I believe there is already a group of species by that name. Also, this looks more like a vesuvianite tree colored purple than like the bubblebush. I can't tell if those are supposed to be weird degenerated bubbles or the actual leaves, but either way it is anatomically incorrect. It is also missing the segmentation of the stem.
It is impossible to lose the bubbles without losing the seeds. The bubbles ARE the seeds. This is explicit in its ancestors, which despite my strong insistence you refused to read.
This is missing size. I doubt it can support itself with a still-purple unlignified stem alone even if it shrunk, though. It needs to transition in order to start supporting itself without bubbles. This is in the rules.
It is impossible to lose the bubbles without losing the seeds. The bubbles ARE the seeds. This is explicit in its ancestors, which despite my strong insistence you refused to read.
This is missing size. I doubt it can support itself with a still-purple unlignified stem alone even if it shrunk, though. It needs to transition in order to start supporting itself without bubbles. This is in the rules.
Martyk Mega Quail (Perampluscoturnix martykensis) (very large quail from Martyk)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Quail Raptor
Habitat: Martyk Temperate Woodland Archipelago, Martyk Archipelago Temperate Beaches
Size: 2 meters long
Support: Endoskeleton (Chitin)
Diet: Herbivore (Fuzzweed, Pioneeroots, Baebula, Fuzzpile leaves and berries, Mainland Fuzzpalm leaves and berries, Hengende, Marbleflora, Fruiting Grovecrystal fruit flesh, Gecoba Tree fruit and leaves, Tropical Gecoba Tree fruit and leaves, Capped Crystal flesh, Quhft fruit and leaves, Scrubland Quhft fruit and leaves, Qupe Tree leaves and fruit, Branching Qupe Tree leaves and fruit, Hairoot, Supershrooms, Sapshrooms, Colonialballs, Flashkelps, Tubeplage leaves, Scrubland Tubeplage leaves, Boreal Tubeplage leaves, Feroak leaves, Cocobarrage leaves, Obsidibend leaves, Broad-Trunk Obsiditree leaves, Obsidoak leaves, Snowflake Obsidioak leaves, Shaggy Volleypom leaves)
Respiration: Active (Microlungs)
Thermoregulation: Endotherm (Feathers)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Hard-Shelled Eggs in Nests)
The Martyk mega quail split from its ancestor. In the Martyk archipelago where competition was more sparse, it rapidly grew in size through the process of island gigantism. Being able to fly using wings which were also legs gave it an edge over the other local species that might have become large herbivores in the archipelago. Unlike real world birds and insects and Sagan 4’s own phlyers, wingworms, skysnappers, gliding pinyuks, and the majority of other volant creatures on the planet, flying saucebacks walk and fly with the same appendages. This means that unlike most organisms which can lose flight in a few short mutations, flying saucebacks cannot easily do so without also affecting their ability to walk. As such, loss of flight never became advantageous enough, so the Martyk mega quail retained it, and in fact became one of the better fliers among saucebacks.
As a result of keeping its flight, the Martyk mega quail can quickly and easily travel between islands using thermal soaring and isn’t doomed to extinction when an island sinks. To support a more volant lifestyle, its tail dramatically shortened; in fact, in just a few mutations, everything past its lungs was deleted entirely, including its tail fan and spikes, causing its tail to simply abruptly stop with a blunt taper, as though it had been cut off and healed. It primarily uses its ears for stabilization, unlike most flying saucebacks which use either their tails or both. Like other flying saucebacks, its hip socket is open and upturned, which makes standing up cost more energy than it would for non-flying saucebacks, but as it is very lightweight, this is not a problem at its size. It has lost echolocation, as vast stretches of darkness do not completely cover the islands and it is, physically, generally more suited to wandering clearings and otherwise sparse stretches of forest with lots of light.
The Martyk mega quail’s sauce plate and ceres are often covered by its contour feathers, which keeps it warm in the temperate winters. To keep air entering its microlungs fresh, the feather cover is not complete and creates a sort of tunnel which opens at the end of its tail. In the heat of summer, it can cool itself off by spreading its feathers to expose its back. Like other flying saucebacks, beneath its contour feathers, it has a layer of downy feathers. These keep it warm in the winter. It has summer and winter downy coats, which molt in the spring and fall and have to be preened out.
Being a large flighted herbivore has some disadvantages for herbivory. The Martyk mega quail cannot invest in a large gut or else it will be too heavy to fly. As a result, though it does have a fermenting gut which can process tree leaves, it is too small to support a tree leaf-only diet, so it prefers softer herbs, fruit, and crystal flesh. It clips most flora with its beak-like mandibles, and it is able to break into crystals by kicking them with its hooves, generally limiting it to shorter broad-crystal species. In the absence of usable grinding teeth, it grinds up the flora it eats using gastroliths in a gizzard instead. It does not consume tubeplage fruits, as their acid can wear down its gastroliths. Though not aquatic, during low tide it will sometimes wander the beach and consume often-easy-to-digest aquatic flora, especially floating flora such as colonialballs which have been stranded on the sand.
Like its ancestor, the Martyk mega quail nests on the ground. Unlike its ancestor, it does so communally, as lack of space makes this necessary. It nests in the summer on warm beaches along the edges of the island forests and is fiercely protective of its eggs and young, using its hooves to bash in the brains of beach-dwelling potential predators. Its offspring hatch flightless but already capable of running, and they gain their flight feathers quickly, allowing them to follow their parents into the sky within about a month of hatching. Young individuals cannot digest tough tree leaves and mostly eat fruit and herbs. They reach maturity in roughly three years.
The sonar is made for use in air and not water. I don't think a bat can echolocate while submerged.
Snowflake Obsidioaks (Chameleumbraquercus spp.)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestors: Chameleon Obsidishank, Obsidoak
Habitat: Wallace, Koseman
Size: 5-20 meters tall, leaves up to 20 centimeters long, 10-30 cm long spore pods
Support: Woody Trunk with Heartwood (Cellulose)
Diet: Photosynthesis
Respiration: Passive (Stomata)
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm (Camoplasts and Sap Circulation)
Reproduction: Sexual (Airborne Cylindrical Spores)
Despite their wildly divergent lifestyles and considerable difference in size, the chameleon obsidishank and the obsidoak are very closely related, enough that where their ranges overlap they hybridize readily. These hybrids can be very successful, but often ultimately merged back into one of the parent species’ populations--that is, until new biomes opened up for colonization which these hybrids thrived in. Thus, they not only split from their ancestors, but diversified--transforming into a widely successful genus group found all over Wallace. They are also found in Koseman, having crossed the archipelagos which separate the two landmasses thanks to their airborne reproduction.
Snowflake obsidioaks are named for one of the side effects of their hybridization. They have both the circulatory-based temperature regulation of obsidoaks, which results in their leaves all being roughly the same temperature, and the color change ability of the chameleon obsidishank, where leaves can change color from black to white using camoplasts when they get too hot. As a result, when they overheat, they change color all at once rather than a few leaves at a time. This can cause a snowflake obsidioak canopy to be dotted with white and gray trees, as individuals or species might have different heat tolerance compared to one another, ultimately causing the canopy to resemble snowflake obsidian.
Snowflake obsidioaks are found in a variety of biomes. The tallest, 20 meter species are generally found in woodland biomes and form much of the old growth forests. Being much smaller than the ancestral obsidoak, they can grow on steeper slopes, allowing them to coexist with the much larger species. Smaller species can be found in harsher and drier biomes, and the smallest, 5 meter tall species form pygmy forests scattered around shrubland biomes, particularly the chaparral. They inherit the fire resistance of the chameleon obsidishank and can recover and regrow after a wildfire. In the plains, smaller species can be found isolated and scattered while larger ones often grow along rivers and streams, and in the deserts, they are nearly entirely absent, only existing as small species very close to water from streams or oases. Their black leaves make them well-suited to populating subpolar biomes despite being naturally broadleaf.
The leaves of snowflake obsidioaks inherit the broad shape and bitterness of obsidoak leaves and the toughness of chameleon obsidishank leaves. This makes them somewhat unappetizing, but they are nonetheless edible to browsing herbivores. Snowflake obsidioaks have many branches, creating a microclimate which can support a variety of arboreal and semi-arboreal fauna and epiphytes. They have heartwood which can rot when exposed without necessarily killing the trees, creating hollows where small fauna can hide or nest. When snowflake obsidioaks die, their leaves turn white, and likewise they leave behind white leaf litter.
As they use spores, snowflake obsidioaks are slower to sprout than flora which use seeds. However, this is mitigated by a couple of factors. First, the spores of obsiditrees including the snowflake obsidioaks are multicellular, which gives them a head start compared to organisms with unicellular spores and allows them to survive the dry conditions caused by leaf litter, even though they are not as effective at this as seeds. Second, they are very shade-tolerant and can exist even under a canopy of other black flora, staying as juveniles until there is a break in the canopy. These two factors help keep the old growth forests mostly black flora-dominated at the time of evolution.
Like the obsidoak and like the oak trees they are named for, snowflake obsidioaks are shade trees which eliminate competition by being wider than they are tall and casting shadows all around themselves. They grow many spore pods throughout their branches, which are shed at the end of their spore season. They are largely dependent on wind to disperse their spores, but some species, especially in forest biomes where there is little wind, have barbs or hairs on their spores which allow them to be tracked to new locations by fauna. Populations will release the spores in their spore chambers all at the same time based on various wind and humidity cues to ensure greater chances of successful germination, as they are mostly dependent on water to bring the spores together for fertilization. So many spores can be released at once that it creates an orange haze or spore fog, which under some weather conditions can fill the air over a particular biome for days or even weeks and which greatly contribute to aeroplankton. They hybridize, speciate, and hybrid-speciate readily, just like Terran oak trees.
ah, I decided it shouldn't hibernate after writing and forgot to remove all mentions of it. Fixing now.
Mangal Sauceback (Conodenticulus glabernasus) (bald-nosed cone-denticle)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Fourmaw Sauceback
Habitat: Fly Tropical Beach, Hydro Tropical Beach, Oz Subtropical Beach, Time Subtropical Beach, Time Archipelago Subtropical Beaches, Abello Temperate Beach, Abello Archipelago Temperate Beaches, Anguan Temperate Beach, Anguan Archipelago Temperate Beaches, Barlowe Tropical Mangal, Oz Subtropical Mangal, Time Subtropical Mangal, Abello Temperate Mangal, Barlowe Temperate Mangal, Ittiz Temperate Mangal, Ittize Temperate Beach, Ittiz Archipelago Temperate Beaches, Nergali Subtropical Beach, Nergali Subtropical Mangal, Clayren Temperate Beach, Clayren Temperate Mangal, Clayren Archipelago Temperate Beaches, Fly Tropical Coast, Hydro Tropical Coast, Time Subtropical Coast, Oz Subtropical Coast, Anguan Temperate Coast, Abello Temperate Coast, Ittiz Temperate Coast, Nergali Subtropical Coast, Clayren Temperate Coast
Size: 8 cm long
Support: Endoskeleton (Chitin)
Diet: Adult: Carnivore (Burraroms, Scuttlers, Snapper Scuttler, Vermees, Floraverms, Teacup Sauceback larvae, occasional cannibal of its own larvae); Larvae/juvenile: Detritivore (wood, chitin)
Respiration: Active (Microlungs)
Thermoregulation: Adult: Endotherm (Feathers); Larvae: Ectotherm
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Eggs and Larvae)
The mangal sauceback split from its ancestor. It moved out to the beaches and mangal biomes, where it hunts small creatures found among the substrate, much as its ancestor did--except that it has a preference for those found in water.
The mangal sauceback swims with a left-right undulation of its tail and seeks out benthic sea creatures, such as burraroms and scuttlers, by touch, as its echolocation is mostly ineffective underwater due to it only being adapted to use it in the air. Its “gums” are very sensitive and much of its face naked to aid in this. Once it finds what it’s looking for, it snatches it with its four jaws full of conical denticles. A strong swimmer with a strong bite, it can pull even the largest burraroms from their burrows with enough force to tear them in half in some cases. The shells of scuttlers are no problem, as once it has them in its grasp it can use its jaws and feet to turn them upside-down and rip into their soft underbellies. It will also hunt vermees in the mangals and beaches, where it also lays its eggs.
The mangal sauceback’s jaw teeth are elongated and each bear several conical denticles which act similarly to the teeth of a crocodile to maintain a secure grip on their chosen prey. The four swallowing teeth are set further back and difficult to see when looking into the mouth. The jaws can no longer be fully retracted, but they are still capable of some back and forth motion to manipulate food. Though the external gum-lips are covered more by skin than mucous membrane, the mouth still does not fully close at the front, leaving a roughly square-shaped gap which leaves it prone to water loss. However, this is not really an issue, as the mangal sauceback is aquatic.
Much like its ancestor, the mangal sauceback has dramatic mating practices. Females will climb onto the beach or mangroves and advertise their receptiveness with ultrasonic chirps, attracting any males nearby. Multiple males may fight to the death over a potential mating opportunity. Once the winner has mated with the female, the remaining males will mate with one another to reduce their aggression and hormone levels so that they can cease fighting and move on. Older males which have been in many mating battles often have scars, particularly taking the form of holes through their ears and gum-lips from other males biting their faces and puncturing them with their denticles. Like its ancestor, the mangal sauceback is fertile throughout the year, but unlike its ancestor, it does not hibernate.
The mangal sauceback lays around 200 eggs at a time and offers no parental care. The larvae are detritivores which eat the wood and chitin of dead trees and shrubs in the mangal and beach biomes. They reach adult length before metamorphosis, in which they bulk up into “fat hairy sausages” so as to not starve before their transformation into an adult is complete. In the colder parts of their range, larvae brumate over winter. This results in larvae taking longer to reach adulthood further north, as they cease growing during this time. Temperate populations take one year to reach maturity, while tropical ones only take 8 months. The mangal sauceback can live for 6 years, thanks in part to repair done to its damaged telomeres as it evolved, though many are killed by predators long before then.
Plentiful and ravenous and most associated with the seaside, mangal sauceback larvae present a serious problem for seafaring shrews in the region, as they infest nests and cause damage faster than the shrews can repair it. This has particularly resulted in the disappearance of the seashrog, the wolvershrog, the topship shrog, and the shailnitor in all beaches and mangals which the mangal sauceback occupies. Wolvershrogs also vanished from inland in Barlowe and from Lamarck Temperate Woodland, as they are tied to the beach and not a true population. Though more shrogs can arrive by the will of the ocean currents, if they need to build nests or do repairs they are unlikely to ever leave once mangal saucebacks find their nests and will eventually, whether by exposure to the elements or predation by pirate waxfaces, die without establishing a population, especially wolvershrogs which can easily overheat in the temperate summer.
The mangal sauceback prefers to stick close to the mangroves, as it is blind and dependent on echolocation, and navigating open water without mangroves close by to create echoes is rather difficult especially with its relatively small ears. Nonetheless, it is very common for it to get lost and cross open stretches of water, and if it isn’t eaten, it can arrive on and colonize more distant islands. This has resulted in it reaching many isolated islands surrounding Barlowe and even crossing to the mangals and islands surrounding southeastern Lamarck.
no I'm thinking of an extinct reptile or something with long lower tusks that poke through the snout literally exactly like this species
The discord server is going bananas with potential varied acrobatic descendant ideas. I am surprised by this.
Yes, there are in fact real animals that do that. I forgot the name, though.
Little Manjack (Homunculusorex bipedalis) (little man-shrew on two feet)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Spiny Dwarfjack
Habitat: Oz Subtropical Beach, Anguan Temperate Beach, Barlowe Chaparral, Barlowe Bush
Size: 30 cm long
Support: Endoskeleton (Bone)
Diet: Omnivore (Xenobees, Xenowasps, Dartirs, Sapworms, Gushitos, Gushflier, Hemoswarmer, Supershrooms, Sapshrooms, Vermees, Teacup Sauceback adults and larvae, Snapper Scuttler, Cleaner Borvermid, False Cleaner Borvermid, Bora Scuttler, Communal Janit, Borinvermee, Mikuks, Minikruggs, Silkruggs)
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Endotherm (Fur)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Live Birth, Milk)
The little manjack split from its ancestor and adapted for a more open environment. Standing upright on its long hind legs, it is able to see over the ground cover to scan its surroundings for predator and prey alike. Continuing its ancestor’s existing bipedal adaptations, in fact, it is almost completely bipedal, staying standing much of the time and even chasing down prey on two legs. With the short length of its tail, it assumes an upright stance by default, causing it to take on a humanoid shape. From a distance, it might look like a little man, hence its name.
The little manjack, though still mostly a generalist, uses its speed and height to chase and catch wingworms and other small winged creatures, which might be more successful at eluding its more quadrupedal ancestor. In addition to catching food in its mouth, it is also able to leap into the air after prey that has flown too high and clap it with its forepaws. Though a great leaper, it is not well-suited to prolonged hopping due to its upright stature. To support the shift to a more cursorial mode of life and to better adapt for burrowing, it has lost many of its spikes, apart from some around its neck, shoulders, and tail, though they are largely hidden in fur. It will still eat smaller flightless prey such as vermees when available.
The little manjack’s burrow suits its unique body shape. The entrance is vertical and deeper than the creature is tall. When fleeting from a predator, the little manjack leaps directly into its burrow feet-first, vanishing underground almost cartoonishly. It then quickly scuttles backwards into a side tunnel, ensuring that the predator cannot just reach in and pull it out. The interior of the burrow is relatively tall and narrow, better resembling a corridor or a mineshaft particularly with all the twigs, cut with its small blade-like tail, which are bent into arches along the walls and ceiling that fortify it against collapse. Clearly, the little manjack still retains some of the nest-making instincts of its seafaring ancestors, though with its small brain its lineage will likely never build a boat again.
Much like its ancestor, the little manjack is placental and gives birth to relatively developed young, unlike most shrews which have small, fetal pouch young. It gestates for about 50 days and the newborns are naked, blind, and helpless. The little manjack’s teats are on its belly and hidden by what remains of its ancestral pouch when not in use. To feed its babies, it crouches over them and retracts the pouch, exposing its teats so that they may nurse. In a matter of weeks, the babies are weaned and learn how to walk upright on their long legs. They follow their mother around while she is out foraging and learn to hunt for wingworms and other small flying creatures. They reach maturity in about 4 months. The little manjack has no breeding season, and a single female may give birth to many litters with different fathers throughout the year.
waiting for submissions to open, here's some recent art that'll make it into submissions soonish
I just noticed this is lebeled as week 26, lol...will there actually be a new thread?
I just noticed this is lebeled as week 26, lol...will there actually be a new thread?
Heads up, I'm changing the main image for Pirate Waxface to this because the previous image was too violent and also to clear up some confusion.
Update on above: Turns out I had followed a false lead and that was not Building Blocks. I know because Building Blocks contacted me on Discord out of nowhere.
imagine trying to figure out what Homestuck 2 is about based only on the above
Years have passed since the new universe was created. The Homestuck Epilogues are about to begin, and with them come the Sagan 4 Epilogues.
--
John eats a big plate full of raw meat like some kind of carnivore and runs off to fix Homestuck's plot holes, thus establishing the Meat timeline.
Dirk Strider, perhaps tired of just making derivative works for Sagan 4 Delta, distracts everyone by helping Jane Crocker run for president. The chaos that followed drove Callie insane, causing Sagan 4 (all three current timelines, as Callie maintains them all) to go through a dead month--its longest hiatus since the Gods took it over. Dirk proceeded to kidnap Rose and manipulatively snatch the newly-returned Terezi, and they run away into outer space to start a new collaborative spec project called Deltritus that will be so much better and more plot important than Sagan 4. Dirk proceeds to make Sagan 4 ripoff species anyway.
By the way, that is actually what happened in the story.
With nearly everyone either dead, part of Dirk's new collaborative spec project, or trying to stop Dirk's new collaborative spec project, nearly all the Creators are gone from Earth C and, by process of elimination, Jake English takes over Sagan 4. This goes about as well as you would expect, but we are very fortunate Jane Crocker was too busy being president because she would have been first choice between the two and you know what she would have done.
--
John thinks a big pile of candy is an acceptable lunch and runs off to create a plot hole in Homestuck, thus establishing the Candy timeline.
Sagan 4 Beta, Gamma, and Delta run mostly uninterrupted on this timeline. Mostly. The sudden death of Dirk Strider, who created Sagan 4 Delta and was the main reason Sagan 4 even survived into the new universe, is a pretty big deal, and all timelines are swamped with memorial submissions. This causes an extensive backlog of unreviewed species, many of them very low quality and clearly religious in nature. Callie is overwhelmed and it ultimately results in a complete restructuring of Sagan 4's rules and submission system to account for sudden flooding.
Many of the Creators have less time to focus on Sagan 4 as they start having families with kids to raise. For the first time in years, Sagan 4 Delta has more mortals contributing to it regularly than Gods. But the memorial submission incident is not the last utterly insane thing Sagan 4 will ever face on the Candy timeline.
Also, Jane Crocker eventually returns to Sagan 4 despite being busy with...all her Candy timeline stuff. Callie's efforts to stay politically neutral and keep Sagan 4 politically neutral can't do much against Jane trying to legally micromanage the project after being offended that some mortal troll made an extremely ugly buck-toothed arthrothere that she thought was supposed to look like her. She attempts to limit how many submissions from trolls are allowed, but Callie doesn't let that fly.
Somewhere along the way, Sollux Captor, who fell from the sky at some point, submits a species to Beta out of nowhere. Nobody knows how he drew it while blind, not even me. It's a highly derived spardi that looks like a bee, but red and blue.
Gamzee Makara, the plot hole who established the timeline, also tries to make a species. It's bad. Callie approves it anyway because Gamzee is a sort of father figure to her.
A little over four years after the Candy timeline split off, the ghost rain begins. Millions of ghosts of the same 23 trolls from numerous timelines, all falling from the sky. Among other things, about 700 different ghosts of Nepeta Leijon independently discover Sagan 4 and try to submit virtually identical species to Gamma, all of them apex predators for the same biome at that. This is obviously a problem and it clogs the flood control system in an unprecedented manner.
This is resolved with the creation of a new rule: all ghosts of the same person must share and coordinate submissions so that they don't do...that. Also, Equius ghosts are rapidly auto-banned from contributing after several nsfw musclebeast-inspired things get submitted.
Sagan 4 enters a weird era for a while, obviously.
Years pass. Sagan 4 Gamma, having been far ahead of the rest due to its head start compared to the other timelines, reaches the end of its habitable period, being marked complete and leaving only Beta and Delta. Despite Callie's ongoing efforts, more and more politically charged submissions slip through the cracks, and as she's being poisoned by associating with Jane, right-leaning political submissions are more likely to make it in.
In time, the children of the Gods are old enough to contribute to Sagan 4.
Among them, of course Harry Anderson Egbert is the first to join, making several species for Beta and Delta. Also, he writes and directs a Sagan 4 musical for theater class, because of course he would. It's the most beautiful thing to ever exist and the costumes are top notch.
Yiffany Longstocking also learns of the project and contributes under a pseudonym. She mainly contributes to Delta. Her contributions, though amateur, show promise, and perhaps someday she could become the next monarch of the cursed.
Tavros Crocker joins Beta as a one-hit wonder. Just a single submission. It's some cell distantly descended from the goliathpseudopodia line.
Vrissy Maryam Lalonde isn't supposed to contribute to Sagan 4 because her moms saw the political drift and stopped contributing themselves. However, Vrissy contributes anyway, making a few species here and there for both Beta and Delta that are like little rebellions against the Crockerian influence.
Eventually, the race war begins, and Callie cuts ties with Jane and tries to set Sagan 4 back on a politically neutral path with Roxy's assistance. The sudden deaths of Gamzee Makara and Dave Strider independently cause memorial submission floods, but they are kept under control.
And that catches us up pretty close to the latest upd8 of Homestuck Squared. Who knows how future events will affect Sagan 4 on the Candy timeline?
--
John eats a big plate full of raw meat like some kind of carnivore and runs off to fix Homestuck's plot holes, thus establishing the Meat timeline.
Dirk Strider, perhaps tired of just making derivative works for Sagan 4 Delta, distracts everyone by helping Jane Crocker run for president. The chaos that followed drove Callie insane, causing Sagan 4 (all three current timelines, as Callie maintains them all) to go through a dead month--its longest hiatus since the Gods took it over. Dirk proceeded to kidnap Rose and manipulatively snatch the newly-returned Terezi, and they run away into outer space to start a new collaborative spec project called Deltritus that will be so much better and more plot important than Sagan 4. Dirk proceeds to make Sagan 4 ripoff species anyway.
By the way, that is actually what happened in the story.
With nearly everyone either dead, part of Dirk's new collaborative spec project, or trying to stop Dirk's new collaborative spec project, nearly all the Creators are gone from Earth C and, by process of elimination, Jake English takes over Sagan 4. This goes about as well as you would expect, but we are very fortunate Jane Crocker was too busy being president because she would have been first choice between the two and you know what she would have done.
--
John thinks a big pile of candy is an acceptable lunch and runs off to create a plot hole in Homestuck, thus establishing the Candy timeline.
Sagan 4 Beta, Gamma, and Delta run mostly uninterrupted on this timeline. Mostly. The sudden death of Dirk Strider, who created Sagan 4 Delta and was the main reason Sagan 4 even survived into the new universe, is a pretty big deal, and all timelines are swamped with memorial submissions. This causes an extensive backlog of unreviewed species, many of them very low quality and clearly religious in nature. Callie is overwhelmed and it ultimately results in a complete restructuring of Sagan 4's rules and submission system to account for sudden flooding.
Many of the Creators have less time to focus on Sagan 4 as they start having families with kids to raise. For the first time in years, Sagan 4 Delta has more mortals contributing to it regularly than Gods. But the memorial submission incident is not the last utterly insane thing Sagan 4 will ever face on the Candy timeline.
Also, Jane Crocker eventually returns to Sagan 4 despite being busy with...all her Candy timeline stuff. Callie's efforts to stay politically neutral and keep Sagan 4 politically neutral can't do much against Jane trying to legally micromanage the project after being offended that some mortal troll made an extremely ugly buck-toothed arthrothere that she thought was supposed to look like her. She attempts to limit how many submissions from trolls are allowed, but Callie doesn't let that fly.
Somewhere along the way, Sollux Captor, who fell from the sky at some point, submits a species to Beta out of nowhere. Nobody knows how he drew it while blind, not even me. It's a highly derived spardi that looks like a bee, but red and blue.
Gamzee Makara, the plot hole who established the timeline, also tries to make a species. It's bad. Callie approves it anyway because Gamzee is a sort of father figure to her.
A little over four years after the Candy timeline split off, the ghost rain begins. Millions of ghosts of the same 23 trolls from numerous timelines, all falling from the sky. Among other things, about 700 different ghosts of Nepeta Leijon independently discover Sagan 4 and try to submit virtually identical species to Gamma, all of them apex predators for the same biome at that. This is obviously a problem and it clogs the flood control system in an unprecedented manner.
This is resolved with the creation of a new rule: all ghosts of the same person must share and coordinate submissions so that they don't do...that. Also, Equius ghosts are rapidly auto-banned from contributing after several nsfw musclebeast-inspired things get submitted.
Sagan 4 enters a weird era for a while, obviously.
Years pass. Sagan 4 Gamma, having been far ahead of the rest due to its head start compared to the other timelines, reaches the end of its habitable period, being marked complete and leaving only Beta and Delta. Despite Callie's ongoing efforts, more and more politically charged submissions slip through the cracks, and as she's being poisoned by associating with Jane, right-leaning political submissions are more likely to make it in.
In time, the children of the Gods are old enough to contribute to Sagan 4.
Among them, of course Harry Anderson Egbert is the first to join, making several species for Beta and Delta. Also, he writes and directs a Sagan 4 musical for theater class, because of course he would. It's the most beautiful thing to ever exist and the costumes are top notch.
Yiffany Longstocking also learns of the project and contributes under a pseudonym. She mainly contributes to Delta. Her contributions, though amateur, show promise, and perhaps someday she could become the next monarch of the cursed.
Tavros Crocker joins Beta as a one-hit wonder. Just a single submission. It's some cell distantly descended from the goliathpseudopodia line.
Vrissy Maryam Lalonde isn't supposed to contribute to Sagan 4 because her moms saw the political drift and stopped contributing themselves. However, Vrissy contributes anyway, making a few species here and there for both Beta and Delta that are like little rebellions against the Crockerian influence.
Eventually, the race war begins, and Callie cuts ties with Jane and tries to set Sagan 4 back on a politically neutral path with Roxy's assistance. The sudden deaths of Gamzee Makara and Dave Strider independently cause memorial submission floods, but they are kept under control.
And that catches us up pretty close to the latest upd8 of Homestuck Squared. Who knows how future events will affect Sagan 4 on the Candy timeline?
I've read Homestuck all the way through 3 times and am on fourth read-through, this one dedicated to the study of Dave Strider
I would love to see someone who knows nothing about Homestuck try to determine what Homestuck is about based only on the above post
I find that I enjoy imagining fictional characters interacting with Sagan 4. So I'm gonna do that with some Homestuck characters.
In the pre-scratch universe, Sagan 4 ended in April 2009 on the same day Homestuck began because most or all of Sagan 4's members died in the reckoning. It's fun to imagine a potential sburb session played by active members of the time, but that's for a different post. Instead we're focusing on how Sagan 4 differs because of some Homestuck characters interacting with it.
John Egbert has zero interest in Sagan 4 and never considers joining, if he knew about it at all.
Rose Lalonde, at age 11, tried to join at its peak in 2007 by making some absolutely wretched species of ukfauna. She misinterpreted ukfauna anatomy very badly and it was rejected.
Around the same time, Jade Harley also tried to join, unaware that Rose had tried. Jade had more success and made a good number of nodents and shrews throughout 2007, 2008, and early 2009. You know she would.
Dave Strider didn't join Sagan 4, but he knew of it, because his Bro signed up and made several species, including the ugliest sauceback to ever exist. Bro was later banned for toxic behavior, a few weeks before the events of Homestuck.
Rose's Mom probably knew of the project, but didn't contribute.
That's about it.
--
In the post-scratch universe, things get more interesting. In this universe, which is closer-aligned with our own, Homestuck begins in 2011, so a lot of major events in Sagan 4 history have already happened.
Jane Crocker is actually a big fan of Sagan 4, but she'd never contribute, she could never do that. Having an interest in frightening fauna, she is fascinated by the species produced in the alienification phase and saddened by the post-snowball resurgence of Earth clones. In other words, it's a good thing she didn't join because she would almost certainly alienify everything to the point of no longer being recognizable or functional. She likes saucebacks, though.
Jake English probably wouldn't have too much of an interest in Sagan 4, at least at first.
Roxy Lalonde would know of it, for certain, but I'll get to that in a little bit.
Then there's Dirk Strider.
Dirk would know of Sagan 4, and of everything that happens after 2011. He has read every single entry that exists or will ever exist on Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. He has made numerous fan species based on all three timelines. Since Sagan 4's flooding event was happening in 2011, either Dirk or Roxy has on at least one occasion tried to use it to explain to Jane what Betty Crocker did to the Earth, with no success.
Wait...what the heck is Sagan 4 Gamma?
Though the post-scratch universe aligns more with ours, things do eventually diverge. In this universe, Homestuck is real instead of a work of fiction. In late 2021, the adult post-scratch version of Rose Lalonde joins Sagan 4 (both Alpha and Beta) under a pseudonym and joins me and Colddigger as a third Monarch of The Cursed, contributing greatly to deep sea ecosystems with each new organism weirder than the last. She became a beloved member, and some years down the line as Sagan 4 had to face the unprecedented threat of its members being killed in the hilarocaust, she vanished. As I was still alive, I tracked her down and learned her real name and that she had been killed after trying to make a stand against Betty Crocker. It was not long after this that Miraheze and Jcink went down for good, rendering Sagan 4 Alpha and Beta inaccessible, though fortunately not without backup.
We few surviving Sagan 4 members banded together to make a Sagan 4 Gamma that was not just a collaborative spec project, but an act of rebellion in Rose's honor. After getting our hands on something like ecto-alchemy equipment stolen from Crockercorp, we were also able to make our submissions real; this included Alpha and Beta species that we still had the data for, as well. Physical manifestations of our artwork helped us defend ourselves against Imperial Drones and whatever else Betty Crocker sent our way as we all gathered at a base of operations atop a mountain unaffected by the water apocalypse--and all surviving Sagan 4 members got to meet in real life, albeit out of necessity for survival. Sagan 4 Gamma rapidly also became a safe haven for people all over the world seeking protection from Betty Crocker's tyranny. It thrived like no version of Sagan 4 ever had before, as it became a sort of symbolic thing for everyone who entered our protection to make a species and there were quite a few creative minds who had survived the genocide and apocalypse thus far.
Sagan 4 Gamma became one of the longest holdouts of humanity free from Betty Crocker's rule, lasting over 150 years after the rest of civilization has fallen. But we, or rather our descendants, couldn't really do much meaningful against her, so she didn't really care after a while and just left us alone. Sagan 4 Gamma became the largest and longest-running spec evo project of all time. But our time was not to last forever. Without a common enemy, our descendants started fighting amongst themselves, and eventually the ecto-alchemy equipment and other stuff they had depended on for food is destroyed. Mass starvation leaves behind a survivor population too small to keep up, and eventually the last members of Sagan 4 Gamma, like the rest of humanity, have died.
A few centuries later, Dirk Strider discovers the project and the backups of Alpha and Beta and decides to start Sagan 4 Delta. It's a seed world with all the best and most iconic species from all 3 timelines.
Of course Roxy is a member. She knows all about Gamma because it was made in her Ancestor's honor, and the idea of contributing and even making descendants of Rose's species?
Jake joins and tries to make the aliens from avatar. Of course he does.
Callie probably contributes some wonderful artwork. I could see her brother Caliborn trying as well. Dirk has no standards so he just approves Caliborn's scribbles, including a diorama where he seems to be attempting to depict a crestgill from Beta in a sexy pose.
Then there's Jane. From her perspective, it's still 2011. She thinks Dirk just made up the limbo, Sagan 4 Beta, the Mason revival, the retcon event, Sagan 4 Gamma, famous author Rose Lalonde of all people being a member, and...really, tamjacks becoming tool users, saucebacks evolving into birds, and those primitive cloney nodents coming back from the dead? There's no way those would ever be approved! But she contributes to Sagan 4 Delta anyway. She turns some saucebacks into Beasts from Problem Sleuth.
--
Eventually, the new universe is created and there's Earth C. Both sets of human kids live as Gods on the same planet now. Rose finds out about post-scratch Sagan 4 and about Sagan 4 Delta and is immediately interested. Jade is sad that nothing like her pre-scratch contributions existed after the scratch but also wants to resubmit some of them, now remade and improved, to Delta. Jane wants to make stuff for Delta for the nostalgia, as does Roxy. Dirk is no longer interested in running Delta, but Callie is. Thus the project kicks up again under Callie's management, and before long Alpha, Beta, and Gamma are brought back too, though they mostly get contributed to by mortals while Delta remains the thing of the Gods.
And now the surviving trolls know about it too. All of them make at least one species and Kanaya becomes the project's dedicated "plant guy". Terezi also contributes regularly, making some pretty neat and colorful cursoriopedes, so when she left Earth C and re-entered canon to look for Vriska, it was the loss of a great member.
Over the next 7 years, each Creator contributed to Delta at least once, even those who hadn't had any interest in Sagan 4 in the past like John and Dave. They sometimes contributed to the restarted other 3 timelines as well. Gcatavrosprite manages to make a fairybull out of a pinyuk and it's actually really clever how he does it.
Sagan 4 Alpha reaches the end of its habitable period by the time of the Meat/Candy split, leaving it complete, while Beta, Gamma, and Delta are still ongoing.
This post is getting too long I'll brainstorm what the meat/candy split does another time
In the pre-scratch universe, Sagan 4 ended in April 2009 on the same day Homestuck began because most or all of Sagan 4's members died in the reckoning. It's fun to imagine a potential sburb session played by active members of the time, but that's for a different post. Instead we're focusing on how Sagan 4 differs because of some Homestuck characters interacting with it.
John Egbert has zero interest in Sagan 4 and never considers joining, if he knew about it at all.
Rose Lalonde, at age 11, tried to join at its peak in 2007 by making some absolutely wretched species of ukfauna. She misinterpreted ukfauna anatomy very badly and it was rejected.
Around the same time, Jade Harley also tried to join, unaware that Rose had tried. Jade had more success and made a good number of nodents and shrews throughout 2007, 2008, and early 2009. You know she would.
Dave Strider didn't join Sagan 4, but he knew of it, because his Bro signed up and made several species, including the ugliest sauceback to ever exist. Bro was later banned for toxic behavior, a few weeks before the events of Homestuck.
Rose's Mom probably knew of the project, but didn't contribute.
That's about it.
--
In the post-scratch universe, things get more interesting. In this universe, which is closer-aligned with our own, Homestuck begins in 2011, so a lot of major events in Sagan 4 history have already happened.
Jane Crocker is actually a big fan of Sagan 4, but she'd never contribute, she could never do that. Having an interest in frightening fauna, she is fascinated by the species produced in the alienification phase and saddened by the post-snowball resurgence of Earth clones. In other words, it's a good thing she didn't join because she would almost certainly alienify everything to the point of no longer being recognizable or functional. She likes saucebacks, though.
Jake English probably wouldn't have too much of an interest in Sagan 4, at least at first.
Roxy Lalonde would know of it, for certain, but I'll get to that in a little bit.
Then there's Dirk Strider.
Dirk would know of Sagan 4, and of everything that happens after 2011. He has read every single entry that exists or will ever exist on Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. He has made numerous fan species based on all three timelines. Since Sagan 4's flooding event was happening in 2011, either Dirk or Roxy has on at least one occasion tried to use it to explain to Jane what Betty Crocker did to the Earth, with no success.
Wait...what the heck is Sagan 4 Gamma?
Though the post-scratch universe aligns more with ours, things do eventually diverge. In this universe, Homestuck is real instead of a work of fiction. In late 2021, the adult post-scratch version of Rose Lalonde joins Sagan 4 (both Alpha and Beta) under a pseudonym and joins me and Colddigger as a third Monarch of The Cursed, contributing greatly to deep sea ecosystems with each new organism weirder than the last. She became a beloved member, and some years down the line as Sagan 4 had to face the unprecedented threat of its members being killed in the hilarocaust, she vanished. As I was still alive, I tracked her down and learned her real name and that she had been killed after trying to make a stand against Betty Crocker. It was not long after this that Miraheze and Jcink went down for good, rendering Sagan 4 Alpha and Beta inaccessible, though fortunately not without backup.
We few surviving Sagan 4 members banded together to make a Sagan 4 Gamma that was not just a collaborative spec project, but an act of rebellion in Rose's honor. After getting our hands on something like ecto-alchemy equipment stolen from Crockercorp, we were also able to make our submissions real; this included Alpha and Beta species that we still had the data for, as well. Physical manifestations of our artwork helped us defend ourselves against Imperial Drones and whatever else Betty Crocker sent our way as we all gathered at a base of operations atop a mountain unaffected by the water apocalypse--and all surviving Sagan 4 members got to meet in real life, albeit out of necessity for survival. Sagan 4 Gamma rapidly also became a safe haven for people all over the world seeking protection from Betty Crocker's tyranny. It thrived like no version of Sagan 4 ever had before, as it became a sort of symbolic thing for everyone who entered our protection to make a species and there were quite a few creative minds who had survived the genocide and apocalypse thus far.
Sagan 4 Gamma became one of the longest holdouts of humanity free from Betty Crocker's rule, lasting over 150 years after the rest of civilization has fallen. But we, or rather our descendants, couldn't really do much meaningful against her, so she didn't really care after a while and just left us alone. Sagan 4 Gamma became the largest and longest-running spec evo project of all time. But our time was not to last forever. Without a common enemy, our descendants started fighting amongst themselves, and eventually the ecto-alchemy equipment and other stuff they had depended on for food is destroyed. Mass starvation leaves behind a survivor population too small to keep up, and eventually the last members of Sagan 4 Gamma, like the rest of humanity, have died.
A few centuries later, Dirk Strider discovers the project and the backups of Alpha and Beta and decides to start Sagan 4 Delta. It's a seed world with all the best and most iconic species from all 3 timelines.
Of course Roxy is a member. She knows all about Gamma because it was made in her Ancestor's honor, and the idea of contributing and even making descendants of Rose's species?
Jake joins and tries to make the aliens from avatar. Of course he does.
Callie probably contributes some wonderful artwork. I could see her brother Caliborn trying as well. Dirk has no standards so he just approves Caliborn's scribbles, including a diorama where he seems to be attempting to depict a crestgill from Beta in a sexy pose.
Then there's Jane. From her perspective, it's still 2011. She thinks Dirk just made up the limbo, Sagan 4 Beta, the Mason revival, the retcon event, Sagan 4 Gamma, famous author Rose Lalonde of all people being a member, and...really, tamjacks becoming tool users, saucebacks evolving into birds, and those primitive cloney nodents coming back from the dead? There's no way those would ever be approved! But she contributes to Sagan 4 Delta anyway. She turns some saucebacks into Beasts from Problem Sleuth.
--
Eventually, the new universe is created and there's Earth C. Both sets of human kids live as Gods on the same planet now. Rose finds out about post-scratch Sagan 4 and about Sagan 4 Delta and is immediately interested. Jade is sad that nothing like her pre-scratch contributions existed after the scratch but also wants to resubmit some of them, now remade and improved, to Delta. Jane wants to make stuff for Delta for the nostalgia, as does Roxy. Dirk is no longer interested in running Delta, but Callie is. Thus the project kicks up again under Callie's management, and before long Alpha, Beta, and Gamma are brought back too, though they mostly get contributed to by mortals while Delta remains the thing of the Gods.
And now the surviving trolls know about it too. All of them make at least one species and Kanaya becomes the project's dedicated "plant guy". Terezi also contributes regularly, making some pretty neat and colorful cursoriopedes, so when she left Earth C and re-entered canon to look for Vriska, it was the loss of a great member.
Over the next 7 years, each Creator contributed to Delta at least once, even those who hadn't had any interest in Sagan 4 in the past like John and Dave. They sometimes contributed to the restarted other 3 timelines as well. Gcatavrosprite manages to make a fairybull out of a pinyuk and it's actually really clever how he does it.
Sagan 4 Alpha reaches the end of its habitable period by the time of the Meat/Candy split, leaving it complete, while Beta, Gamma, and Delta are still ongoing.
This post is getting too long I'll brainstorm what the meat/candy split does another time
Descriptions must be longer than that for fauna. The diet must also list everything.
This seems to be missing multiple lungs, as well as the breathing holes for said lungs.
With that long tail and those small wings, can this still fly?
How did this get to entirely different continents from where its ancestor lived? Also, many of those biomes no longer exist.
This seems to be missing multiple lungs, as well as the breathing holes for said lungs.
With that long tail and those small wings, can this still fly?
How did this get to entirely different continents from where its ancestor lived? Also, many of those biomes no longer exist.
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