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alias_sqbrI was pondering ancestors and Troll history yesterday only to be jossed by canon, so I'm going to get my ideas out of my head while I have the chance. Not worked out thoroughly at all and blatantly stolen from lots of places including my incredibly shallow grasp of history. Includes images and/or descriptions of the ancestors I've come up with.
History:
Karkat's ancestor: (a different) Weary Villein
An exile from a past session of Sburb. The exiles had similar enough genetics to the trolls to interbreed via ectobiology, but their genes are recessive so don't show up much in the resulting population. Developing from the survivors of a Sburb session is one reason Troll culture has such an emphasis on predestination, as well as being a source of some of their technology. Also: sickles are a farming instrument *waggles eyebrows*
Alternia used to have multiple hives of trolls each with different cultures and biology, but they were violently subsumed by the current empire, at least on Alternia itself. Little pockets of resistance start up and raise their own mother grubs from time to time, but what usually happens is they get found out, their mother grub killed, their population enslaved, and their genetics stolen to be fed to the empires mother grub, the resulting children being raised not to question the Imperial view of things. The caste system evolved from racism towards those whose blood showed visible signs of coming from one of these losing factions. Also, lowbloods are distrusted for being able to communicate with the dead since the dead do not tend to toe the party line.
My original idea for Karkat's ancestor was for her to be from some red blooded hive long since wiped out. And then I thought about her being from some human colony or something (maybe an Abyssinian or Druid stolen from Earth's past, a la Stargate!) But Karkat would have noticed if she was human, plus it's pretty cheesy. I still like the idea of her as a battle-scarred soldier but it's less interesting from a scifi POV.
Equius and Aradia ancestors: The royal attendant Bēvar Asporse and revolutionary Montone Toscano, whose attempts to kill each other escalated over several years until Asporse’s trial and execution during the final days of the Blood Rebellions. Some have posited that their relationship was caliginous in nature, butthere is no evidence that Asporse was unfaithful to her kismesis Dualscar and (jossed!) it seems unlikely, given their politics, that Asporse or Toscano would be willing to enter a relationship with someone of the other’s blood type.
Bēvar Asporse (dressed like an 18th century french woman): Peasant scum! How dare you threaten the emperor?!
Montone Toscano (a guy in a long shirt and pants): Do your worst, blue blood. Revolution is coming, and soon the dead themselves will rise against you!
In my head the Blood Rebellions are a mish-mash of the French Revolution and English Civil War, only with angry ghosts. After yesterday's update I really like the idea of the lowbloods and slaves rising up against the aristocracy, blech. And things do seem to have improved since then!
Modern times:
Children are raised on nursery planets like Alternia (I'm not sure if there'd be more than one). A small number of adult trolls stay on the surface keeping an eye on things, they don't interact with the young trolls directly but make sure the culture they're growing up in suits the Empire's agenda, encourage culling of undesirables and keep an eye on anyone they might wish to recruit to various jobs.
Once the children reach their late teens they are visited by the Imperial Drone and give their genetic material to the Mother Grub (who I assume has to be on Alternia since her babies are) They are then sent off to where-ever the military thinks they will be most useful, based on a combination of aptitude and blood etc.
Tavros ancestor: A dumpy adult toll woman in Olde Worlde dress and apron with Tavros’s horns, colours and symbol makes friends with a weird horned spider octopus thing. I imagine her as a little Hagrid like, deeply involved with her animals (someone has to look after the livestock to supply the troops) and friendly enough but not really fussed about talking to other people.
Adults live on space-stations and colonies, the military keeps a close eye on things but rebel factions form regardless under the radar.
Ok, I'm not sure if this is challenging the US focus of the comic or horrible appropriation:
Feferi ancestor: campaigner for reform from an off-shoot group based (in my head) on a mix of the Quakers and Buddhist and Hindu monks. Pacifist, celibate, felt that having a matesprit or kismesis would distract them from their life work of encouraging equality and pluralism and just encouraged the caste system. Killed by the Imperial Drone. Would want to do more reading on the relevant subjects if I was going to actually draw them.
EDIT: I like the idea of genderswapping all the ancestors but think Feferi's would be more interesting as female than male. And then I thought "Way to ignore genderqueer people, self". But I think I'd still make her in particular female.
Which brings me to my gender related bit of personal canon, that either the troll's physical sex is complicated and ambiguous or they don't even have such a concept (or they do but it's entirely separate to gender). Either way they just choose the gender they like, and it doesn't always divide neatly into male/female, especially once they leave the fairly rigid culture of Alternia.
And finally:
Sollux ancestor: An old woman missing her right eye and leg wearing red and blue glasses, a sensible skirt and a cardigan with Gemini buttons. She is sitting in a black and white coloured wheelchair and shaking her fist.
I imagine the war doesn’t leave many older veterans, but Sollux’s ancestor holed herself up on some remote colony and blasts anyone who tries to mess with her with her remaining eye. She invented ~ath and passed the manual on to Sollux.
Gamzee: Some significant figure amongst the "cult of capricious minstrels".
Eridan and Vriska: described in canon.
Nepeta and Kanaya: I have a very silly idea for this I may or may not get around to.
Terezi: a legislacerator. Possibly resembling Miles Edgeworth :)
And that's about the end of my head canon, which will probably be entirely disproven by the time I post this!
History:
Karkat's ancestor: (a different) Weary Villein
An exile from a past session of Sburb. The exiles had similar enough genetics to the trolls to interbreed via ectobiology, but their genes are recessive so don't show up much in the resulting population. Developing from the survivors of a Sburb session is one reason Troll culture has such an emphasis on predestination, as well as being a source of some of their technology. Also: sickles are a farming instrument *waggles eyebrows*
Alternia used to have multiple hives of trolls each with different cultures and biology, but they were violently subsumed by the current empire, at least on Alternia itself. Little pockets of resistance start up and raise their own mother grubs from time to time, but what usually happens is they get found out, their mother grub killed, their population enslaved, and their genetics stolen to be fed to the empires mother grub, the resulting children being raised not to question the Imperial view of things. The caste system evolved from racism towards those whose blood showed visible signs of coming from one of these losing factions. Also, lowbloods are distrusted for being able to communicate with the dead since the dead do not tend to toe the party line.
My original idea for Karkat's ancestor was for her to be from some red blooded hive long since wiped out. And then I thought about her being from some human colony or something (maybe an Abyssinian or Druid stolen from Earth's past, a la Stargate!) But Karkat would have noticed if she was human, plus it's pretty cheesy. I still like the idea of her as a battle-scarred soldier but it's less interesting from a scifi POV.
Equius and Aradia ancestors: The royal attendant Bēvar Asporse and revolutionary Montone Toscano, whose attempts to kill each other escalated over several years until Asporse’s trial and execution during the final days of the Blood Rebellions. Some have posited that their relationship was caliginous in nature, but
Bēvar Asporse (dressed like an 18th century french woman): Peasant scum! How dare you threaten the emperor?!
Montone Toscano (a guy in a long shirt and pants): Do your worst, blue blood. Revolution is coming, and soon the dead themselves will rise against you!
In my head the Blood Rebellions are a mish-mash of the French Revolution and English Civil War, only with angry ghosts. After yesterday's update I really like the idea of the lowbloods and slaves rising up against the aristocracy, blech. And things do seem to have improved since then!
Modern times:
Children are raised on nursery planets like Alternia (I'm not sure if there'd be more than one). A small number of adult trolls stay on the surface keeping an eye on things, they don't interact with the young trolls directly but make sure the culture they're growing up in suits the Empire's agenda, encourage culling of undesirables and keep an eye on anyone they might wish to recruit to various jobs.
Once the children reach their late teens they are visited by the Imperial Drone and give their genetic material to the Mother Grub (who I assume has to be on Alternia since her babies are) They are then sent off to where-ever the military thinks they will be most useful, based on a combination of aptitude and blood etc.
Tavros ancestor: A dumpy adult toll woman in Olde Worlde dress and apron with Tavros’s horns, colours and symbol makes friends with a weird horned spider octopus thing. I imagine her as a little Hagrid like, deeply involved with her animals (someone has to look after the livestock to supply the troops) and friendly enough but not really fussed about talking to other people.
Adults live on space-stations and colonies, the military keeps a close eye on things but rebel factions form regardless under the radar.
Ok, I'm not sure if this is challenging the US focus of the comic or horrible appropriation:
Feferi ancestor: campaigner for reform from an off-shoot group based (in my head) on a mix of the Quakers and Buddhist and Hindu monks. Pacifist, celibate, felt that having a matesprit or kismesis would distract them from their life work of encouraging equality and pluralism and just encouraged the caste system. Killed by the Imperial Drone. Would want to do more reading on the relevant subjects if I was going to actually draw them.
EDIT: I like the idea of genderswapping all the ancestors but think Feferi's would be more interesting as female than male. And then I thought "Way to ignore genderqueer people, self". But I think I'd still make her in particular female.
Which brings me to my gender related bit of personal canon, that either the troll's physical sex is complicated and ambiguous or they don't even have such a concept (or they do but it's entirely separate to gender). Either way they just choose the gender they like, and it doesn't always divide neatly into male/female, especially once they leave the fairly rigid culture of Alternia.
And finally:
Sollux ancestor: An old woman missing her right eye and leg wearing red and blue glasses, a sensible skirt and a cardigan with Gemini buttons. She is sitting in a black and white coloured wheelchair and shaking her fist.
I imagine the war doesn’t leave many older veterans, but Sollux’s ancestor holed herself up on some remote colony and blasts anyone who tries to mess with her with her remaining eye. She invented ~ath and passed the manual on to Sollux.
Gamzee: Some significant figure amongst the "cult of capricious minstrels".
Eridan and Vriska: described in canon.
Nepeta and Kanaya: I have a very silly idea for this I may or may not get around to.
Terezi: a legislacerator. Possibly resembling Miles Edgeworth :)
And that's about the end of my head canon, which will probably be entirely disproven by the time I post this!
no subject
Date: 2011-02-16 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 05:35 am (UTC)Thanks for inspiring me to put my idea into action :D Though having seen someone else's art I am also quite taken with the idea of Redglare as Franziska.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 08:18 am (UTC)Yay! I love your art so that's great. Franziska was a good fit too, especially the way they're both arrogant and care about winning more than the truth. (Franziska got better)