#I have been working on this for... almost two hours jfjcjbsjd

[sleeplessvalley]

actually you know what. that post reminded me of something and uhhhh

buckle up it's time for me rambling about splat2n stuff (mostly oe) and a bit of something else as well though it won't be getting stated directly.

this has a whole lotta headcanons, and a lot of it is put down in a jumble bc I have adhd and am completely incapable of putting things down in a way that makes sense to everyone else and not just to me. aNYWAYS

I've seen a couple posts from a while ago about how the japanese and the english versions of tartar's dialogue imply different things? something about how like... in the japanese version he actually comes across as having legitimate reasons for wanting to destroy the world and start anew, something something I don't feel like finding the post tbh and it's actually been a bit since I've read it myself so I'm probably not 100% correct on it.

anyways if you've known me for long enough or have been following this blog for a while you'll know that I am OBSESSED with this bastard telephone. to the point that I have about 15 different versions of him and apparently am not showing any signs of stopping.

so, to recap very quickly:

Commander Tartar is an AI created by a human scientist referred to only as "the professor" 12,000 years before the events of Splatoon 2. Its purpose was to pass down all of humanity's knowledge to the next capable species. The professor's intention to do so was to prevent the next intelligent species from repeating the same mistakes that lead humanity to extinction. However, due to spending all those millennia isolated and alone, the AI's thought process ended up going in a different direction.

Commander Tartar initially saw hope in the Inklings and Octarians, but eventually became repulsed by their evolution, needless wars, and fashion obsession, ultimately concluding that they were unfit for its knowledge and reprogramming itself to create a new form of life that would be worthy of its patronage, while annihilating the existing lifeforms on Earth.

taken directly from the wiki, because I am also not in the mood to summarize myself (despite knowing all this very, very well)

honestly? I don't think tartar hated cephalokind.

I think he loved them too much.

think about it for a sec. this is a sentient AI that was created by a professor that didn't want the next lifeforms to become extinct just like humans did. assuming that the professor treated tartar exactly like a fellow human, he went on to spend the next 10,000 years alone. and he had so much time to think.

humans became extinct because of the rising water levels. what caused that? for the sake of sticking with the whole water thing we'll say global warming. what caused global warming? many things, one of the most notable being the burning of fossil fuels in the industry. why does that happen? one could amount it to the industrial revolution. and the industrial revolution also contributed to wars.

an AI that was created to pass on humanity's knowledge would probably also be able to access all these things- and more- whenever it wanted, and 10,000 years is a long time. tartar probably read over so many things so many times and eventually reached his own conclusions about what the best things to tell the next lifeforms NOT to do would be.

and then the mollusc era started. tartar, from wherever he was, was able to watch the mollusc era from the moment it began, was able to watch cephalokind grow and develop at a rate that was equal to how humans developed, was able to have hope for the first time in years.

that hope was gone once the Great Turf War started.

things had been going so well; despite the water levels rising some, cephalokind was flourishing. everyone got along (more or less. someday I might get into salmonid stuff more but that day isn't today) and technology was advancing in ways humanity wasn't able to achieve. and then it hit the point that there was a shortage of land, and war broke out.

tartar spend 12,000 years waiting; 10,000 were spent in complete isolation, 1,900 were spent watching cephalokind grow, and for this I'm going to say that the last 100 years were spent doing all that stuff that happens in the octo expansion (and by this I mean creating the metro, having all those test subjects, agent 8, right up until destruction). honestly if we take the date the og splatoon came out (may 28th, 2015) we can argue that the great turf war is meant to parallel our WWI, especially if the calendar was recreated during the mollusc era because then the dates are... actually eerily similar:

if we take may 28th, 2015 and take away 100 years that gives us may 28th, 1915

WWI started july 28th, 1914, and ended november 11th, 1918

may 28th, 1915 literally lands in the middle of our WWI

I mean COME ON. that's uncanny.

back to my main point: the industrial revolution contributed to wars and also to the burning of fossil fuels, which contributed to global warming, which contributed to rising water levels.

tartar is watching all this happen just like it did to humanity (except slightly out of order), and to make things worse, not only are inklings more concerned with fashion, once the great turf war is over inklings start playing turf war for fun. one could also say that the splatfests are actually worse than turf war, because it forces inklings to pick a side and then fight for it- everyone wins something if they participate, but the losing team also has to accept that the winning team's side is better according to... whatever splatfest law it is.

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(kind of off-track, but this also kind of parallels something in the great turf war as stated in the sunken scrolls, which I've pulled the summary of from the wiki as well:

[...] and the Inklings' victory over the Octarians was most likely due to their superior number of limbs.

there was another bit to this, but I can't find it. I remember some stuff about this being stated to be propaganda though.)

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assuming tartar loved humanity, he also grew to love cephalokind for the same reasons (something like how a mother will get attached to the baby growing inside her even if that child is going to get adopted for some reason or other). and he didn't want to see another species go extinct just like humans did. so what does he do? he decides to destroy the world, and start over by finding capable cephalopods and unifying them (the primordial ooze from which the ultimate lifeform will emerge. I think that's how the line went, anyway.) so that it won't have to happen like that

everyone can just... not have to worry about failing to live a long life. everyone can be happy, and have their place in the world, and love one another.

if you think about it all at once? it seems sort of extreme. but also: we're human. if we have a friend going down the wrong path/in trouble or a family member or pet or- I don't know, some material object- we tend to go to extremes to help sometimes. and if you're raised by a human, even if you're different, you might do the same thing