Chapter Text
A Farewell to Seapunkification
Act 1: The Prophecy of the Fateseer
What is the Fateseer's Prophecy, Anyway?
What seems to be timeless will be naught but overthrown
Not with violence, nay, but a contest of morals
By the tides her passionate will once would call her own
She shall ignore the reef just to capture the corals
The Signless’ teachings shall never die for the weak to the boldest
And the Second Signless shall hatch as red as their ancestor
Uniting every caste, from warmest to coldest
To be the crimson bridge between land and sea dweller
–The Fateseer's Last Prophecy
Thus were the Fateseer's recorded final words, before the Empire would capture her and use her unprecedented psionic strength to power the flagship of Her Passionate Timelessness. The Fateseer had once been the royal oracle who raised through the ranks of seers in the Timeless Court, and she could break free from servitude. So the Empress was desperate to put her in a position that not one psionic has ever escaped.
What few followers of the Signless survived tried to interpret it to the best of their ability… At least they know that a descendant of the Signless would hatch somenight, with him having donated his slurry to the filial pails (and inside many, many groupies struck by Cronusitis). And the Second Signless would have bright red blood and unite every caste… perhaps they might recruit at least a troll from every hue. And yet, this line vexed and enraged them,
What seems to be timeless will be naught but overthrown
Not with violence, nay, but a contest of morals
By the tides her passionate will once would call her own
Tides that the Empress would call her own?, they wonder. Does this mean that she will be overthrown by a seadweller—or even a member of the royal court–who grew a conscience?
To them, that is hard to accept. After all, the Deceiver, once the Signless’ most loyal Acolythe, a sea-dwelling double agent in their own ranks, had just betrayed them to the Empire, and led the extermination of the Lime caste for raising and sheltering the Signless all those sweeps ago. Perhaps the Fateseer had been wrong. Her judgment had been clouded… how else would she be unable to catch the Deceiver's betrayal? Surely this means that Eridan, the Signless’ descendant, won't have the Signless’ red blood, either?
When Eridan Vantas was hatched with unmutated lime blood and different horns despite the similar DNA, the Signless Revolution—at that point an organized alliance of many thousands of trolls with a reasonable amount of resources—might doubt the entire prophecy. Maybe this lime wriggler, who killed his mentor with psionics at the tender age of three sweeps, won't be able to unite every caste… maybe we'll just tell him to recruit one troll from every caste before adulthood, at least, to test his persuasion skills…
But it wasn't only the rebellion who attempted to interpret the Fateseer's ominous last prophecy. The Empress, too, wants to keep her rule timeless… She both used her own thinkpan and hired other seers until she could find an interpretation that suits her. She did also come to the conclusion that she would be overthrown by a seadweller… specifically, those of her own caste… and perhaps of her very own bloodline. Thus she supported the Beguiler's idea that most of the fuchsiabloods should be educated into being Emissaries and sent away to other planets, leading Alternian colonization, while those of the Peixes line would be killed in the contest for the throne at the youngest possible time to make them easily defeated, but not too early, so they can have some false hope.
Through that policy, the Beguiler would make sure that the Violet caste, and not Fuchsia, would be the de facto rulers of the Empire from then on… that's an overthrow, right?
What if the Empire didn't banish all adult trolls from the home planet? The home planet would be the center of the Empire, the capital even. But still, they'd have a lot of control over who can stay (though the higher-blooded trolls wouldn't be confined there). At first, Her Passionate Timelessness would often stay on the throne in the capital. But as the sweeps went by, the fuchsia-blooded Emissaries became the leader only of colonization efforts in their own respective planets; they still had to report to the violet-blooded Senatormentors of their planets and the imperial center. Ostensibly, the Fuchsia caste was on top of the hierarchy, but when the cult of the Beguiler grew too much, and he was working with that pesky tealblood who calls themself the “Neophyte Orphaner”, the Timeless knew that her caste's absolute rule was shaky. Yet, she cannot bring herself to end the Beguiler's life—the life of her longtime matesprit. The life of the troll whom she had molded for millennia.
Thus, Damara Peixes would hide in her flagship, trying to find loyalists while killing as many Peixeses as possible, waiting for the time to strike. Maybe she really should be working with the Peixeses, but what do I know?
At least she managed to convince the Imperial Senatorment (as in, the Senate, for Earthlings) that only violetbloods can be Orphaners. No gutter-blooded idiots will ever take her matesprit from her again.
Funnily enough, it's the Beguiler's descendant who has the same bright red blood as the Signless, and the same temperament at that.
No matter.
The Timeless had molded the Beguiler into a proper violetblood. It's time for her descendant, Aradia Peixes, to push Karkat Ampora towards a more cool-headed, dignified personality and more importantly, prepping his deteriorating body for procedures that would make him strong, healthy, and handsome… She would drag his crimson abomination into a hemospectrum-approved amethyst… but also not to make him interested in overthrowing her like his traitorous ancestor did.