Post by Gab on Jan 4, 2019 17:55:42 GMT
As the situation evolves, I feel it's appropriate to create a dedicated thread for this.
I'll summarize all the information I know here, and maybe edit this post as more new stuff comes up.
On 1/1/2019, www.whatpumpkin.com ceased to be, and going to that url now leads to a new website, www.skaianetsystems.com.
The site has a countdown timer counting almost ten years from now. It ends on 4/13/2029, which will be the 20th year anniversary of Homestuck's launch (4/13 this year will be the 10th anniversary). The site's copyright reads 1889-2029, a period of 140 years.
There's a map of the Earth with several red dots all over it. I've heard these dots correspond with real impact sites, but I haven't been able to find anything proving this. Also a scrolling readout of various latitude/longitude coordinates (not related to the red dots). These locations are all over the world, and while a fan did happen to find something at one of those locations (the only one in the continental U.S.), there is no ARG planned around this, as confirmed by this tweet.
I believe whatpumpkin's twitter also changed to twitter.com/skaianetsystems, now with no tweets at all. They still haven't posted anything yet.
Hidden in the source code of the site were some links which quickly got taken down. They were:
None of that is on SN anymore, but an archive of all of this, along with data pertaining to other stuff on the site, can be found here.
I think that's about everything, and where we're at now. So we'll have to see how things go from here.
I'll summarize all the information I know here, and maybe edit this post as more new stuff comes up.
On 1/1/2019, www.whatpumpkin.com ceased to be, and going to that url now leads to a new website, www.skaianetsystems.com.
The site has a countdown timer counting almost ten years from now. It ends on 4/13/2029, which will be the 20th year anniversary of Homestuck's launch (4/13 this year will be the 10th anniversary). The site's copyright reads 1889-2029, a period of 140 years.
There's a map of the Earth with several red dots all over it. I've heard these dots correspond with real impact sites, but I haven't been able to find anything proving this. Also a scrolling readout of various latitude/longitude coordinates (not related to the red dots). These locations are all over the world, and while a fan did happen to find something at one of those locations (the only one in the continental U.S.), there is no ARG planned around this, as confirmed by this tweet.
I believe whatpumpkin's twitter also changed to twitter.com/skaianetsystems, now with no tweets at all. They still haven't posted anything yet.
Hidden in the source code of the site were some links which quickly got taken down. They were:
SAMPLES/APOPHIS/PYROLUSITE.JPG, which was an image of the mineral pyrolusite, the same one in this wikipedia page. Apophis is the name of a meteor that is supposed to pass close to the earth on April 13, 2029. Apophis I think was named after a bad guy from Stargate? Who was named after an Egyptian god, also named Apep, who was supposedly an evil god of chaos, chaos. He was most often depicted as a snake, but sometimes as a crocodile.
GOVERNMENT_BLACKLIST/ILLICIT_WARES/DARK_WEB_CACHE/CRITICAL_ASSETS/
CRITICAL_ASSET01.jpg-CRITICAL_ASSET10.jpg - all of these are a bunch of weird pictures of wizards, like the ones hung up as painting in Rose's house.
READ ME.txt, which reads as follows:
ILLEGAL/BANISHED_RESOURCES/REBIRTH.JPG, which was an image of a hand-drawn SBaHJ comic where I think Jeff gives birth to a baby.
LEGACY/OUR_DEAR_FOUNDER.JPG, which was a picture of Colonel Sassacre.
FORBIDDEN/CURSED_DATA/HISTORY/ contained several txt files that went over the history of Skaianet and HIC's presence throughout Earth's history, starting with her making her way to that universe on an apparent mission from her new master, and ending with her death in Collide. To abridge, it goes into detail about she, and the company she founds with Sassacre (who is Mark Twain under an alias) as a figurehead, mold much of human history from the late 1800s onward, "developing new science" by gradually releasing Alternian and Sburb tech plundered from various ruins, and bringing many famous historical figures under their influence as well, many of whom are quite different in this story's reality than history would have us believe. Her chief goals are mainly to set the stage for how she will conquer the world once she's done with it, using B1 as a proving ground for her various schemes of implanting herself into society, then ditching in 2009 for the new universe to bring these unrealized plans fully to bear. Probably the most interesting detail of this is her being watched and controlled in various ways by Calamity, Calliope and Caliborn's mother, who kept the Condesce more or less in check throughout history to ensure she would create the universe (C) her children would later be born in.
There's a lot more than that, but these are the most relevant bits. The whole thing is very straightforward, reading quite obviously as a plot draft for internal purposes, largely devoid of intrigue or care to any reveals or such. It's also got a very TSO feel to it. The nitty gritty gets pretty damn dark, well beyond Homestuck's usual standards. There's a lot of callously inflammatory material, and it really hurt a lot of people.
The next day, on the second of January, Andrew (not signed but pretty sure it's him) put up an apology for the HIC backstory stuff he wrote.
GOVERNMENT_BLACKLIST/ILLICIT_WARES/DARK_WEB_CACHE/CRITICAL_ASSETS/
CRITICAL_ASSET01.jpg-CRITICAL_ASSET10.jpg - all of these are a bunch of weird pictures of wizards, like the ones hung up as painting in Rose's house.
READ ME.txt, which reads as follows:
ATTENTION. BY ILLEGALLY HACKING INTO THE DARK_WEB_CACHE FULL OF ILLICIT_WARES WHICH HAS BEEN EXPLICITLY BLACKLISTED BY THE GOVERNMENT, AND STORING THESE CRITICAL_ASSETS ON YOUR DEVICE, YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY AGREED TO ALLOW YOUR DEVICE TO BECOME A CRITICAL NODE IN THE SKAIANET SYSTEMS BLOCKCHAIN. TO REMOVE YOUR SYSTEM FROM THE BLOCKCHAIN, THESE INSTRUCTIONS MUST BE FOLLOWED PRECISELY. AT EXACTLY 04:13 UTC, DELETE CRITICAL_ASSET01.jpg. DELETION MUST OCCUR WITHIN NO GREATER OR LESS THAN ONE SECOND FROM THAT TIME. EXACTLY 24 HOURS LATER, DELETE THE SECOND CRITICAL_ASSET AT THE SAME TIME. CONTINUE DELETING EACH CONSECUTIVE CRITICAL_ASSET EVERY 24 HOURS UNTIL ALL HAVE BEEN DELETED, AND THEN 24 HOURS AFTER THAT, DELETE THE FOLDER, INCLUDING THIS READ ME FILE. ANY DEVIATION FROM THESE INSTRUCTIONS, SUCH AS DELETING A FILE AT THE WRONG TIME, WILL RESULT IN FAILURE, AND YOUR DEVICE WILL REMAIN EMBEDDED IN THE BLOCKCHAIN UNTIL YOU REINSTALL THIS CACHE OF CRITICAL_ASSETS AND START THE UNINSTALLATION PROCESS OVER. SKAIANET SYSTEMS THANKS YOU FOR GENEROUSLY PROVIDING MOST OF YOUR DEVICE'S COMPUTING POWER TO THE BLOCKCHAIN.
ILLEGAL/BANISHED_RESOURCES/REBIRTH.JPG, which was an image of a hand-drawn SBaHJ comic where I think Jeff gives birth to a baby.
LEGACY/OUR_DEAR_FOUNDER.JPG, which was a picture of Colonel Sassacre.
FORBIDDEN/CURSED_DATA/HISTORY/ contained several txt files that went over the history of Skaianet and HIC's presence throughout Earth's history, starting with her making her way to that universe on an apparent mission from her new master, and ending with her death in Collide. To abridge, it goes into detail about she, and the company she founds with Sassacre (who is Mark Twain under an alias) as a figurehead, mold much of human history from the late 1800s onward, "developing new science" by gradually releasing Alternian and Sburb tech plundered from various ruins, and bringing many famous historical figures under their influence as well, many of whom are quite different in this story's reality than history would have us believe. Her chief goals are mainly to set the stage for how she will conquer the world once she's done with it, using B1 as a proving ground for her various schemes of implanting herself into society, then ditching in 2009 for the new universe to bring these unrealized plans fully to bear. Probably the most interesting detail of this is her being watched and controlled in various ways by Calamity, Calliope and Caliborn's mother, who kept the Condesce more or less in check throughout history to ensure she would create the universe (C) her children would later be born in.
There's a lot more than that, but these are the most relevant bits. The whole thing is very straightforward, reading quite obviously as a plot draft for internal purposes, largely devoid of intrigue or care to any reveals or such. It's also got a very TSO feel to it. The nitty gritty gets pretty damn dark, well beyond Homestuck's usual standards. There's a lot of callously inflammatory material, and it really hurt a lot of people.
The next day, on the second of January, Andrew (not signed but pretty sure it's him) put up an apology for the HIC backstory stuff he wrote.
None of that is on SN anymore, but an archive of all of this, along with data pertaining to other stuff on the site, can be found here.
I think that's about everything, and where we're at now. So we'll have to see how things go from here.