#sburb theory

[r0semultiverse]

Where in Beyond Canon is Arquisprite?

Took inspiration from the above post by @pastabaguette and decided to expand upon it due to The Plot Point update as well as some stuff seen even before Vriska’s arc started in The Point.

Let's examine some stuff that may tell us where Arquiusprite is at this time, seeing as we seemingly have only one chapter in The Point left. I think we've got a lead on his whereabouts already.

We've got horses and horse-adjacent creatures.

We've got a robot that looks like it's literally ripped from Equius' hive with a notable missing horn hole and a dent in the head.

There's also this twitter response from James Roach which could be interpreted as suggesting Equius' return in some way at some point in the future.

OP, I'm not saying you're right, but I am saying that if Dirk were to consult anyone on horses, it would probably be a mashup of his AI & Equius. Also Void player behavior apparently! Also Dirk has narrative reality warpy powers & we aren't sure as to the limits of those yet!

Below are some reddit notes about classpects that also lead credence to the idea that Arquisrpite is on Deltritus with Dirk at this time. Outside of the obvious fact that we haven't seen him in The Plot Point or the bonus comics with Jasprosesprite at all as of the Davepetasprite^2 feather chapter release.

Are the robots in case Terezi goes ultimate? Are they backup bodies for Rosebot? A metal body for Arquisprite? Who knows, maybe all three! 🤷‍♀️ Robots are being made by someone though (for some purpose) and they have troll horn slots on their craniums. The exact style robot that Equius used to make back on Alternia; so, make of that what you will!

Also maybe they just need a sprite to kick off whatever makeshift sburb/sgrub copycat they're trying to get running and seeing as Arquiusprite is a splinter of Dirk, it's fitting that he would accompany him. Plus the sprites can kind of just seem to be wherever & whenever the story needs them to be? Seeing as how Jasprose kidnapped Jane in the meat timeline, but in the candy timeline the sprites just kind of seemed to not do much or be absent entirely after a certain point.

There's at least a guaranteed non-zero chance Arquiusprite is on Deltritus.

[homestuckreplay]

This Video Game Ended The World. Now What???

Sburb (Skaianet Systems 2009) has capacities that go far beyond what a typical video game can accomplish – but it is still a video game, bounded by rules, mechanics, quests, non-player characters and programming decisions even while it is not bounded by a digital space. Asking what the end goal of Sburb is, what skills it is trying to teach its players, and what kind of person it is trying to turn them into could shed some light on not only the future of the story, but also what Homestuck is trying to say about video games’ role in the world more generally.

In his book The World Is Born From Zero (2022), video game scholar Cameron Kunzelman discusses his concept of ‘potential labor’ within science fiction video games – where a player takes on the role of a worker and performs the day-to-day specifics of their job in an economy that does not yet exist in the real world, but may exist in the future. He argues that when playing video games, ‘players are subjectivated by a process that encompasses them and demands that they interact with the game in a certain way lest they fail immediately,’ and in his case study for potential labor, VA-11 HALL-A (2016), that ‘[players] become subjects whose entire relationship to the world is determined by the interface we use and how it asks us to labor.’ I think that Sburb is demanding a similar kind of labor from its players, and that this framework is helpful for answering John Egbert’s question of ‘to what end?’

[a short one – only 2.2k words]

Metaphorically, Sburb is the Y2K problem. It’s the computer glitch that destabilizes the tenuous structure of the modern world we’ve built. In its main storyline, Sburb destroys planet Earth, which is ‘done for’ and cannot be saved. It transports the player to ‘The Medium,’ a space outside of time, and kidnaps and holds hostage residents of the player character’s house besides them. Within the Medium, forces of light defend endgame area Skaia and its ‘unlimited creative potential’ while forces of darkness attempt to destroy it. The player, along with their Kernelsprite, begins, influences and participates in a war between these forces. Doing so relies on the three core mechanics described next. The player is encouraged to ally with one of these forces, in John’s case the forces of light – however the forces of light are destined to lose, and the end state or win condition of the game is unknown.

Sburb has three core mechanics. These are 1) to deploy specific machines with the eventual purpose of learning ‘punch card alchemy’, a process that advances out-of-game captchalogue mechanics to create physical items from digital resources [server and client players both contribute to this process], 2) to build a house upwards (or potentially downwards) from limited resources and likely while obeying the general laws of physics in order to reach further game areas [server player is responsible for this process] and 3) to use the out of game skills of captchalogue decks and strife specibi to kill various enemies in order to obtain resources for the above processes and advance the player’s abilities and levels [client player is responsible for this process]. These three mechanics can be shorthanded as Alchemize, Build and Kill.

The genre of Sburb is highly debatable, as genres often are, but I believe it contains elements of both fantasy and science fiction. A player character entering a world unlike their own, filled with magical kingdoms and wars between good and evil, certainly reads as fantasy. However, a player character witnessing an apocalyptic event on Earth and using technology to escape the planet and to become one of a few representatives for their species, is more classically science fiction. Currently, I see the set dressing and surface message of Sburb’s story as closer to fantasy, while the deeper themes and questions the game asks are closer to science fiction. The game is currently essential to the future of humanity, or positions itself as such, and consequently is asking players to think about what that future might look like.

A huge unanswered question about Sburb is who designed the game, and why. While creators cannot directly control how a player will interact with their game or what type of person they will become from playing it, but they often have a goal in mind – an ideal player, and an ideal playthrough – that can be inferred from the game’s design. For example, original Dungeons & Dragons (1974) imagines a player who will solve conflict through violence and define their player character exclusively through numerically-based abilities. A player can instead use the game to roleplay as a medieval fantasy character, acting out how they might ‘realistically’ behave and respond to situations and placing their mechanical abilities within the framework of modern human psychology. This style of play is popular enough that it has been somewhat accounted for in later editions of the game, but does not exist in the original text.

So, who is this ideal Sburb player imagined by the unknown developer? Like in D&D, this player is somebody who overcomes problems and obstructions through violence and is rewarded with additional power and resources - a core mechanic of games throughout history, such as chess (1475), where a player can capture and remove the other player’s piece from the game board to secure an advantage for themself. This player is also someone who performs physical and material labor via a digital interface and purely mental exertion, which is already an increasingly important skill in the age of automation. Finally, this player is someone who has access to – in my interpretation of punch card alchemy, which hasn’t yet been explored in depth – technological power so advanced that it presents as magic.

Sburb's radical moves to change human existence mean that the 'potential labor' discussed above could become the real practice of labor in whatever is next for humanity after completing the game. In time, the Sburb player will probably be guided as to when and how to use these powers. But who benefits from giving people these capabilities? The game’s developers must either be extremely clever or extremely reckless, either placing strict restrictions on what players can accomplish with punch card alchemy and planning contingencies in case of cheat codes and bugs, or have failed to consider the possible consequences entirely.

Releasing this game is high risk, high reward. There is a chance that players will take the very real skills they have learned inside the game and use them to turn against the creators who are ultimately responsible for Earth’s destruction – but if the game works as intended, then its story of light vs dark, the role it places the player in with respect to these forces, and the ways it encourages players to use their alchemize, build and kill skills should shape the player into somebody who would not make that choice.

Another unanswered question is the nature of the Ultimate Riddle, the purpose that the player character is designed to fulfil in the game. I have two possible predictions as to both the nature of Sburb’s developers, and where the main storyline of Sburb will end. Both of these are based on movie posters found on John’s bedroom wall – existing works of science fiction that are known to have at least a small influence on Homestuck.

The first relates to Deep Impact (1998), and to the story of Noah’s Ark from Islamic, Jewish and Christian scripture. In these stories, an apocalyptic event destroys the majority of life on earth, except for a subset of humanity who are pre-selected by controlling forces due to their useful skills and/or strong moral character. These forces are then tasked with rebuilding the earth following the fallout of the apocalyptic event. In Deep Impact, the worst of the event is avoided at the last minute, but this is the situation being prepared for.

In this reading, Sburb may have been developed by a religious or political cult who are either playing God, or believe they are receiving messages from a higher power, intentionally causing a rapture-like event in order to reset humanity. Players are not pre-selected, instead, the game itself acts as a selection mechanism. The best video game players are believed to be the people who will most successfully rebuild the earth from scratch. These players will need building skills to create physical structures and civilizations, fighting skills to hunt for food and defend themselves from external threats, and alchemy skills (which likely draw upon the creative potential of Skaia) to create tools and machines, thereby developing faster than humanity did in its previous incarnation.

Here the Incipisphere functions as the ark itself – the thing protecting players from the conditions outside. Players stay here until they have completed the game and until the world has calmed from meteor impacts and is safe for humans once more. Due to the atemporaility of the Incipisphere, these two events will automatically sync, no matter the relative amount of time that they take. It’s possible that these things happen ‘years in the future, but not many,’ as the wasteland and Sburb technology in these sections of Homestuck suggest that these scenes could take place on Earth. It is also possible that the Wayward Vagabond has somehow escaped the game early, and arrived on Earth at a time before it is ready to rebuild.

The second prediction relates to Contact (1997), among other stories of alien and intergalactic societies. In this excellent movie, a scientist identifies transmissions that come from intelligent life elsewhere in the universe – a species which has identified humanity as ready for their first interstellar contact. Through decoding these transmissions, the scientist uncovers instructions for directly communicating with these aliens and advancing further towards entering intergalactic society.

In this reading, a species from beyond Earth, likely one who has already tapped into the creative potential of Skaia via their own technology, has provided humanity with the instructions for developing Sburb. The team of scientists and/or video game developers who decoded the instructions may not have known that the game would cause an apocalyptic event, but the aliens transmitting the message certainly did. By including the alchemy and digital building mechanics, this species has given humanity a way to speedrun technological advancement, at the cost of their species’ current home.

I highly doubt that this is a benevolent act, or a random act of violence. A species with access to the capabilities of Sburb wanting to annihilate Earth could do so without the complexity of the game. These aliens clearly want to maintain a small subset of human life, and are using the game to train humans to work for them, fulfilling the roles of builders and soldiers that must be necessary to their society, but that the aliens themselves either do not want to fill or do not have enough people to fill. The aliens have selected gamers as a culture to target, because many gamers are used to adapting to and working within the constraints of a set of rules and an ideological framework that they cannot challenge – a mindset that the aliens are expecting will transfer easily from video games into real life.

In either of these possible readings, the creators of Sburb are both selecting for and trying to constitute a specific type of human. Marketing the game to teenagers could also be part of this strategy, as designers may believe that younger, more impressionable players can be more easily molded to the human who alchemizes, builds and kills. Marketing the game in the United States could also be part of the strategy, as a late capitalist society which defines success through hard work already delivers the same values that Sburb hopes to reinforce.

If all this is true, then Homestuck depicts video games as a medium of limitless capability to reimagine the world, but one that can be easily exploited and used as a mechanism of control. Through John and Rose’s excitement about the game’s possibilities and through the power fantasies of alchemizing something from nothing, building an ideal home via simple button clicks, and overcoming problems through simple combat, Homestuck demonstrates an understanding of why technological advancement presents such a draw to humanity, and how dreams of an easier, more automated life let us get caught up in ideas of what technology makes possible. It is empathetic towards young people’s feelings of optimism and escapism surrounding video games, yet also highlights the dangers in this mindset.

Homestuck tells us that the direct and indirect effects of rapid technological progress can be severe, unpredictable, and lasting. It suggests that we should not deploy new technologies without first understanding what they are capable of and what they can and will be used for. It tells us that many of the forces governing futuristic technologies, such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence, are things we do not yet completely understand. And it reiterates that while there are plenty of people – or forces of light – who would take these technologies and attempt to use them to benefit humanity, there are at least as many forces of darkness who intend to destroy the creative potential of video games, taking their infinite and radical possibility and using them instead to produce soldiers and workers, indoctrinating them into the same values that our society already prizes.

[joysmileyay]

lines from homestuck that always bothered me

this is doc talking about lord english and himself "He's more deadly. But the danger he poses is sanctioned by paradox space. It is a known quantity. His very existence in a universe will mean it will inevitably be torn apart. But there are rules to his entry, and his grim procession through paradox space is rather orderly. The present equilibrium has accounted for him, and will continue to." "You do. But also know this. Refusing to venture out to destroy the sun in no way spares anyone from my master regardless. It is certainly true that destroying it will end my life. And it is certainly true that The Tumor you will deliver to its location has enough power to destroy it completely. But it is not the only way to kill me. It is simply a way I have suggested to you, which doubles as a way to disarm Jack, should you choose to go through with it. Instances of myself have spawned in countless universes, and my objective is always the same. I have never once failed to complete this objective, and I never will. There is nothing noble about taking a course of action you believe would prevent his arrival, because that is impossible. He will come. In fact, he is already here." most relevant text bolded. ive reconciled a lot of things i didnt like/understand about homestuck over the years but these lines still bother me. and dont seem to make much sense to me, or get elaborated on. because everything about caliborn and lord english is so specific to these sessions that we see in homestuck, it doesnt really make sense for there to be a countless number of caliborns out there, when all of caliborns characteristics and traits are the result of the setting we see him placed in and the specific characters he has to interact with, ie the characters from the sessions we see in homestuck. same for, dirk/AR, equius, gamzee, and lil cal since thats what lord english is made up of and i guess he could be made up of other people but then what "is" lord english? the result of a one player lord of time session? always caliborn? idk and i dont really have any personal theories about these lines other than doc scratch being an unreliable narrator, but this is unreliable narration in a way that is not true to how doc scratch operates in my opinion, because it just doesnt seem to make sense with what we know about the story at least as i understand it.

[land-of-polls-and-brackets]

I've been thinking about the exiles and what their purpose post-session actually is... Their role as background guides to the players and potential facilitators of other necessary time-shenanigans for any given session makes perfect sense. But their secondary role of rebuilding life and civilization on the planet *with the goal of reseeding the planet for another session* just... doesn't to me? I know we are literally word-of-god told that this is their purpose in some of the author commentaries:

"Skaia sacrifices the planet of origin so that its child (a new universe) may have a chance to be born. But it simultaneously seeds the dead planet with the potential for new life and civilization (exiles), and retroactively seeds the planet with the children who would fertilize Skaia with the new universe. This is the essence of the universal creation cycle. Sacrifice the old to make way for the new. Life rises again from the ashes of the old. Rinse and repeat. Something else to wonder - how often has Earth itself been through this process before humanity came along?" -Homestuck: Book 3: Act 4, p. 459.

But it still just doesn't gel with me. I couldn't figure out why. Because we also get in-universe confirmation that this is their "purpose"; Terezi explains it as such to Rose on page 1524 and the actions of the carapacians themselves confirm it too, both in what WQ tasks PM with, and Slick's actions of literally making this town on Alternia's green moon, as well as how (at least in the kids' session) the themeing of their exiles is decidedly civic. Of course, if we ignore the word-of-god author commentary it could very well be that the carapacians just believe that that is their purpose, having been programmed to think so (they are NPCs after all) and that is not Skaia's intention at all. (Maybe they don't even necessarily think it is a purpose and moreso they just gravitate towards doing that because it is a pretty obvious thing to do when put in that situation). To me that all makes sense, but to have it confirmed that making new civilzations and sburb sessions really is actually Skaia's intention with these cute little guys is a little.... Thinking through how that would actually work is I guess where my issues arise. It's just that in both instances of exiles we have seen so far, they are put on the planet right before the universe itself expires. And the idea of them making a new civilization that will play sburb just makes little sense to me. Like, are they themselves meant to play sburb? NPCs of a game that is functionally a frog's reproduction system, thrust into another instance of the same game and potentially meeting versions of themselves (or their ancestors) ? Where carapacians from the "original" stock are allowed to be players but others are stuck as NPCs? Very weird and strange. The alternative of course being they use ectobiology equipment and time shenanigans to rebuild civilization with clones of the members of the previous one, that already had a chance to make a new universe. But we didn't see anything like that happening with Slick's group (who seemed to be much further along the whole "civilzation building" thing than the exiles from the kids' session)! And of course, if this is true, wouldn't the vast majority of new universes statistically be coming from carapacian-built civilizations? As long as a session has meteors come to its planet it could have exiles, even if it isn't a successful session. That's potential for a huge number of civilizations. But why would a universe's second (or third etc.) attempt at reproduction have these civilization helpers but not its first? I guess because they assume the first instance is shaped by the people that created it - the former players. Though if those players achieved godhood, wouldn't they still be around for these future instances too? But I think the main reason that it doesn't make much sense for me is because of the first guardians . We're told that:

"Every planet destined for intelligent life has such an entity meant to protect it, and facilitate the planet's ultimate purpose. A first guardian is typically almost as old as the planet itself"

Homestuck p. 2253 Notice it says purpose, singular. First guardians are meant to facilitate the planet's sburb session. So do these secondary exile-built civilizations not get a first guardian? Do they get like, a second guardian? Or are the exiles themselves meant to serve a similar purpose (??). Or are the first guardians meant to stay behind on the planet and facilitate these future sessions too, in typical sessions? I guess that would make the most sense, though I don't know why they wouldn't be designed in a way that would force them to stay on their planet for the sake of future civilizations if so....? I know the sessions we see aren't meant to be typical at all. But still. Wouldn't it feel a little cheap or less special to be in a second or third instance of a planet's session like that? In any case, I think we do have an answer to Hussie's "how often has Earth itself been through this process before humanity came along?" We see a timelapse of Jade's island from Bec's arrival in [S] WV: Ascend. We know that first guardians show up before the intelligent life does, and know that they show also show up shortly after the planet's creation. So it doesn't give us a lot of time for there to be oodles of civilizations. Realistically speaking, it's no other times. [I guess it could also be one other time, with all evidence of exiles from that session (if there were any) lost to time, if the dinosaurs were intelligent life (lol). ] Anyway, this stuff has just been on my mind. It's interesting to think about for fan sessions and the like. I really wish we didn't have author commentary on this particular point, because I think it works better being ambiguous. Like maybe Skaia could have just been giving the exiles false hope and universes typically die right after reproduction. But oh well I suppose.

[lime-bloods]

i was going to make a whole post about how you can't talk about the final frog mystery without also asking what the hell this light was; but that's literally just the light of Skaia, isn't it? Prospit doesn't normally have clouds like this; what we're seeing is Jade's earliest memory of an eclipse, where Prospit's moon rakes through the prophetic clouds of Skaia. that lotus spirograph she's looking at is the same one that appears in the doorknob-bubble to a new universe and under the doorway platform, in the universe's throat sac and even on Homestuck's final page, the heroes having entered one. as @mmmmalo points out, it's also the "SEED" of a lotus time capsule, making its symbolic value as a vessel for life obvious. but most obviously, that spirograph is what's at the heart of Skaia. that's what Jade is being drawn to, here, which explains the attendance of Prospit's natives as well.

so, knowing that this is Skaia showing her a vision, supposedly Jade's statement that she "saw something in the light" takes on a more crucial meaning? does the question become "what was Skaia showing her?"

or are the specifics of the dream not important - did Skaia lead Jade here just to wake her up before she could get close, so she would find the frog waiting for her in the waking world? there is a dramatic irony at play in this flashback sequence; when the frog suddenly dies in Jade's arms, framing makes it obvious it was cooked to death by Becquerel, but Jade makes no comment on it, seemingly unaware, seemingly not finding the detail of how the frog died important. here, Jade is totally at the whims of not just one but multiple narrative forces operating on levels completely unfathomable to the mind of such a little girl, leading her to a seemingly inconsequential frog just so it can die and she can make clones out of its ghost. the question once again becomes who sent the frog; with Skaia waking her up and Becquerel making the kill, who is the third co-conspirator?

[firedjinni]

Some analysis of the overlap between Homestuck chumhandles/trolltags and Rain World iterator names (and pseudonyms)

because what else do you do when you're bored and have Imminent Tasks to do?

To start with, though, some analysis of each individual category to formalize the patterns and "rules" of both naming types!

Chumhandles actually follow a pretty consistent set of rules other than the session-specific ATGC initial conventions! In particular:

It must be either two words exactly, or in the rare edge case of a session leader, one word split between a prefix and a noun (ectoBiologist, carcinoGeneticist). One is too few; three is right out.

No chumhandle is less than four syllables, or more than eight, although one-syllable words are allowed in either half (e.g. twinArmageddons, arachnidsGrip). The longest individual words seem to cap out at 5 syllables (terminally, auxiliatrix).

The most common format is adjective/modifier + noun, with the noun generally being some kind of person or role. (i.e. trickster, biologist, therapist, godhead, gnostic, toreador, geneticist, auxiliatrix, calibrator, culler, gumshoe, gnostalgic, terror) but not always (armageddons, catnip, grip, umbra/ge, testicle, aquarium). The few remaining exceptions either 1) put the noun first (apocalypseArisen), 2) consist of an adverb and adjective instead (terminallyCapricious), or… whatever the fuck Dirk and Tavros had going on (timaeusTestified, adiosToreador).

There is an overall preference for "fancy" and somewhat obscure word choices.

Non-english words are uncommon but acceptable (adiosToreador).

Actually, I'm not sure they even have to be real words either; "gnostalgic" seems to be more of a pun than anything else

For the humans, there tends to be a trend of specific cultural references, generally gnostic or otherwise religious (gardenGnostic, golgothasTerror, timaeusTestified (philosophy but we'll count it), tipsyGnostalgic, arguably turntechGodhead); in trolltags, there's a trend of negative descriptors, violence, and references to the apocalypse.

Iterator names seem to be a little looser overall, probably not helped by the multiple groups of devs not always 100% agreeing re: lore. Thus we can probably say more about acceptable chumhandles than acceptable iterator names, although templates clearly do exist.

Names use whole words and form full phrases, though those phrases don't have to be nouns

Permissible nouns tend to be restricted in category - mostly inanimate natural entities (Moon, Pebble, Sun(s), Straw, Wind, etc) or abstract qualities/behaviors/concepts (Innocence, Harassment)

For natural objects, nouns tend to be simple - one syllable, two at most. More abstract qualities are allowed longer, fancier nouns.

Observed formats/templates include: "[number] [optional adj.] [object]" (Five Pebbles, Seven Red Suns), "[verb]s [preposition] [object]" (Looks to the Moon), "[adjective] [object or abstract quality]" (Unparalleled Innocence, Grey/Chasing Wind, "Erratic Pulse"; in Downpour: Pleading Intellect, Secluded Instinct, Wandering Omen, Gazing Stars), "[noun] of [object]" (Sliver of Straw; in Downpour: Epoch of Clouds). No Significant Harassment is a bit of an outlier but arguably fits group 3, with "No Significant" as the adjective/descriptor part.

The first category of names also seems to overlap the strongest with Ancient naming conventions, so the type of object could speculatively be extended to non-natural objects like bells, beads, etc (though those also seem to be mainly low-tech and "simple" objects), but there's not clear precedent for it.

Overall tone of names is neutral to positive, which makes sense given the context of iterators as the Ancients' "gift to the world" and all that

Looking at these analyses, we can find there is surprisingly small overlap between the two naming conventions! (Although it definitely exists.)

The greatest overlap is probably in iterator names that fit the third template ([adj.] [obj/quality]), most of which can comfortably pass for chumhandles so long as they're just two words and fit the four-syllable minimum. So erraticPulse [EP], unparalleledInnocence [UI], pleadingIntellect [PI] etc scan pretty well.

Chumhandles to iterator names is actually a lot harder, mostly because the range of appropriate nouns for iterator names seems to be narrower overall, and many chumhandles make more explicit cultural or material references which don't translate well into Rain World. Additionally, a lot of trolltags have very negative leaning names, while iterator names tend to be more neutral or even positive in tone. The best few I'd say are maybe Terminally Capricious, Apocalypse Arisen (doesn't strictly fit the naming template but has the vibes~ ok), Undying Umbrage and tentatively Arachnid's Grip (if arachnids can be assumed sufficiently existent for the reference to work), but none of them fully fit the vibes for a proper iterator IMO. Ironically, I've had better luck taking a page out of SBURB Glitch FAQ's book and converting soundtrack titles - Endless Climb, Upward Movement, Plays the Wind, Carefree Action, etc.

This was totally unnecessary but uh. Yeah.

[damarassanctuary]

i think the beforean sgrub logo should be yellow as opposed to alternia's blue/purple just as sburb alpha is red to beta's green

i have seen people depicting beforan Sgrub logo as yellow before, or even orange actually, so i see both options also as valid since there's no official confirmation. i personally like to headcanon it as blue and the reason behind it is related to the end of act curtains ^u^

what i mean by this is i tried finding a consistent pattern for my use of purple for the curtains in [S] Catharsis

basically followed the same rule the curtains and logos of the beta and alpha kids went by: the beta kids' Sburb logo was green while their curtains were red, while the alpha kids' logo was red and their curtains green

now i just applied that logic to the trolls to deduce the colors of their logo and curtains, since we know A5A1 has blue curtains and this act, the only one focused entirely on the trolls' session, was the only one to have them we know those are meant for the beta trolls, so if the pattern is consistent that should mean the alpha trolls' Sgrub logo was probably blue and their curtains purple

now there's 1 thing that could completely throw the theory out of the window, that being this panel:

yet honestly i feel like that panel in particular is just a HUGE oversight since it doesn't match at all with how the door was depicted post-Collide for a few things:

-the house logo is flipped horizontally in the victory plataform in A7 before the door spawned. it's the alpha kids color but with the beta kids shape of the logo. here it's not flipped

-the door is just... there. in the alpha kids session the house turned white before the door spawned it didn't remain the color of the alpha logo

-and 3 the color isn't even consistent since their logo was purple

Hussie probably decided to retcon how the victory plataform and the door works for the ending, yet that makes this panel kinda useless for theorizing, so yee

so tl;dr

it could be yellow or orange, i just strongly believe it to be blue yet since there's no canon evidence of an actual color it's really up to interpretation ^u^

(also DDotA depicts the victory door green iirc which is the color from the other side of the Scratch so since i often take that as the ending that could retroactively also fix how messed up the house in that panel is)

[homestuckexamination]

hi! do you know if it's actually impossible for a sburb session other than the future dead session to happen on earth c? i've seen people say that it can't happen, but i can't remember anything directly stating that. i know there's really no implications that it WILL happen, but are there any reasons that it can't?

i always think of doc scratch's statement that "every planet destined for intelligent life has [a first guardian] meant to protect it, and facilitate the planet's ultimate purpose". and it's always made more sense to me for there to be multiple sessions per universe, since that would increase the chances of a successful one, like how actual organic reproduction works. i know caliborn is an anomaly, but if he can have a session on a planet that technically already had one, is there really a limit on that?

(as a side note, if there's not, that kind of opens up some interesting possibilities. what if a planet's society was able to survive past the reckoning, through more advanced technology? could the planet be seeded for a second round of sburb later?)

Every Universe has an undefined, but theoretically infinite, number of SBURB Sessions that can spawn from them, and every planet can, in fact, run multiple SBURB Sessions.

By the time Caliborn's Dead Session happens, the entirety of the world is a desert wasteland and the Sun is getting close to the end of its natural lifespan. We don't know what happened to the planet, or the Gods that inhabited it, but there's nothing really saying a Session couldn't happen in the potential millions of years between those two points.

Note that the intended path for a SBURB Session's planet, is for the planet's society to be 'wiped out' basically, and Carapacians to prepare the world for a second round of SBURB. Whether any of the original inhabitants survive or not, they'd probably still be outnumbered eventually by the newcoming Carapacians and their society.

[sburbian-sage]

Question: If some bored troll (in the traditional sense, not the aliens) is going to make up a class or aspect... why the fresh flipping fuck do they not follow the one syllable rule?

Is the idea that like, if you actually buy it, then they think they've made you look dumb because they left this obvious hole in their proposition, and that's funnier? Like, the dumber the thing they make you believe, the more they "win"?

That Beryllium guy. I coulda bought it! I've been fascinated by all the Quartz stuff on this blog, I'm an easy mark, a naïve little lamb! If he'd just called it Steel or Wire or War or whatever! The keywords of Industry, War, Factories, Logic, and Mass production, all sound neat! (Well, maybe not logic, that's just a retread of Mind, right? But otherwise.) It's like, 90% of the way to making sense, and then dives off a cliff!

It makes me want to like... write a guide to coming up with fake classpects or something. But that would obviously only be used for evil, so...

Like I said, it could be that they stumbled into a modded session and were unaware of this fact. They're uncommon enough that you forget about them, and it's not like most people upon seeing something in-game that by all rights should not be in the game, will think "oh yeah someone genetically modified their frog to put this in here deliberately for some reason". Alternatively, they were panicking over being turned into a circuit board and were not thinking clearly.

And it could still be worthwhile to write that guide. Maybe if you make it more about the theory of why Titles are constructed the way they are, the "art and science" of eclectic and meaningfully connected elements which you could arrange to create iconic and plausible simulacrums. I for one have no clue as to why the seemingly arbitrary one-syllable rule is in place, and I'm sure that might be an entire discussion I'm standing on top of, unaware.

[botanicalcanopus]

what do you suppose the entry items of the alternian trolls were

i only have one solid concept and it's a biological heart for karkat to spill blood from

I can elaborate on these if asked, but as a quick post: Aradia: Either a fossil or a flower/plant Tavros: Either a Fiduspawn capsule or a bird cage Sollux: Either a bee hive or a skull Karkat: A heart as you suggested or chains Nepeta: Either a paint can or a cat toy Kanaya: Either a mirror or a sewing machine Terezi: Either a gavel or a Scalemate Vriska: Either an 8 ball or a FLARP manual Equius: Either a miniature horse figure or something fragile/empty (vase) Gamzee: Either a Faygo bottle or a juggling pin Eridan: Either a target or a wizard statue Feferi: Either a fish bowl or a crown

[zenosanalytic]

what do you think about Space players who somehow didn't get a Land with Frogs in the title? is there any way that might make sense or work or would Frogs be always necessary

HMMMM. Well, the Universes are frogs, and the DNA to make the Universe-Frogs comes from the frogs on the Space Player's Land...

There's nothing in HS canon that says ALL universes are frogs. Maybe some universes are other animals? Like: who's to say the Universe-Frogs don't live within a Universe-Ecosystem????

[r0semultiverse]

Calling it now, we’re gonna have a parody of [S] Game Over but with Jane and her Crocker death laser as the batterwitch with her laser beams.

[k3agn]

I might end up making comparative homestuck theory posts again to exercise these fucking flare ups now that the comic exists anew. They’re mostly classpect related which is hard because I know the new writers have the answers and I want em bad.

So instead until I can close that dam off again expect some posts using some of the following to explain homestuck:

- Loki

- SAO (Alicization)

- Destiny 1&2

- Shakespeare

- Mythology

- Philosophy

- Probably a lot more

[derseprinceoftbd]

Homestuck Theory:

We know that SBURB is very Time-Space centric; it's confirmed that if you lack a Space Player, you can go fuck yourself, and Hussie has said that if you're missing one of the two, it *will* override Classpecting logic and convert someone. But oddly, there doesn't seem to technically be a *need* for a Time Player, disregarding the Scratch.

That's where my theory comes in: I think Hephestus has the duty of judging the Alpha Timeline, and if you're fully succeeding, but not in the Alpha Timeline, or your success would screw with it, he has the power to shut off the Forge.

Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/homestuck/s/2gtfqTDzCR. More dubious than I had initially remembered.

[lime-bloods]

@dudesrock makes the good observation that, in contrast to the healthy pond around Jade's temple, Kanaya's desertified locale provides another pretty good reason why she might have had a hard time locating a frog anywhere near where she lived. as @mmmmalo rightly points out, the surrounding "HEINOUS BROODS OF THE UNDEAD" also suggest a post-apocalyptic setting; i've discussed Alternia as an apocalyptic planet before, but it certainly warrants re-analysis as more than just prepping the trolls for an apocalyptic game.

Scratch is an obvious culprit, which makes me think back on an interesting Scratch tidbit I've never really taken anywhere until now; despite our obvious view of Scratch as a doctor of precise, surgical manipulations, the first chronological appearance of his cue ball is as a bomb. Scratch is, in essence, built from a bomb Caliborn found: and despite his image, he continues to influence the narrative in this way.

so if Scratch's seeds are also bombs, it stands to reason that his manner of laying claim to a world involves bombing it? making the land uninhabitable to all but the hardiest warriors in the process...

(though we learn in this exchange that Scratch has been watching over Kanaya since her youth, we're never explicitly told what that actually meant. Scratch's enigmatic comment that "a dutiful girl raised in the daylight was protected by a bulb-headed guardian, and learned to glow in the dark after death" seems to imply he had a hand in her transformation, just as he had a hand in Rose's, but again, there's little indication as to how these two things are related.

Kanaya's Land of Rays, though, seems to draw a connection between rays of light and the radiation prevalent on Jade's planet. so is Kanaya's undead glow, then, supposed to tell us that she, too, is irradiated? a product of nuclear zombification?)