In one of my discussion based environmental science classes, the professor was having us discuss Orcas in captivity because she recently published a paper on it and, as is typical for me, I cope from how completly tragic and upsetting a topic is by relating them to my hyperfixation of the time.

Orcas in captivity are some of the only other animals known to self harm. They also notoriously harm eachother and their trainers. One of the main reasons they suffer so much is because they are so A)smart and B)social. The lack of stimulation and enrichment combined with being locked in a too small space, removed from their natural environments and purpose.

That connected to how I’ve always felt like that reasoning is part of why Pebbles does as mentally horrible as he does. He is a smart supercomputer trapped in a single place, the main consciousness stuck in a single room because the rest of the building is his body so he can’t simply leave it behind. He once had so many processes and tasks, taking care of the ancients and seeking the great solution- created late enough to have certainly been effected by his creators’ impatience. He’s also a rare case of not being fully in charge of himself and is limited on resources due to his location. His existence was also controversial. When the ancients left he was left with too much time and processing power and not enough to do with it. His self isolating habits certainly would not help. Even though they are stationary nobody can convince me iterators don’t couldn’t as social species when they were made to collaborate with each-other and their citizens.

He hurts others (especially moon) and himself because he feels frustrated and trapped. Orcas hurt themselves and others in captivity for similar reasons. Orca health deteriorates horribly in captivity, Pebbles is not physically or mentally healthy for any of the time we see him in canon. Pebbles is practically in captivity, he would do horrible in it. The dehumanization would also hit hard, he would have being treated like a simple animal- and Orcas being treated like simple animals when they are so smart and social is horrible. It just- it just clicked in my brain and now this au is clawing its way out of my head!

Thinking of those parallels lead to wanting to make an Au where Pebbles is an orca in captivity. I went back and forth on if the other iterators would take the place of humans or if they would be Orcas as well (and if they would also be in captivity) and the roles of the slugcat characters a lot. But I decided to have a modern/anthro au for Slugcats and scavengers on the surface and the iterators all remaining in the ocean until Pebbles is captured.

In future art I will go more into detail on the plot and other characters but that’s it for this one. Tho, feel free to send me asks about the AU! Since it’s not planned to be a fic I don’t have to be coy with plot points and don’t have a real way to share details outside of Tumblr :p