Irken / Vortian Headcanon
Time for a random thought-dump that I’ve knocked about with since the comics were first released.
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After Vort was conquered it was converted mostly into a prison. While many of the Vortian race were high level scientists, kept for their brilliance and ability to continue serving the Empire, numbered and locked away in cubicle like cells, there were other Vortians.
These Vortians were just as brilliant, but for some reason had never channeled their efforts into science or technology- never utilizing their impressive brains for more. The IRKEN race found this wasteful and so divised a way to make the most out of their new conquest- by harvesting the brains of these individuals to power large chambered 'think tanks' for their own scientists to make use of.
However, wanting to make the most of what resources they had, the harvested Vortians were not killed- but instead kept alive via the application of a Sub-PAK system- one that would keep their bodies alive and functioning under simple programming, allowing them to perform mundane tasks freely without the chance of rebellion or free will. Many of these Vortians now opperate the mines located on their home planet, harvesting valuable metals from its interior, while others work in massive assembly lines, building the new weapons and machines the numbered prisoners come up with.
Numbered Prisoners are kept largely unaware of what precisely has happened to the rest of the Vortian race, and those few lucky enough to escape have little knowledge of the atrocities being carried out on their people to this day. Those who seek to overthrow the Empire have no idea that even if they were to succeed- countless numbers of their race will never be free from the IRKEN machine.
