The End of the World SburbLogotype The Sburb logotype MiffTheFox On his 13th birthday, John Egbert receives the latest computer game, a beta version of an immersive simulation game called Sburb. Working with his friend Rose Lalonde, they discover that the game allows the players to manipulate their reality. A startling revelation comes, though - an apocalyptic meteor shower is beginning to destroy the world before their very eyes. However, the game gives them tools to escape their fate. John, Rose, and their friends Dave Strider and Jade Harley work together to flee the apocalypse and enter a new dimension called the Incipisphere. The Incipisphere is a world of warring royalty in a timeless expanse, where the forces of Prospit and Derse struggle for dominion over the realm of Skaia in the chess-patterned Battlefield at its center. The kids are given primary guides - spirits known as Kernelsprites - to help them understand this new setting and the rules of the game. The four of them must fight against the monsters of the dark kingdom, controlled by the Denizens, and free the Consorts of the four planets circling Skaia. They must master the inventory system called the Sylladex, and understand the alchemy system the game provides. John, Rose, Dave, and Jade slowly learn of their roles as the Heir of Breath, the Seer of Light, the Knight of Time, and the Witch of Space respectively. They must all undertake personal journeys, come to terms with their relationships with their Guardians, and wake their dream selves. They learn they must pass the Seven Gates, reach Skaia, and stop the Black King and Black Queen from destroying Skaia in an event called the Reckoning. However, it’s said that Skaia would buy the kids time by creating defense portals that would redirect the meteors to another place in paradox space – Earth. Some of these meteors are to seed laboratories like the Skyship Base on Earth, and carry Exiles – former members of the two kingdoms – to the year 2422, long after the apocalypse, for them to repopulate the Earth. Others spawn anomalies like the Frog Temple, and others become the meteors that hit the kids’ houses in the first place. However, another revelation happens as John eventually reaches a laboratory in the Incipisphere’s outer meteor belt called the Veil, where he uncovers a mysterious ectobiology machine. John accidentally facilitates the kids’ and their guardians’ own existences. They are sent back to the past on meteors during the Reckoning as well, to set in motion the entire chain of events. Jack and the Trolls On their quest to grow up and fill into their hero roles, the players stumble upon signs that their mission will end in disastrous failure if they continue on their path. A weapon Jade tries to give to John accidentally ends up in the hands of Jack Noir, the nefarious archagent of Derse. He commits double regicide against the monarchs of Derse and becomes the Sovereign Slayer, wreaking destruction wherever he goes – something never intended to happen in the game. They also learn that they are not the only group of people playing the game. Countless other sessions of players, on other planets in other dimensions, also exist. They begin to be contacted by the twelve Trolls – players from another planet and another dimension, who played a session of Sburb (or, as they called it, Sgrub) long ago in the past. Many aspects of their session were similar, with their own twelve-planet Incipisphere, their own Exiles and more. These twelve managed to win their game, and discovered the ultimate purpose of Sburb – to create new universes. In fact, the kids’ home universe was created by none other than the trolls, led by Karkat Vantas. Sgrub Logo SGRUB Logo Cannonfire40 However, something went wrong, and an indestructible, omnipotent demon was unleashed into their game. Before the trolls could gain access to the new universe, they were stopped by his appearance in the space-time continuum. It is revealed that this demon was actually a Becquerel-prototyped Jack Noir, who under complex circumstances got into the session of the trolls and prevented them from winning the game. The trolls soon get in touch with the kids, and begrudgingly attempt to help the kids in learning of things like the First Guardians of Earth and Alternia, and the Green Sun which powers them. They work on a plan - to depower Jack by recovering a massive bomb called The Tumor and taking it into the sun, meanwhile causing a scratch to reset their session and escaping it via the fourth wall. The plan is for everyone to meet up in the new session. However, while the kids work to execute the plan, not all is well on the Trolls meteor. Several of the trolls begin killing each other, and the murderous Gamzee Makara speaks of his mirthful messiahs and a Vast Honk yet to come. The plan goes off somewhat successfully, and all four of the kids reach god tier in the process. However, it is revealed that the Tumor is a bomb that detonates when the Kids and Trolls universes have been destroyed. This occurs when Jack Noir attacks Bilious Slick - the Kids universe, a frog bred by the trolls - and Spades Slick shoots Snowman - the Trolls exiled Black Queen whose heart contains the Trolls universe. The resulting explosion gives birth to the Green Sun, which was never meant to be destroyed. The First Guardian of Alternia, Doc Scratch, had deceived them by forgetting to mention just what the bomb actually did. Meanwhile, upon the death of Doc Scratch and the destruction of the two universes, a code activates and the evil LOrd English, a time-travelling crime lord, leader of The Felt and Doc Scratchs master, makes his arrival at the end of the trolls universe and begins his own work. The Post-Scratch Session SburbAlpha Logo SBURB ALPHA Logo. Cannonfire40 The scratch resets the Kids universe so that the kids and their ectobiological parents are sent to Earth at different times. Jane Crocker, Jake English, Dirk Strider and Roxy Lalonde, the B2 kids, are the new players in this instance of the universe. However, while they prepare to play the game, it is apparent that the odds are stacked against them. Earth is a corporate planet owned by Betty Crocker, who is really the Condesce, the former Empress of Alternia now in the service of Lord English and the usurper of the Black Queen in the new Incipisphere. Roxy and Dirk live years in the future in a flooded planet, constantly under threat of the Imperial Drones, and the God Cat makes all kinds of mischief for these new heroes. The B2 kids are contacted by two members of another alien species - the Cherubs, consisting of the friendly and helpful Calliope and the violent and antagonistic Caliborn, who share the same body and are going to play their own session. Caliborn plans to kill Calliope as part of the game. Meanwhile, together with the surviving trolls, the original four kids embark on two separate three-year journeys to the B2 session. The newly-omnipotent Peregrine Mendicant sends a badly wounded Wayward Vagabond to the kids and trolls at the Green Sun, who then begin to travel through the Furthest Ring - the space between universes - on a meteor. PM proceeds to pursue Jack Noir as he pursues the meteor through the Ring. Meanwhile, John, Jade and the remaining population of their Incipisphere - shrunken by Jades god tier powers - break through the Fourth Wall and begin to cross the Yellow Yard. As the three years progress, the meteors crew passes through dream bubbles, places made out of the memories of players. The bubbles serve as the afterlife for dead players and where living players go while they sleep. Through these dream bubble visits, they encounter the pre-scratch trolls, a group of Troll players who are the ancestors of the more familiar Trolls. They played Sburb and were forced to reset their null session with a scratch, resulting in the post-scratch troll session that the kids had interacted with. One of the trolls, Meenah Peixes, killed all of them so that they could survive the scratch and continue to exist through dream bubbles. However, they soon discover that English has been destroying dream bubbles and killing players who are already dead, shattering reality in the process. Swiftly realizing the vast threat he poses to reality itself, they begin to come up with plans to combat him. Meenah seeks out her fellow dead players to amass a ghost army, while the dead Vriska Serket plans to use a map of the Furthest Ring and follow Englishs path of destruction to find a treasure that could defeat him. Aranea Serket wants to find Calliope, who is now dead, having had her body permanently been taken over by Caliborn, who is revealed to actually be Lord English as a child. As the B2 kids manage to enter their Medium, they find that there are no pre-entry prototypings. The planets are barren wastelands and all of the Underlings are skeletal. The new session is a void session where Skaia can never advance to its final state; the B1 kids must bring their Battlefield and their Genesis Frog so it can release the Vast Croak there. After months of waiting for the B1 kids to arrive, it comes to the day before their arrival. Calliopes spirit meets Roxy in a dream and warns her of the battle ahead. However, the Alpha kids are beset by relationship problems which threaten the unity of their group. When the kids receive Calliope and Caliborns jujus - cherubs prized magical objects - the ensuing chaos leads to the four winding up on their Quest Crypts in the center of Prospit and Derses moons. The Alpha Jack Noir receives Lil Cal, a cursed juju that had previously appeared all throughout the story. He becomes possessed and soon channels the powers of Lord English, using them to destroy Prospits moon. Meanwhile, the Condesce uses yellow blood powers to destroy Derses moon. The Alpha kids ascend to god tier, and are rescued from an ambush by Jade, who has just arrived in the session. The Condesce uses her powers to mind control Jade, who in turn mind controls Jane; the two kidnap Roxy and Jake, whereas Dirk and Alpha Jack are left at the edges of their Incipisphere. The group on the meteor, which has almost reached the alpha session, is beset by their own emotional problems, and seems unprepared for the struggle ahead. John, on the other hand, is asleep on arrival. As LOrd Englishs destruction of reality forms a ring around the Green Sun, a sleeping John meets the ghosts in the afterlife, who have formed a pirate crew led by Vriska. As they approach the treasure, Aranea explains cherub biology and the origin of Calliope and Caliborn, who were raised in their infancy by Gamzee on a planet that was in fact a B2 Earth displaced in space and time. She explains how Caliborn came to predominate over his sister and enter his own session. Aided by his new servant Gamzee, he began to activate a tower network that let him see the Alpha session - and let him talk directly to Homestucks author, Andrew Hussie. He discovered that his own session was a dead session, an extraordinarily difficult type of void session that would never be able to produce a new universe, even with outside intervention, and thus possessed its own unique victory conditions. Playing this session, he amassed leprechaun followers which would later become The Felt, and continued to gain power in his journey. In the present, Spades Slick, who was rescued from the death of the trolls universe by Hussie, takes charge of Ms. Paint and the resurrected Felt, and finds his own way to the Alpha session, planning to take on LOrd English. The pirate crew finds the treasure, which turns out to be a transparent Sburb logo. John, sticking his arm through, discovers that it is a gateway to any point in time and paradox space. He winds up appearing in many events in the story before appearing in the Alpha session. The meteor crew finally arrives in the session, but Jade intercepts them all (except Gamzee) and leaves them divided into pairs on different planets. With the heroes now in her possession, the Condesce forces them to help enact her secret plan: no longer willing to serve LOrd English, she intends to betray him by finishing the B2 session, seizing the Ultimate Reward for herself, and recreating her empire in the new universe with Earth as its new capital. Future With many recurring thematic elements and such a thick, dense plot with so many characters, how the heroes will break free from the cycle of destruction of reality is anyones guess. This is for Laura Hearn
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 00:42:25 +0000