Chapter Text
Anonymous asked you:
So why did Earth’s education involve kidnapping in sleep? Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait until it reached first contact or something. Tangential to that, why were the kids picked, since the trolls were picked due to their connection to Feferi.
Educating Earth doesn’t become necessary unless and until humans are about to get out of their solar system. If they seemed receptive to incoming aliens providing aid, the goblins would be open to the idea of stepping up the schedule, but it doesn’t take very long to work out humans have some severe reservations about aliens bearing gifts.
The kids are a very trial run, an extremely preliminary evaluation, taking a chance to have a look at a few subjects to get a basic idea for how human minds work, how they think, some idea of how they respond to various tactics, what a human perspective is. They wouldn’t have been taken at all if the troll situation had already arisen, but it hadn’t yet, so the goblins were looking at less urgent matters.
As for why these specific kids… I reserve the right to change my mind and say it is for important authorial handwavey reasons, but right now I’ll say I believe the kids were chosen due to their connection with Jade.
Anonymous asked you:
The trolls and the goblins are at war, right? Who is winning? Is grabbing Gl’bgolyb a desperate attempt to force a ceasefire, or are they simply being pragmatic?
If the goblins were losing, they would have triggered the Vast Glub by now.
(Eridan’s tactical assessment of the situation is pretty accurate. In close combat, the trolls are much better, but the goblins can turn a ship inside out from the other side of a solar system.)
Anonymous asked you:
Whoever’s in charge of her, what are you feeding Gl’bgolyb, or did you grab a bunch of lusii from Alternia? (And where exactly have you put her? Is it safe enough to protect the trolls if she gets loud?) Also, Gl’bgolyb, do you miss Feferi?
Senior technician Il-it: We have been feeding the entity clone-synthesized lusus bodies, as this seems to make it somewhat happier than a nutritionally equivalent plain synthesized diet. The entity is being held in a pocket dimension, and we have detected no response in any trolls to any of its vocalizations in objection to the diet provided. We are somewhat concerned that it has appeared to alter its behavior in response to stress to the troll subject connected to it, as no know psychic connection should span dimensions, but we are confident that its vocalizations are not a threat unless a passage to the pocket dimension is held open.
Gl’bgolyb wishes Feferi were closer, and able to hear her, but has not lost track of her completely.
Anonymous asked you:
Is anyone on Alternia or off it aware that the Trolls have been kidnapped? Also, is Her Imperious Condescension aware that Feferi and Gl’bgolyb have been abducted?
Some of the trolls have neighbors who would have noticed when they vanished in the middle of the day, but alien abduction would not have been their first guess. (Although now I’m imagining Adolescent Troll Fox Mulder who knows the truth and no one will believe him!!!!)
Her Imperious Condescension noticed that something’s off with Gl’bgolyb, but since it’s obviously not the Vast Glub, she’s focusing on the unexpected reversals in the latest invasions instead.
Anonymous asked you: Question, not sure if spoiler. So since the kids were kidnapped and they don’t plan on going on Earth anytime soon. Does that mean that the guardians are still alive on Earth and that evrything there is going on as usual?
Yep, the guardians are alive and most of Earth has no idea anything happened. Bro saw the goblins disappear with Dave, but Mom and Dad just woke up to missing kids and reacted accordingly. Investigation of the kids’ computers led to trying to contact their friends, which led to the discovery their friends were also missing (and where the heck does this Jade kid even live, anyway). Official investigators formed the theory maybe they ran away together? (Much more plausible for Rose and Dave.) Not that it stopped them looking for kids that young, but of course, there were no leads. (There was a “Bro sold them all to human traffickers” theory, but it was dropped due to lack of evidence.)
Dad and Mom, being Dad and Mom, took Bro’s alien abduction story seriously. They’ve been investigating, and Mom may even have found evidence of the goblin ship being in orbit, or at least in the general area of Earth, when the kids disappeared. Dad has more or less moved in with Mom, though he still keeps up the house in Washington just in case John turns up there — a key is hidden in the usual place and there are notes everywhere about how to get in touch with him. (Dad, Mom, and Bro also made the trip to Jade’s island to look for additional clues, but didn’t find anything.) They’re still looking.
Becquerel is stashed in a pocket dimension with all the irradiated steaks he can eat and a population of terrorized rabbits to chase. He’s not uncomfortable or bored, but he misses Jade.
asktheoldentrolls said:
Are the goblins getting any closer to figuring out how to disconnect a pilot without killing him or her?
Yes! In fact, they can do it pretty reliably now.
Unfortunately, disconnected does not necessarily imply rehabilitated. They’re still working on that part. Some of the former helmsmen are doing really well; others… aren’t.
asktheoldentrolls said:
How would they go about trying to rehabilitate a pilot, anyway?
I’m not sure. I don’t think they’ve settled on a protocol they’re completely happy with, either. (All the experimenting has led to some pilots getting better, some getting worse, and a lot getting really fucking confused.)
An anon asked
is there any form of violence that the goblins WOULD deem acceptable?
Self-defense, or defense of others. (How strictly they define self-defense depends on who you’re talking about, of course.) Play-violence which is not intended to do any harm and is agreed to by all parties beforehand is allowable, though they find it distasteful. They’re also more lenient with violence towards inanimate objects and extremely ineffective violence.
For example, someone getting forcibly thrown in a mindfuckacoon would have (figurative) points deducted for not cooperating with the corrective measure, but they wouldn’t lose any additional points for the violence of struggling, because they are understood to be defending themselves.
The brawl is a special circumstance because the Threat Evaluator was about to show up, and the punishment was geared towards cowing everyone immediately rather than being any sort of measured response. Ordinarily, everyone would still have gotten into trouble because it just turned into a general brawl. However, if we break down the actions that were described—
—Vriska would be in trouble because she attacked Eridan with no physical provocation.
—Eridan would not be in trouble for punching Vriska’s implant; he was trying to get her off him.
—Terezi would be in trouble for hitting Eridan when he was trying to retreat.
—Karkat would not be in trouble for trying to separate them, even if he was shoving rather than stepping in between.
—Equius would be in trouble for attacking Karkat (extra trouble because (a) if he was at full strength it would have been potentially lethal, and (b) there’s not even any non-physical provocation).
—Terezi would not be in trouble for hitting Equius if she had stopped after the first hit to see what he would do next, but she didn’t.
—Nepeta would not be in trouble for jumping on Terezi if she had stopped as soon as Terezi was away from Equius, but she didn’t.
—Aradia would not be in trouble for grabbing Equius to get him away from Karkat, if that’s all she did, but it probably wasn’t.
—Kanaya and Feferi would not be in trouble for forcibly separating Vriska and Eridan.
—Gamzee would be in trouble for attacking everyone with pillows in the context of a developing brawl. Hitting people with pillows as part of a play-fight would be acceptable if the targets were amenable.
I think that covers everything before things went completely crazy. (Oh, and if anyone’s wondering, Sollux is the one who got all the utensils taken away by throwing plates at people. For a given value of ‘at’.)
Anonymous asked you:
Have the goblins done something to Gamzee’s brain so that he’s incapable of getting upset, or dwelling on a thought that would make him upset? (Should I know this already?)
Gamzee had psychic surgery in 36-37, in which the goblins “removed his pathology” and “deactivated a receiver”. Karkat commented on Gamzee going blank in 43. He can still get upset, but whenever he’s on a train of thought which would otherwise lead to non-besopored Gamzee getting really MOTHERFUCKING angry (HONK honk HONK) it just… cuts off suddenly, leaving him adrift.
His avoiding dwelling on thoughts which make him upset is purely his own coping strategy, though.
They are still keeping them somewhere on the ship, cared for by a tech who keeps asking why they didn’t put them back in the Alternian ocean when they had the chance. No one has given a satisfactory response.
soulsuckingisaacnewton said:
If Ap-ut gets eaten by a crab lusus and the goblins blame the humans for it that’s gonna get ugly. Also what are they going to do about Bec? This is totally going to end well.
Cut for possible spoilers. Well, the humans didn’t know Bec was going to do that — no one knew Bec was going to do that, or Ap-ut probably wouldn’t have threatened Jade to begin with. (Or, uh, done something it understood almost everyone else would see as threatening, even if it doesn’t.) So it wouldn’t make sense to blame them for that.
And Bec, well. Bec is an unpredictable threat, and more proactively defensive elements of the goblins would like to do something permanent to him. It’s just that they can’t. So instead they have him stashed on this planetoid in this pocket dimension, which he (hopefully, according to theory and evidence thus far) can’t get out of without their help.
…And alas, Ap-ut will be rescued from Crabdad before any lasting damage can be done. It’s in a hell of a lot of professional trouble, though.
fleecy answered your post:
how will supplies be handled for the kids in the relocation? will they be able to request new materials, or expected to be self sufficient?
Supplies will be regularly delivered via the orbital lift. The goblins aren’t expecting them to feed themselves more than a tiny bit from the proposed vegetable garden, plus there’s medical supplies and other things they couldn’t be expected to produce themselves. They’ll be encouraged to try to come up with innovative solutions rather than ask to be given everything they want, but they will be given everything they need.
Ahahahahaha with both Jade and Eridan wanting rifles to practice with, and Equius wanting an archery range, some goblin on the placement team is feeling very generous and pleased with itself for providing them with a spring-powered projectile launcher which shoots soft darts up to twenty meters! …which is to say, it reinvented the nerf gun and is very proud of itself and sure the kids&trolls will be delighted.
Anonymous asked you:
Trolls: have any of you considered trying to split up in your retirement and go to different places?
Aradia: That depends on what you mean by different places. If you mean split off in completely separate, uh, habitats, then no, not seriously. Sending someone off into isolation with no contact with anyone would just be too cruel, even for, well, you know. And it would be unfair to send any one person off alone with a particularly difficult other person—
Terezi: Even Nepeta wants to talk to someone besides Equius now and then—
Aradia: —so you have to divide into small groups, and you’ll end up separating at least a few people who’d actually like to be in contact. We’re making the current setup work, more or less.
Karkat: That said, I was really happy to see the retirement things had enough space everyone wasn’t up each other’s nook all the time. Enough space to fucking avoid each other, that’s what we really need.
Sollux: Hear, hear.
Aradia: …
Anonymous asked you:
I’m really curious about whether or not any of the trolls have thought about ending their “fake” pale relationships once they’re retired. But this is such a large plot point it’ll certainly be addressed, so I worry that I’m just begging for spoilers. Is there any part of the topic you can talk about without rehashing (prehashing?) upcoming material?
I’m not sure the trolls have really had a chance to think very much about it. Everything’s been happening really fast. Even in ‘retirement’, Vriska needs to be wrangled for the well-being of the community. That’s basically what Feferi’s moirallegiance was before. Feferi likes the feeling of doing something important, and Vriska is making an effort to reciprocate, although she’s still not very good at it. Vriska is actually quite keen on the idea of someone who gives her positive attention and stops her doing bad things. Eridan also needs to be wrangled, and neither Karkat nor Kanaya wants to take that on alone. Eridan likes any attention. Gamzee has latched on to the sense of belonging. Tavros and Terezi might split up, or they might decide it would be too awkward being the only pale singletons and continue on as more-or-less moirails. The public pale orgies, however, are probably on the way out.
Anonymous said:
I’m only asking this anonymously because I don’t have my own tumblr account, but I was just wondering… I get why the goblins wouldn’t want retired subjects like the bugbears reproducing given the fact that, in their case, someone would have to die… but if the human kids and/or trolls wanted to one day have children, would the goblins allow that? Also, are they going to put forth those kismesis courtship guidelines that Yn-yk was considering earlier? By the way, I really love this story.
Thanks!
I think if the humans wanted to have children in the future, after they’re at least twenty-five or so and are deemed sufficiently mature, the goblins would still advise against it in the isolated placement, but would acquiesce if the humans persisted.
I don’t know whether it’s possible for trolls to reproduce without the involvement of drones+mother grub, and regardless of the biology I think the trolls are a lot less likely to see having children as a normal thing to do, so — probably not.
Od-ut is almost certainly going to be trying to get infant pixies placed with them in the future, though!
Anonymous asked a question:
Regarding one of the Close Encounters deleted scenes, how exactly does a ghost throw itself out of a ship anyway?
I’m not sure, but if I were a laughssassin trapped with a rush of bored pixie ghosts, I’d be motivated to figure it out, too.
(It’s presumably just mind over matter, the same way they walk through walls but don’t fall through the floor. …I guess.)
Anonymous asked you:
Feferi: are you conchtent to go into retirement and live out your nights (hopefully) in peace with your fellow ex-education-subjects, or do you want to be Empress? Or play some role in integrating your people into the Hegemony, if such would be more desirable or realistic?
Feferi: I don’t know water I want right now. My lusus… I’m taking the goblin medication. Just when it gets really hard to think.
Feferi: I’d still like to try to help my people more, somehow. I’m just not shore how I’d do it now, even if the goblins let me go.
tinyhydra asked you:
Vriska’s new arm is worrying me for some reason. I can’t help but think it is not going to be content with just looking really creepy and gross and is going to actually do something creepy and gross, perhaps at Vriska’s behest? I dunno. It’s skeeving me out, though.
Possible spoilers below— Vriska’s arm is actually creepy and gross in that it is technically a synthetic, symbiotic organism which is maintained by her body and which functions based on signals from her nervous system. Vriska isn’t going to be able to do anything with it but ordinary arm things (and grossing people out). It doesn’t have much of a brain, so it’s not going to go rogue on its own. Things could get (figuratively) sticky if it started following signals from something else, and (literally) sticky if something went wrong and it started growing out of control or trying to spawn miniature baby arms or something, but it’s not supposed to do any of that.
Anonymous asked you:
Is there a special reason Vriska is opposed to the bio-implants besides them being super gross?
Nope. She’s willing to take the arm, even though it is gross and creepy, because she really wants an arm. The idea of the eye was dropped on her without warning. She panicked and reacted inappropriately, as Vriska is wont to do. If the arm works out well, she may be willing to give the eye a second chance, but it isn’t as high a priority unless they’ve actually come up with a Vision Eightfold one (they haven’t).
Anonymous asked you:
Vriska- The current eye socket-imbedded power-suppressing machine thing you got going on makes for a really obvious weak spot, doesn’t it? You aren’t really much of a threat with it on, in a brawl at least, even with your brand new arm, not when one punch to the face can take you down. So, I guess what I’m asking is, wouldn’t getting an organic eye make it a little harder for people to punch you in the brain, even if it is weird and gross?
Vriska: …Yeah.
Vriska: I’d be a lot more worried about it if we were going back to Alternia.
Vriska: The thing is, uh…
Vriska: I’m… I’m not saying I shouldn’t have my powers, but I think makes some people feel a lot more comfortable when I can’t use them, and as laaaaaaaame as it is, since we’re all going to be living together, it’s better we’re all comfortable, right? It’s not like I need powers in weird goblin retirement-land!
Anonymous asked you:
Vriska- So if the goblins could make you an eye with the same or similar suppressive effects, or do the whatever that they did to Tavros and Aradia to cripple their powers, would you take it, or do you think it’s necessary to the people you’re trying to avoid upsetting that there’s a big, obvious, painful looking machine sticking out of your face? I mean, is it important to you that the thing be debilitating in ways outside the shutting down of your powers?
Vriska: What?! No!
Vriska: And it isn’t debilitating, I am not debilitated, and I would have done fine in the brawl if fishface hadn’t cheated.
Vriska: It doesn’t hurt at all if you don’t jar it.
Vriska: Okay, yeah, some sort of internal thing and no big… thing in my eye socket would be better! But that doesn’t mean I need a weird goblin substitute eyeball, either! Would you want a weird alien eyeball attached directly to your brain?
Yn-yk: The implant does present a possible entry point for infection, so we will be prompting her to make some sort of decision regarding a replacement.
leporidsandphalluses answered your post:
Aradia, you mentioned that when you were little highblood ghosts would try to make you do things. What kinds of things? Why you specifically?
Aradia: Well, it wasn’t really me specifically — I think they would have tried the same thing with anyone else who could have heard them. Some of them I’m pretty sure did.
Aradia: As for what they wanted, it was a mix. Some of them just wanted any lowblood to do what they said, but couldn’t come up with any substantial orders. Others wanted their deaths avenged, or some important task finished — some task they saw as important, at least. The saddest ones were the ones who wanted a message carried to a quadrant, who didn’t seem to realize how long it had been, and that their quadrant had to be dead, too.
Anonymous asked you:
Yn-yk: What is your endgame for moirallegiance? You’re obviously comfortable pressuring the trolls to violate traditional boundaries, so do you intend to keep going until the concept effectively disintegrates into more human/goblin-style friendships/support systems, or push pale relationships to evolve until they stabilize into a form that engenders the higher emotions, or what?
Yn-yk: The trolls have been taught that the higher emotions are only appropriate in quadrant relationships — especially pale, but there are some in the flushed and ashen quadrants and even a few in the pitch. In the long term, they should be free to choose their own romantic relationships, and do not need to have any at all. Their current emphasis on public pale relationships is a useful shortcut toward regular, open expression of higher emotions.
(A lot of what the trolls think the goblins said about moirallegiance, the goblins never actually said; the trolls drew their own conclusions from the goblins’ extremely confusing signals. Obviously the goblins are cool with the pale orgy outcome, but they didn’t think they were demanding it.)
Anonymous asked you:
Yn-yk: If the trolls are still in your charge when they’re old enough that you won’t automatically drop the hammer on any blackrom, how will you handle it?
Yn-yk: *cringe* Call an expert and hide on the other end of the ship.
Yn-yk: Seriously, I hope that by that time there will be experts on troll reproductive needs. Were I in charge of it… we would have to set boundaries beforehand — with respect to the degree of violence permitted — and establish a procedure for declaring one’s intentions, to distinguish it from other activities. It would limit spontaneity, which I understand some individuals value highly, but I don’t think a little more planning would really hurt.
Anonymous asked you:
Seeing that Jade’s Grandpa would not have gotten killed by Tavros controlling Bec in your Fourth Kind AU, what DID happen to Grandpa? And for that matter what happened to John’s Nanna, assuming the reckoning didn’t happen?
Uh…
Uhhhhh…
Look! It’s a seagull stealing an ice cream cone!
They were born in 1910, that’s pretty old by 2009 — and there are all sorts of possible accidental deaths. The problem is, Grandpa’s entire life makes absolutely no sense in a Game-less world, and I think — like how Terezi got Vriska’s eye and arm — I’m going to hand-wave it.
Or maybe the goblins’ wormholes are capable of slurping up doomed timelines and incorporating them into their own universe? Yeah, let’s go with that.
stanzicapparatireplayers said:
Re: Grandpa and Nanna - they were both very old (they were born/their meteors landed in the 1900s), so it’s entirely possible that they just died of old age (or reasons related to that) rather than anything inherently malign. At the point when we see Tavros oops Grandpa Harley, he’s probably well over a hundred years old.
Meteors landed ~1910, Grandpa died ca. 2000, so “only” about ninety — but yeah, there’s all sorts of non-Tavros-related reasons he could have died. That’s the least of the Grandpa problems. Where’s that seagull-stealing-an-ice-cream-cone picture…