled over the Reach species in its infancy, turning it into from a simple race into a spacefaring one within a handful of generations by sheer force of will, they remained in power. Over time, their influence naturally grew until they became a dominating force in the empire where their removal was out of the question.
Their species is one marked by the ambition to be more than they are and this extends beyond scientific advancement. As those in power grew more powerful, those without began to covet it. Families that were indentured to the families that changed the course of their species and began to plot. Just as those in power looked at one another and plotted against each other. However, it was the fact that they were restrained by this ideal of what a Reach citizen should be and keenly aware of the necessity of being perceived as the ideal, this lead to the highly plotting nature of the Reach's elite classes.
Grudges became something that couldn't be acted upon within a lifetime, else others would perceive them as vengeful, thus unReach-like. This lead parents to pass on theirs, keeping a book of grudges of every slight made by their enemies and allies, and ensuring that their children would act where they were forced to bear it. And their children, in turn, would add to the book, crossing grudges out where they could, but unable to empty it. As each generation passed, the lists grew longer and longer and longer until it evolved into a highly political race intent on exacting vengeance for past wrongs but unable to do so because of their society's constraints.
This has led to the modern-day Reach empire, where every word and action is measured both to give a slight or to repay a favor. Or to create one or the other.
Canon Omake by GhostofZen
On Planet Vegeta
Akchoy peeked his head out the door, glancing down the hallway to make sure the coast was clear. After a few moments he nodded to himself and ducked back inside.
"No sign of the Caretakers." He told the rest as they settled down around the Holovid. With the huge number of charges to take care of it was easy for a small group to slip away without being noticed. Not even the large number of slaves King Vegeta had brought in to take care of the 3 million new Saiyans was enough to watch over the large group. Still, if too many slipped away at once a caretaker would figure it out and come to collect them.
"Great!" Kassava said with a wide grin. "It's about to start."
Ten Saiyan children settled down around the Holovid as it quietly began to play. Anticipation building as music began to play. They had to bite their lips to keep from cheering as Prince Tarble, the Low-Class Hero, charged onto the screen followed by his loyal soldiers of the 501st . Gangal actually slipped up and let out a whoop when the title flashed above the heroes in the opening credits. All the children glanced at the door, worried that the caretakers somehow heard the noise and were coming to investigate. Luckily, they remained undisturbed.
As the show began to play there was a quiet gasp as a Champion scarab took center screen. Its intimidating figure froze in a still shot as its power level was displayed onscreen. Vocado let out a worried whisper as he looked on. "It's stronger than Tarble." The others around him gave a grim nod as they watched their hero square off against an impossibly stronger opponent.
Fists clenched as the fight began. The urge to shout words of encouragement warring with the need to be quiet. If the caretakers caught them then they wouldn't get to see how the Low-Class Hero managed to beat this opponent. And if they didn't see how he one, how could they tell everyone else. They might not even be allowed to be the ones to sneak away again like Noppal's group when they were caught. Never again would they see with their own eyes how Prince Tarble overcame his opponent, only hearing second hand from others that could complete this important mission.
Tension was on the rise as the Champion scarab seemed to dominate the fight. Kassave and Gangal locking hands tightly as they struggled to keep quiet while their hero fought his impossibly strong opponent. Sunchock was on the edge of her seat, tail twitching erratically, as she mimed punches and her legs twitched like she was throwing kicks fighting alongside her hero. Akchoy was straining his ears, not just to hear the quietly playing show, but to listen for the telltale sound of footsteps in the hallway while the rest were captivated by the fight.
As the fight came to its conclusion with Prince Tarble unleashing his signature Spiral Buster, Sunchock let out a loud cheer that prompted five off the others to pounce on her covering her mouth. Everyone fell silent as they listened carefully. And hearts fell as footsteps began echoing down the hall.
Frozen in place, desperately trying to will the oncoming footsteps away, hearts sank lower as the door opened. They silently watched as a Low-Class warrior by the name of Kakarot came in. He looked at them, looked at the closing credits playing on the Holovid, then nodded to himself.
"You were working on your fighting techniques in here, and you're going to tell me about them later right?" Kakarot said with a smile as relief filled the children. A round of nods caused the Low-Class warrior's smile to widen. "The caretakers are going to be checking on the others soon. You should probably get back to your rooms. And remember, you need to tell me about your training later."
The kids hurriedly turned off the Holovid and darted past the warrior as they started making their way back to the dormitories. Soft whispers passed back and forth about the fight and the great hero as they snuck back to where they slept. They only wished they could see what happened in the next episode themselves, but others wanted to see Prince Tarble fights for themselves. Plus, if the same group kept slipping away the adults usually caught on.
No matter, they just saw the best fight of the series so far. And they couldn't wait to see or hear what came next.
DC timeline
The Dawn of Heroes has just started. Clark Kent has just become Superman, Batman has been active for about a year at this point, Wonder Woman has left seclusion after the second world war, Hal Jordan has just become a Green Lantern. I'm fiddling with the exact timeline with Sinestro, but not by much. As for the hawks, they stumbled across Earth about a year ago and were stationed there to facilitate that the Thangarian empire is filled with swell people and the Earth should totally accept vassalization. The Justice League is not a thing, and they haven't fought off a threat significant enough that makes it clear that the heavy hitters of Earth are heavy hitters.
Late game plans for Darkseid
It's going to be a long time away, but I want Darkseid to be scary in this fic. I want the moment he makes an entrance for the first time to be a 'oh shit, everything's fucked and we're all dead' moment. Darkseid, as a character, represents a lot of scary stuff, but the main issue with him is that his lows far outweigh his highs. Worse, they're more memorable. So, it can be hard to treat him as the threat he deserves to be treated as when there are just so many instances of him getting smacked down by someone or another.
I'm not set on where he would be in terms of strength yet, but there are aways around it. For an example - Late game Tarble is throwing down with Darkseid for one reason or another. It's a hard-fought battle, Tarble has used every trick up his sleeve, he's pulled every miracle out of his ass, and he beaten, bloodied, on death's door from a fight that will be remembered for the rest of time. But he's done it. The corpse of Darksied lays at his feet. He's killed the God of Tyranny.
Then he hears clapping behind him. He turns around and there stand Darkseid, unharmed.
Moments like that are where Darkseid is at his strongest and that's how I would portray his character.
Tarble's mentality and how it's changed.
Like others have said, Tarble has had his memories scrambled by the tank. However, the biggest part of it is that Tarble has been fighting almost nonstop in a brutal war and his mentality is starting to reflect that. Before Sereall, Tarble just went through the motions. He fought because that's what people told him to do and if he failed then his team would die. Now he's a commander with thousands serving under him, and he understands that his fuckups are going to cost people their lives.
So, Tarble's mentality has become very soldier-like. Stuff like marketability was unheard of to Tarble in the first place, but now it's been forgotten because it serves no purpose. The agent is going to be a civilians point of view about the war to highlight just how bad it's gotten because Tarble been desensitized and saiyans can't exactly fill that role well.
Elery's age and Prince Tarble the Low-Class Hero
Elery is super young - like about two years old. She's more developed mentally than a human would be, closer to a five year old but development doesn't mean intelligence. There's enough evidence to convince her that Tarble and Prince Tarble are two different people - the mask and visor, the manner of speach, and the fact that she hasn't seen Tarble go all out so he's 'pretty strong' while Prince Tarble the Low-Class Prince is 'super strong.'
Tarble's Going Native bar
The SI part has always been tenuous, and the human aspects of him have largely been chipped away. They were most prevalent at the beginning of the story when it was a constant tug of war between his human mentality and his saiyan reality. Now things have settled and Tarble leans far more heavily into being a saiyan than human. There are still some aspects left over, and some of them are going to come up during this arc, but I would say that Tarble's going native progress bar is around 85% filled at this point.
The only things holding him back is he hasn't massacred civilians, his strong desire for family, his value for other alien life and his comrades, and his desire to be loved by those that he loves.
However, there's also a sense of duality there because Tarble is in the spotlight. He's being pushed as what a saiyan should be and, what's more, he leads by example. Tarble has largely accepted those human aspects of himself, that weirdness has been noticed by the old guard of saiyans, but it's also going to be noticed by the next generations of saiyans.
Tarble's show and whose watching it
It is, but it's not as popular. Think of the Trade Organization as Amazon - they're pushing this new series pretty hard, but if you pick it up is completely determined on personal interest. What's more likely is that the show will inspire interest in that genre, which will then prompt other races to make their own. However, it's unlikely to be as good since the Trade Organization is dumping money into the production so Tarble's show is about as high quality as you can get.
Edit: In regards to is Star and Blackfire will have watched it is a coin flip. I'm not sure on the exact timeline, but I think they would be on Okkar to be trained as warlords, and in that case, the show could be used as a teaching aid. Because, by all rights, Tarble turned an epic loss into a total win.
Tarble's contrast in the previous chapter
There are a couple of reasons. The meta ones are because it sets up the scene that follows it - or, rather, the lack of a scene that follows it. During Taste of War, when Tarble purges a planet for the first time, almost every death was described. The aliens were described. Their corpses were described. More importantly, how Tarble killed them was described. Because, for Tarble, it was his first taste of war. Then fast forward to Eyes Wide Open - death has become something more routine for Tarble, but the battles that are fought are detailed. They're worthy of note as the two sides struggle to gain control of a city.
Then there's this chapter. Tarble nuked a city, killing hundreds of thousands if not a million, then mopped up, killing thousands more, and there's next to no detail. It's just 'yeah, that happened, and this happened, and now new scene.' I was trying to passively show a couple of things - the first is that Tarble has been nearly completely desensitized to the horrors of war to the point that mass killings are normal to him and to display his leadership style. Tarble leads from the front. He takes the hardest, messiest jobs and he does them himself, in person. And he's reached a level of strength that taking planets, as in the struggle of taking them, is beneath him to the point he's created a routine to do it.
The in story reasons are similar. Tarble leads from the front. He doesn't want to take unnecessary losses, and Tarble is someone that has to see what he's doing first hand. He could, in theory, just lob a massive ki ball from the HQ then go back to playing with Elery, but that doesn't fit his mentality. That, and there's a risk that he could miss by a bit and hit some ofhis own men. He's someone that has to be there, in the thick of it, rather than an armchair general that handles things from afar.