IDE/Theory Thread 18: John's fraymotif is a pie banjo. Pass it on.

[Ryanlollies]

So...... Lil Cal is a guardian?

I.... I don't know how to respond to this.

OH MY GOD WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.

[WillSpark]

Note the wallet has some blood on it. Whatever is going to happen to it that got it inside Cal hasn't happened yet, but it'll involve something something something blood.

[The_Codfish]

So...... Lil Cal is a guardian?

I.... I don't know how to respond to this.

OH MY GOD WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.

He's trying to say Lil Cal isn't actually Lil Cal.....

He's Big Cal.

Big enough to maybe wear some sort of colorful coat, perhaps?

[Patrick]

Just noticed some things, they might be (probably are) old...

Dave Strider = DS
Doc Scratch = DS

Dave is good with records, maybe he can "scratch" them... heheh.

Also this costume (compare).

So maybe...

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Dave is Scratch's brother!

[TheWealthyAardvark]

IDE/Theory: The voices of the ANCESTORS Aradia can hear are actually dead Aradiasprites.

[simon.clarkstone]

Wait, hold on, for the wallet to be inside Cal must mean Bro had it when he stitched Cal up after the fight...

It wasn't inside Cal, just stuffed up his shirt.

Note the wallet has some blood on it. Whatever is going to happen to it that got it inside Cal hasn't happened yet, but it'll involve something something something blood.

I assume that Jack nicked the wallet, hat, and Crosbytop from DAD, then put the latter two into the former, and that up Cal's shirt, then for whatever reason didn't take it out before throwing Cal at that copy of Aradia.

[NeoPhantom]

Wait, hold on, for the wallet to be inside Cal must mean Bro had it when he stitched Cal up after the fight...

It wasn't inside Cal, just stuffed up his shirt.

Note the wallet has some blood on it. Whatever is going to happen to it that got it inside Cal hasn't happened yet, but it'll involve something something something blood.

I assume that Jack nicked the wallet, hat, and Crosbytop from DAD, then put the latter two into the former, and that up Cal's shirt, then for whatever reason didn't take it out before throwing Cal at that copy of Aradia.

Consider that John currently has Dad's wallet... And Jack could've had a good reason to get rid of Cal after considering him his only true friend...

[Jasper17]

IDE/Theory: Jack is the REAL reason why Past!Aradia dies.
'My name is Jack Noir. you killed by best friend, prepare to die.'

[transistorTransistor]

You've got it backwards. The imaginary universe was made of iPIs, and the only way to escape into the "real world" was to exit the building through the main door. The real world outside could not possibly be made of iPIs because imaginary selves die when they get close to the real world.

I am not sure of that. PS starts with real PS in his office in the real building (with locked outside door), and imaginary world outside his window. Real-world characters (at least PS, PI and MK) can become imaginary selves in imaginary-world building by locking themselves in a fort and drinking -- they appear initially in their imaginary offices that are somewhat better furnished (in PI case much better furnished), and they can get their real selves into imaginary world by going through windows. While some things may be only in imaginary world, we have seen Whores, and most of the building in real-world part of the comic -- MK in his fort, AD fighting him, etc. When GPI tells PI copies to copy themselves, they are shown to form the first page of the comic, what implies that the real world consists of them. It's possible that GPI and PI copies only exists in the imaginary world (it would make sense because PI is nothing special in the real world), but I can't find anything in the comic to show that.

It's plausible to think that Team Sleuth exist in some part of a post-sburb planet, possibly even sharing a world with the Midnight Crew (canon is arguable on this point), even though the imaginary world which connects to it was created retroactively by GPI, who derives his power from the very same world which he is credited with creating.

Come to think of it, GPI and the Genesis Frog seem to have a lot in common in that regard. The main difference being that Bilious doesn't create the universe that created him, at least not directly.

I can certainly imagine that Andrew got the idea for Sburb from this. And if GPI is not supposed to exist in the real world he may be an alternative way to create a universe through a time loop. Imaginary world being accessible through forts and windows is a result of GPI work while GPI is a result of PI being able to access imaginary world -- yet at the same time real-world Earth is created by Trolls... Not really plausible but I don't see any glaring inconsistencies, either.

[JudgeDeadd]

Lord English.

Courtyard Droll. Read this word backwards.

He's trying to say Lil Cal isn't actually Lil Cal.....

He's Big Cal.

Big enough to maybe wear some sort of colorful coat, perhaps?

VAST CAL(L?)

[BlastYoBoots]

I can certainly imagine that Andrew got the idea for Sburb from this.

In part. He addressed this on his old formspring:

So now you've revealed that the trolls' Sburb session CREATED OUR GODDAMN UNIVERSE. How long have you been waiting to spring that on us?

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Since before Homestuck started.

HS was always going to be a story about an extremely elaborate creation myth. As elaborate as I could conceive. In the HS reality, Sburb/Sgrub is the means by which universes procreate. Planets and civilizations are the seeds from which one or many new universes will blossom if the players succeed, at the expense of the life on that planet.

This was always what Homestuck was about. This revelation was carefully guarded, although there are plenty of clues. It has taken 4.5 acts to understand the "what" (as well as some of the "how" along the way.) The rest of the story will be about exploring the rest of the "how", as well as determining whether the players succeed.

I've answered numerous times that the conception of HS had its roots in loosely combining the themes and feel of Earthbound, The Sims, and Spore. That was a formula concocted many months before I began the story, well before Problem Sleuth was finished. The story still strikes me as staying very close to that original vision. Only now does the Spore component seems like it makes more sense. "Sburb" was always a word that was supposed to be reminiscent of "Spore", tweaked to reference the house building element as well. Spore is about universe building, and more specifically, life form and civilization building, but from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Sburb is the reverse. The goal is to create a universe all at once after overcoming an extensive series of challenges, and as is implied, the universe fleshes itself out with galaxies and systems and planets and lifeforms, ready and waiting for entry by the victorious players. The ultimate reward is for the players to enter the universe they created and do as they see fit. They are essentially the gods of that universe, and that is what the trolls are to our universe.

The trolls were always meant to serve this purpose. Before I conceptualized them in any way at all, their primary description was "the group of players who created our universe by successfully completing Sburb, and who would interact with the kids in some way and help them understand the purpose of the game". Logically, the other group of players would have to be aliens, since they are not only from a different planet, but from an entirely different universe. This began the thought process that lead to making them trolls, and then specifically, internet trolls who would harass the kids, but ultimately support them as the group of veteran players who understood what was going on better than any of the kids. This was mainly solidified because I thought the concept of our universe being created by a bunch of cantankerous internet trolls was a funny idea.

But at the time I didn't expect to get as deep into their story as I eventually did. I figured I'd touch upon it in some limited way, and only introduce a handful of characters, and just keep trucking along with the kids. But as their story became more entangled with the kids' story, it felt more necessary to just go all the way and get into their adventure, not just to better contextualize and characterize them all, but as a sort of accelerated primer on the entire game objective itself. The story is certainly about four kids and their adventure together, but also at its heart, it is about this esoteric creation myth, and the troll arc became a good way to establish the true objective while getting a foothold of the scope and magnitude of it all. We got a different look at how another session could go, with a much different player count and personality ensemble, and all the ways that could contribute to variations in this highly flexible game, and ultimately what the point of all this is. All this diversity and flexibility in the game's unfolding presumably has a bearing on what type of universe will be created. These ideas will be explored in detail over the remainder of the story. There's a lot more to come.

The deeper I've gone into involving the trolls in the story, the more it seems to me they were never an element I could really just shrug off in favor of focusing on "the real story". The process of going through their story has had an effect in showing the nature of the game that could never have been achieved without going down that road. Without it, I'd have to resort to a more mundane expository means of revealing the game's purpose. The Felt intermission, which certainly seemed tangential (and surely was) still served an important purpose by helping us invest in the villainous nature of Jack Noir. Without that, his future actions would have much less meaning. Similarly, the troll arc has served to more thoroughly "characterize" the entire purpose of the game, and give it much more meaning going forward. Furthermore, the troll story is inextricably entwined with the kids. Actions of the kids had influence over the way the troll adventure unfolded, and therefore the way their own universe was created (Rose's gamefaqs, the scratch they create, just to name what we know of). The kids' adventure is obviously heavily influenced by the trolls through direct communication, and therefore the trolls have a hand in causing the kids to do whatever it was they did to impact the troll's adventure, and so on. Willingly or not, they're all working toward the same outcome, toward creating our universe, and the universe the kids are trying to create, and whatever trouble puts all that in jeopardy. Remember that both the kids' and the trolls' chum handles are needed to make the full set of ACGT combinations. They are not two unrelated groups of players as they first appeared, nor are their universes unrelated. Sollux's shades, the ~ATH code, etc help illustrate this, that they are bifurcated, interwoven realities.

Even Act 5 is a microcosm of this idea. It is a bifurcated act. Act 5.1 is the troll half. Act 5.2 is the kid half. 5.2 even begins with two sets of curtains, red and blue. Blue symbolizes the troll universe, red symbolizes our universe. First we crossed through blue, then red.

One last thing I'll mention about all this. The whole creation myth angle of Homestuck was almost entirely inspired by the ludicrous creation myth in Problem Sleuth, the way GPI used his imaginary time traveling duplicates to create all the matter in the universe. I think that was one of my personal favorite ideas to come out of that story, in terms of scope and absurdity. So when I was considering ideas for the next story, I thought it would be fun to develop that topic further, but with a little less absurdity and more depth, sophistication and complexity. And for the creation myth to exist as the centerpiece of the game purpose and story.

[nupanick]

When GPI tells PI copies to copy themselves, they are shown to form the first page of the comic, what implies that the real world consists of them.

They're also shown as making up the infobubble with the candy corn in it, as well as the outlines on PS's inventory and all sorts of other theoretically "non-material" stuff. I think the slow zoom there might be a slight exaggeration.

It's possible that GPI and PI copies only exists in the imaginary world (it would make sense because PI is nothing special in the real world), but I can't find anything in the comic to show that.

I actually found evidence for this point. We're shown that when an imaginary self tries to walk into reality, it dies. Theoretically the part-pickles should function the same way, as they're just really really small imaginary selves.
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=4&p=000543

[Shrugstah]

My pet theory: Lord English is actually just Kid DD?, but in a universe aside from the kids' own and with possession of the Tumor. Because he is in a separate chronology from the one the Tumor is linked to, the tumor is continually in a state of exploding and not exploding at the same time. This allows him to harness pretty much infinite power.

The tumor, is, thus, the Cairo Overcoat. It only rainbows the instant before it's set to explode.

The backup coat is another Tumor he retrieved from some other session using the powers of the first one.

Also, Doc Scratch is the result of the combination of Diamonds Droog (troll DD) with the Meow code.

The reason Kid DD made Bec is under the instruction of his future self, because he wanted Bec Noir to be made, and thus be able to manipulate his omnipotent alternate self to manipulate Rose to get John to retrieve the tumor and give it to her to bring it to the Green Sun.

[DJ-P0N3]

The final flash in Homestuck will be called [S] Checkmate.
That is all there is to theorize on the matter.

[Patrick]

The final flash in Homestuck will be called [S] Checkmate.
That is all there is to theorize on the matter.

Nice idea, but BK is dead. Perhaps on Jack's death, yes... but what of Lord English?

[HarMegidon]

When GPI tells PI copies to copy themselves, they are shown to form the first page of the comic, what implies that the real world consists of them.

They're also shown as making up the infobubble with the candy corn in it, as well as the outlines on PS's inventory and all sorts of other theoretically "non-material" stuff. I think the slow zoom there might be a slight exaggeration.

It's possible that GPI and PI copies only exists in the imaginary world (it would make sense because PI is nothing special in the real world), but I can't find anything in the comic to show that.

I actually found evidence for this point. We're shown that when an imaginary self tries to walk into reality, it dies. Theoretically the part-pickles should function the same way, as they're just really really small imaginary selves.
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=4&p=000543

So they disintegrate every Planck Time and are replaced by another part-pickle time clone. Otherwise the universe would collapse due to infinite mass in one spot.

[Ninja of Time]

This has probably been posted before, but I think the evidence for it is growing, so it could use a repost.

Okay, so given the latest updates, I think it's fair to say that the trolls'/kids' mysterious plan for them all to meet up may actually be for them all to die and meet in the afterlife/dream bubbles. The dream bubbles/afterlife has, after all, been the only place the kids and trolls have been able to actually interact face-to-face.

I think this also makes sense in regards to John's message in "Karkat: Troll this worthless human." I've seen some theories about this before. People have said that, because John is so happy at that point, the rest of the kids must be alive and well. If anyone important in the kids' session had died, John would be pretty depressed. (This was, of course, before we found out about Dead. Er...I mean Dad.) But if the eventual plan is for everyone to end up dead anyway, well, then John would have no reason to be sad no matter who eats it.

So, IDE/Theory: Homestuck ends with a group suicide...followed by "and they all lived happily ever after."

Either that or the final battle will actually take place in the afterlife. Which would be completely epic considering the protagonists would have a gigantic army of Daves, Aradias, other offshoot timeline selves, and dream selves. And possibly lusii, guardians, and anyone else who's died during the story. All against Bec Noir/Lord English/Gamzee/Someone else.

[HarMegidon]

This has probably been posted before, but I think the evidence for it is growing, so it could use a repost.

Okay, so given the latest updates, I think it's fair to say that the trolls'/kids' mysterious plan for them all to meet up may actually be for them all to die and meet in the afterlife/dream bubbles. The dream bubbles/afterlife has, after all, been the only place the kids and trolls have been able to actually interact face-to-face.

I think this also makes sense in regards to John's message in "Karkat: Troll this worthless human." I've seen some theories about this before. People have said that, because John is so happy at that point, the rest of the kids must be alive and well. If anyone important in the kids' session had died, John would be pretty depressed. (This was, of course, before we found out about Dead. Er...I mean Dad.) But if the eventual plan is for everyone to end up dead anyway, well, then John would have no reason to be sad no matter who eats it.

So, IDE/Theory: Homestuck ends with a group suicide...followed by "and they all lived happily ever after."

Either that or the final battle will actually take place in the afterlife. Which would be completely epic considering the protagonists would have a gigantic army of Daves, Aradias, other offshoot timeline selves, and dream selves. And possibly lusii, guardians, and anyone else who's died during the story. All against Bec Noir/Lord English/Gamzee/Someone else.

I imagine that the kids spend most of their plan arranging things so that they die on the quest bed, resulting in them being God-Tier in the afterlife or something.

[nupanick]

ide/theory: john egbert is partpickles.

[Karmic]

IDE/Theory: The Earth is Alternia. Euthanasia lead to the corruption in social relations that would come with a culture of mercy killing. Naturally, as time passed, culling was introduced (...with mutations in dna from the "natural selection" causing the divergence in species?).

Oh gog this is what happens when I go ass-deep into the topic of euthanasia as extra study.

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I mean no offense to those who've had experiences with euthanasia, good or bad.

[gingerneticTrenchdigger]

Oh gog, oh gog! Cals under the gogdamn bed!

IDE/ Theory: Cals body ends up on top of the bed and he ascends to god-tier, revealing the green sun quest bed to be his!!!

[Decker]

Really late on this one, but I was thinking about Kanaya crying in return to the core when she's talking about doubting the sincerity of other peoples feelings. At one point in her conversation stream with rose, they skipped to the 16th or so conversation from the eighth. I'm guessing that Kanaya tried to confess her love to Rose at some point only for Rose to think she was being snarky or sarcastic.

[BlastYoBoots]

Really late on this one, but I was thinking about Kanaya crying in return to the core when she's talking about doubting the sincerity of other peoples feelings.

Real reason: Someone made a crying sprite, and they wanted an excuse to use it.

[Lukas]

Oh gog, oh gog! Cals under the gogdamn bed!

IDE/ Theory: Cals body ends up on top of the bed and he ascends to god-tier, revealing the green sun quest bed to be his!!!

http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002363

Oh. Uh...

Hey...

Hey there, Cal.

[TheGentleman]

Just noticed some things, they might be (probably are) old...

Dave Strider = DS
Doc Scratch = DS

Dave is good with records, maybe he can "scratch" them... heheh.

Also this costume (compare).

So maybe...

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Dave is Scratch's brother!

About the outfit, it is a Felt outfit so the fact that they're similar is natural. Second of all, the First Guardians aren't paradox clones of people. They're clones the way the kids are, but with Rose's MEOW code merged with them. So at the least, you may have found the source for Doc Scratch.