#its certainly more scientific but thats irrelevant to me

[kawaiianimeredhead]

Learned today I'm basically the cause of a 2 or 3yo boy who went around making fart sounds with his mouth saying he was breathing like a turtle and I think I'll be riding this high for days tbh

[h0undeye]

raises hand waves waves waves id like to hear abr ur homestuck au

im making the executive decision to put this under a readmore

first things first this takes place centuries into the future of the alternian empire. ive yet to decide if hic is still the reigning empress but. whatever. thats kind of irrelevant and youll see why

the alternian empire has extended FAR. an expansion so vast that its caused a societal AND governmental shift in priorities. further colonization has taken a backburner as scientific advancement has been prioritized

ysee i have a theory that alternian spacecraft literally does not function using electricity and is solely powered by psionic goldbloods. this is due to little details, like planes not having been invented, the idea of electricity powering things being thought of as laughable, etc. so with how great the empire has become, they need to improve

so, the black mesa research facility is founded, directly funded by the empire itself. it is staffed by adult trolls, as there is no longer a need for adults to immediately be shipped off to war

most of the scientists employed end up being cerulean or indigo due to the bias of the empire. the caste system is still very present. further, most of the security being staffed are olive, and its rare to see anyone below such color in the wings of black mesa

enter stage right gordon freeman. hes a bronzeblood, BARELY making it in via recommendation by isaac kleiner, his former mentor. this is where the story is pretty much as we remember. the resonance cascade occurs, gordon fights the creatures of xen, yknow

and so heres the thing. xen is in an entirely different dimension. alternia and xen are not from the same world. thats why xen was not colonized by the empire at all. this is also how alternia avoided detection by the combine. so, similarly to in half life, the portal fuckery between xen and alternia alerted the combine to the existence of the alternian empire. since the combine is so fucking large they do manage to also gain control of the empires colonies (afterall, what they allotted to earth was NOT the full extent of the combines empire). while alternia CERTAINLY wasnt defeated in 7 hours, they most certainly did fall under combine rule eventually. notably, the combines most influential act was the murder of the reigning empress and all other living fuchsias, recognizing how this would destabilize the alternian government (plus most of the few fuchsias in existence had died in the war itself and werent directly executed)

see why i said the empress wouldnt be too important?

narratively, i think this also provides a more,,, natural(?) reason for wallace breen serving as the ambassador for the combine, as alternians would gravitate towards having the next highest caste to rule, and breen is a violet in this au (all colors will be listed at the. hes violet because black mesa is directly ran by the empire so theyd naturally appoint a seadweller to run it)

anyway! when it comes to how alternians FEEL about the combines rule, well. id say theyre just as revolted, if not MORE than humans. theyre really good at PRETENDING theyre happy under these conditions, but the resistance is definitely bigger, not even just because alternia has a larger population, but even when it comes to percent of the population a part of the resistance

WHICH speaking of this leads me to a really shitty transition to talk about SIGNS because i am writing this in chunks and forgot to include it earlier. the combine have also eliminated the use of signs. they represent a level of personality and individuality that just wont fly w the combine. so no one has a sign anymore. EXCEPT the resistance. who have adopted gordons sign instead. for one, gordon freeman is who the combine are wary of the most, so bearing any memento of him is already a huge fuck you. but his SIGN? the most identifiable part of him which is also the aspect of a troll the combine are MOST against? thas rebellion 101 baby

and something of note is that, while casteism is still an issue, its not a fundamental aspect of society. upholding the caste system is pretty much pointless in the current day, HOWEVER, those ideals were instilled so deeply into society that biases and internalized casteism do still exist. SO people are more willing to dawn the sign of a bronze, but that doesnt mean that theyve achieved perfect equality

i think thats enough lore? character time!

first, colors. i'll use the names i use for character tags on here

burgundy: joshua

bronze: gordon freeman, gordon martinis freeman, gordon freemind

gold: alyx vance, russell, tommy coolatta

olive: barney calhoun, barmey calhoun, forzen

jade: gina cross, judith mossman

teal: colette green

cerulean: isaac kleiner, eli vance, darnold pepper

indigo: arne magnusson, adrian shephard, dr coomer, mindrian shephard, all hecu marines excluding forzen

purple: the black ops assassins

violet: wallace breen, bubby

fuchsia: oops! all dead

notable exceptions: g-man (hlvrai and half life) who is not a troll but presents as a tealblood. benrey who is not a troll and presents as olive but can and does change his blood color at will

so what the fuck is up with alyx joshua and tommy i hear you ask?

alyx was a young troll who eli decided to mentor after her lusus died. eli got her into science as a whole, but specifically engineering and mechanics

the g-man found tommy, also with a dead lusus, and thought "this is neat. im keeping him". whatever species g-man is has a concept of family, which g-man teaches to tommy, so tommy is the only one in the group who knows what the word father means

joshua was taken under gordons wing, similarly to alyx and eli, but joshuas lusus is still alive. however, his lusus is sickly and unable to care for joshua on his own, so gordon helps out and also teaches josh cool science things but is not his sole guardian

and yes, this au includes half life, hlvrai, and the mindverse. i imagine this au not being ONE universe, but a collection of universes that are kinda parallel to each other? its like an umbrella au. i dont know if i'll do any crossuniverse shenanigans or not. id probably have to refresh myself on homestuck timeline n multiverse mechanics

ive written so fucking much. i can explain my choice of blood colors but i'll only do that if asked because HOLY SHIT