yep, the art troll is pretty brutal. Alternia is a fascist dystopia so like…most of the highbloods are gonna be murderous and oppressive. Most trolls are, in general. It’s the nature of the system.
Tag: alternia
“cold-and-blue-blooded replied to your post “look i am telling you, the…”
Sollux is not the only genius
“cold-and-blue-blooded replied to your post “look i am telling you, the…”
There are plenty of other sessions. That is canon.
This is incorrect, dude. Feel free to pull up the “canon” you’re referring to, because nobody else on Alternia plays Sburb before the planet’s life ends.
There are other sessions out there in Paradox Space, but not every planet spawns the same amount of sessions. Earth had a ton of them because Grandpa distributed Sburb as a worldwide game event.
That is not the case on Alternia. It’s not that Sollux is the only genius on the planet, but that he’s the only one with access to the game code. Aradia finds the game code in her Frog Temple, and spends almost all her time at said frog temple before the game begins.
The only other temple is Kanaya’s, who similarly lives right with hers, and neither perspectives show us wily other trolls sneaking into frog temples to design a video game.
The difference between Sollux and Grandpa is literally pointed out in the story.
Barring new information surfacing in Hiveswap, we have no reason to think anyone else on the planet plays Sburb at all.
And even if they did, that wouldn’t change the fact that the Alpha Trolls’ scratch was meant to create a world (Alternia) that would make the next crop of players strong enough to win (the beta trolls.) So it kind of changes nothing about what their place in the planet’s historical context is.
cold-and-blue-blooded replied to your post “look i am telling you, the ‘true’ sign thing is only in relation to…”
No the asker is right. The extended zodiac was made for the fans not the trolls or alternia. The 12 trolls didn’t impact Alternia from the very beginning what are you talking about? That’s just their time line for the sburb game. There are TONS of time lines where the players are the gods of their own world. Lmfao these twelve trolls are NOT the only session to succeed.
The Alternian’s sburb game literally ends the Alternian empire, as a society. And there are no other timelines where other players play Sburb, not on Alternia.
The trolls don’t distribute the game code Sollux produces.
Not that it would matter. The trolls have to play so they can play their parts to eventually create Lord English. If Lord English doesn’t exist, Alternia doesn’t exist, so anyone else playing or winning would just be in a doomed timeline–they shouldn’t exist in the first place.
Alternian history is built around the fixed points in time required to bring LE, and thus Alternia itself, into existence. Lord English contains Equius and Gamzee, as does Doc Scratch, and their experiences and memories are the primary sources DS would have when setting up Alternian society in the first place.
That’s what I mean when I say they impacted Alternia from the very beginning. All of DS’ decisions on Alternia happened with them in mind, and drawn at least partly from his components’ former memories of them.
i’m not sure if the aspect binding thing really applies? theyre looking at it in terms of already knowing the 12 trolls and what they’re doing and using them as the default- but this stuff exists before they did. like as an example, ‘taurpio’ isn’t a combination of taurus and scorpio- it’s a combination of ‘taur’, the prefix for brown bloods, and ‘pio’, the suffix for prospit/light. there being a concept of a ‘true taurus’ only applies in terms of the human zodiac and using the 12 as an example.
I’m…not sure I follow? The concept of a true Taurus applies because the Extended Zodiac refers to the sign as…True Taurus. Same for every other zodiac sign. And that sign is a Breath sign, in the zodiac itself. The coding is already in the extended zodiac system.
The prefix for brown bloods is Taur BECAUSE it’s derived from Taurus. Sure, that might not be literally true in the lore of the world, but it’s transparently true from our perspective.
And Alternia–including it’s Caste system–were still predominantly set up by Lord English and Doc Scratch, who were/are predominantly exposed to trolls…through their memories of/being literally some of the trolls from Homestuck. The 24 trolls that play Sburb have always been an influence on how Alternia developed, to some extent, through the vector of LE.
So I don’t really see when they literally showed up to exist there as relevant to how this sociological structure is set up.
Okay, a bit late, but like I said, there was a reason I got back onto the topic of the extermination of the Gamblignants, and it’s to do with the Alternian enforcement of classes.
A lot of the classes that would be assigned to blood castes make easy sense. Rustblood maids because they’re a serving class. Purplebloods are bards for their performative wildcard nature. Princes are royalty, so that’s what violets are. Seers’ analysis is important for a class who act as assistants to the government (and seers as assistants to more combat-oriented classes is a concept that has been evoked within the comic itself).
Some of them are more symbolic. Heirs generally serve as the “Beta Male” class, so their being assigned to the caste that serve as lackeys to the top dogs of the land dweller race makes sense. Sylphs are a fitting role for jades for their nurturing and also mythical nature. Rogues might even make sense, given the heroic spin Homestuck applies to them, as the ones at the top of the lowblood group.
What really sticks out like a sore horn is the thief class. What reasonable society would implement a social class of criminals?
Well we know Alternia had one! The Gambligants were a distinct social group who were allowed to exist as such for what we can only assume was some time before the Subjugglators got around to exterminating them.
And in doing so we’re left with Vriska as what we can probably safely assume is the last member of the thief class.
That’s interesting, because it puts thief in a unique position shared with only Feferi’s witch class in that only one troll has the class. Which makes you wonder why!
A good place to start is probably that Meenah’s class was also thief, and we know at least a little bit about how she took over her session. The thief by nature is forceful and hard-headed, and really not a hero you want to have lying around in hoards.
Scorpio is also the sign of the Conqueror, which is a title that can be applied to Lord English himself since Caliborn took the path of the conqueror from Yaldabaoth.
The problem with the thief class being thinned down to just one member, of course, is that the chance that a thief will be involved in the SGRUB session are reduced significantly from what they would be if there were a whole social caste of thieves. Which would explain exactly why, of course, Doc Scratch chose Vriska in particular to be his protoge (and perhaps the same reason that Kanaya was chosen too, considering the extreme rarity of her own caste/class).
I like this a lot overall, and I’m pretty curious if the Class enforcement really is this consistent.
One thing I’d like to mention is that it is my view that Rustbloods are forced into the role of a Knight as much as the role of the Maid. For that matter, the Knight role seems to be forced on Bronzebloods, too.
There’s a pretty strong association between Butlers/Serving and Knights and Pages, with Knights typically serving others and Pages being the recipients of service. Mindfang describes Redglare as a “civil servant”. John refers to Dave as “serving all the ladies”, and asks why he can’t have a Dave butler, too.
Dirk and AR idolize Dave and strive to live up to the role of the Knight, and both are associated with Knights as a result. Grandpa remembers his Alpha friends, and Dirk specifically he recalls as a Knight, collecting suits of armor that evoke his memory.
AR’s final sacrifice in the Masterpiece, he takes on as an act of service for the other Alphas–giving Dirk time to destroy Caliborn for good. After that, he spends eternity inside Lord English’s soul, living out his Knight fantasy, monkey’s paw style–he’s Lord English’s personal Butler.
Associations between pairs of Classes and corresponding symbolic Archetypes are all over Homestuck, and I think they help a lot in figuring out what’s going on. Xefros, for example, makes reference to Serving Dammek in Act 1, as associated with his Butler uniform.
I have trouble believing that the hemospectrum hierarchy originates from Equius and Gamzee’s souls in LE because it still existed on Beforus, and also because racism exists in real life even though we presumably don’t have a giant evil skull monster running things.
Except the caste system existed on Beforus – it was less violent, but there was still a rigid social structure based on blood type.
The hemospectrum as a biological thing is just part of how trolls are born, but Beforus doesn’t commit genocide and enforce slavery based on it. It has its problems as a society, but Alternia is a whole other ballpark of evil. And that has a lot to do with the hemospectrum as a violent, oppressive ideology, which is not really in Beforus to the same degree. That system is what I attribute to LE.
Also my view at this point is that Lord English is basically the God of all four worlds, with differing amounts of influence in each one of them–the least amount of influence in Beforus, the most amount of influence on Alternia. We don’t have a skull monster, but we do have systems of oppression, misinformation, and exploitative power, and Lord English is a villain that operates primarily through those abstract forces. That’s why I think Homestuck is such an important narrative–it presents the casting off of those toxic ideologies as inherently heroic, and necessary for both happiness and peace.
The hemospectrum as a biological thing is just part of how trolls are born, but Beforus doesn’t commit genocide and enforce slavery based on it. It has its problems as a society, but Alternia is a whole other ballpark of evil.
Yes, I addressed that. There’s a big difference between a mostly peaceful society working with a rigid social structure that can be shitty at enabling free expression, and an interstellar fascist empire that routinely commits genocide on its own species.
I don’t think it makes sense to regard Beforus’ problems as equivalent to Alternia’s, and Alternia being so much worse has Lord English and Doc Scratch’s influence as an established, canonical explanation. I’m just fleshing out the nuances here.
Ok but Beforus still had a system where people were privileged or oppressed based on the color of their blood, and I’m not sure if we can really be certain they never had slavery, either.
If the caste system were paradoxically originated from English’s components then it wouldn’t exist on Beforus, unless Lord English had a major influence there, and we know he didn’t because if he did then it would be just as bad as alternia
Ok, two things:
1) To the extent that Beforus HAD oppression, it was pinned on the purple cast that is strongly associated with LE. So I think it’s likely it had a degree of influence from him, just not a full-scale dominion like on Alternia–something more on par with the Condesce and Lil Cal’s influences on Beta Earth, more likely.
But 2) My point is that Beforus and Alternia, insofar as they exist in the modern states they are currently in, have different relationships to the hemospectrum.
Beforians had to deal with differing responsibilities and maybe some coddling and enforced roles based on their blood. Alternians had to deal with genocide, slavery, all manner of systemic and personal brutality, distrust, judgment, and cruelty. It’s like…a fundamentally different dynamic, and Alternia is demonstrably and explicitly far worse.
Lord English is the canonical cause of that difference. He’s why Alternia is explicitly worse. I don’t see how it’s a stretch to say that he’s responsible for the harsher penalties and views on the Hemospectrum when he’s already canonically responsible for…everything else wrong with Alternia?
At no point have I argued that the actual physical differences in trolls are a result of LE. Whether they are or not is besides the point–the decisions Beforus and Alternia make as societies regarding what to do about those differences is what matters, and one society makes demonstrably better choices than the other.
I have trouble believing that the hemospectrum hierarchy originates from Equius and Gamzee’s souls in LE because it still existed on Beforus, and also because racism exists in real life even though we presumably don’t have a giant evil skull monster running things.
Except the caste system existed on Beforus – it was less violent, but there was still a rigid social structure based on blood type.
The hemospectrum as a biological thing is just part of how trolls are born, but Beforus doesn’t commit genocide and enforce slavery based on it. It has its problems as a society, but Alternia is a whole other ballpark of evil. And that has a lot to do with the hemospectrum as a violent, oppressive ideology, which is not really in Beforus to the same degree. That system is what I attribute to LE.
Also my view at this point is that Lord English is basically the God of all four worlds, with differing amounts of influence in each one of them–the least amount of influence in Beforus, the most amount of influence on Alternia. We don’t have a skull monster, but we do have systems of oppression, misinformation, and exploitative power, and Lord English is a villain that operates primarily through those abstract forces. That’s why I think Homestuck is such an important narrative–it presents the casting off of those toxic ideologies as inherently heroic, and necessary for both happiness and peace.
The hemospectrum as a biological thing is just part of how trolls are born, but Beforus doesn’t commit genocide and enforce slavery based on it. It has its problems as a society, but Alternia is a whole other ballpark of evil.
Yes, I addressed that. There’s a big difference between a mostly peaceful society working with a rigid social structure that can be shitty at enabling free expression, and an interstellar fascist empire that routinely commits genocide on its own species.
I don’t think it makes sense to regard Beforus’ problems as equivalent to Alternia’s, and Alternia being so much worse has Lord English and Doc Scratch’s influence as an established, canonical explanation. I’m just fleshing out the nuances here.
” 2) Inherently irrelevant and unimportant to anything about any of the characters except how it makes society treat them.3) Explicitly a lie. ” But that’s wrong you fuckin dumb.
Higher castes live longer and tend to be more vicious. While lower castes have shorter lifespans (even without the drones hunting them) and are naturally attuend to become psychics.
Just because you want to force political correctness unto a race of violent space dominators and establish that racism is bad in our world doesn’t mean it’s a lie among the trolls.
1) Charming. Do you get invited to parties often when you open rebuttals to people’s points with “you fuckin dumb”?
2) All this, and yet, Beforus managed to handle the exact same physical differences with a system that didn’t necessitate genocide and slavery! Hm, how about that! It’s almost like the eerie bargain the Alpha trolls made that allowed Scratch onto Alternia had some sort of impact on their society. Interesting. Almost like…the racism and exploitation was a bad thing? Huh.
3) Before you even go there, no, Beforus is not as bad as Alternia in “a different way”. Alternia is explicitly presented as a fall from grace for Trollkind, and it’s brutal, and it’s awful, and it’s Lord English’s fault. Don’t make me dig up the screencaps just please go actually read Homestuck. Systems of exploitation are bad and unnecessary across the board–no physical differences justify exploitation and brutality. Period.
And another thing about the source of STRENGTH thing. I don’t think that’s right either. Equius is plenty strong in his own. The reason why him and every other Zahhak followed it (in relation to how the hemocaste was in each alternate universe) was because they are incredibly dependent on SYSTEMS. Everything has to be in their right place, everyone doing what they’re meant to do. If someone doesn’t fit in the system it confuses and flusters them.
Equius is physically strong because that’s a mutation endemic to his blood color, of which he seems to be a particularly exceptional example. He values the blood that marks him as someone physically strong quite similarly to how Caliborn values physical strength itself.
And he values the system that takes that physical trait of his and tells him he’s special for it, tells him he’s Above Others due to something he was born with, which is objectively. Not. True. There is nothing about Equius that makes him intrinsically better than anyone else–he just treats others that way because the system he so values conditions him into believing there is. Yes, of course he’s reliant on the system on which he predicates his entire self-worth.
“Confuses and flusters” him? Sure. And on Alternia, he would’ve acted on that confusion and fluster by exploiting, hurting, or reporting others to the authorities. He’s a Good Troll by alternian standards. This is how systems of oppression work. None of this does much to counteract my point, or…make Equius’ ideology more palatable? Is that what you’re trying to do here? It sounds unbelievable, but I’m not sure what else you could be going for.
It took him being killed, get his moirail killed, be revived as a sprite, getting combined with a horse AI, and finally reuniting with his moirail but he did change at the very, very end when it would even matter. Either way, the changed Equius is what was finally put into LE.
Yes, at which point the “changed Equius” was promptly devoured by Caliborn’s soul and integrated into LE like so many spare puppet parts. Caliborn predominated–that’s what he does. The other souls incorporated into LE are little more than amalgamations of interests and puppets for him. Equius has no blame or agency in this–it’s simply a way he fulfills his Class role by “becoming” Void. Not reallyyy sure what this is supposed to tell me.
What do you think Dammek’s obsession with making Xefros a butler is about? It would seem to me if Dammek wants to overthrow the hemospectrum, he wouldn’t be emulating an unequal class structure. I’ve read the theory that he’s secretly a highblood and is a double agent, but that seems unconvincing to me. Could it be because he wants to infiltrate a highblood place by pretending to be butlers? Any thoughts?
I don’t buy the double agent/highblood thing at all, it’s effectively random as far as I can tell.
Dammek isn’t particularly trying to make Xefros a butler, though. Alternia does just fine at that on pain of death.
What I DO think Dammek is guilty of is having Xefros serve him, specifically. But the exact way that’s fucked up seems a bit more nuanced, because Xefros describes his servitude to Dammek as Butler PRACTICE, and not getting enough practice is, again, literally lethal to Xefros if he isn’t good enough.
So I can see how both Xefros and Dammek might justify the treatment, though my guess is Dammek is probably too self-centered to think it through like that and most likely just sort of takes it for granted.
Homestuck is extremely concerned with broad systems of power and how they affect individuals–even those who hate or try to fight the system. I think the reason why so many fans get hung up on issues of “Is Dammek good/evil” as if that’s a question that matters are sort of missing the point, which is that Alternia by design breaks kid’s abilities to have healthy relationships with each other. In this case, Dammek’s slight blood advantage is all it takes.
Flying through Storytelling 