Hannah & Alan's Unbeatable Guide to Ultimates

Do you ever watch Ultimate Alien™, and think “Wow, those Ultimate Aliens™ were cool, I wish there were more of them.” Do you ever realise you’re on a fanfiction wikia, and that’s exactly what you can do? But if you ever feel lost, or feel like you don’t know how to create that Ultimate Ditto you really want, never fear! This guide by Hannah and Alan will lay down the basics, and teach you how to create that snazzy Evolved Splixson you dreamed of!

The Concept of Ultimate Forms
What exactly is an Ultimate Form, I hear you ask? Well, the series laid it down but since the colour palette was too dull for you to pay attention to what it was saying, we’ll repeat it here. The Ultimate Forms were artificially evolved forms of different DNA samples, made by either the Ultimatrix in Ultimate Alien or Recreated Ultimatrix in Omniverse.

The process by which a transformation becomes Ultimate was described as putting the DNA sample through a worst case scenario simulation, adjusting their existing powers to be more powerful, and giving them new powers to counter their weaknesses. An example of this would be Spidermonkey’s webbing becoming stronger, and his strength increasing in his Ultimate Form.

The origin of the forms should be considered carefully when thinking up one. Does the form have powers that it would be likely to obtain through evolution? Does it still resemble its base form? A good example of an Ultimate designed by this would be Ultimate Cannonbolt. Cannonbolt’s base form has the weakness of not being able to grip, as well as only being blunt. U. Cannonbolt’s spikes give him the extra grip, and therefore momentum, that Cannonbolt needed, as well as giving him sharp options for battle armoured opponents.

Depending upon the direction an Ultimate Form is taken, it may stray from the original form’s design a bit, though in a way that makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. An example of this would be Humungousaur is a Stegosaurus, while Ultimate Humungousaur is an Ankylosaurus, two dinosaur species that are different, but similar enough to make sense for this evolution.

Now, let’s talk about how NOT to do this when designing an Ultimate.

Overcompensating
Let’s say you’ve read this guide up until this point, and you’re creating an Ultimate Ball Weevil, everyone’s most remembered alien! You look at his weaknesses, and see that he’s quite small. Surely, making him egregiously massive solves this issue! And, while we’re at it, how about making his plasma balls be massive too! And he can have laser eyes! And he can fly! And-

Now what you just did is an example of overcompensating. An Ultimate should be able to cover some of its weaknesses, and not to the degree of being overpowered on top of that. Ultimate AmpFibian (by Alanomaly) is a good example of this; he’s faster, and more agile but not to the point of XLR8 or Fasttrack. Additionally, he can create small electric storms as an extension of his electrokinesis, but can’t conjure a hurricane or anything.

Additionally, another good example is the good Ultimate Ball Weevil (by Rizegreymon22). His size increases, but only to the point of resembling the frame of his natural predator. This allows him to counter it without being able to defeat it without effort.

“But!” I hear you say, “Being OP makes sense within evolution! Have you seen the shit tardigrades get up to?” Now, ignoring the fact that I’m hearing voices, I’ll tell you why we can’t make them insanely good.

The Balance of Logic
The main point here is that in stories, logical isn’t always the best option. To optimize things, you have to find a balance between logic and outlandish fun. Sure, it would make sense for Ben to go Ultimate Alien X and yeet every villain in the world as soon as he unlocked it in OV, but that would make for an even worse show than OV already was. There would be nothing for Ben to do after defeating them all, and we surely couldn’t have four season of him drinking smoothies and mentally regressing (instead we only get one of those).

Take a look back at Ultimate Humungousaur. Humungousaur has no ranged powers, so the logical decision is to give his Ultimate Form some kind of ranged attack. The outlandish fun part comes with the fact his ranged attack is explosive excess bone material he shoots out of his knuckles as missiles. It’s perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

The Limits of Being OP
Now, contradicting what I said previously, you can have OP characters, as long as they have some limit to how OP they are.

Now, you may be screaming “But that doesn’t make any sense!”, but it’s something you’ll have to do if you want Ultimates for aliens such as Alien X. Alien X’s base form - in fact - is a perfect example of what I mean by this. He can literally do ANYTHING he wants, but the limit here is that he has to go through two personalities and get them to agree to whatever he’s trying to do. This makes for a balanced alien overall, he’s never able to get the exact result Ben wants, but he still has a wide range of what he can do (Until Weapon XI but the less spoken of that the better).

A wider example of this is the Ultimate Forms themselves. They’re stronger, faster and generally more useful than their bases, but they wear down the Ultimatrix faster and therefore can only be used occasionally, and sometimes can’t be used without worse side effects, such as Ultimate Echo Echo lowering Ben’s time limit in Map of Infinity.

So, Now You’ve Got It
The general rules of creating Ultimate Aliens are:
 * Accounts for weaknesses.
 * Stronger but not too much stronger than the base form.
 * The powers are relevant to those of the Ultimate’s base form.
 * If your Ultimate has overpowered abilities, make sure it’s restricted in some way as well.

And there you have it! A guide to creating your own Ultimate! Now get out there, pick an alien that doesn’t already have one, and make one! Or even make your own version of an existing Ultimate! Or even create a fanon Ultimate! Just create Ultimates! Go for it! Go! Go! Go! Go!