etc). Was LE actually there, or did I misunderstand what you meant there?

Nope, he’s literally already there. Here’s the breakdown of LE’s influences per universe, NOT counting cross-universe influence situations like Gamzee making the Jack Noir/Lil Cal dolls in John and Dave’s heads, because seriously we could be here all week.

Pre-Sburb :

Beta Earth | Setting of Hiveswap [B1]:
No Lord English. Lil Cal and the Batterwitch are both present. The Batterwitch MAY have started a small Mirthful Messiah cult, which might be operating in Joey’s hometown.

Alpha Earth [B2]:
No Lord English. Society is run into the ground and reduced to a nightmare waterworld dystopia by the Batterwitch, acting as a Witch on LE’s behalf. She employs a massive Mirthful Messiah cult that takes over the U.S. Government in this endeavor*.

Caliborn is present, but ignorant of his future as LE. AR acts for himself, not LE, but echoes many of Scratch’s traits and so evokes a weaker version of the controlling horror of LE. This is intentional, as AR’s cyber-omniscience is part of what makes LE/Scratch’s control so terrifyingly efficient.

*(Sorry 2 Guy Fieri and Juggalos, who get it rough from Homestuck, to put it mildly. Please remember that Homestuck is a work of fiction just poking fun at some random people, ok? Thanks. Also, to be fair, mind control is kind of a thing with the Batterwitch, so she might just be mindcontrolling them all during that whole thing.)

Beforus [A1]:
No Lord English. Presumably no Lil Cal? Kurloz Makara acts for Lord English. Meulin Leijon is mind controlled or manipulated by Kurloz into acting for Lord English.

It’s noted that while Beforus was matriarchal, most of its actual power of governance was held by Purplebloods and Violetbloods–male dominated castes that collectively embody different versions of LE’s patriarchal dominance.

The Purplebloodsin particular are probably Mirthful Messiah cultists, if Kurloz is anything to go by, but we don’t know for sure.

Alternia [A2]:

Doc Scratch acts for LE, manipulating trolls into being as cruel and vicious to each other as possible. At the end of the universe, Doc Scratch dies and his corpse hatches, giving birth to LE. LE can time travel, so having arrived at the end of the universe, he can now access any point in its timeline to consume or destroy whatever he chooses.

This was Scratch’s objective from the beginning, and had always already happened. LE takes custody of Damara, who becomes the Handmaid–
LE’s loyal Time Witch, acting as a feared Demoness who stokes hostility and chaos wherever she appears.

With the exception of directing Damara, Scratch and LE rarely seem to directly involve themselves in the affairs of Trollkind. The three main groups of trolls they delegate governance to are:

The Empress, who he manipulates while keeping his and LE’s existence hidden.

The Violetbloods, who seem to be manipulated similarly.

The Purple Bloods, who worship Lord English and prophecize about the coming of his Vast Honk. Their intense commitment to this truth motivates their brutal subjugation of lowbloods.

This is not a simple belief, but a fact they are right to see coming. LE releases the Vast Honk as soon as he enters the universe, thus proving them right all along. Hence, the Vast Honk can be understood as “inviting destruction through Rage|Truth.”–the verbiage associated with Gamzee’s title, Bard of Rage.

This more direct presence/involvement is the direct reason why Alternia is so much worse than the other universes, and a big part of why the Beta Trolls are so much crueler to each other than the Kids are.

this is possibly a question that was fandom-solved in the prime days of the HS fandom, but what are yr opinions on the ghost-realm in a sort of conceptual-sense? By that i mean, since the ghosts we see in the dream bubbles are offshoots of the alpha timeline (e.g. god-tier alts of the trolls), is there a hypothetical alternate-alternate world where the conditions that rolled the troll-verse are different? Is the ghostrealm conditional to the universe that spawned it, or is it truly infinite?

the ghost stuff has definitely not been solved, per se–a lot of the legacy fandom would probably say hussie phoned it in there for various reasons, though I would definitely not agree.

To answer your questions:

Is the ghostrealm conditional to the universe that spawned it, or is it truly infinite?

The furthest ring–the black void surrounding all Sessions and Universes–is truly infinite. The eldritch horrorterrors that inhabit it are also infinite, since they’re part of Sburb’s design.

The dream bubbles, and the ghosts that inhabit them, however, are conditional to the universes that spawned them. The horrorterrors glub up those bubbles, but as far as we know, they don’t do so for every session.

They glub up the afterlife for our Heroes thanks to the influence of Feferi Peixes-the Witch of Life. She was actually raised by a horrorterror as her familiar, and is able to commune with the gods to request they establish the bubbles.

You could read this as Feferi changing the nature of Life in Homestuck, granting everyone who perishes a sort of second life in a weird limbo of half-existence.

Later parts of the story suggest that the horrorterrors were manipulating Feferi and all of the ghosts of the afterlife to protect themselves from Lord English, and to serve their mysterious goals by both A) Ensuring Lord English’s destruction and B) Enabling his creation in the first place.

Which brings us to…

is there a hypothetical alternate-alternate world where the conditions that rolled the troll-verse are different?

No, definitely not. That scenario is theoretically possible for other species elsewhere in PS, but not for trolls–or humans, for that matter.

We’re not sure what the limits are on variations of existence and choice in Paradox Space, but Aranea tells us there are some, and goes into some of the philosophical problems that come with the admittedly attractive idea that there might not be any:

But really, the problem is logistical. Having even potentially infinite variations of a particular universe isn’t necessarily impossible in Paradox Space, but it is impossible for the worlds and characters trapped in Homestuck.
Because of Lord English.

Aranea gives us this little spiel about how the choices and possibilities available to everyone in Paradox Space are limited by the fact that PS itself is using the characters to propagate its own existence. Only choices and scenarios that allow reality to exist and continue to propagate are allowed to flourish.

And by the very nature of his existence, Lord English traps every universe and person we see in the comic in existential stasis. He’s a notable influence in the Alpha Trolls’ session through Kurloz, Damara and Cronus, and he’s THE reason Alternia exists as it does and the Beta trolls are who they are.

He made trolls what they are, so their reality can’t actually exist unless he exists,
and if trolls existed in any other way they wouldn’t create and interact with the humans the way they do, meaning the humans wouldn’t eventually create LE, meaning trolls wouldn’t have existed in the first place.

It’s a grandfather paradox, but on a cosmic scale. Trollkind may be able to exist in varied ways from Earth C,’s Troll Kingdom onwards, which is now free of the influence of Lord English. But its origins–and those of humanity–are forever entangled with Lord English. Them’s the br8ks.

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.

odddaysgeorge:

revolutionaryduelist:

dukeofriven:

Except the caste system existed on Beforus – it was less violent, but there was still a rigid social structure based on blood type.

revolutionaryduelist:

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.

dukeofriven:

Except the caste system existed on Beforus – it was less violent, but there was still a rigid social structure based on blood type.

revolutionaryduelist:

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.