| abstract
| - An orbiting light planet, Prospit, is charged with its defense, while the distant dark planet of Derse covets its destruction. The Armies of Light and Darkness duel there in a perfect stalemate until a player prototypes a Kernelsprite. Then, their real battle begins, one that Prospit is destined to lose. The planet at the center of Skaia is known as The Battlefield, which hosts the war between the forces of Prospit and Derse. The Battlefield is portrayed as a chessboard. Each time a Sburb player initially prototypes a Kernelsprite, the size of the board seems to grow exponentially: Where The Battlefield is initially a three by three chessboard (a situation which leaves the only two combatants, the White King and Black King, in an eternal stalemate), the board grows into a full game of chess after a first player's prototyping, albeit with a twelve by twelve square board and some pieces taking up multiple squares. When a second player prototypes their Kernelsprite, the board expands to a massive cube with forty-eight squares to an edge and landmarks like trees and lakes. The Battlefield becomes a fully spherical planet upon a third protoyping. After the fourth prototyping, The Battlefield appears to have gained a large outer shell made of checkered tendrils. The Battlefield of a 12x-prototyped Skaia is shown near the end of Homestuck: Act 5 Act 1, but the full planet is never shown. Before the battlefield is prototyped to its full size, Skaia's core consists almost entirely of a sky dense with vast, twisting clouds, much more than has been seen in the inside after prototyping. The final form of Skaia is required to create and grow the new universe, fulfilling the objective of the game. This is why a pre-entry prototyping is necessary for each player. According to Rose, the prototypings enable Skaia to transform and heal itself, thus letting it "handle" the aforementioned new universe. She also mentions a "treasure" that is in the center of the kids' version of Skaia when the final prototyping occurs (which may be unique to the kids' session, or failed sessions in general). This treasure is referred to as The Tumor. Similar to other powerful factors in the scope of Homestuck (such as Doc Scratch) it is written in a color other than that usually used by characters - in this case, black. It is later revealed to be an amazingly powerful bomb, most likely capable of blowing the entire incipisphere out of existence. Usually when the Black Kingdom inevitably wins the battle, the Black King uses the White King's scepter to initiate The Reckoning, sending all the meteors in The Veil towards Skaia to destroy it, but in the kids' session Jack Noir takes the scepter and does it himself. Skaia defends itself by opening portals to stop the meteors, sending them instead to the host planet and sacrificing the planet to protect itself. These defense portals don't just activate during the Reckoning, but rather whenever meteors are headed towards Skaia. This is seen in the B2 session when the Troll's Meteor arrives and a defense portal activates, leading to post-scratch Earth. By this means, Skaia forces players to enter the game in the first place. Skaia eventually fails to protect itself when the largest meteors in the Veil are launched at it, at which point it is destroyed, due to either running out of defense portals or an inability to teleport objects of such size. The players' goal is then usually to stop the Reckoning before this happens by defeating the Black King, thereby winning the game. The players are to then deploy grist rigs at the top of their built up houses and disperse their planets' grist hoards into Skaia, preparing it for the Ultimate Alchemy, while one of the players lights the forge. In addition to Prospit and Derse, one planet for each player in Sburb orbits Skaia, separated by a series of gates. Also, just inside of Derse's orbit is The Veil. When a player visits Prospit as their dream self, sometimes Prospit's moon eclipses the oracle clouds of Skaia. These clouds float by the player's dream tower and portray glimpses of the past, present, and future to them in cloud mirages. These clouds are also visible on the planet itself. They are capable of showing virtually anything, even things from other incipispheres or wherever Andrew Hussie is. Prospitian (and possibly Dersite) dream selves who reach god tier are transported to a copy of their Quest Bed on the battlefield. Many times during the game, Skaia is referred to as a sort of sentient being. Rose also states that it is a "passive being" at that, only "watching" and "seeing" instead of "acting". Skaia's name is a portmanteau of "Sky" (possibly from the Greek god Ouranos, who ruled the heavens) and "Gaia" (The Greek Being of the Earth). According to the Greek creation myth, these two beings gave birth to the titan Cronus, who had dominion over time, as well as the rest of the titans. It could also be a reference to "the Skaian Gates" in Homer's Iliad, from which Priam watched the Trojan War. Seeing as the children must travel through The Seven Gates, and also the portals which send the meteors to Earth are 'gateways' of a sort, the name is particularly fitting. The chessboard that the Wayward Vagabond creates in Can Town in the Skyship Base is a symbolic representation of Skaia. In his game of chess, the Black side wins, much as Derse defeats Prospit on the Battlefield.
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