2019-05-23 10:17:20 ¶ ●

## Black Hole Theory: Revisited Again

## Introduction to the Black Hole Theory

Back when Collide and Act 7 dropped back in 2016, people asked a lot of questions. Without textual narration and with very little background information from the author, many aspects of the animations seemed to be more mysterious than they were helpful. Particularly mystifying were the black holes featured in both animations; in Act 7, one created by the alternate Calliope next to the Green Sun, which by all accounts as essential to Lord English’s defeat but whose specific purpose at the time was left vague; and in Collide, the hole left behind by the death of the possessed Jack Noir, which took half of Dirk’s Land of Tombs and Krypton with it before never being mentioned again.

Many seemed to take a key detail - the fact that the juju breaker crowbar and the fridge containing Gamzee were both conveniently caught in “Union Jack”’s blast - as a clue as to what these black holes were supposed to do. The crowbar and Gamzee both later appeared on Caliborn’s version of the Earth with no explanation as to how they got there, leading many to believe that the black hole created by Jack’s death is what transported them there in the first place, acting as a wormhole.

I took this hypothesis further; judging by the fact that Caliborn also enters his own session through a black hole, then things that enter black holes must all end up in Caliborn’s session. So I compiled a list of black holes in Homestuck, the things that had been pulled into their event horizons, and the consequences these things might have for Homestuck’s narrative. Important to this theory was one other major detail; the connection between the pool ball-themed computer server in the Furthest Ring and the Immortality Clock in Doc Scratch’s apartment, which was also found in Caliborn’s session with no explanation.

## What the Epilogues say about the Black Hole Theory

While I obviously didn’t get every single detail correct, the Homestuck Epilogues essentially confirm outright the most important assumptions made in the Black Hole Theory.

One of the main things connecting the two separate timelines in the Epilogues - Meat and Candy - is the black hole created by the Dead Cherub, which consumed the Green Sun and then the fabric of Paradox Space itself. This black hole does not lead to Caliborn’s SBURB session as originally assumed, but it does lead to the Earth in Universe C - the same Earth Caliborn later goes on to inhabit. It’s through this black hole that multitudes of ghosts arrive on Earth C.

The black hole isn’t the only portal through which inhabitants of the dream bubbles are able to arrive on Earth, however.

> Before you can react, she jams the button down on the beacon and opens the server. She jumps into the hatch and the door snaps closed behind her.

Meenah jumps through a server in the Furthest Ring and later falls through the sky in Earth C in exactly the same manner as the ghosts who fell through the Dead Cherub’s black hole. The implications of this are clear: the black hole and the pool ball server both lead to the same place. What remains unclear is how exactly these two portals come to be linked with the Immortality Clock.

## Revisiting the black holes

## Case I: [S] Caliborn: Enter

The black hole from Caliborn: Enter remains the most straightforward example: the dried up Earth C, including everything on it, is sucked into the black hole to where Caliborn’s session takes place.

However the information provided to us by the Epilogues forces us to rethink a major aspect of the Black Hole Theory: either the assumption that all black holes lead to the same place has to be discarded, or the exact logic regarding where a black hole leads to is more complicated than was once thought.

The Epilogues show us that the black hole in the Furthest Ring takes things to Earth; so how can the Earth itself be pulled through the same kind of portal? Keeping in mind that black holes also represent portals back into the story, it makes sense that a black hole would be what pulls an old, dead planet back into relevance in a SBURB session. But how can it practically happen?

One possibility is that, since the Dead Cherub’s black hole is connected to the Candy reality specifically, Caliborn’s Earth is actually from the Meat reality, and fell through into the Candy reality when Caliborn entered his session.

Another possibility involves the Immortality Clock. If the black holes initially led to the skies above Earth C, but later became connected to the Immortality Clock like the pool ball server did, it’s possible that after being sucked into the kernelsprite black hole, the Earth emerged from the Immortality Clock, with the clock itself sitting in its core.

Since we already know what the Caliborn: Enter black hole actually did, there’s little to be discussed in that regard. But the question of how it did what it did could be important to figuring out the functionality of Homestuck’s other black holes.

## Case II: The Dead Session

In stark contrast to the kernelsprite black hole, where the black hole that appears when Skaia collapses in the center of Caliborn’s session leads is a complete mystery. Its purpose is clear: to clear the Dead Session of unwanted variables like Prospit and Skaia and to act as a “pocket” for the pool ball planets caused by its destruction. Where these objects go once they cross the event horizon, however, is unknown. If all the other black holes in Homestuck lead somewhere, it’s only safe to assume this one does, too; but the Epilogues give us no new clues.

As such, the old theory regarding this black hole is still the strongest: when the pool ball planets fall into it, they come back out of the Immortality Clock as miniature - or rather, correctly-sized - pool balls; the same ones which Lil Cal is supposed to have his eyes replaced with and which Jack Noir later takes out in order to become Lord English himself. It is worth noting that just as in Homestuck, the actual origin of the flashing pool ball eyes Caliborn himself wears during his Masterpiece is not touched upon at all in the Epilogues.

## Case III: [S] Collide

The Homestuck Epilogues essentially affirm what many had already suspected; rather than merely spaghettifying or destroying the parts of the Land of Tombs and Krypton caught in its blast, the black hole created by the death of the Jack Noir version of Lord English sent the essential contents of Dirk’s planet to Earth C, where they would later form part of Caliborn’s own quest. Among the more likely objects transported by the black hole are the denizen Yaldabaoth, who would have been somewhere in LOTAK’s core, and the juju breaker crowbar, being wielded by Jack/English at the time of his death.

It was previously assumed that the fridge containing Gamzee was also among the items transported by this black hole; however Gamzee’s being freed in the Candy epilogue obfuscates this possibility somewhat.

## Case IV: [S] Act 7

While the exact design of this black hole is made explicitly clear in the Epilogues, unfortunately my speculation that Caliborn absorbs the power of his own future self is no longer possible, and the exact fate of Lord English’s power, which now resides within the Dead Cherub, is unknown.

## A New Hypothesis?

Homestuck is a story of constantly escalating stakes, frequently prefiguring events in the greater narrative with less severe events in games of Sburb. Two prominent examples are Lord English, who acts as a culmination of previous villains like the Becquerel-powered Jack Noir and the Black King, and the destruction of the A and B universes by The Tumor, which builds on the prior destruction of Alternia and Earth by the Reckoning.

So it only follows that the end of Homestuck itself would parallel the normal end of a Sburb session; the Reckoning, whereby people and objects are sent hurtling toward Skaia and subsequently transported to a planet, foreshadows the Rapture - which Act 7 is referred to as on the Homestuck story map - where the Green Sun - a sun at the center of the story much like Skaia - sucks in people and objects who later find themselves on Earth C. New arrivals on Earth C are even accompanied by impact craters much like meteors, and the terms ‘Reckoning’ and ‘Rapture’ are essentially synonyms in that they both refer to the Biblical apocalypse.

The Green Sun’s similarity to Skaia could be significant for more than just aesthetic parallel reasons, though; when assisted by a powerful temporal event like a Scratch happens, Skaia can create healthy offshoot timelines by duplicating the objects sent through its defense portals and sending them to different points in time.

The Meat and Candy timelines in the Epilogues are noticeably similar to this concept, so the question has to be raised; when an object falls through a black hole, could it be duplicated across both of these timelines? Specifically, could objects that fall from the sky in the Candy timeline also pop out of the Immortality Clock in the Meat timeline?

This hypothesis simplifies some things by explaining why black holes and server portals sometimes lead to the sky on Earth C and sometimes lead to the Immortality Clock. It is also heavy in symbolism; if the Candy timeline beyond the black hole’s event horizon represents the Dead Cherub (Calliope) herself, then the Immortality Clock at the center of Caliborn’s land could similarly be seen as representing himself.

Thus, if my older speculation that Caliborn absorbed Lord English’s essence after destroying the clock is true, then he is absorbed by Calliope in the Candy timeline and by Caliborn in the Meat timeline; befitting of their dual cherubic nature and rivalry. It is also worth noting in this respect that the icon for the Candy epilogue is two intertwined spirals of green and red - symbolising a fusion of Calliope and Caliborn - while the icon of the Meat epilogue is purely red.

If Meenah also appears on Caliborn’s Earth through the Immortality Clock, it would also explain the origin of another of Homestuck’s more mysterious jujus; the Ring of Life and Void, which Caliborn appears to have acquired around the same time as the house juju and his flashing pool ball eyes with little explanation. This explanation fits with the alternating nature of the Ring; if Meenah was using it as a Ring of Life when it was taken by Caliborn, it would then become the Ring of Void that he uses to POOF!!!!!!!!!!! away the juju chest with John and the other Beta kids inside.

Of course, this hypothesis comes with its own complications. With the Ring comes not only a second living Meenah, but also a third John alongside another Terezi to arrive through the Immortality Clock. Under normal circumstances these would be standard Homestuck fare; but if the Epilogues aren’t already the end, this story is surely coming to a close soon, and it’s unclear what role these duplicates would play in that.