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The Kree Empire's Supreme Intelligence was, in essence, a living supercomputer.
Throughout Kree history, the brains of great thinkers, generals, philosophers, scientists, and other exceptional individuals were removed after death and integrated into a vast neural network.
Every decision made by the Supreme Intelligence was effectively the result of countless brilliant minds reaching a consensus.
These discussions were free from personal interests, political agendas, or individual biases. What remained were only differing perspectives and intellects interacting with one another.
Furthermore, every five years, a new individual would be selected as worthy of joining the Supreme Intelligence.
Upon that person's death, their brain would be added to the collective, becoming part of the system just like all the great minds before them.
In other words, the living supercomputer continued to grow stronger over time, constantly incorporating new thinkers in order to adapt to changing eras and absorb fresh knowledge and viewpoints.
Naturally, maintaining the health of living brains became one of the Kree Empire's most important fields of research.
Machines wore down with use.
Broken components required repair, and if they could not be repaired, they were replaced.
The human body was no different.
Degenerating knees, muscle atrophy, declining cardiovascular function—these were all symptoms of aging that gradually reduced a person's capabilities.
The internal organs and the brain naturally suffered from the same problems.
People often forgot that the organs hidden beneath skin and bone were not immortal. They aged and deteriorated just like everything else.
Even after being removed from a body—whether transplanted into another person or incorporated into a living computer like the Supreme Intelligence—those organs would continue aging as long as they remained active.
The Supreme Intelligence had existed for over a million years.
For a brain to remain healthy and functional as a component for a million years, extraordinary maintenance techniques were required.
After all, brains incorporated into the Supreme Intelligence were never retired.
The system only accepted additions.
Nothing was ever removed.
Henry obviously wasn't going to remove Katharine Hepburn's brain, soak it in specialized preservation fluid, and then remotely connect it through wireless technology to a living artificial body...
Wait.
Damn.
That actually sounded suspiciously like cybernetic immortality.
Having accidentally stumbled across an entirely different technological pathway hidden within Kree science, Henry immediately decided to stop thinking about it.
The reason was simple.
If cybernetic immortality was such an obvious possibility, why hadn't the Kree Empire pursued that route?
The answer almost certainly meant there was some massive hidden drawback that had convinced an interstellar empire to abandon cybernetic evolution altogether.
Instead, Henry focused exclusively on the technology used to preserve living brains.
Immersion in nutrient-rich fluid was merely one part of the process.
The specialized solution continuously supplied nutrients while also reducing the likelihood of abnormalities developing within the brain.
Reducing.
Not eliminating.
There was an important difference.
Because every individual's DNA contained unique genetic traits.
Those traits might never develop into hereditary diseases, but they still influenced whether a person's brain was more susceptible to degeneration, pathological changes, or functional disorders.
As a result, the first step in maintaining long-term brain health was correcting genetic defects.
Even then, however, the procedure merely reduced the probability of aging and disease.
It did not eliminate those risks entirely.
Beyond that, the Kree had developed specific treatments for nearly every form of degeneration, disease, and neurological dysfunction imaginable.
Together, those treatments allowed them to maintain brains at effectively one hundred percent health.
If Marvel possessed an equivalent to DC's cosmic super-intellect Brainiac, then the Kree Empire's Supreme Intelligence would be the closest comparison.
After studying the construction data behind the Supreme Intelligence, even Henry's Kryptonian brain struggled to comprehend how powerful the current version must have become.
The crucial difference, however, was that Brainiac was a digital lifeform.
Brainiac could replicate himself, evolve independently, and create new ideas.
That meant he could infiltrate virtually any computer-like network, survive within it, and potentially seize control of everything connected to it.
The Supreme Intelligence lacked that capability.
It could not reproduce itself.
More importantly, it could be destroyed.
Or killed.
For example, in the future, Captain Marvel would eventually travel to the Kree homeworld, Hala, and destroy the Supreme Intelligence outright.
Assuming reality followed the events of the cinematic universe, Carol Danvers—thoroughly manipulated by the Skrulls—would one day commit exactly that sort of impulsive act.
Then she would spend time struggling with her conscience afterward.
A classic case of creating problems where none needed to exist.
The vulnerability of a centralized brain system was likely another major reason why the Kree abandoned cybernetic evolution.
Its weakness was simply too obvious.
It sat openly on the table, inviting attack.
Once an enemy succeeded, the entire civilization could collapse.
In any case, Henry had no interest in the first two stages of Kree brain preservation technology.
He wasn't trying to achieve cybernetic immortality.
And genetic modification involved far too many complications to casually experiment with.
Besides, the Kree had developed those procedures with a target lifespan measured in millions of years.
Henry's ambitions weren't nearly that grand.
The idea of Katharine Hepburn's brain continuing to function a century after the rest of her body had turned to dust was more horrifying than inspiring.
Therefore, he focused solely on the third stage:
Maintaining brain health through the treatment and repair of degeneration, disease, and dysfunction.
Unfortunately, the challenge resembled the one he had encountered while studying both Kree and Skrull technology before.
Many of the materials referenced simply did not exist on Earth.
Finding substitutes—even if they produced inferior versions of the original products—remained a substantial challenge.
Henry had already achieved considerable progress in deciphering alien mechanical technology.
The duck-shaped and leopard-shaped components of the Duck-Leopard Armor were examples of successful integration between alien and Earth technologies.
But in the field of biotechnology, it felt as though he was walking the same road all over again.
The same painstaking process of research.
Comparison.
Interpretation.
Trial and error.
Yet after digging deeper, Henry made a surprising discovery:
Alien biotechnology was actually easier to analyze than alien mechanical engineering.
Both the Kree Empire and the Skrull Empire had long since moved beyond the primitive practice of extracting precursor substances from naturally occurring materials before refining them into useful compounds.
Instead, they worked directly from fundamental chemical elements.
Through complex synthesis pathways, they assembled whatever compounds they desired.
As a result, finding substitutes for rare biological materials was rarely an issue.
As long as one possessed the base elements and the synthesis blueprint, a machine could manufacture the desired chemical compound.
The reason Henry said "rarely" instead of "never" was because building the machine itself was far from simple.
The device in question lacked an official name and was identified only by a serial number.
Henry privately referred to it as the Universal Pharmaceutical Fabricator.
Unfortunately, many aspects of its design remained beyond his understanding.
For the Kree and Skrulls, however, the process was straightforward.
If they discovered that a particular synthetic compound treated a certain disease, they could simply manufacture it.
The difficult part of medical research was identifying the correct compound.
Production itself posed virtually no obstacle.
Ironically, that advanced medical technology became a problem for Henry.
The records contained formulas and final results—but not the complete synthesis procedures.
Those details were hidden inside the Pharmaceutical Fabricator's black-box processes.
Which left Henry facing a choice:
Should he try to build the Universal Pharmaceutical Fabricator?
Or should he independently reverse-engineer the synthesis process for the target compounds?
After reviewing the machine's original size specifications, operational requirements, and power consumption, Henry immediately abandoned the first option.
He would focus entirely on researching the synthesis methods himself.
Building the machine felt like wanting to buy a bottle of water from the convenience store downstairs...
...and deciding to hand-build an automobile, drive it around the city, return to the starting point, and only then buy the water.
The sense of ceremony would certainly be impressive.
But by the time you finished, you'd probably have died of thirst.
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