  We argue that the very effective cover of hermitian $K$-theory in the sense
of motivic homotopy theory is a convenient algebro-geometric generalization of
the connective real topological $K$-theory spectrum. This means the very
effective cover acquires the correct Betti realization, its motivic cohomology
has the desired structure as a module over the motivic Steenrod algebra, and
that its motivic Adams and slice spectral sequences are amenable to
calculations.
