AU Idea- Mutated Alternia

A friend and I came up with this AU quite some time ago, and used it only once in a one-on-one RP. I've gone over and tweaked and added some things, and I think it would be a lot of fun to do here. uvu

I'm a little hesitant opening it up to anyone and everyone, because I know there are people out there that can easily mess things up and make it much less fun for everyone else. So, here are some things I would like to add as a precaution:

Rules

1) I would like it if posts are two paragraphs or longer (meaning three sentences each), but just doing five sentences in one paragraph or some variation of that is fine. I know this can be a pain, but it makes for a much more well thought-out roleplay, and adds a lot of character development, too. Also, I won't get mad at you if it's a little bit shorter than that. Just try to stay close to it, yeah?

2) Canons and OCs are cool, but we should figure out canons beforehand so we don't have several of the same character. (I plan on playing Karkat because reasons.) See the list (bottom) for available canons.

3) If you could shoot me a message or comment on this topic beforehand with a link to your character profile (unless it is canon, in which case I would adore you forever if you messaged me about that or somefin), that would be incredibly helpful. Also, you should figure out before the fact where your character is, what they are doing (and why) and how the world has affected/changed them. They are obviously not going to be hanging out with friends in a fully-functioning hive with wifi and cable and a refrigerator that actually keeps things cold.

4) Please, please, for the love of everything good in the world please make an effort to do decently in this. You don't have to be such an amazing roleplayer that the gods throw themselves from the heavens to bow at your feet and record your sacred words in sacred notebooks, but you should be making an effort to type thoughtful posts, and make sure you are in character and making your character act like a normal being might in a situation like the one presented. This is an AU I've worked on and sat on and worked on some more over the course of almost a year now. Maybe not constantly, but I love this thing, and I want it to not go to complete shit.

5) I'm gonna go ahead and say that ships can sail; however, you need express permission from the other part(s) of the ship, and you need to be smart about it. Don't make Gamzee get with Aradia because "he thought she was pretty", that's bullshit. Keep somewhat in-character in the sense that the affect of the chemical can have a part to play in it (obviously, if your character is going to have some wonky personality changes, which they probably will) and make sure there is some kind of actual reasoning behind it beyond "They look cute together !!!"

ALSO YES I RECOGNIZE THAT WE ARE NOT PLAYING CANONS WE HAVE BEEN APPROVED FOR. THIS IS BECAUSE THIS ROLEPLAY IS GOING IN THE FREE CANON SECTION THEREFORE CANONS. THIS HAS BEEN A PSA.

That's about it. Everything else is just regular forum rules, obviously. All I'm asking is that you cooperate a little bit in helping me make this as fantastic as possible uvu I want this to be fun and interesting.


Mutated Alternia

Before the Alternian trolls had the chance to discover or play Sgrub, the highbloods decided to wage war upon the lowbloods. An undersea lab (accessible only by or through the help of a seadweller) tested and developed a gas which, when released, was designed to affect only those with blood cerulean and below (the cure for it, in case anything was to go wrong for the highbloods, was kept recorded with instructions on how to make it on several stacks of coded papers in the back of the lab). The gas was released in large bombs planted a few feet underground, with a sphere of influence roughly five miles across. Of course, some of these were faulty, and failed to go off at all.
The aim was to kill as many mid- and lowbloods as possible, but the wide range of blood colors caused a fault; some were merely mutated. This, too, varied. Some were left mindless monsters, and some were left mostly unscathed but for a few minor affects, or none at all. Over time, all of those affected at all would descend into a madness that left but one emotion in them: hate. They knew seadweller from landweller, and survivor from mutant. They were not kind to their own, but they wished death upon seadwellers and survivors alike, and were not afraid to inflict it themselves.
This left the landwelling highbloods in danger, and small battles broke out everywhere; some seadwellers even attempted to help their highblooded brethren. The position on land soon grew too precarious, though, and most fled to the sea.
Three sweeps later, most have died or descended into madness. Some have managed to keep alive, however. These trolls live in wilderness, abandoned hives, or elsewhere, trying to sustain themselves on the land or the remains of civilization. Some have gone mad in solitude, some have begun to feel the affects of residual gas in them that they did not know was there initially. First, in small, scattered periods of amnesia and alarm, and then in a slow taking over of hateful insanity.
Now, the Condescension's ships return with drones and recruiters, and the remaining survivors must find a way to hide, mate, or join the royal militia. The scramble for survival must begin again.

(The ultimate goal and plot is still being decided. See the list below and the comments.)

The Chemical

The chemical, as I conceived it, is intended to effectively break down the brain through the blood. There are pigments in the blood that change the color of it, giving us the hemospectrum. (This links up to the brain, too, as is evident in the case of highbloods; they tend to be much less mentally stable than lowbloods.) Basically, the way it works is it is effectively "programmed" to infect everyone, but be "activated" only in trolls without blue blood pigments. This excludes the empress and heiress, though, so now we must factor in red. But because red is also present in lowbloods, you have to make sure they seek out yellow hues to the point of overpowering the red. This means that blue and plain red are safe, as well as every color in-between. Now we have an interesting position with tealbloods, as they have yellow pigment as well as blue pigment (because green). This makes them something of a wild card; the affect of the chemical on them can range in severity and time.
Once activated, the chemical should deprive the blood of oxygen, effectively suffocating the troll from the inside. Now we get to the interesting part.
Color is a wide range. It's not just a circle, but a sphere. There are so many different colors that it makes this sort of engineering near impossible, which is why we come to the varied effects of the chemical.
I suppose you're right in the idea that it could affect trolls in more ways than just the mindless hatred, as the main cause of the chemical is the deprivation of oxygen in the blood. Let's widen the range of mental effects, as this could definitely affect a brain in many ways, depending on how much oxygen is lost, how well the brain recovers, and what parts are affected before/if the body manages to fight it off.
The main effect though, I think, would be that all parts are targeted. The highbloods don't want angry violence-machines walking around with the intention of finding one of them to collect their heads; however, for the sake of the RP, let's say that they made a mistake in the process and left the emotional part of the brain largely untouched, while scraping away every other part, including the bit that controls what emotions one feels (I know, I know, Firefly). So now we're left with balls of uncontrolled emotion. Now, they probably aren't looking for happy pale relationships with as many others as possible, but instead for a lot of revenge. They might attack each other, yes, but I think seadwellers, being visibly different and highblooded, would be their main target. It's plausible they would go after anyone wearing anything of a high color, too.
Okay, now mutants. Specifically Karkat.
For blood to have a mutation, it must also have a base color. Mutations change a gene linked to a certain phenotype, in this case, blood color. So Karkat probably still has some confusing genes in him that say he should be a lime blood (assuming the lime blood theory is correct), though he's really redblooded. So in this case, how does the chemical affect him? Again for the sake of the RP and my own personal plan for Karkat, let's say they get really frick-fracken confused. He has yellow, but he also has blue, and red. We'll say he's a wildcard, but still susceptible to the common fate of death and/or madness.


Some extra details/specifications:

1. The most influential factor in the effect of the chemical on trolls is if they are within the range of a bomb itself, and how close to the epicenter they are; however, Those lowest on the hemospectrum are usually  killed immediately if they are even close to the range, and those above teal are affected very little, if at all. Seadwellers are not affected at all. Mutants vary, as their blood is so different, and entirely out of the control of the highbloods. They could be killed, physically affected, entirely fine, touched just a little bit, the madness could be slowed or paused or sped up... a lot of things.
   
   
2. The bombs are not destructive. They are basically underground containers that push the gas up and out with a sudden force strong enough to spread it out over a five-mile radius in a relatively quick fashion. Some dirt might be displaced, maybe some stuff is flung, but it's not a full-force nuclear explosion or anything.
   
   
3. The gas does not have any kind of color or scent. If it's going to affect someone, they won't know about it.
   
   
4. The gas can stay dormant for long periods of time. It will affect different trolls at different rates. This can also correlate with blood color, dosage, and other things.
   
   
5. Some bombs did not go off at the same time that every other did, and may or may not go off later in the timeline/RP if they are triggered by lots of pressure or something else.
   
   The list (Courtesy of maieuticEpimenides)
   
   CURRENT PARTICIPANTS/CHARACTERS
   
   CANONS:
   
   Aradia Megido - maieuticEpimenides
   Tavros Nitram -
   Sollux Captor - (reserved for now)
   Karkat Vantas - ActuallyFace
   Nepeta Leijon - sleeplessCartoonist
   Kanaya Maryam -
   Terezi Pyrope - GnomeCat
   Vriska Serket - bibliophileGamer
   Equius Zahhak -
   Gamzee Makara -
   Eridan Ampora - (reserved for now)
   Feferi Peixes - maieuticEpimenides
   
   Her Imperious Condescension/The Condesce - ActuallyFace
   The Helmsman -
   
   OCS:
   
   Aquila Vulpec - bibliophileGamer
   Benign Cavant (maybe) - UnknownStudy
   Voltik Dushil (I think) - fartymuckmuddydoL
   
   POSSIBLE PARTICIPANTS:
   
   Unknown Study: Benign Cavant [OC]
   
   ADDITIONAL NOTES:
   
   [list]
   
6. This AU is free-canon, meaning that anyone can play any canon character!
   
7. Current contents of ActuallyFace's Just-In-Case Conveniently Stylish Hip Pouch (JICCSHP) include a bomb, presumably sweeps late to the insanity party, going off as a result of troll foot pressure.
   

RP will begin as the Condesce returns with drones/recruiters. Feferi will also be coming out of previous isolation to begin trying to rebuild Alternia.

AU begins just before the trolls decide to play SGRUB.

ULTIMATE GOAL: TBD

I'mma level with you, this is probably getting looked over because of the two paragraph thing, thats why I did at least.

Hey

Just saying. You have to apply for the Karkat canon before tou can rp him

He was planning on posting in the free canon section, we spoke in the chat

TheChaotic1- Maybe it would be better if I just said dive sentences or something... For the most part I don't mind much, though? I'm gonna sound really frick-fracken snoody here, and I apologize for that, but I've roleplayed with a lot of people, and while it is absolutely true that the length of post does not always correlate with how good it or the roleplayer is, there is a general connection. And I've been spoiled by good RP partners, and I'm not asking anyone to do as well as someone with thirteen years of experience (because that is crazy and that lady is just... how do I put that into words? not everyone is that) I want to be interested in this and I want others to be interested in this and bad roleplayers exists, it's true, and a safety net is a good thing.
I don't want to offend anyone or discourage people form trying and improving, especially because everyone has room for improvement, including and especially me, but this is meant to be a higher-level thing to some degree.

avidBowmaster- I did apply, though I haven't gotten a response, so I know that doesn't excuse me but I do know that. And thank you. uvu
Also, this is for an AU. I looked into the AU section/thread/word-that-is-the-name-of-that, and looked through some topics there, and found that a lot of them said things like "go ahead and be whatever canon you want", so what I said in the thing was an assumption that that was an okay thing for that area specifically.

Oh, hey there! I just looked at this. Okay. I'm actually finding this idea pretty interesting. And I wouldn't mind joining in, two-paragraph requirement or no. The two-paragraph requirement is cool with me. I have a bad habit of writing too much, anyway.

And I would think that this'd be fine if you intend on posting in the free canon section. I don't really know, of course, but there you have it.

So, you know, I'd be more than happy to play Aradia in this! You've clearly put a lot of thought into this AU, and it would be a pleasure, I think.

(Also, you don't sound snooty, if you ask me! I have very particular snootiness requirements. You fail to meet them.)

Aaah perfect uvu perfect human. Would you mind sending me a message or commenting here or something when you figure out where you'd like Aradia to be and things in this AU?

I might as well be a part of this! I have a talent for rambling on and on. It is my one and only skill. Besides I do basically nothing with Terezi so wooooooo.
It's a cool idea too so there's an added plus! :D

You are beautiful uwu Perfect.

Ha, my plan to bump this and get it noticed succeeded!

Thank you for that uvu That was nice of you

It would have been noticed sooner or later anyway I think, and its like, my job or something to do that stuff

All right. Um. Here are my ideas for Aradia in this AU.

Aradia was incredibly lucky in that the voices of the dead had been warning her of the events leading up to the current situation, becoming louder and louder until everything truly did fall apart. She wasn't so lucky in that she was still such a young troll when it happened. Still, she had an edge, and that's what's kept her alive. Alive but nearly dead. For the past two sweeps, Aradia has been living in a strange state, just barely sustaining herself in the wilderness but extremely depressed and apathetic and empty. Her mind fought off the gas as best it could--and it didn't do a bad job, considering that she's a formidable psychic--but in the end she shut down. The gas and the fighting were too much, and undoubtedly traumatic. It was a matter of time. She was as good as dead, I guess. But I was thinking that maybe she bumps into an old friend from the old days, and she starts to remember why she ever wanted to keep going. And now, with a new problem to face, she's determined to stay herself, and alive.

(She's still unstable as hell.)

It still needs some work, I think. But that's what I've got right now.

Glorious uvu

Ummm well uh
I will mull this overnight
Saying I will be going somewhere with a lacking of the interwebs
And most likely come up with something around noon tomorrow
I hope this is acceptable!

Yeah, that's totally fine! No worries at all.

That's totally fine! c:

Okay I have a question first
Does the gas's effect vary by how high the trolls blood is?

It does, but not by much. The most influential factor is if they are within the range of the bomb itself, and how close to the epicenter they are; however, Those lowest on the hemospectrum are usually  killed immediaty if they are even close to the range, and those above teal are affected very little, if at all. Seadwellers are not affected at all. Mutants vary, as their blood is so different, and entirely out of the control of the highbloods. They could be killed, physically affected, entirely fine, touched just a little bit, the madness could be slowed or paused or sped up... a lot of things.

Also ignore that second repeat response.

Okay thanks!
Here is the thing
Terezi was lucky she lived out in the middle of nowhere. Because of her location and blood she was effected little. Sure she heard voices in her head and had bright green eyes now, but that was better than what she had seen! At least she hadn't died right? She was lucky her nose wasn't effected too. Using that she fled from her hive, disappearing far into the forest like the voices told her. It was lucky she had listened too. She had collected basic items, a scalemate, a rope and her cane and fled just as her hive burned to the ground because of the aftermath of the bomb. She has been on the run since.
Sorry I feel like that is bad :(
Not creative at ALL today!
Do you have any suggestions to make it better? Because I am clueless!
:3

It's not bad at all, if you want my opinion! Self-deprecation is silly, anyway.

Also, I had some thoughts, I guess:

I think it's interesting that the gas made her hear voices. Are these psychic-y troll powers like Sollux's and Aradia's appearing out of the depths of the madness, or is she just becoming insane? Either way, though, I can see the voices affecting her emotionally in that Terezi was always the troll who had the power to manipul8 without psychic powers. Vriska had her mind control, but Terezi was the smart one! So this might be similar to how her losing her blindness in Homestuck in that by technically gaining something she feels that she's lost a huge part of herself! Even if the voices are just madness, they would be enough for her to assume as much.

Also, Aradia's also situated pretty far from society. Perhaps Terezi's the one she bumped into not so long ago, reminding her of pre-bomb Alternia and the old days. They could have separated again, though, depending on, uh, stuff. It's up to you, really!

Okay, please don't take any of this as anything more than me correcting my own mistakes clearing up things I previously made too foggy, and/or constructive criticism.

-I didn't specify this well enough I guess, so this is my fault; the "bombs" are not destructive. They're kind of like underground reserves that make a big sound when they are opened with enough force to send the gas shooting out over a five-mile radius.
-Can you explain the green eyes/voices thing? Terezi is teal-blooded, so the chemical should not affect her in those ways, generally (Unless you have some kinda reasoning for that around the rules of the chemical and it's working, in which case that could be pretty fuckin rad). And voices... She does hear a voice in the comic, but that's her lusus, I believe. I could be wrong. Unless this is meant to happen after the total destruction of her home planet. The situation itself could absolutely cause that kind of insanity.
-Trolls on Alternia all live far apart. They are only on the planet until they mature, at which point they are taken to serve the Condesce in some way, usually by being a kind of soldier to help her dominate other planets. The reason things are more condensed in that string of game updates with the ancestors is because on Beforus, there was none of the "rule the universe" stuff, so all of the trolls lived on the planet. Also the culture on Alternia is more brutal, and forces trolls to be strong, to dominate, and to be antisocial and unemotional. Antisocial being the key word there.
(btw I didn't even know this until I talked with someone who'd been a fan since the beginning of Homestuck, and who does a lot of picking apart and analyzing and roleplaying and stuff.)

I know the idea of the AU itself doesn't give a lot of room for a teal-blood to have a really interesting position, and I'm really sorry about that. If you want to talk about some ideas or something, I would be happy to help you out there. <:

Well, there are Alternian troll neighborhood-type things, actually. Take a look at where Karkat's hive is, for example. A neighborhood. It even says neighborhood! And trolls do come into enough contact with one another to FLARP frequently and mass murder each other to keep lusus happy and well fed. Vriska had to meet up with Tavros in order to kick off the whole revenge chain. And Aradia should have met with Terezi that time, too.

So my reading was always that they were aggressive, but not necessarily antisocial! They have to interact with each other to form the necessary concupiscent relationships, anyway, and they can't weed out the weak if they don't mingle with the STRONG.

Oh gawsh I am really stupid sorry :(
I was sick when I wrote that and I'm still not feeling to good
I hope you don't mind my sick blubbering!
I am going to wait until I am in a correct state of mind and stop being stupid which is never going to happen before correcting this
Gah I don't even know what I was thinking I was in a rush
Sorry
Thanks for that clarification about the houses ME :3