Hiveswap Act 2 & Extracanonical Signs
Hello, everyone! Our [Extended Zodiac-themed sideblog] is going to be talking about a couple of new troll signs that showed up in Hiveswap Act 2 soon, but before it does I just want to get everybody on the same page as to what they are and clarifying why I don’t think they’re already-existing signs.
Some notes before I dig into this:
I’m calling these “extracanonical” because they’re in canon material, Hiveswap the game, but don’t appear in the official Extended Zodiac.
There’s only four of these in Act 2, and they’re all in the rust/bronze train car. If you want to see them for yourselves you only need to get that far in the game.
Most of these are obstructed or otherwise not entirely visible, either because something is blocking part of the sign or they’re wrapping around something. Where this is relevant I’ve included attempts at reconstructing what the full sign could look like with what’s presented.
I’ve also included the full canon caste of signs with each extracanon sign for the sake of more easily comparing each sign with its official brethren.
This is actually the first extracanon sign we were made aware of in Hiveswap Act 2 since this troll showed up in one of the teasers. It’s also a pretty open-and-shut case in regards to its extracanonicity since it’s not even close to any of the other rust signs.
I won’t dwell too long on this one but I will state here that since we knew about this one earlier than the next three the TickTockStuck Extended Zodiac has already integrated it under the name [Artrix].
This one is the most heavily obstructed sign of the four but what can be seen should make it pretty clear it’s not any of the official signs. It’s close to Arcen (left side, left on row 4) but that circle doesn’t touch the rest of the sign, and it can’t just be a hastily-drawn Arrius or Aro because those signs belong to Diemen and Fozzer (right column of the left side for both, Arrius is row 1 and Aro is row 3).
I’ve included two reconstructions here because there’s not really enough to go on for me to say it’s one or the other. The top version would put it among the likes of Arcen, Aro, and Arsci (right side, center of row 1) with having a closed shape as part of the sign. The bottom version would be closer to signs like Arun (left side, right on row 4), Arra (right side, left on row 3), or Arus (right side, right on row 4) in having a little arch for a lower half. I’m personally leaning towards the lower version being the “correct” one but I’m leaving both here.
The only bronze sign in these four, oddly enough. At a glance this one is similar enough to Tauriborn (right side, center of row 2) with some zigzagging horns that you might write it off as Just That Sign, But With Perspective but Tauriborn doesn’t have any lines coming off its bottom half. It’s close to a couple other signs but it doesn’t quite exactly match any of them even excusing warping or tilting from perspective. Taursces (right side, right on row 1)? The zigzag in that sign is in the middle of the sign, not the bottom. Taurrius? There’s nothing inside the circle so it can’t be that either.
Basically, any official sign that has lines coming off the bottom half doesn’t have zigzag horns, and any official sign that has zigzagging horns doesn’t have lines coming off their bottom half. Is that enough to call its own distinct sign? I think it is, but YMMV.
Out of the four of these, this one is the closest to just being an official sign but drawn hastily. Specifically, it’s very close to Arga (left side, center of row 3) with having an M-shaped structure with curls on the ends, and the main differences from Arga (having that bigger split in the middle, the side curves being harsher and more angular) could be written off as the sign just not having a lot of care taken in drawing it.
My counterargument to that idea is that every other sign in the car that actually belongs to the official Extended Zodiac is drawn in a such a way that makes it very clear which sign it’s supposed to be. While it is plausible, I personally don’t think it’s likely the case that’s happening here. That leaves a sign that’s just a more angular version of some of its official brethren but there’s precedent for similar-enough pairs within the official signs (most notably in the gold caste and between the gold and fuchsia castes).
So, that’s the four of them. I’m looking forward to seeing if we get more of these (if and) when Hiveswap Act 3 comes out because this is a really fascinating bit of background details!
The promotion part of this post is that the TTS Extended Zodiac is going to be integrating the latter three of these into their lineup soon, like how it integrated the first sign as Artrix, and a schedule for that (along with details of the process we’ll be using this time) will be going up very very soon on that blog. The TTSEZ is almost at 500 signs now (!), for anyone who wasn’t paying attention.
