Ideas for Re: Champion

IMMEDIATE:

- Karkinos was going to join the push to repel the Oni borders. They would have initially succeeded, but a second wave would overrun them, pushing them further and further into the interior. Initially I wanted the Oni to have some kind of personal cloaking technology but that made them too similar to the Elites from Halo (and they already kind of looked like Elites in my head anyway).

- The Trole Protocol (yet another thing I was aping from the Halo novels) would be enacted; the ship's mainframe hives would be poisoned and smashed to keep the Oni from accessing any intel left behind by escaping non-combat personnel. Eventually even the soldiers are ordered to evacuate. Karkinos would meet up with Alcaeus, who refuses to evacuate: his moirail is on board, and he refuses to leave without her. Of course, he can't just leave him to fight against the Oni presence alone, so he helps in the search.

- They find her pinned down by Oni soldiers, trying to make it back to her own ship. Of course, Aitris (Redglare) is there too, and if it's not obvious by now, Byakka (from the Hunters side-story) is Alcaeus's moirail, so there's a huge round of "you know this guy?" going on. None of the escape pods are left but there's one undamaged starfighter in the hangar. Problem is, it seats two at most, and there's not enough room for any more. They agree to let Alcaeus and Byakka take it; Alcaeus makes his "it was an honor serving with you, sir" speech to Karkinos, and he and Aitris are left behind to fight off an entire Oni boarding party. It doesn't look good for them...

- ...except they somehow manage to do it. I hadn't worked out how yet, though I was leaning toward them hijacking an Oni ship and figuring out how to work it somehow. Also, they totally would have set off the homeship's fusion reactor before leaving, destroying it and an entire goddamn Oni battleship at once.

- Also Karkinos would have taken a bullet during all this, revealing his true blood color (remember, he was starting to come off of the Hemoshift at least one chapter ago), and Aitris would have found out. Initially she would have been like "holy shit, what IS that color" but then she would have been all "well no WONDER you were taking drugs to change it, that's totally illegal but I can't fault you for just EXISTING". And that moment would totally have been the setup for Karkinos/Redglare down the line

LATER:

- The one-shot's events happen, Karkinos becomes declared Champion. After yesterday's update, I wanted the Empress also putting him above castes entirely, meaning he wouldn't have a sign anymore, and thus he'd become the Signless.

- Also the Empress's given name would have been Sepia Iscariot. Nobody will get the reference in her last name.

- More battle scenes. One thing in particular that I wanted to do was Karkinos actually getting along pretty well with the Subjugglators. That would have led to them pledging full support to his campaigns. One scene I really wanted to write was the Grand Highblood (whose given name would have been Nashir Zillyhoo) making fun of the drop boxes Threshecutioners use to deploy themselves quickly from dropships to the surface. Karkinos would have been like "yeah whatever it takes shame globes of fucking steel to ride these things." The Highblood would then have shown him up by straight up jumping out of the dropship, entirely unassisted, and getting up from the massive crater he leaves upon landing, unhurt.

- Sometime after Karkinos becomes the Champion of Alternia, Aradia's ancestor (who was the royal historian, Casparr's matesprit, and would have been named Araja) would have discovered some kind of ancient relic on a formerly Oni world recently captured by Alternia, something they called "The Forge". Problem is, it's activated by bio-sensor, and nobody in Araja's team of scientists and field workers can get the damn thing to work. Karkinos wants to see it, I hadn't planned out why but I was leaning toward "why the hell not". He's accompanied by Casparr, Aitris (who would have become his personal bodyguard by now, by insistence of the Empress) and the Grand Highblood (who oversees a lot of the Champion's official business). Of course, when they get there, Karkinos is able to activate the thing effortlessly.

After yesterday's update, upon powering on, the screen on the Forge would have blinked to life and greeted him with "AUTHORIZED BIOFORM DETECTED. IT HAS BEEN (approximate age of the universe give or take a few million years) SINCE YOU LAST LOGGED ON. WELCOME BACK, KARKAT VANTAS." Before then, it would have said something in indecipherable symbols.

Maybe you see where I'm going with this, but if not, hold on. Karkinos would have toyed with the Forge for a bit, wondering how to use it. Eventually he would have noticed a slot, just big enough to accommodate a strife specibus or sylladex card. First he tries sliding in the card for his sickle; when it asks for another, Aitris gives him the card for Cuelebre's Talons, her double-bladed sword. The Force comes to life, and produces a huge double-headed scythe I would have called 69th Circle of Hell.

The Forge would have been a goddamned Alchemiter. Until yesterday's update, I wanted it to be left over from the session that created the trolls' universe. Then, I wanted it to somehow be left from the pre-Scratch troll session.

A BUNCH OF STUFF INSPIRED BY YESTERDAY'S UPDATE:

- I wanted Karkinos to start remembering pre-Scratch Alternia after using the Forge, not the whole thing, just bits and pieces of it. He would have found grainy old video footage on the terminal connected to it, too (one scene in particular would have been he and Aitris watching a video of themselves and he would have been like "we were matesprits, and I think I actually remember this exact moment", and him successfully calling what happens next in the video would have led to her believing his crazy flashbacks were actually real). This would have caused him to have an epiphany, and maybe start thinking that endless war and conquest wasn't as rad as the empire made it out to be. Maybe endless war and conquest actually totally sucks!

- Then he would quit. He wasn't going to actively work against Alternia, but he would fight the Oni no longer, and he'd tell the Empress personally, with most of his friends by his side. Of course, the Empress doesn't accept resignation letters, especially from the guy prophesied to be the savior of the troll race, so she decides he can't possibly be the Champion. So she stabs him in the chest with her trident, and kills him.

- Except she doesn't. In the ensuing confusion, while the Empress has her back to his body and guards are trying to apprehend a very pissed off Casparr, Byakka, and Aitris, he stirs. He gets up. He pulls the trident out of his chest. He slowly makes his way over to the Empress. AND HE TOTALLY FUCKING RUNS HER THROUGH WITH HER OWN TRIDENT, GODDAMN

Because sometimes, you gotta fight for peace, right

Of course, that doesn't kill her, he can't be that lucky. But it's a hell of a blow to her image once word gets out.

- Karkinos escapes somehow (hadn't planned that out yet), the Empress makes a big speech about how he will suffer for what he's done, and the populace runs with the moniker of Sufferer as they rally around him. The time is right for a rebellion; lowbloods are fed up with the treatment they get from highbloods, and they look to him, the guy who managed to injure THE EMPRESS, as their leader.

ENDGAME IDEAS:

- So he goes with it. His comrades become his inner circle and they all take up codenames for some reason. Casparr becomes Twinhorn (totally didn't call his canon name there), Alcaeus becomes Darkleer, Byakka becomes Huntress (also another one I didn't call), Redglare becomes the Neophyte. Redglare also decides to try to destroy the system from within (hence her deciding to go into law, and that was why they can't contact each other directly, as hinted at in the pesterlog from the last chapter).

- At some point, Mindfang was going to pledge allegiance to Karkinos's revolution, deciding there had to be serious treasure to loot when an empire falls. Later on, this would backfire and she would betray him, because the generous reward for the Sufferer's capture was a sure thing, opposed to the spectacularly bad odds of the revolution succeeding. This would set up Redglare hating Mindfang and jumping at the chance to bring her in, in canon.

- She would not be the only traitor. Alcaeus would be captured by anti-rebellion forces, and offered a deal; if he brings the Sufferer to them, his moirail would not be harmed, guaranteed, and both of them would be pardoned. Otherwise, he would be executed, along with the rest of the group. He complies, but after it's all over, Byakka would end up hating him platonically for the rest of her life for his actions, leaving him to wonder if it was all worth it. JUST LIKE IN CANON

- Then the Sufferer's fate, as seen in yesterday's update, happens

- His last words, I actually started writing last night. They would have been something like "Listen up, shitheads. You goddamn highbloods think this is over, don't you. Do you really think this is it? That someday there won't be another one, just like me? Your old order won't fucking stand forever. Someone else will come along, and he'll be more successful than I ever was, and when he decides he's had enough, he's going to FUCK YOUR SHIT UP." and then he dies

- The implication is that Karkinos was not the Champion. KARKAT is.

EPILOGUE:

- Redglare is the first to spread his teachings. She adopts the grey irons as a symbol and teaches anyone she thinks will listen about the Sufferer, spreading his message far and wide in secret. She sets up the events that would ensure the Second Signless has a sign and a lusus when he comes.

- Redglare's hatred of Mindfang for being instrumental in Karkinos's capture moves her to case the Mindfang case immediately, leading to her death in canon.

- Karkat finds Karkinos's journal, thousands of years later. He dismisses it as bad Thresh Prince fanfiction, but is enamored with the hand sickle he left behind (IT TURNS OUT KARKAT'S STARTING SICKLE WAS KARKINOS'S OLD ARMY ONE THE WHOLE TIME)

- Terezi, the first time she meets Karkat in person, doesn't believe it at first. She's only seen that symbol in the few pages of Redglare's journal she found and once in Mindfang's journal, when she snuck a peek at it while Vriska wasn't paying attention. But she pulls out the necklace from under her shirt (which she found alongside the journal pages) and holy shit, it's the same sign. She remarks to herself something along the lines of "H3H3H3 TH1S SHOULD B3 1NT3R3ST1NG"

- Feferi, upon finding out Karkat's blood color, recalls the forbidden texts detailing the Sufferer kept in Imperial libraries, for the eyes of the royal bloodline only, and bows to him.