Explaining Complex Homestuck Concepts: Maybe I Know What You Think You Don't Know

[Tirgo]

why do dreambubbles exist and how do they work

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FUCKIN' DREAMS, HOW DO THEY WORK?
AND I DON'T WANNA TALK TO A SCIENTIST
Y'ALL MOTHERFUCKERS LYIN' AND GETTIN' ME PISSED

[Westonbirt]

http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Dream_Bubbles

Explains it quite clearly.

[Azurestorm]

questions~

1. Is all of Sburb just a trap formulated by lord english/doc scratch and winning would not actually give you the "Ultimate Reward", or have they wormed their way into the game and screwed it up in some way? Or can the game be played regularly and if untainted, can yield the "Ultimate Reward"?

2. Do you think Jade will ever face off against Gcat since she's part dog now and the empress controls Gcat? How would that play out?

3. Are we sure about if horrorterrors are good or evil yet, or do they represent the spectrum of gray between the two? Is there any evidence showing that they are for or against the winning of Sburb? If they are against, could it be because Sburb is a trap?

4.Where do the original universes they are from go when they enter Sburb??

[Violet CLM]

it's worth noting that the two sides of the scratch are referred to repeatedly as different universes, not "timelines".

Can you provide some examples of this "repeated" terminology? I have gone hunting on multiple occasions for any evidence that the "two sides of the scratch" are separate universes, and could never find anything to that effect at all. Dr. Scratch was always very careful not to call them that.

[LMLYP]

Can you provide some examples of this "repeated" terminology? I have gone hunting on multiple occasions for any evidence that the "two sides of the scratch" are separate universes, and could never find anything to that effect at all. Dr. Scratch was always very careful not to call them that.

eighty billion years and foUr distinct Universal instances worth of Unfathomable tUrbUlence
imagine two Universes, A and B. now imagine there are two instances of each Universe, A1 and A2 and B1 and B2.
In the new instance of our universe, Earth is just fine.
The 8ook on our universe is closed, 8oth for my instance and yours.

i dont want to argue over semantics but i'm pretty sure each instance of a thing is a separate thing
(iirc andrew has a comp sci degree; he's definitely familiar with "instances of a class" in computer science)

besides, calling B1 and B2 separate "timelines" of B would be mangling the terminology we've already been given
a universe has exactly one alpha timeline, which is exposed to other universes, and a bunch of offshoot timelines which are quarantined and eventually "taper into blackness"; the only way out of an offshoot is pastways
B1 and B2 each have their own alpha timeline and are able to freely communicate with each other
so idk what else you'd call them if not universes

it doesn't seem like they're as "separate" as A and B are. i guess you could call em "parallel" or "coterminous" or something?

1. Is all of Sburb just a trap formulated by lord english/doc scratch and winning would not actually give you the "Ultimate Reward", or have they wormed their way into the game and screwed it up in some way? Or can the game be played regularly and if untainted, can yield the "Ultimate Reward"?

we don't know for sure!!!!!!!!

2. Do you think Jade will ever face off against Gcat since she's part dog now and the empress controls Gcat? How would that play out?

that's a question for the IDE/theory thread (the answer's yes btw, because of foreshadowing)

3. Are we sure about if horrorterrors are good or evil yet, or do they represent the spectrum of gray between the two? Is there any evidence showing that they are for or against the winning of Sburb?

kanaya says they "oppose skaia and your true purpose"; we know skaia represents "creative potential"
rose asked her magic cueball if the gods were evil, and you saw how that turned out
they led rose and dave to the point in time and space where the green sun was kindled
they glubbed the dreambubbles at fef's request
they're arranging, or at least permitting, the meetings between the new heroes and the pre-scratch trolls
aranea says they're using the heroes to "bring closure to unsanctioned loops and restore balance to the cosmos"
that's pretty much all we know about 'em

4.Where do the original universes they are from go when they enter Sburb??

nowhere. the universe and its incipisphere are always *there*
earth existed after the players entered; how else could WV have been commanding john
the incipisphere existed before the players entered; how else could jade have been dreaming on prospit

why do dreambubbles exist and how do they work

the dreambubbles were glubbed by the ineffable city-sized singing squid gods of the furthest ring
dead people seem to be the primary inhabitants of dreambubbles; living people can physically enter them too
if someone dreams without a dreamself, a sort of "dreambubble self" is instantiated for them
dead people from doomed timelines can enter dreambubbles (but i don't think doomed dreamers can)

now i'm gonna use "dreamer" to mean "anyone in a dreambubble" because it's easier
dreamers can converse with "brain ghosts" of people who aren't actually present, formed from the dreamer's own memories of that person. the ghost is only visible to the person who dreams it.

each dreambubble has its own timeline, incomparable with other dreambubbles. that's why aranea has been dead for billions of years yet meenah has only been there a few hours.

the "entry point" of a dreambubble is always a memory, which the dreamers are compelled to act out until they remember where they are
dreambubbles "drift" and intersect through common points in memory
it seems it's possible for dreamers to "spy" on memories that aren't theirs - doomed dave was observing alpha dave, and meenah watched all of A2's history unfold

we don't know whether dreambubbles are only provided for our heroes, or for everyone in paradox space.

[Doom Zero]

http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Dream_Bubbles

Explains it quite clearly.

I am so disappointed in this answer.
That said, I don't have the time to give a better explanation.

i dont want to argue over semantics but i'm pretty sure each instance of a thing is a separate thing
(iirc andrew has a comp sci degree; he's definitely familiar with "instances of a class" in computer science)

besides, calling B1 and B2 separate "timelines" of B would be mangling the terminology we've already been given
a universe has exactly one alpha timeline, which is exposed to other universes, and a bunch of offshoot timelines which are quarantined and eventually "taper into blackness"; the only way out of an offshoot is pastways
B1 and B2 each have their own alpha timeline and are able to freely communicate with each other
so idk what else you'd call them if not universes

it doesn't seem like they're as "separate" as A and B are. i guess you could call em "parallel" or "coterminous" or something?

I'd like to start off by saying that's some mighty fine contribution you just made.

Now, you said that you didn't want to argue semantics but considering that is basically what we're talking about here, I think it's necessary to have some small quantity of semantics discussion.
You're being vague and impartial about it, so that's pretty cool, but I have to dispute what you've said.

So yeah. "Instances" are not separate things. Well, they are, but they're more related than that. A synonym for instance in this context would be version. B1 and B2 are different versions of the universe B. They are linked by origin. They definitely came from the same universe, and I don't know if it's fair to say that both of them are universes themselves. Remember that the scratch changes destinations of portals to create different conditions for a new game. If we assume that to be the extent of the scratch, then it only makes sense that they both came from the same universe. They may have diverged at a very early point in the universe's history, but if you go back far enough in B1 or B2's history, you will see that there is a point where both "universal instances" are one and the same.

Imagine it like a species. Let's say that a species of salamanders lived on the edge of the lake. Over many many years, the population of salamanders split. Some salamanders migrated along one side of the lake and other salamanders migrated along the other side. The salamanders evolve slowly, and keep migrating. When the two populations of salamanders reach the other side of the lake, they find that they cannot mate! This is because they've evolved too differently and each is a separate species now.
That's what B1 and B2 are. They both came from the same place, but now that we've reached the other side of the lake and we can compare the two populations, we find that they're different from each other in a number of ways. They're still salamanders, but they have different traits now, and different physical features.

In other words, they're not individual universes.

[OrangeAipom]

Where do all of the gates above John's house lead to?

[Violet CLM]

http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/The_Seven_Gates

[Mazerunner]

Heyy, sooo, not to be a jerk and toot my own horn and what not, but it looks like I was right about Red Miles, and thus B1 and B2 being the same universe, unless there's a second shitty twist and I'm wrong.

[killerCephalopod]

Here's one that's been killing me: what the hell is up with Sollux? How did he end up half-dead? How many "lives" (bodies) does he have left? Is he currently blind or did that get overwritten when he died?

[Mazerunner]

Here's one that's been killing me: what the hell is up with Sollux? How did he end up half-dead? How many "lives" (bodies) does he have left? Is he currently blind or did that get overwritten when he died?

So I'm actually contributing:

Sollux had three bodies- realself and two dreamselves. Real self died during the Vast Glub, and his Derse self took over as real self. His Prospit dream body was presumably killed offscreen when Jack destroyed the Troll's Prospit. His Derse dream self then went blind and lost his teeth, then died because of psiionic overload when he catapulted the meteor to the Green Sun.

So with that in mind, apparently Sollux's dream bubble self got all messed up- he had an alive body that used to be a dream body, a dead real body and a dead dreamself. Presumably, they got all mixed together so that when his alive body dreamed, it fused or something with one of his dead selves in the dream bubbles, resulting in a half-dead half-alive-but-dreaming self, and then, since it was half-alive, that version of him could leave the dreambubbles.

As for his blindness it looks like the most 'alive' version (the half-alive one), is just blind in one eye (although the other has the blank stare of being dead).

So right now it looks like he's just got his half-alive version chilling at the Green Sun with Aradia, but it's sort of unclear exactly the status of his dead selves, whether they merged or are distinct or something.

[Druplesnubb]

I think it has something to do with how he has a "bifurcated brain". I think that only one half of his brain died so his physical self couldn't keep on anymore yet his dreambubble self wasn't "completely dead" so to speak.

Or it has something to do with his psychic powers. Like how Aradia's dead-speaking powers allowed her to become a ghost.

[Dreamscythes231]

Sorry if I am spamming and I will finish reading all these wonderful explanations later but for now pointing this out.

There can be many session to an original unscratched universe(Ex. John's and The Ancestor session.), the evidence is the various "walktroughs" about SBURB. Meanwhile in a Scratched universe there can be only one( the Condescension deciminated the whole human race to make sure no one else could play and the trolls "programmed" the games themselves with the code in the ruins.It is most likely they didn't share it).

[Druplesnubb]

That's because all the meteors except the ones who switch places only land in the first universe. Thus the the meteors containing the players of any session that doesn't perform a scratch only land in the first uiverse, otherwise they would also get an extra chance without having scratch themselves, which goes against the point of the scratch.

If more than one session performs a scratch in the smae universe, will they both play in the same scratched universe or will they create several different scratched universes?

[Dreamscythes231]

That's because all the meteors except the ones who switch places only land in the first universe. Thus the the meteors containing the players of any session that doesn't perform a scratch only land in the first uiverse, otherwise they would also get an extra chance without having scratch themselves, which goes against the point of the scratch.

If more than one session performs a scratch in the smae universe, will they both play in the same scratched universe or will they create several different scratched universes?

Separate, if there were more than one session on B2 and A2 universe, it defeats the purpose of the restart and would produce an excess of bSlicks.

It is liked that metaphor. In this metaphor, a universe is a frog with thousand of pages. If they didn't succeed,they restart and write on the other side.

[Tenebrais]

why do dreambubbles exist and how do they work

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FUCKIN' DREAMS, HOW DO THEY WORK?
AND I DON'T WANNA TALK TO A SCIENTIST
Y'ALL MOTHERFUCKERS LYIN' AND GETTIN' ME PISSED

Every Incipisphere exists as a 'bubble' of stable spacetime within the Furthest Ring. Universes exist within those bubbles.
When a player (or a player's dreamself) dies, the Gods grant them an afterlife by blowing smaller bubbles of spacetime in which their souls live. In the case of a dreamself, the dream soul lives on in a bubble, and the loose dream-connection from the waking player grants them a separate dream bubble to live in.
With no actual stuff inside them, the dream bubbles play out memories of their owners, who, if they realise it's not real, can mess with those memories. This allows dead and dreaming players to interact, as their bubbles intersect when they share a memory. (Or sometimes even when they don't - see Aranea filling in for Vriska in one of Terezi's bubbles, and wandering into one of Jake's unbidden)
People bodily wandering the Furthest Ring - Aradia, Roxy's dreamself, the two groups of travellers - are free to enter and leave dream bubbles as and when they encounter them.

It's unclear how many of these are inherent properties of the bubbles and how much is given to them by the Gods thanks to Feferi's negotiation. They seem to have control over how the bubbles move around and intersect with each other and wandering players, so a lot of the meetings are probably their doing.

If more than one session performs a scratch in the smae universe, will they both play in the same scratched universe or will they create several different scratched universes?

If the two sessions are independent - ie, they never interact or even know each other - they will probably create the same universe.
Consider that, in universe B, outside the light cone of Earth it's still the same universe. The Scratch affected absolutely nothing and the events happening would all be exactly the same, even if they also happened in B1.

[Dreamscythes231]

each dreambubble has its own timeline, incomparable with other dreambubbles. that's why aranea has been dead for billions of years yet meenah has only been there a few hours.

EDIT:Welp

It is not the dreambubbles themselves that have a different timeline. It is the patch of universe the dreambubbles are on. The Eldritch Space, or The Gap or whatever you like to call the space where the dark gods are, are ina non-linear space time preceding. Only Heroes of Space or Time can maneuver trough there knowledge of there Aspect, and they can't truly and fully go to place to place for the sole reason it is NON-LINEAR .(emphasis not shouting.)

Also it might be provided for everyone in paradox space. If not, then, too bad for them.

Also i think dreambubbles are pure psychic energy that the Horrorterrors need to let out in bubble form.

Also adding to Sollux, we aren't sure if all Heroes of Doom have two dreamselves. I think they do since they are pretty much doomed. But i might be otherwise.

[TittoPaolo210]

There's a question that's been bugging me for a while: in this diagram, we see that in the post scratch version of the universe John and Jade arrived in the early 20th century, eventually becoming poppop to Jane and grandma to Jake, Dave and Roxy in the second half of the 20th century, becoming mom to Roxy and bro to Dirk. At the end of the century came Jake and Jade and about 400 years later Roxy and Dirk arrived...

My doubt is: shouldn't Rose and Dave have arrived around 2400 too to become who they are to the kids? I mean, i know the real relationship between them isn't mom/daughter and bros, but i can hardly call mom or bro someone who lived and died 400 years in the past even if he/she is my relative, and i can't say. So, either something's doesn't fit or when Rose and Dave were killed in the post-scratch universe, they were pretty old.

[Altum]

There's a question that's been bugging me for a while: in this diagram, we see that in the post scratch version of the universe John and Jade arrived in the early 20th century, eventually becoming poppop to Jane and grandma to Jake, Dave and Roxy in the second half of the 20th century, becoming mom to Roxy and bro to Dirk. At the end of the century came Jake and Jade and about 400 years later Roxy and Dirk arrived...

My doubt is: shouldn't Rose and Dave have arrived around 2400 too to become who they are to the kids? I mean, i know the real relationship between them isn't mom/daughter and bros, but i can hardly call mom or bro someone who lived and died 400 years in the past even if he/she is my relative, and i can't say. So, either something's doesn't fit or when Rose and Dave were killed in the post-scratch universe, they were pretty old.

No, Rose and Dave set up the homes for their future-arriving 'offspring' and left records of who they were. Roxy and Dirk think of them as being their 'ancestors,' even though they have never met them, an idea which makes more sense to them because they are living on an Earth that the Condesce tried to turn into Alternia; even though she failed, relics of troll culture abound. Dirk, for instance, takes Roxy to task for using 'old-fashioned' ideas of sexuality. The idea of your ancestor being a person like yourself who you never get to meet but who influences you across history is another of those ideas.

[Dreamscythes231]

There's a question that's been bugging me for a while: in this diagram, we see that in the post scratch version of the universe John and Jade arrived in the early 20th century, eventually becoming poppop to Jane and grandma to Jake, Dave and Roxy in the second half of the 20th century, becoming mom to Roxy and bro to Dirk. At the end of the century came Jake and Jade and about 400 years later Roxy and Dirk arrived...

My doubt is: shouldn't Rose and Dave have arrived around 2400 too to become who they are to the kids? I mean, i know the real relationship between them isn't mom/daughter and bros, but i can hardly call mom or bro someone who lived and died 400 years in the past even if he/she is my relative, and i can't say. So, either something's doesn't fit or when Rose and Dave were killed in the post-scratch universe, they were pretty old.

Add to the above, the reason there relationship with there genetic aren't the same to Roxy and Dirk because it was a weird whim of Skaia. It was the only known instance (to us) of it happening. The reason is unknown though it might be to aid the new session in playing since Roxy and Dirk have uncanny insight in their enemies and how to win.

[Doom Zero]

It is not the dreambubbles themselves that have a different timeline. It is the patch of universe the dreambubbles are on. The Eldritch Space, or The Gap or whatever you like to call the space where the dark gods are, are ina non-linear space time preceding.(1) Only Heroes of Space or Time can maneuver trough there knowledge of there Aspect, and they can't truly and fully go to place to place for the sole reason it is NON-LINEAR .(emphasis not shouting.)

Also it might be provided for everyone in paradox space. If not, then, too bad for them. (2)

Also i think dreambubbles are pure psychic energy that the Horrorterrors need to let out in bubble form. (3)

Also adding to Sollux, we aren't sure if all Heroes of Doom have two dreamselves. I think they do since they are pretty much doomed. But i might be otherwise.(4)

(1) Okay so those two names you just made up aren't canon. I suggest you use Paradox Space or The Furthest Ring to refer to the home of the Horrorterrors. Those are two names we've actually been given which seem to apply. Paradox Space might actually refer to the entire plane of existence that incipispheres are located in, but I think people are likely to associate that term with the space outside of incipispheres. The Furthest Ring is also a term that is generally used to describe that area. Derse exists just outside the Furthest Ring.

(2) I basically have no idea what you're talking about here. Pronouns are fine and all, but if you use the word "it" too much, people tend to forget what you're referring to. Also, you never actually gave us a subject. You never defined what "it" was standing for.

(3) That is a baseless claim and there's no evidence to support it. Please try your best to suggest possibilities that have at least some backing in canon.

(4) Sollux's character was entirely built around the premise of bifurication. Everything about him was doubled. There is no reason to associate two dreamselves to players of the Doom aspect. Your reasoning for this, "they are pretty much doomed," is really quite illogical and I don't really feel like it explains your point at all.

[Tenebrais]

(1) Okay so those two names you just made up aren't canon. I suggest you use Paradox Space or The Furthest Ring to refer to the home of the Horrorterrors. Those are two names we've actually been given which seem to apply. Paradox Space might actually refer to the entire plane of existence that incipispheres are located in, but I think people are likely to associate that term with the space outside of incipispheres. The Furthest Ring is also a term that is generally used to describe that area. Derse exists just outside the Furthest Ring.

I always understood Paradox Space to be a dimensional moniker, akin to "3D Space" or "2D Plane" or some such. But that may just be the mathematician in me speaking.

[Doom Zero]

I always understood Paradox Space to be a dimensional moniker, akin to "3D Space" or "2D Plane" or some such. But that may just be the mathematician in me speaking.

Interesting. I like that thought, but I don't quite think it lines up with what we know.
Or at least, what I think we know. But maybe you don't know what I think I know?

I'm pretty sure it was mentioned somewhere that Paradox Space was capable of sustaining paradoxes, unlike normal space. Or something.
Actually, I guess I have to reconsider that now. Hmm.

Perhaps it's been so long that I've forgotten exactly what ideas in my mind are headcanon and what are real. Hmm.
I guess I'll have to go ctrl+F for mentions of Paradox Space.

[KentVonce]

With regards to the Scratch, there seem to be differences between the Trolls' Scratch and the Kids' Scratch. For one, Rose has stated that the Alpha Kids and their guardians were not to be created within the B2 session but were created in B1 then sent back through the gates to have an offshoot universe, B2, where it would be more favorable to the players. However, Karkat and his group of trolls were the result of a Scratch, and yet Karkat makes them through ectobiology. What would this difference signify?

I always thought that B2 is an offshoot timeline much like how the doomed timelines work except that they're not actually doomed. B1 exists and will be destroyed by Red Miles sometime in the 25th century, possibly 2422. After the Skaia redirected the gates, B2 was created as an offshoot timeline. One of the many possible branches of possibility. Normally, B1 exists in a linear and cyclical state of time. Linear because that which happens stays happened (the meteors destroying Earth and causing the desolate land which the exiles inhabit), cyclical because of the cyclical events of Sburb (Jade's dreamself, the kids, first Guardian, the guardians). This means there is only one possible outcome. The kids WILL be sent back to the times that they were sent back to, Sburb WILL be played, the Reckoning WILL happen. After the Scratch, a second possibility is opened. The kids are sent to different times than they were before. So you now have two Bilious Slicks running in parallel. Each has their own Incipisphere.

Jade and John do not escape through the Furthest Ring, Dave and Rose do. Jade and John travel via the Yellow Yard, the three feet between two fenestrated walls (one for B1's Incipisphere, the other for B2's).

[Doom Zero]

So you now have two Bilious Slicks running in parallel. Each has their own Incipisphere.

Not quite.

http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=006874

Do you see the red miles there, up in the corner? That's most likely Bec Noir's.
That confirms that B2 takes place in the same frog as B1.

//

Also, I don't think the B1 timeline was necessarily destroyed. After all, Jake and Jade are able to communicate between the two timelines. A2 is also able to communicate with B1, even though A2 exists outside of B's timeline, so they theoretically should view the B Universe in its final version. Hypothetically, if B2 were to scratch (and it can't. The only time player in B2 is Dave, and the Beat Mesa was destroyed in the process of scratching B1) and B3 were to scratch, and continue this pattern until B16, where they finally win and stop scratching, the trolls should see B16 while viewing B's timeline. This is because scratches overwrite timelines. They don't destroy timelines, they just overwrite them. If you have the ability, you can communicate with B1.
Remember when Terezi asked Dave to send a preposterous amount of money to her past self? That was to establish a link for the trolls to use. If that link had not occurred, the trolls wouldn't have been able to communicate with B1, or even the B Universe at all.
I think something similar has happened with Jake. The machine he uses in the frog temple probably has established some sort of connection to the B1 Universe.