I pivoted. Slightly.
My original goal was to lay down the cables like I have below, but then cover them with a grey fabric which was in all of the references I found for the asset. This turned out to be a very.... unfun point in the project. I'm sure someone else with organic modeling skills could have pulled it off, but given my ability with organics or even cloth sim, I felt it would stick out like a sore thumb. Better just get rid of it entirely. Besides, it still looks cool without it.
Also, zip ties suck.
At this point I was thinking. "Ok, I'm done with the modeling. I can now finish texturing. Whew!" Not so fast there, dude. Let's put on our QA hat and do a once over the ref to see if we missed anyth-... Shit. Yeah, you missed a lot. Can't texture my way out of this one.
Soooo, on it goes.