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Grapplejack posted:I thought it was the handmaid at first, but it turns out she died normally in the regular troll universe, but even the wiki is a little vague on whether or not that's true, so... Based on what Doc Scratch said, the Empress returns to Alternia 612 sweeps after the Vast Glub. When she gets there, the Handmaid appears and tells her Lord English's deal. The Empress accepts, but she must kill the Handmaid in order to seal the deal. Since we see her meddling in B1 and B2, it seems she managed to kill the Handmaid, as the Empress is LE's current servant. So yeah, the Handmaid is dead.
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Mar 27, 2012 08:00
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Regy Rusty posted:Noir isn't a troll....???
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Mar 27, 2012 08:13
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I really hope that Aranea briefly talks about her views on what happened in the A2 universe, if only to see her interpretation of things like her A2 self being a pirate that liked writing long-winded journals and mind-controlled a crowd of trolls to kill an A2 version of one of her friends and her trouble-making, punk buddy turn into a homicidal sea-dweller empress that seems to enjoy making life pure hell for everyone that's not her.
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Mar 27, 2012 08:28
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Rooreelooo posted:Isn't it weird that both aranea and vriska were heroes of light? I thought ancestors and players had different powers - the humans sure as hell do, take dave and bro for example. They're time and heart. It's been vaguely hinted at before in what was going on with the A2 ancestors - Mindfang's preoccupation with destiny, the Expatriate and his surrounding "void in the Doctor's awareness", the Condesce's ability to extend the Psionic's lifespan for her own purposes.
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Mar 27, 2012 10:21
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Regy Rusty posted:I don't know why but this latest page is the first time Homestuck's occasional longwindedness broke my patience and I thought "Ugh just get on with it." I woke up with a headache. gently caress off Aranea you're the worst character. At least redeem yourself don't say the same thing in seven different ways in the span on three sentences.
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Mar 27, 2012 10:52
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Bobulus posted:Alternatively: Vriska also counts as a member of their party, and the Condesce is both a survivor and a non-member, and who the gently caress else could she be talking about. Unless you're proposing that Aranea doesn't know about the Condesce, which seems unlikely.
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Mar 27, 2012 10:57
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Bongo Bill posted:Vriska also counts as a member of their party, and the Condesce is both a survivor and a non-member, and who the gently caress else could she be talking about. Yeah, I know. I said it was probably the Condesce already. I was just lightly teasing with the Vriska suggestion. A Beta-Vriska would probably not count as part of the party.
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Mar 27, 2012 11:10
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SatansBestBuddy posted:Probably has to do with the fact that the trolls are near exact clones of their ancestors, while the kids are mixtures of their parents. Regardless of the reason, there's certainly precedent; it's made clear during Scratch's recap of the ancestors in A2 that Equius' ancestor was also a hero of Void, with the power to conceal himself from Doc Scratch's omniscience.
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Mar 27, 2012 12:48
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quote:He had a knack for overzealous storytelling, which is a harmless enough ha8it usually. I'm guilty of it myself sometimes.
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Mar 27, 2012 12:55
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Bell_ posted:More like there were two things she could have done... let her go or kill her. If there was to be any additional paths, they would have spawned from hypothetical choices Terezi previously made in dealing with her Scourge Sister. These hypothetical choices and their consequences are probably spelled out in 8ad fan-fiction. If you're standing within an arms reach of someone, you can do other things than kill that person. Who knows which of 'em would change Vriska's mind. Nobody knows! They weren't explored. But there's no doubt other things that could have changed the course of the story.
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Mar 27, 2012 12:57
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If the Void thing also affects Lord English, I imagine it might be quite important in however they end up defeating him (if they even do). On that note, we need to see more villany, or at least overt activity or some sort, from LE. Maybe that will happen if and when we get back to Hussie-ville where last we saw him. Speaking of which, how do people think Homestuck is going to end? I wouldn't be surprised to see the Alpha kid's sessions creating the A1 troll universe, forming a giant loop. They might well find a way to break out of it however (though I have no idea how off the top of my head). ShardPhoenix fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Mar 27, 2012 |
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Mar 27, 2012 12:58
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Spellman posted:There is an infinite number of things Terezi could have done at that very moment though. She could have started screaming belligerently and doing cartwheels. She could have grabbed Vriska's big magical hood. She could have killed herself. She could threaten someone else. She could have explained the results of her Mind vision more accurately. She could have unloaded her Sylladex, deploying smell-o-scopes and Scalemates everywhere. She could start talking without 4s and 3s and in all caps, shocking everyone.
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Mar 27, 2012 13:08
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Spellman posted:If you're standing within an arms reach of someone, you can do other things than kill that person. Who knows which of 'em would change Vriska's mind. Nobody knows! They weren't explored. But there's no doubt other things that could have changed the course of the story. Aranea literally said that no they couldn't have in the latest page. quote:AG: 8ut even so, when it comes to your key decisions, the possi8ilities are pro8a8ly fewer and more discrete than you have presumed.
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Mar 27, 2012 13:30
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Spellman posted:There is an infinite number of things Terezi could have done at that very moment though. She could have started screaming belligerently and doing cartwheels. She could have grabbed Vriska's big magical hood. She could have killed herself. She could threaten someone else. She could have explained the results of her Mind vision more accurately. She could have unloaded her Sylladex, deploying smell-o-scopes and Scalemates everywhere. She could start talking without 4s and 3s and in all caps, shocking everyone. Alternatively, as with a lot of Homestuck, a videogame analogy probably works best: dialogue trees, or simple binary yes/no good/evil decisions. Or why Choose Your Own Adventure books aren't longer than the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
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Mar 27, 2012 13:30
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So basically this update is a bunch of poo poo we already knew, except with more words.
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Mar 27, 2012 13:37
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Speculation: Aranea is the Rogue of Light, swapping active/passive roles, and the rest of the A1 ancestors are the same. Therefore it will be through the dead A1 trolls that Hussie will reveal which of the 12 known roles are complimentary and active/passive.
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Mar 27, 2012 13:48
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Paul.Power posted:But the whole point of this exchange here is that if you presented that infinite number of options to someone, they wouldn't be able to cope. Maybe paradox space wouldn't be able to cope. Terezi is weak and fallible— whether it's a consequence of her character flaws, or a consequence of her abilities, OR a consequence of specific rules that Sgrub imposes upon the players, she isn't as powerful as the omnipotent Doc Scratch. Spellman fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Mar 27, 2012 |
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Mar 27, 2012 13:59
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Oh yes, and why is Aradia not mentioned when considering fugitives? She is neither DEAD nor a member of their party now. (still think it could be Condesce but probably not UU/uu)
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Mar 27, 2012 14:07
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SatansBestBuddy posted:Probably has to do with the fact that the trolls are near exact clones of their ancestors, while the kids are mixtures of their parents. I doubt this. I think that it looks as though the trolls are actually blends of their ancestor's paradox slime. At the very least Terezi is the product of both Mindfang and Redglare. I would assume Vriska is as well.
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Mar 27, 2012 14:13
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Tollymain posted:I doubt this. I think that it looks as though the trolls are actually blends of their ancestor's paradox slime. Hussie has inferred multiple times that they are in fact exact genetic clones. quote:At the very least Terezi is the product of both Mindfang and Redglare. I would assume Vriska is as well. Where'd you get this? Aranea specifically said she wasn't Terezi's ancestor in that sense. She was simply referring to how her generation preceded theirs. Paul.Power posted:But the whole point of this exchange here is that if you presented that infinite number of options to someone, they wouldn't be able to cope. Maybe paradox space wouldn't be able to cope. One thing that may be worth considering is that Terezi's powers only gave her a limited number of options, which she judged to mean that there were only a limited number of meaningful actions or whatever she could do that'd have any effect. Her vision of the future (and maybe paradox space as a whole) limiting her options by telling her what her options are.
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Mar 27, 2012 14:19
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Bell_ posted:Oh yes, and why is Aradia not mentioned when considering fugitives? She is neither DEAD nor a member of their party now. (still think it could be Condesce but probably not UU/uu) 'Member of their party' doesn't have to literally refer to the meteor party, I think it means like "party of adventurers", which extends to those party members who are not present at the site of the adventure at the moment.
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Mar 27, 2012 14:22
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Prison Warden posted:One thing that may be worth considering is that Terezi's powers only gave her a limited number of options, which she judged to mean that there were only a limited number of meaningful actions or whatever she could do that'd have any effect. Her vision of the future (and maybe paradox space as a whole) limiting her options by telling her what her options are. Yeah, foreknowledge tending to not be a whole lot of fun is a point that's come up a lot throughout Homestuck - another pretty explicit (and, given who's talking, relevant) example is the end of Mindfang's journal, although that points at a slightly different facet of it.
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Mar 27, 2012 14:27
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My interpretation of this is that while ultimately there might have been several potential actions Terezi could have taken, they would have still resulted in the binary state of "Vriska dies" or "everyone else dies" even if Vriska never left. If Terezi had complete agency over her actions as Aranea proposes, the "vision" she would observe would be more or less meaningless and incomprehensible. It reminds me of the discussions of "world line convergence" from Steins;Gate, and Aranea's vein analogy is fairly similar as well.
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Mar 27, 2012 14:32
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Spellman posted:There is an infinite number of things Terezi could have done at that very moment though. She could have started screaming belligerently and doing cartwheels. She could have grabbed Vriska's big magical hood. She could have killed herself. She could threaten someone else. She could have explained the results of her Mind vision more accurately. She could have unloaded her Sylladex, deploying smell-o-scopes and Scalemates everywhere. She could start talking without 4s and 3s and in all caps, shocking everyone. There is an infinite number of things Terezi could have done, but a finite number of things Terezi would have done. There are no beta timelines where Terezi went up to the roof and started doing cartwheels or committed suicide, because Terezi is not the sort of person who would react that way to her encounter with Vriska. It's kind of interesting that Terezi's powers are limited to choices that she would feasibly make without foreknowledge, but I suppose that goes a long way towards explaining why the Seer of Mind can't just whip up infallible plans to engineer whatever outcome they want.
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Mar 27, 2012 14:42
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I wager that the "kill" option was only there BECAUSE she's a seer, and could thus perceive conclusively the outcome of letting Vriska go. Terezi just wouldn't have had the guts to pull it off, otherwise.
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Mar 27, 2012 14:50
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Gabriel Pope posted:It's kind of interesting that Terezi's powers are limited to choices that she would feasibly make without foreknowledge, but I suppose that goes a long way towards explaining why the Seer of Mind can't just whip up infallible plans to engineer whatever outcome they want. That's part of why I mentioned Mindfang's journal - her situation was slightly analogous in that the cueball would only tell her the answers to questions she could think to ask. Then she stashed it with the Expatriate and ran off to have ill-informed, overconfident adventures, much to her later regret. Meanwhile, Terezi could predict only the results of what she could think of doing: either killing Vriska or letting her go. She ended up making what was clearly the better choice out of those two, and evidently still isn't too happy about it. I guess what Aranea is telling her is that, really, if she couldn't come up with anything else then there was nothing else she could have done that would have changed anything. Her only real options were to kill Vriska or to let her go, and there was no longer any room to avoid or delay that decision. Both of them needed to know, and they got their answer. Hamiltonian Bicycle fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Mar 27, 2012 |
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Mar 27, 2012 15:38
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quote:AG: ... Doesn't a scenario like that deaden a person's agency just as much as one where their fate is decidedly etched in stone as a single path of unavoida8le decisions? Who exactly is that person who can and does take all conceiva8le actions, other than someone perfectly generic, who only appears to have unique predilections and motives when you examine the ar8itrary path they happen to occupy? And that's another reason why they don't use the suggestion box anymore.
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Mar 27, 2012 15:49
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I think that even though Aradia (and Sollux for that matter) isn't with the party right now, she is still being considered part of the party. I thought it was pretty clear that it was the Condense, even if it wasn't said outright. She is the only other troll we know who is alive. So, because of Aranea's (a troll) description to Terezi (another troll) of a cardiovasculatory system, can we assume trolls have similar biology? Obviously not the same reproduction methods but I found it odd how Aranea talked about a human body to a fellow alien.
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Mar 27, 2012 16:19
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Lord of Laughton posted:So, because of Aranea's (a troll) description to Terezi (another troll) of a cardiovasculatory system, can we assume trolls have similar biology? Obviously not the same reproduction methods but I found it odd how Aranea talked about a human body to a fellow alien. Equius once mentioned his "ludi%ly powerful cardiovascular system". And Feferi has been said to have a collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system. To me, trolls always seemed more like bags full blood, much more blood than could ever fit in a bag that size.
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Mar 27, 2012 16:28
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creationist believer posted:Equius once mentioned his "ludi%ly powerful cardiovascular system". And Feferi has been said to have a collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system. To me, trolls always seemed more like bags full blood, much more blood than could ever fit in a bag that size. What, liquids don't compress very much at all under pressure? gently caress you.
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Mar 27, 2012 16:33
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Trolls actually produce more blood than they can handle. Them killing each other is just their way of emptying it out for them. Troll society sure is weird!
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Mar 27, 2012 18:36
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:Troll blood pressure is clearly orders of magnitude higher then the human equivalent.
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Mar 27, 2012 18:40
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This sequence isn't over, but the more I think about it and the more reactions to it I see, the more I really like it so far. There was obviously never going to be some big dumping on Terezi for being a horrible person and a laying out of her 'issues'. What we get instead is an acknowledgment of a bigger issue that has been in the comic for a long time - the loss of free will and the characters who refuse to accept that. I was annoyed by Rose spending all of Act 5 trying her best to retain autonomy - even when making an effort to do so was clearly harmful and not in her best interests - only to do a 180 turn when she went godtier and suddenly become the mystical person who sees the future and is guided by Skaia's predictions. Aradia was very similar, though since she was more obviously just changing the master whom she serves, the transition was much less jarring. Terezi's internal conflict since her first appearance in Act 4 has been with her inability to make peace with the consequences of losing autonomy, just like Rose, but with the difference of her attempts being to work with the system to subvert it rather than trying to fall out of it altogether. She attempts to abuse her knowledge of the future in attempts to change that future: 1. Terezi tries to kill John in an attempt to stop the kids' game then and there, thereby stopping Jack from ruining her own session. She sees John's entire timeline continue on to the scratch, but won't stand down from trying to change it. Her actions ended up perpetuating the very timeline she sought to erase. She fails, through no fault of her own. 2. Terezi tries to get Dave to kill himself to force his hand in becoming godtier. She sees the end result of Dave standing over his alternate from another timeline (and his failure), and pieces out how it happens and where she fits in. She desperately tries to convince Dave to go ahead with it so she doesn't have to see Jack come kill Dave himself. She fails, through no fault of her own. 3. Terezi tries to find another way to solve the Vriska dilemma. She isn't sure she can really go through with killing someone directly, as she confided in Dave. If left to her own devices, she fails to come up with a plan that satisfies both her desire not to kill and her will to live, as the alternate timeline shows us. This is where this update comes in - even with the power to see the future, her hand is forced by an agent that demands she sacrifice her own wants for the needs of others. She fails, through no fault of her own. This sequence isn't about making amends with Vriska specifically. It is about tying the roles of our heroes into a picture that is bigger than any of them, and setting aside personal wants to bring about a yet unseen outcome. I hope it goes on to clear up the motivations of the game, and the viewpoints of Aradia and Rose, who appear to have already made peace with the idea that they are just characters in a story.
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Mar 27, 2012 18:46
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MrBims posted:e - Going back over the update I'm wondering what Aranea's angle is. She's pretty much confirmed to be a nicer Mindfang, so is she really just being helpful for its own sake here or does she stand to benefit? She's already shown willing to play a bit of a manipulator, how deep does that go? Will she make us all sit through a reading of her atrocious self-insert historical fanfiction?? paranoid randroid fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Mar 27, 2012 |
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Mar 27, 2012 20:08
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Seoinin posted:That's... a take I hadn't considered. As much as I dislike the predestination thing, I have to admit it makes sense. I'm guessing not fanfiction, but what we'll have to sit through will probably be just as painful. Also, new song. Maybe if I post more fan music here it will take our minds off the elephant in the room that is the conspicuously late fanmusic album. Years in the Future-extended version
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Mar 27, 2012 21:08
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Part of this whole thing rubs me the wrong way; Aranea here is basically telling us that these characters don't matter in the grand scheme. In the scope of a story, that is certainly true. However in their world and their circumstances, they matter as individuals, as people and friends. Those who do make an impact-trolls and humans alike-are not remembered save as large part of a metaphorical circulatory system that keeps things flowing, and those that do nothing aren't even known for that. I think back to Tavros and Nepeta and Feferi and I don't see them as wastes of space or cheap shock value. They mattered.  Is Hussie trying to get himself out of killing so many, in that their death is somehow what was supposed to happen? That good people are meant to only serve as the point towards death-especially John despite him still surviving-in this game and that others who are willing to get the job done despite the costs and the actions they make are better? After all, you still have a unrepentant killer clown as part of the main party and who only serves to stilt their progress. I love this story, but this just does not settle with me. Death should have meaning, and so should those who have died for this one chance to go through. Psycho Lawnmower fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Mar 27, 2012 |
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Mar 27, 2012 21:18
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Keep in mind that, even in real life, people who deserve to be remembered often aren't. It is an idea that exists and can be debated even outside of complicated time travel web comics. That said, I don't think Hussie is stating that these characters are unimportant as individuals. After all, without them existence as they know it would simply cease to be. What is being said here is simply that the universe, like anything that self-propagates, will do whatever it takes to continue that propagation. For this universe, that means arranging things to ensure certain events, including specific choices and deaths. In a way, that makes those choices and deaths more important and meaningful, considering how many deaths in real-life have little meaning in the grand scheme of things, as far as we can tell.
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Mar 27, 2012 21:36
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Psycho Lawnmower posted:Part of this whole thing rubs me the wrong way; Aranea here is basically telling us that these characters don't matter in the grand scheme. She's saying exactly the opposite. Literally all of creation depends on the players' sacrifices. You don't get much more meaningful than that! She also reaffirms the element of personal choice. At first glance it may seem like the alpha timeline robs players of their freedom of choice, since every single decision they make can have only one preordained outcome. But as Aranea reveals, these outcomes are by and large the ones that the players would have made anyway! Beta junctures are relatively rare by the very nature of who the players are. The alpha timeline is not some schedule of events the players are forced to follow under threat of oblivion; the alpha timeline is a schedule of events made up of the players' own natural decisions.
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Mar 27, 2012 21:37
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Gabriel Pope posted:She's saying exactly the opposite. Literally all of creation depends on the players' sacrifices. You don't get much more meaningful than that! First, how does Tavros, Equius, Nepeta and Feferi fit into that, hmm? What did they do that allowed for all of this? Those who died from their own hands because those choices 'mattered' somehow? They were killed by Eridan, Gamzee or Jack. ...And are you seriously trying to tell me that John would have, on his own inclination, prototyped Bec? Or that Rose would have gone to Scratch for help without being introduced? Both of those weren't the best decisions to make, and we all know that. Hell, John went to prototype that doll just to weaken Jack. Rose knew going to Scratch was a bad idea. Psycho Lawnmower fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Mar 27, 2012 |
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Mar 27, 2012 22:06
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Gabriel Pope posted:The alpha timeline is not some schedule of events the players are forced to follow under threat of oblivion; the alpha timeline is a schedule of events made up of the players' own natural decisions. Or rather, the decisions they would probably make if they could see the big picture, which is to say: decisions that would preserve the chain of creation rather than destroy it. It's also interesting how this interpretation completely negates the puppetmaster thing Vriska was doing earlier; it doesn't matter if an outside observer 'makes you' do something they saw you were about to do, because you'd have done it even without their interference. While they might claim to have stolen your agency, all that's really happened is they've helped you do something they knew you wanted to do.
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Mar 27, 2012 22:07
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