Rossini - Barber of Seville
80 AD
The Rome Collesium is an iconic piece of architecture that still stands to this day.
The Ancient Romans who built it believed in the virtues of loyalty, fairness, conviction,
and above all, courage.
This contrasted heavily with the more compassionate virtues of their neighboring empires, and
helped them achieve a lot more in the realms of combat, technology, and architecture.
The Romans implemented their system of Roman numerals after the Egyptians and Greeks had
become all too comfortable with the idea of counting and numeric values.
The Romans named their numbers by letters which would signify a particular digit that
would be added up with other numbers.
This system is still prevalent today and we see it just about everywhere, but where we
see it probably the most is in the realm of fiction.
Super Mario Galaxy OST - Gusty Garden Galaxy
XII/XXVII/MMV 12/27/2005
Ben 10 was an American cartoon that began in late 2005, and there’s nothing else really
like it on television.
Created by a group of 4 aspiring artists in the early 2000s, Ben 10’s premise was unlike
anything else at the time, and immediately sparked interest in me watching as a little
kid.
I used to get DVD’s of this show and watch them as a 4-year-old on the TV.
I remember seeing how the show ended and thinking to myself, I wonder if they’ll ever make
more of this beauty.
How can you mix aspects of family drama, sci-fi adventure, exciting superhero action, and
goofy comedic antics all into one thing?
It was just amazing to watch a kid like me save the world and turn into 10 freaky aliens.
Who could have come up with this crazy premise?
It was incredibly inspiring, and especially as a kid you just couldn’t help but want
to be like Ben!
He was just so cool!
How could he be so brave?
How could he have so much courage?
Super Mario Galaxy OST - Gusty Garden Galaxy
The virtues of courage and conviction among the Romans had served its purpose, and given
birth to many aspects of Western Civilization.
The same Romans who gave us the means to invent things like…I don’t know…motion pictures?...probably
didn’t expect us to pass them in social progress.
They probably didn’t see it coming that we’d be the ones to give rise to a new order
back in Rome.
Almost like a re-birth of sorts…
Ben 10: Protector of Earth - Kevin Boss Battle
Ben 10: Alien Force aired in 2008 to generally positive fan reactions and still serves as
the best show in the franchise by the opinion of many fans.
Almost every Ben 10 fan I’ve spoken to regards the first 2 seasons of Alien Force to be the
greatest in the franchise.
Ben 10 classic ran for 52 stellar episodes from 2005 to 2008, and came to a decent conclusion
with a movie delving deep into a lot of world-building aspects of the show.
If you ask any Ben 10 fan: why do you watch Ben 10?
A lot of them will say the action, maybe the story, the animation, or the jokes.
But the thing that truly sets Ben 10 apart from the others is its incredible world-building
and lore-continuity.
After the show came to its conclusion, a lot of fans craved a renaissance of sorts, and
more stories with a more nuanced tone and plotline.
Which is why with the new Alien Force continuation, we get a lot more world-building, and a bunch
of new aliens.
From the very start of the show, the alien that got the absolute most buildup, and had
13 episodes worth of hype and longing from the fans was Alien X.
Michael Jackson - Billie Jean (8Bit)
The Roman numeral for 10 being used for Alien X is the perfect metaphor for this alien’s
treatment in the show.
Not only is he the 10th alien in the show called Ben 10, and Alien X just sounds cool
on its own, but on a deeper level, Alien X represented exactly what the Romans believed
in culturally.
But we’ll get to that a little bit later.
You clicked on this video to hear the truth about Alien X, and the truth is, he’s really
not that good of an alien.
In fact, I’d say he’s overrated as hell.
Now wait, before you scorch the comments section with endless drivel about your own formulated
scientific 1000 IQ opinions, just know this video is completely my opinion, and frankly
doesn’t affect anyone in the slightest.
I just love Ben 10 but think Alien X has his fair share of anomalies.
Which anomalies you may ask?
(“It’s a legitimate question…”)
We meet Alien X in his premiere episode, X=Ben+2.
An incredible episode title, if I do say so myself.
Alien X saves the day by fixing the broken dam and reverting time in a specific location
to stop the flood.
Here, we learn about his inner voices, and the concept behind Alien X.
Whiplash Soundtrack - Caravan
BELLICUS - The Voice of Rage and Aggression The first floating head in Alien X’s mind
is Bellicus, the male figure who serves as the voice of rage and aggression, and at times,
can be incredibly brash and belligerent.
Usually, he is the one who holds back debate.
This can cause a lot of tension in the character and often leads to the vice in Alien X’s
character which stops him from being infinitely powerful.
Without Bellicus, Ben would probably get whatever he wanted all the time, which would make Alien
X pretty boring after two episodes.
SERENA - The Voice of Love and Compassion The second aspect of Alien X’s subconscious
is Serena, the voice of compassion and kindness, serenity if you will.
Often, she is much more accepting of new ideas and agrees to go through with his requests,
which is usually challenged by Bellicus.
However, her overtly kind persona also makes her the unflattered one, when Ben betrays
or insults them, she can be indecisive and offended.
BEN - The Voice of Reason Ben serves as the third and final voice in
Alien X’s mind, and is essentially the voice of reason.
If he wants to do anything, anything at all, with the Celestialsapien’s omnipotent abilities,
he has to pitch it to the two other voices, and they need to come to a unanimous decision.
This hardship is what makes Alien X interesting, and technically Ben’s worst and best alien
simultaneously.
It’s like, you have all the power in the world, but also have none.
Since Bellicus and Serena have been debating for all of eternity, now that they have Ben
as a tiebreaker, they can’t let him go all willy nilly.
This is why in the very first encounter, Alien X stands absolutely still and silent, as the
debate is continuously happening in his mind.
Serena and Bellicus don’t allow Ben to make any actions after the dam debacle, and hold
him hostage inside Alien X, not letting him transform back to human.
This is until Ben insults them both and they agree to let him transform into another alien
and do what he does best.
This is why Alien X is only used on two occasions up until Omniverse, and why Ben vows to keep
Alien X for emergencies only.
“My most powerful transformation ever.
But it isn’t worth the price.”
The next time we see Alien X is his only appearance in Ultimate Alien, in the grandest episode
of all: the Forge of Creation.
The gang is chasing Aggregor to the Forge of Creation, after he steals all 4 pieces
of the Map of Infinity.
Ben has to unlock Alien X from his database and transform, in the hopes that Serena and
Bellicus will cooperate and give him the location of the Forge of Creation.
They instead bicker about minor things until Professor Paradox somehow shows up and infuriates
the two heads, who agree to destroy Paradox since he has some kind of restraining order
against Celestialsapiens, the species of Alien X.
Before they can though, Paradox thankfully transforms Ben back and gives them the location
to the Forge himself.
And so, he does!
And we discover the place where Alien X’s, Celestialsapiens, are born.
Almost like a forge…of creation.
Home - We’re Finally Landing (Shots of Forge of Creation)
Professor Paradox actually has a bit in common with Alien X, in terms of sheer power.
Both characters are immortal, and both characters exhibit powers of time travel and being able
to commit feats on a universal scale.
If Alien X is indecisive and ultimately slow, Paradox may be the one being in the Ben 10
franchise who could defeat him, given how autonomous and quick-witted he can be, but
if Alien X is in power-mode with all 3 personalities in full agreement, I doubt Paradox would stand
a chance.
The Forge of Creation is a very delicate place because it’s the place Celestialsapiens
spend their time deliberating, as well as giving birth to new Alien X babies.
One of these is a baby Celestialsapien which Aggregor almost absorbs for himself, which
would grant him omnipotent power instantaneously.
Thankfully, he doesn’t, and the universe lives to see another day.
Home - We’re Finally Landing (cont.)
Omniverse is where Alien X really gets his footing, and where we see some truly mindblowing
things!
Up to this point, we’ve seen him…fix a dam…uhh…stand up straight…look cool…not
much is what I’m trying to say.
Now it’s time to see him change things on a macro-crazy level!
Starting it off strong, in the episode ‘So Long, and Thanks for All the Smoothies’,
we see Alien X’s coolest feat that he’ll probably ever attempt.
A concept that is so unique and crazy that it changes the show for at least a season
after it, and fundamentally transitions Alien X from an overhyped humanoid star cluster,
to a crazy-powerful being who can manipulate time and space itself!
In Omniverse, we get introduced to the Annihilargh, a device that can destroy or create a new
Universe at the press of a button.
This concept gets fleshed out more as the show wraps up, but here, all we know is that
this box, if accidentally pressed, could destroy everyone and everything.
And…it does…in possibly the greatest scene in the entire show, I know I’ve ranked em
before, but consider this up there…the Annihilargh destroys all of time and space as we know
it.
Ben transforms quickly into Alien X, and his friends essentially see him stand there as
they are all destroyed.
Ben pleads to Serena and Bellicus to help him save the Universe, but they are literally
unable to.
How do you recreate time and space when there’s no time and no space?
Nothing to save?
And so, we see the forces of Alien X all come together as Ben recreates the entire Universe
from scratch, with a few minor changes, with no one remembering any of this happening.
It’s a surreal moment as we see Alien X serve as the ultimate God, creating a duplicate
of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE, everything and everyone that exists…in a matter of seconds.
Yeah, that’s right, where are ya at now Superman and Goku fans?
All jokes aside, this debacle will get Ben into trouble a little bit later, but is ultimately
Alien X at his most powerful.
Any powerscaling video or fandom article looks to this episode as the definitive Alien X
moment, and if it wasn’t for this scene, this video would probably not be a thing and
Alien X would have been treated as a thrown out alien with incredible potential after
two shows of showing what he’s capable of.
Alien X recreates the entire universe, and let’s see where that lands him next.
Beethoven - Fur Elise
Recreating the entire Universe without unanimous consent is a bit of a no-no in the intergalactic
court.
I mean, he did literally save all these people, but since no one was aware that Ben even did
anything, and the Annihilargh was treated as a dud, the universe is rather suspicious
about Ben’s real intentions and actions.
The trial is set to a fight between Ben and a Gladiator Celestialsapien, who is pretty
decisive with his 3 debaters compared to Ben, Serena and Bellicus.
Ben has a hard time convincing the other 2 to give him the keys to Alien X, which gives
the other gladiator a huge advantage, until he entices them by giving them the opportunity
to argue without him if they give him what he wants.
Unlike appearances before, here we see Ben utilize Alien X’s hand-to-hand combat skills,
which we haven’t seen quite at all up to this point.
We see Ben creatively use Alien X to punch the other guy, fly around and slam into each
other, and duplicate himself into a thousand Alien X’s and vacuum the other guy into
a fricking wormhole of Alien X!
This marks his victory in this fight, the trial itself, and also serves as the final
appearance of Bellicus and Serena, the spiritual end of the debate within Alien X.
Farid Farjad - Shab Bood Biaban Bood
Later on, in this episode Weapon XI, we see that Ben has mastered control of Alien X,
where he can finally use him to do pretty much whatever he wants on a decently large
scale, without the need for the debating scenes.
(“Ben has control of Alien X”) This allows him to throw all the Plumber's kids around,
force them to fight each other, stop laser blasts with his hands, and defeat all of them
without even an afterthought.
This is really the last we see of Alien X in his entirety, and is another display of
Ben utilizing Alien X’s hand-to-hand combat skills pretty creatively.
Sometimes when a character can do as much as recreate the entire fricking universe,
you forget about the little things they can do like stop laser blasts with the palm of
their hand, and make allies fight each other 1 on 1.
This scene is pretty cool and is interesting for the fact that while it’s not really
important at all to the canon of Alien X, it doesn’t really detract from anything
either.
What may change that it what comes next…
Adult Swim Pools
Apparently, Alien X is so illustrious, not even the Ben 10 reboot can resist including
him in at least one of their specials.
Undoubtedly their best, ‘Alien X-Tinction’ marked the end of the show as a whole, absolutely
on a high note if you ask me.
Ironic, isn’t it, how Alien X is such a damn good character, that even the Ben 10
reboot can make a good plot out of him.
This episode is about an alternate universe Ben who had destroyed his own Omnitrix out
of spite when Vilgax murdered his Max and Gwen in cold blood, and he ended up traveling
from Ben to Ben, stealing their Omnitrix’s for his own.
This Alien X doesn’t have the internal system and everything from what we see, and his power
is toned down quite a bit, but we see a lot of cool action including a scene of him destroying
Cannonbolt (honestly, what bad guy hasn’t done this yet?) and being able to materialize
things and shapeshift.
There’s not really a lot of plot-heavy elements here, but that’s not really a problem because
they don’t do Alien X dirty here at all.
In fact, I’d say the opposite, this is a beautiful episode that takes another creative
approach to telling the Celestialsapien’s story.
Now as many of you know, I tend to sway away from the reboot on this channel because I
just don’t enjoy talking about the show that took Ben 10 back in so many ways, but
this is really a beautiful metaphor for Alien X as a whole.
On Ben 10’s lowest note, at a point where the show had been watered down into a cotton-candy
11-minute children’s filler cartoon, Alien X returned to end this on a super high note,
even higher than some of the other Alien X appearances so far.
Now, maybe that’s not really fair to the reboot, I know that a bunch of other episodes
like Ben Gen 10 were also pretty fantastic, but as a whole, the invention of Alien X back
in Ben 10: Alien Force was a groundbreaking idea that changed the game entirely, and morphed
Ben 10 from a pretty creative action cartoon, to a show that takes place now on a humongous
macro-universal scale.
A show that could go from fixing a dam using time manipulation, to traveling to a hidden
forge in the universe where omnipotent beings are created, to recreating the ENTIRE FRICKING
UNIVERSE by hand, to becoming an antagonist and killing off every Ben Tennyson in the
multiverse, Alien X’s character has been touched by teams of different writers, and
been enjoyed by fans for more than 10 years.
And if you ask me, he represents exactly what Ben 10 is at its roots.
A show that started off humble, and grew into a world-changing behemoth.
Thanks for watching.
Shalom.