The Medium Has Your Soul: Why Sburb is irredemably Evil (and what to do about it)

[CSJ]

The Universe as you know it will die.

Everything you have known for your entire existence until now will perish in a mass of bolide impacts, bringing with it a conflagration which will eventually consume the entire planet. Your family was murdered. Your town has been reduced to a fiery inferno. Every tree, every green blade of grass, every insect, every animal; be it a dog, cat, bird, horse... every single living organism as you know it is about to perish, except you. and even then, you cannot guarantee your own survival, let alone that you will ever be the same as a that foolhardy, naive individual that unknowingly chose to resign themselves to such a fate.
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Consider this;

Sburb and Sgrub are like a virus; as a superimposed plane of existence, both seemingly destroy the host planet/galaxy/universe in which it is located, before passing onto a new host, with the new session experiencing the same loss and the same tragedy as the one that preceded.

... That's the basic gist. If Sburb is construed as being evil (for whatever reason), how can one 'win' Sburb - if 'winning' leads to the perpetuation of the game under a new banner? If such is the case, how can you 'lose'? Is is possible to end the game?

If anyone wants to explore this concept in more depth, feel free to do so - and apologies in advance if threads on a similar tangent have appeared before. My bad.

> DISCUSS.

[Dertdood]

Duhh you win by creating a universe where nobody plays it

[CSJ]

Duhh you win by creating a universe where nobody plays it

Given the amount of coercion that goes on on multiple levels to ensure that there are players one way or another, this seems to be easier said than done. We know that three sets of sessions have existed thus far; the kid sessions, troll sessions and the session preceding the trolls. It is possible that the game has been played for millennia without ever reaching a conclusion.

WE HAVE TO WARN EVERYONE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

[Quirk]

Imma gonna quote myself from several months past, and why I think the "Skaia is evil and determinist and bluh bluh no choice bluh" camp is bunk.

Am I the only one who thinks Homestuck is actually positive? Hm.

So here's how I see it.

Derse is the Evil Empire, Prospit is the Good Kingdom. As per the Law of Narrtive Causality, Derse is destined to conquer Prospit.

But then we add the heroes. In order to win the game, they must ally with the losing side, defeat the Dersite monarchs, topple the Evil Empire, and birth Bilious Slick. Derse loses and the heroes win.

Also, remember that Skaia is the font of unlimited imagination. In that sense, it is both story and storyteller. And what sort of storyteller tells a comedramatic coming-of-age creation epic where the heroes don't win? Not a very good storyteller, I tell you.

It doesn't matter if Derse is destined to win. The kids will win in the end, as they have in every one of the billions and trillions of sessions before, because that is the way the story goes.

All the nihilism and predestination serves a point, though: the victory's hardly satisfying if the odds aren't stacked in the opposition's favor. I'm remined of a show I once watched, where the villain was so powerful that there was literally a non-existance of any probability of the heroes winning. Nothing but absolute despair as far as you can see.

And the heroes' response?

Fuck destiny. Then they beat the stuffing out of the villain.
tl:dr -

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Homestuck is Gurren Lagann. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Basically, Skaia destroys everything because it's telling a story, and that's how the story goes.

You win SBURB by creating a new universe, and then you watch it grow. You know what'll happen, but you enjoy it for the beauty and goodness that it has in what time it has.

[Wessolf27]

I think of it as a natural cycle. In order that universes may be able to continually exist, the SBURB games would have to be played so that a new universe may be created in the wake of the old one. After all, ever heard of the theory of universes? It's been said that this universe in particular might experience a Universal Heat Death within a few trillion years. Which means that all matter will eventually slow down and inertia will take over, everything will just come to a stand still, and everything in the universe would break down into the tiniest particles in order to still be able to exist.

If I had a choice of being able to play SBURB (at the very least as a final resort) and facing the heat death of the universe (which to be honest, is way outside our lifetimes) I'd rather pick the former.

[CSJ]

So here's how I see it.

Derse is the Evil Empire, Prospit is the Good Kingdom. As per the Law of Narrtive Causality, Derse is destined to conquer Prospit.

But then we add the heroes. In order to win the game, they must ally with the losing side, defeat the Dersite monarchs, topple the Evil Empire, and birth Bilious Slick. Derse loses and the heroes win.

This of course, assumes based on the silly chromatic conventions of western society that black is 'bad' and 'white' is good, along with the assumption that the destruction of Skaia is a bad thing of itself. If all these events are programmed into the game as part of its story, then the game is designed to eliminate everything from 'reality' other than the players.

Also, remember that Skaia is the font of unlimited imagination. In that sense, it is both story and storyteller. And what sort of storyteller tells a comedramatic coming-of-age creation epic where the heroes don't win? Not a very good storyteller, I tell you.

Assuming you can trust the storyteller's interpretation of events, that is. There is no rationale for the game to portray itself as being outwardly evil, as this would hinder its chances at self-propagation. It would rather do everything in its power to develop a narrative that would make the participants think they are the heroes and are going to save the world, etc - as paranoid as it sounds.

It doesn't matter if Derse is destined to win. The kids will win in the end, as they have in every one of the billions and trillions of sessions before, because that is the way the story goes.

All the nihilism and predestination serves a point, though: the victory's hardly satisfying if the odds aren't stacked in the opposition's favor. I'm remined of a show I once watched, where the villain was so powerful that there was literally a non-existance of any probability of the heroes winning. Nothing but absolute despair as far as you can see.

And yet, those odds are false. If the game cannot be lost, the the game has only one outcome and thus, there is no chance, no actual 'risk' of losing. The only apparent difference is the outcome one leaves for the next batch of victims players.

And of course, in sowing the seeds of the next session, you are setting in motion the process of the creation and destruction of a unique civilization/whatever else, leading one to beg the question the morality of creating something just to watch it die. Given the suffering that will occur as long as the universe you have spawned exists, would not this process be unjust?

*wishes he was a better philosopher and could do this discussion justice*

[Wessolf27]

Could you really apply justice to something that might very well be a natural mechanism for the continuous propagation of universes? I don't believe that the game itself can be moral or immoral, rather, I find the whole thing to be rather amoral as it does not have any sort of values to speak of except for the continuous preservation of universes.

[Quirk]

And yet, those odds are false. If the game cannot be lost, the the game has only one outcome and thus, there is no chance, no actual 'risk' of losing. The only apparent difference is the outcome one leaves for the next batch of victims players.

And of course, in sowing the seeds of the next session, you are setting in motion the process of the creation and destruction of a unique civilization/whatever else, leading one to beg the question the morality of creating something just to watch it die. Given the suffering that will occur as long as the universe you have spawned exists, would not this process be unjust?

*wishes he was a better philosopher and could do this discussion justice*

For the first paragraph, of course the odds are false. It's a video game. No one will play an unbeatable video game more than once.

As for the second...

Everything dies eventually. Suffering will always exist, but it is death and suffering that makes you human. To know death and suffering allows you to know and appreciate life and joy. You may only be a flickering candle in the abyss, destined to turn into little more than an retinal afterimage, but despite that, just think of how wonderful that flame is for having existed at all. Beauty in its smallness, in its impermanence, worth in its humbleness. Eventually Homestuck will no longer exist, but that doesn't mean that it didn't mean something to us, here.

The destination does not matter. The journey does, what happens to you along the way. Skaia continues this cycle to facilitate the greatest story of all: the story of being a human being.

Just so you know, my personal philosphy is based on three things 1) Romanticism is awesome 2) Life is worth something, and 3) Fuck philosophy.

EDIT @ Wessolf27 - I also see Skaia as Pure Neutral (a natural system), though I lean a bit towards benevolence (everyone got a reasonably happy afterlife)

[Wessolf27]

@Quirk: Heh, be careful about giving the finger on Philosophy, not everything there is nihilistic. Much of the discussion is really on the idea of a person, and growth.

Anyway, yes I agree, suffering will always exist for us to be able to learn and to appreciate what life has to offer. And sometimes the only way to grow is to experience strife and to learn, and grow from the hardships and grievances ahead. After all, it's only when you get out of your comfort zone and really experience the strange world around us that we are able to grow. SBURB does the same for its heroes, and does the same for the worlds that it creates.

[Quirk]

@Quirk: Heh, be careful about giving the finger on Philosophy, not everything there is nihilistic. Much of the discussion is really on the idea of a person, and growth.

Don't worry, I make the distinction. Philosophy has three main branches: bullshit, common sense, and profound insight, rated from most common to rarest. I meant "fuck nihilism", but in general I think a lot of philosophy is really, really silly.

[zyborg]

Huh. I thought the incoming threat of the world's destruction caused the appearance of Sburb, not the other way around. That there is a system to destroy planets, and that Sburb/Sgrub was created to somewhat counter it. Like, the destruction of the planet is inevitable, but you are given a chance to survive and create through the "game". But I could be completely wrong.

[Quirk]

Huh. I thought the incoming threat of the world's destruction caused the appearance of Sburb, not the other way around. That there is a system to destroy planets, and that Sburb/Sgrub was created to somewhat counter it. Like, the destruction of the planet is inevitable, but you are given a chance to survive and create through the "game". But I could be completely wrong.

The meteors come through Skaia, so not really.

But as far as the end of the world goes, what about the Exiles? We've seen a messed up session, where the original universe is destroyed, but if the Exiles are a part of the game, as I believe they are, then Skaia has a system in place to rebuild what has been destoyed, if the players don't screw eveything up like they did here.

[Wessolf27]

@Quirk: Heh, be careful about giving the finger on Philosophy, not everything there is nihilistic. Much of the discussion is really on the idea of a person, and growth.

Don't worry, I make the distinction. Philosophy has three main branches: bullshit, common sense, and profound insight, rated from most common to rarest. I meant "fuck nihilism", but in general I think a lot of philosophy is really, really silly.

Fair enough, I sorta prefer the phenomenological approach to philosophy, to be able to separate your common experiences and analyze them with a rational degree based on personal experience and understanding, but that's another topic entirely, and this discussion would probably derail the thread.

[dragonpaul99]

If the price of several billion years worth of life and evolution is that an incredibly small percent die a quick and relatively painless death, then I think that seems more than fair.

[Aranfan]

I would like to point out that the universe doesn't actually seem to end after each game. Sure, it did in the Troll and Human sessions, but that had to do with Snowman shenanigans and Karkat giving the universe cancer. If Bilious Slick were healthy, then what would prevent it from living until it died of old age several hundred trillion years down the line? Also, it seemd in the troll session that life survived the reckoning considering the supermarket during the intermission that Diamonds Droog got punched into.

That said, it is entirely possible to spin Derse as the good guys fighting to end the cycle of destruction, instead of bad guys fighting to end the cycle of creation.

[Unclever title]

Yeah it seems that grand universe destructions are not the norm making the end result of the kids' and trolls' universes atypical.

So basically it's more like an entire universe (Or multiple universes, remember the gamefaqs thing and how Rose read several other players' poorly worded attempts to play sburb? That never stopped being a thing that happened. What if instead they had all been successful?) being born at the expense of a single planet/intelligent species.

Thus a single universe can spawn any number of universes depending on how many intelligent civilizations arise and become technologically capable enough to produce Sburb.

The game represents a universe as a frog for a reason.

In Homestuck canon it seems like each universe acts like an organism, each sburb session is one of it's eggs. Intelligent civilizations are reproductive organs with the most successful representatives of the society succeeding in fertilization. Fertilization is entry into the medium, a large egg centered around skaia.

To incentivize these players to complete the process they are given the reward of continued existence in the new universe, as gods no less, should they be successful. The players are given challenges to ensure their maturation to godhood so that they can be helpful stewards of the next universe and the civilizations that arise therein.

The players create the next universe and nurture it, ensuring the perpetuation of existence.

It's not about good and evil. It's about creation and destruction. Order and entropy. It's survival of the fittest, evolution among a race of universes.

In short, no, Sburb and Skaia do not have your best interests at heart, they are concerned about much bigger things than any one individual or species. However, Skaia does look closely at certain chosen heroes as they pass the test to entry in the medium, they are ones to ensure the progeny of this universe as such Skaia wants them to succeed and wants to reward them.

The death of one's planet is a result of the nature of cosmic biology, not necessarily evil.

[Atarlost]

If the price of several billion years worth of life and evolution is that an incredibly small percent die a quick and relatively painless death, then I think that seems more than fair.

If you assume that only sapients count it's not a small percent. The people on earth alive today are a significant fraction of the four dimensional global population to date. Sburb requires technological society to execute, but requires an upper limit on that technology for the meteors to be successfully delivered so it can't arrive too far into the negative population growth phase.

If you count nonsapient animals as having equal moral weight to sapients I have nothing to say to you.

[Aranfan]

I would also like to point out that, according to the chess parallels, Prospit is the aggressor in their war with Derse.

[FFWF]

It's just the natural cycle of life and death played out on a particularly grand and elaborate stage. One may as well attack the existence of death as the existence of Sburb. In addition, given that universes can be destroyed, and by forces external to a natural game of Sburb, it seems to me that Sburb is the sole barrier against the nullification of all existence.

[dragonpaul99]

If the price of several billion years worth of life and evolution is that an incredibly small percent die a quick and relatively painless death, then I think that seems more than fair.

If you assume that only sapients count it's not a small percent. The people on earth alive today are a significant fraction of the four dimensional global population to date. Sburb requires technological society to execute, but requires an upper limit on that technology for the meteors to be successfully delivered so it can't arrive too far into the negative population growth phase.

If you count nonsapient animals as having equal moral weight to sapients I have nothing to say to you.

Alright then, for the sake of argument, let's just ignore every other being that has ever lived on the planet before the current generation, sentient or otherwise. How many of those people do you think would chose "living for awhile and then dying" over "never existing at all"? I'd say "most of them" would not be an entirely unreasonable guess.

[Atarlost]

Alright then, for the sake of argument, let's just ignore every other being that has ever lived on the planet before the current generation, sentient or otherwise. How many of those people do you think would chose "living for awhile and then dying" over "never existing at all"? I'd say "most of them" would not be an entirely unreasonable guess.

That's exactly the wrong question. No paradoxes are created by a universe created by sburb not producing its own sburb session. Conceptually excising the sburb timeloops does not unmake the universe or make it not support life. All it does is remove the first guardian and frog temple.

[Quirk]

I beg to differ. A more appropriate question: Give up the ability to reproduce or see the death of your peers? Not that there's any sense in decimating an whole planet to make the game possible. The players aren't from there, anyway. Why those meteors couldn't be diverted to any other corner of the universe? Any process that practices this horror ad infinitum, without evolving or searching for answers out of it, doesn't deserve to exist. What? Me and my civilization can die, but not the universe? If I couldn't control it, I would choose the nullification of existence.

But it's only your civilization that's being destroyed. The universe left behind in a standard session is filled with them, most likely. the Vast Glub killed all the trolls, but what about all the other aliens in their galaxy? Perhaps they would pop out of the trenches to see that their enemy had all fallen dead, and then moved on to create a galactic civilization of peace and prosperity from the ashes of the Alternians.

And then we get the Exiles, and the fact that they rebuild from the remains of the killed civilization.

The cost is one planet out of trillions to create trillions more. The ending of one story to found a library. A small price for the greatest gain.

As the antimotivational poster goes: Sometimes your only purpose is to serve as a warning to others.

And as our good friend Edward Elric is fond of saying, "Teachings that do not speak of pain have no meaning...because humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return."

You say that something that requires that much sacrifice needs to perish. i disagree, because without sacrifice, it is worth nothing. Maybe you can enjoy living in a universe without worth, but I can't and won't.

[Quirk]

I'll say more. If the sacrifice needed is the meaningless and without consent suffering or death of even "only" one sentient being, then I desire the nullification of all existence. By that I mean the destruction of any universe, dimension, reality or whatever, including disabling the reformation of them and the formation of anything new. Complete annihilation.

You would rather the end of everything rather than pain? Sorry, but that seems weak to me, almost spineless. "Oh, the universe is tough and not fair, I wish it would just go away." Please. Chin in, chest out, show those scars. You can't afford to run, you have to face it head on. I see your position as the priveliged white emo teenager of philosophy. Sorry to say, but that is the truth.

Suffering exists. Get over it. Things happen they way they happen and that's the way it is.

I think it'd help to mention that I write for the SCP Foundation. The idea of "do what is necessary to prevent the end of everything" is a running theme.

If everything is worth because of itself, how can you say that you would prefer the universe to be null and that certain people deserve to be dead? By virtue of their own existance they have worth, and should therefore exist.

I just hate any author who considers himself above what he creates, who thinks he has control over everything. This kind of author is a shame for all stories and storytellers.

Well then, pile your hate on me. I write, and I am in control. I control everything. Each point of plot, every event of history, each little quirk of character and detail of setting is mine, whether through spontaneous inspiration or planned action (of course, in cooperative writing, it belongs to all involved). I don't have to break the fourth wall to exert it: I exert my control by very nature of writing it. I saw this attitude during NaNo, and nothing infuriated me more. Quite frankly, I can't stand those authors who talk as if they weren't in control, as if the characters were writing the story.

It seems sir, that we are at an impasse. What say you we drop it as it stands to prevent incoming shitstorm?

[Oblivion]

I just hate any author who considers himself above what he creates, who thinks he has control over everything. This kind of author is a shame for all stories and storytellers.

Well then, pile your hate on me. I write, and I am in control. I control everything. Each point of plot, every event of history, each little quirk of character and detail of setting is mine, whether through spontaneous inspiration or planned action (of course, in cooperative writing, it belongs to all involved). I don't have to break the fourth wall to exert it: I exert my control by very nature of writing it. I saw this attitude during NaNo, and nothing infuriated me more. Quite frankly, I can't stand those authors who talk as if they weren't in control, as if the characters were writing the story.

I as well. Come at me bro.

[Oblivion]

Well then, pile your hate on me.

What's wrong with you? No need to take it personal.

I need to explain things like "ass pull", "out of character" and "Giant Space Flea from Nowhere"? Unless you want to make a bad story, you just don't have control over everything.

That's not the same as "not having control". That's using your control poorly, and making mistakes.

And it's kind of hard to NOT take it personally when you basically said "people who fit this description are a shame to all others who share their field". That's a slap in the face, no matter how you shake it.