#s173

[thewertsearch]

During his penance, it was said the Sufferer's compassion for his people underwent a divine transformation, into limitless, burning rage.

I would expect nothing less. He might be a hero, but he’s still a Vantas.

It burned hotter than the irons shackling him to the imperial flogging jut, and redder than the blood soaking his Righteous Leggings.

You hear that, Karkat?

Those are holy garments that you’re wearing. Respect them.

When he was finally killed, his anger rung through the cosmos with his last breath. This Vast Expletive was his final sermon, and somewhere encoded in its wavelengths was the truth in his teachings, waiting to reveal itself to any who would inherit his burden.

Some day, the grand legacy of Karkat's bloodline will arrive in his heart – and if I’m not mistaken, it will arrive as the loudest FUCK that our boy has ever heard.

This is exactly the kind of awakening that Karkat deserves. 10/10.

His teachings would also persist through surviving disciples, but in hushed tones.

Redglare was born long after the Sufferer’s tale was censored out of existence, but these Pyropes are savvy girls. I'm sure the Neophyte was wise enough to question her planet’s bloody history, and sneaky enough to seek out like-minded compatriots under the Grand Highblood’s nose.

It seems like she even knew enough to predict the location of her own descendant’s hive, and gifted her a dragon that I’m willing to bet was kin to her own. An unsung hero of the previous age, for sure.

His following would dwindle to an obscure cult facing persecution for centuries.

Surely he’s not talking about Gamzee’s cult? Those clowns are all about the hemospectrum, and certainly wouldn’t heed the sermons of some bleeding-heart redblood.

Maybe the Juggalo cult is technically a splinter of Sufferism, but its founder’s message has been corrupted beyond all recognition, to suit the needs of those in power. We should all be thankful that such a disturbing concept has only been explored in fiction.

The Sufferer preached that after he passed, another Signless would come, heralding the end times for their planet. The Second Signless would continue his work, and lead his people to glory beyond this realm. The followers kept his teachings alive for ages, even as the uproar surrounding the movement subsided. By modern times, the Sufferer's scripture was little more than ancient superstition all but forgotten. Hardly the anathema of old. But the followers had already made their preparations in the shadows, and when the Second Signless finally came he would have a lusus to raise him and a sign to his name.

You hear that, Karkat? You were never really alone. If anything, you were the most loved troll in all of Alternian history – loved by trolls who would never meet you, but who worked for centuries to ensure that you’d be born safe.

That you’d have your Crabdad.

...alright, what if I just cried.

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[thewertsearch]

In that instant, her empire was gone. Gl'bgolyb's swan song wiped out her entire race, save the Condesce and her lone heiress, leaving the empire nothing more than a galactic necropolis of floating tombs.

I think that this would be a very interesting setting to explore, as the dust settles.

Picture it. You’re an alien race, one of thousands that have been enslaved by these awful galactic conquerors for untold centuries. One day, with no warning or apparent explanation, every single one of them starts howling in unbelievable pain, streams of technicolor blood erupt from their eyeballs, and they die.

Once the celebrations have died down, how does the galaxy respond? How do you rebuild civilization around such an enormous, unexpected power vacuum? Do the former colonies unite, salvage what they can from Alternian infrastructure, and try to form a government of their own? Does the universe devolve into anarchy, with everyone fighting over the mountains of resources now unguarded?

What happens to your sci-fi setting, when your Evil Galactic Empire is just... erased?

She should arrive any minute now. When she does, she will find nothing but ruins and dust.

And, in the midst of all of this – what do you do if you’re the lone Empress, the last of the trolls? How long can you survive, when every single being in the galaxy would shoot you on sight?

If she cared to look closer, she would find a city of slain exiles, a man on the moon, and a pair of black lovers locked in a deadly dance.

A man on one of the moons, anyway. We still don’t know anything about Alternia’s pink moon – and, considering the dark significance of the Green Moon, I’m awfully suspicious of its sister satellite. Who’s living there?

But whether she looks or not, one thing will find her with certainty. A new employment opportunity.

The Condesce is fresh out of options, and has nowhere else to go - and if there's one thing Scratch likes, it's a woman who's out of options.

Why, though? What use is a dethroned empress to Scratch – or English, for that matter?

Anyway, the last of the twelve ancestors arrived a bit late. In fact, she would cross through her portal six centuries after the descendants had come and gone.

I would raise the girl to be groomed for her calling. My lessons would emphasize obedience, mastery of the clockwork majyyks, and being locked in a room.

So that's what's up with Fauxradia.

Megido, I am so fucking sorry. In a comic packed to the brim with terrible parents, you still managed to win the lottery. The absolute fucking jackpot.

You literally cannot get any lower than being raised by Doc Scratch.

[thewertsearch]

As you must have gathered by now, my employer will enter this universe quite soon. I will then relinquish my custody to him, and she will serve as his Handmaid for an eternity to be specified. [...] Though her most common of blood should have let her expire in just a dozen or two sweeps, [...]

A dozen sweeps? Rustbloods only live to be in their twenties?

Thank fuck Aradia’s a god now, is all I’ll say – and Kanaya, when you finally make the neo-Matriorb, can you please remove that trait?

[...] his curse kept her very much alive. And she did not intend to stay that way.

Ouch.

She looks so cool... but she’s so tragic... but she looks so cool...

While I am his weapon of subtlety and precision, the Handmaid is strictly an apparatus of terror and suffering. We have both paved the road to his arrival, I in my way and she in hers. She would be present during every watershed moment in her civilization's development. Her recurrance in history would earn her the reputation of a demoness, more feared than even her master, a man though dreadful rarely makes himself seen. She stirred up class warfare and intensified bigotry in whatever era she haunted.

So what you’re saying, for the record, is that trolls are so resistant to this way of living that English had to subcontract a second time-travelling demon to constantly force them to be more evil, and they kept rebelling anyway. Just so we're clear.

She made sure the descendents would enter a world which prepared them well for the game, and took measures to see that they would play as they did.

Aradia did call the Voices her 'ancestors', after all. Sounds like the Handmaid was speaking directly into her ear, taking advantage of their familial connection to nudge her along the path Scratch had planned for her - which mostly involved nudging her co-Players along that same path. There really is no end to this web.

Now, six centuries later, she would be given one last order to follow before her curse was lifted. A simple recruitment job. The Handmaid will enlist the Condesce, extending the same bargain once offered to her. [...] The Condesce will serve as her new master's witch, carrying out his work in the places he cannot reach.

There are places inaccessible to English, which is very valuable information. He’s able to enter the troll universe, so he clearly doesn’t need an agent there – so where is he sending the Condesce?

Perhaps English is only able to enter a universe he has marked for predation. If he’s trying to mess with an unmarked universe – such as, to choose a totally random example, the kids’ universe – then he needs to send in a deputy.

I also didn't miss that the Condesce is noted to be English’s ‘witch’. We already know that her touch ‘extends life’, so it’s looking like she shares a full Title with her descendant.

[thewertsearch]

He was forced to serve as the Helmsman for Her Condescension's imperial battleship. Psychics of his kind were exploited for interstellar travel, and his abilities made her ship the fastest in the fleet by far.

Turned into a living battery for all eternity. Now, where have I heard that one before?

This is a ridiculous amount of power. If goldblood telekinetics are able to accelerate a ship to FTL speeds, they’re in a class of their own – and the Helmsman is apparently a class above them. This man is legitimately on some Dragon Ball Z shit, and I have to wonder how he could have possibly been captured, let alone convinced to pilot-

...oh, right. Mind control.

Yeesh.

She grew so enamored of her Helmsman and his power, she would use her touch to extend his lifespan to match her own.

Feferi’s ancestor can extend life – and, since she’s a highblood, she’s not using psionics to do it.

I’m fairly sure she’s channeling the Life Aspect here. The Empress was a Player, in another life, and that potential is clearly still in her - which means it was probably in the Guardians, too. This whole time, Nanna, Mom, Bro and Grandpa really did have Titles.

The Empress and Feferi are both Life Players, so I think the Scratched Players will likewise share Aspects with our original heroes. Presumably Nanna and Grandpa will embody Breath and Space, and Mom and Bro will embody Light and Time. Someone's got to get Space, at the very least, since it's required to breed the Genesis Frog.

As for their classes – well, that’s for later, I think. I'll obviously be making a full speculation post for these four, once we've finished with the Act, and I'm trying to save my predictions until then.

Together they explored the stars for thousands of years. Due to the speed of her ship, she would personally expand the boundaries of her empire, typically being the first to greet new races before conquering them.

The Empress is probably on the starship that Scratch threatened Aradia(?) with. As the highest of highbloods, she’s the only troll who could possibly survive the Glub – and I’m sure being a wielder of Life doesn't hurt, either.

Even her Helmsman would die, which might explain why her trip back home is taking so long. She can’t go FTL anymore.

[thewertsearch]

There was however one minor anomaly. One of the failed heroes, in his new life as an ancient on this now brutal planet, began to remember. This is his story.

So, that's an explicit confirmation that memory bleed is real. I suppose it makes sense that the father of a Blood Player would be particularly prone to it.

This guy knows for a fact that trolls aren’t monsters, and it was only natural that he'd revolt against such a status quo. He’s fighting against a society built from the ground up to deny one simple truth: that trolls are pretty chill, actually.

This is the story of the Signless.

Ah, because he was a redblood. Robbed of his place on the hemospectrum, he'd have been just as much of a pariah as Karkat – although it sounds like Karkat hid it a lot better than his father did.

The trunkbeast in the room, of course, is that Karkat did get a sign. Just what happened to the Vantas name between then and now?

Unlike his peers distributed elsewhere in history, he was not given a sign at a young age. Alas, there were no signs reserved for one of his mutant blood.

So that’s how it works. I’m picturing a large compendium of signs, each mapped to a slightly different blood color. We know there are more than twelve troll signs, so there must be some way to distinguish say, a Serket, from all the other cerulean signs. Minor variations in pigmentation, perhaps?

Anyway, the point is moot in the case of Karkat Senior. The hemospectrum has a place for everyone, and everyone stays in their place – but Vantas blood isn’t on the spectrum. He has nowhere.

But it may also have been due to his mutation that he began to have the visions. Spontaneous, lucid imagery of his world in peace, before its fall.

If Big Bro Vantas is predisposed to visions, then surely Karkat, who shares most of his DNA, is equally prone to them. They are lowbloods, and we know that lowbloods are the most psychically sensitive trolls - so maybe divination is a redblood specialty, allowing the Vantas bloodline to receive more than just 'feelings' from their other selves.

And – ooh. Unlike every other type of psychic ability, Alternia wouldn’t be aware of what Vantas psionics are capable of, since there aren’t any other examples of a redblood with powers. The Signless might be the only troll in recorded history whose psionics can reach into other worlds.

This is kind of wild. Karkat – who Alternia would dismiss as a useless mistake – might just have one of the most powerful, dangerous abilities of all.

They held the promise of his people's true potential, beneath the ages of conditioned cruelty. They held the spark of revolution.

[thewertsearch]

The Dolorosa belonged to the rare class assigned strictly to serving the mother grub in the caverns, forbidden from visiting the surface. While on an errand, she found the young Sufferer in his crater and immediately recognized the child as special, as well as in great danger. For an adult troll to raise a child was unthinkable, but she saw no other hope for him.

In all its millennia of history, Alternia had one mother.

The Dolorosa abandoned her duties in the caverns, and fled to the surface to raise him.

But as far as mothers go, she knocked it out of the park.

This is a little different to how jadebloods appear to operate in Kanaya's time. Unlike her forebears, she's allowed to live on the surface, alongside the Mother Grub she serves. Is Kanaya just granted special privileges because the Mother Grub is also her lusus?

Now this is a very interesting squad.

Leijon looks like a scholar, which is a pretty big glow-up from Nepeta’s dirty cave – a living situation which always seemed beneath her caste. I think Nepeta probably chose to live outside society, though, and her mother appears to have made a similar choice, associating with a notorious revolutionary.

Captor’s dressed rather plainly, so it's hard to tell what his deal is. He is rocking the same red-blue eyes as his descendant, though, and I'm sure he's similarly powerful.

The Ψiioniic was a mage of unequaled telekinetic ability, who upon hearing the words of the Sufferer was inspired to free himself from the sort of slavery typical of his mentally gifted class.

Sounds like it.

A troll like him would be an incredibly powerful weapon - especially in Alternia’s earlier years, when technology was less developed. Sollux might be dangerous in modern times, but could you imagine taking him on in Alternia's medieval era, with no guns, bombs, robots or starships to take him down? He'd be utterly unstoppable.

Señor Captor might legitimately be the most dangerous thing on his entire planet - which is invaluable, I imagine, when the entire planet is your enemy.

But his most devoted of all was his Disciple. She listened to every vision he retold, every lesson he preached, and faithfully recorded his scripture. Her ear was open to him always, and in time, his heart opened to her. To spread his message throughout the world they took to the seas in the vessel of legend known as the First Ship. It was said their love went beyond the four quadrants, transcending the grid entirely. Whatever that nonsense actually means.

Hell yeah, she was the original shipper! Nepeta is unknowingly following her ancestor’s teachings to the letter – and clearly, the Leijons have a type.

I really like the idea of a troll breaking free of their planet's restrictive quadrant system. Perhaps the Sufferer can remember an Alternia where trolls were free to define their own relationships, on their own terms. Perhaps he shared this new world of relationships with his first disciple, capturing her shipper's imagination – and, later, her heart.

[thewertsearch]

After making first contact, occasions which she generally kept cordial, she would move on to new territory while a division of her fleet set a course for the unfortunate civilization, and proceeded to tear it apart.

That’s so sinister. It sounds like Her Condescension is outwardly as friendly as Feferi – but while Feferi’s demeanor merely concealed a slightly nasty streak, her Ancestor’s hides true evil behind a cheerful mask.

It could be any of the lethal brigades under her command to receive the orders, be it the Threshecutioners, Cavalreapers, Laughsassins, or Ruffiannihilators.

We’re really coming full circle with these brigade names. They’ve all been mentioned before, some as early as the beginning of Hivebent.

The first position was idolized by Karkat.

The second, by Tavros.

The third was mentioned by Gamzee.

And the fourth is for bruisers like Equius.

A place for everyone, and everyone in their place. Now, isn’t that just lovely?

She’s so evil... but she looks so cool... but she’s so evil...

The Empress doesn’t give particularly strong Feferi vibes, but that's mostly due to her outfit, as well as the undeniable aura of menace she exudes.

Feferi definitely has a dark side, and I’m fully willing to believe that this was what she could have been, if she didn’t break the mold by having a conscience.

If angered, she could simply express her grievance through communion with her ancient lusus of the deep, and turn its psychic devastation on her multitudes. The class hierarchy played into her hands politically in this respect. Killing off a haphazard swathe of the population, or an entire class, was suitable as a measure of last resort, but mass extermination does not lend itself well to practical governance. Its looming threat however is quite effective, especially while her empire was partitioned neatly into blood castes.

How convenient for her. It’s almost like this woman’s entire civilization was designed from the ground up to be impossible to improve, reform, or overthrow.

In fact, you could almost believe that Alternia’s entire purpose as a planet was to prepare twelve bloody-minded teenagers for the trials required to speedrun a video game, fall at the last hurdle, and ‘accidentally’ unleash a universe-eating abomination.

Almost.