Thetenth episode ofTRIGUN STAMPEDEwas dramatic on all-fronts, with one of the most impactful moments in the series being the direct consequence of Meryl (and the audience’s) curiosity and desire for insight into the inner workings of one of the series antagonists, Dr. William Conrad. Having been largely in Knives' shadow in each of his appearances prior, Conrad reveals his intentions for No Man’s Land to Meryl and De Niro, luring them deep into his lair with the intention of turning it into a honey trap for Vash The Stampede.
His creation of the various super-powered enemies that Vash and his friends have had to face thus far inTRIGUN STAMPEDEwas the unintended consequence of his true mission to evolve humankind. Just who is Dr. William Conrad, and what is his significance to theTRIGUN STAMPEDEnarrative?
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SEEDS
Episode 9 ofTRIGUN STAMPEDE, which delved into the past of the main antagonist, Millions Knives, also shed some light on the origins of the scientist in Knives' cohort. As a younger man, William Conrad was the only human aboard an unidentified SEEDS vessel that was remotely warm and receptive to the younger Knives, who was treated as a second-rate citizen and forced to witness countless individuals of Plant-kind die at the hands of gluttonous humans who saw the Plants as nothing more than a living battery.
The last straw for Knives was witnessing the Last Run, a brutal final wringing of the last dregs of energyfrom the dying Plants, who are then discarded, a process that Dr. William Conrad, despite his status as scientist aboard the vessel, could not prevent. After Knives kills the various security officers and crew members who administered the Last Run, he gives Conrad a choice: die immediately, or spend the rest of his life trying to atone for the various sins in which the scientist was complicit, including the traumatizing Last Run. Begging for forgiveness, Conrad devotes his life to figuring out a way to improve humanity so that they can live on No Man’s Land without having to exploit Plants for resources.
Gung-Ho!
In the originalTrigunanime, Dr. William Conrad was the scientist behind the various cybernetic enhancements to a band of highly skilled criminals and assassins dubbed the “Gung-Ho Guns”. Among them were Nicholas D. Wolfwood, otherwise known as “The Punisher”; Zazie The Beast; Monev the Gale (otherwise known as “Rollo from the Windmill Village”) and others. Like in the 1998 series, these individuals are still the surviving experiments of Conrad, who figured out a way to prompt rapid cell growth in an individual, boosting their strength, athleticism; however, these improvements came at the cost of their innocence (as many of these experiments were performed on young children, like in the case of Wolfwood and his little brother Livio); their sanity, as seen with Rollo; and even their humanity, as is continuously seen with Zazie The Beast, who fancies themselves a colony of Worms, rather than a human.
Conrad’s reason for performing such inhuman experiments in the first place is spurred on by his belief that the common human instinct to change the environment in response to difficulty is wrong. Rather,humanity itself should be the one to adaptto its surroundings, lest it repeat the mistakes that led to the eventual collapse of the viability of the Earth as a livable planet. Each of the Dr’s “successes” have a moniker or epithet attached to them that is oftentimes indicative of their abnormal abilities, or as the manifestation of the Dr’s will for their lives going forward.
Forward-Thinking?
One of the major contributors to the actions undertaken by Conrad, including his experimentation on little kids, is his desire to make up for the destructive nature of humanity and how it has affected the Plants, especially Knives. Conrad’s relationship with Knives, while being mostly motivated by fear, is also partly motivated by the scientist’s own feelings of guilt towards his own and humanity’s collective treatment of Plants, and his powerlessness at preventing harm from befalling Knives and the other Plants while aboard the SEEDS vessel. Humanity, as the original sinner in this context, is only paying what is due each time a child is sacrificed to the great cause of improving human physiology to the point of being able to withstandthe conditions of No Man’s Land. Guilt and ambition mingle together in the psychology of a person who has witnessed the wrath of a grieving Plant first-hand and still needs to atone for yet another grave sin that has been alluded to but not yet explored inTRIGUN STAMPEDE:the fate of Tesla – the first-known Independent Plant.
Conrad is also aware of his colleague on Ship Three, Luida, and her project to present vegetation and plant life to the planet, which he respects as a noble endeavour, but one that will simply take far too long and doesn’t address what he considers to be the fundamental problem of human colonisation: humans are built to consume and destroy, and this belief is the big motivator for Millions Knives and his allies. When Conrad realized that his experiments on humans are only leading him in the direction of improving physical attributes like strength and durability, he shifted his attention towards creating human-Plant hybrids, leading to the manufacture and incubation of countless Plant-babies, one of which is Elendira The Crimsonnail, whose haircut is reminiscent of Android 18 of theDragon Ballfranchise, but also much like the childhood hairstyle of Vash and Knives, indicating some kind ofgenetic connection to the twinsmade possible through Conrad’s expertise.
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