Summary

• The Ackerman Clan in Attack on Titan possesses the power of Titans without needing to transform, making them formidable fighting machines.
• The Ackermans have access to the military knowledge and experience of their predecessors, giving them an advantage in battle.
• Despite their powerful abilities, the Ackerman clan is immune to the commands of the Founding Titan, which leads to their expulsion and a decades-long plot against them.

A fundamental truth of Attack on Titan holds that not all Titans are created equal. Mixed among this diversity of monstrous Titans, however, is the Ackerman Clan, who have the power of the Titans without the need to shift into Titan form.

Years before the events of the main story, in an Eldia very different from the one in the manga, the Fritz royal family had enjoyed being the most powerful nation on Earth. Always looking to modernize their approach, they began experimenting on humans and Titan to see if they could acquire a Titan's abilities without originally being a "Subject of Ymir". The Ackerman clan was the result of this experimentation.

The Ackermans – The Eldian Version Of The Clone Troopers

Attack on Titan Season 3 (2018)

As a result of the experiments, Eldian scientists were able to bioengineer the ultimate fighting machines. Indeed, the Ackerman's were physically stronger than the average human, and capable of achieving the proportional strength of a Titan without the need to transform into one. Moreover, as revealed in chapter 112 of the Attack on Titan manga, they had the ability to access the military knowledge and experience of every Ackerman that lived before them. The clan's one weakness was that in order to truly exerpt their potential, they had to experience some form of major trauma.

An "awakened" Ackerman – like Kenny – was the ultimate fighting machine. Soon enough, the royal family made good use of their abilities by asg Ackerman clan the exclusive responsibility of providing security for the King and the royal family. For centuries, they served as the de facto "palace guard", with their patriarch often referred to as the "right hand of the king". This gave the Ackerman's an influential status in Eldian society.

Titan Strong, But Independently Minded

Despite their abilities, the experimentation led to one trait that they would later come to regret. Unlike other Eldians, most of whom were the "Subjects of Ymir" and therefore bound by the commands of the Founding Titan, the Ackerman were immune to this power. For most of Eldian history, this was not a problem with the royal family until the 145th King decided to end the centuries of fighting with Marley and other nations, isolating Eldia on Paradis Island. To accomplish this, the King used the Founding Titan to wipe the minds of Eldians of Titan history and their gruesome past. However, this didn't work on the Ackermans.

Fearing the clan would betray them, and annoyed that the family didn't agree with the plan, the King ordered their expulsion from all security duties and approved of a scheme to ruthlessly hunt them down and have them eliminated. The decades-long anti-Ackerman plot led to the extermination of the Ackerman clan in Attack on Titan, but for Levi and Mikasa, who, like their ancestors, were once again called on to "secure and protect".

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