Rose fidgets with the sleeve of her robes en route to Naboo, so much that the hem frays under her fingers. Just a few stray green threads, unraveling from the neat stitching and tickling her wrist, especially when she crooks her hands. Rose hardly notices—it’s not the first time she’s worn second-hand anything; her usual jacket has so many patched holes Paige had joked it could double as a rutaanil strainer. (Rose shuts her eyes, and thinks of Paige sitting beside her on the transport; Paige with her legs splayed, looping her arm carelessly over Rose’s shoulders; her sharp chin jutting out and her necklace catching the overhead lights. C’mon, em gái, she’d laugh. I’d like to see any of these assholes repair a calcinator, their fancy sleeves would catch fire.
This image comforts Rose, and with her eyes shut, she smiles.)
Still, when she bows before the Queen of Naboo, all Rose can think about is her fraying sleeve, the tangle of green threads at her wrist. She wonders if everyone can see it—if that’s what they’re whispering about, all the ambassadors and diplomats with their painted-pale faces. Or maybe they’re whispering about her, the hairstyle she’d hastily done and redone aboard the transport, the callouses and electrical burn marks at her fingers and palms. Rose thinks of General Organa and tries to channel that same effortless command, elegance, but her robes are fraying and her hair is falling out of the careful braid and maybe she should have insisted it be General Organa. Maybe she should have refused.
I’m a mechanic, she wants to blurt out, though the Prime Minister of Naboo is speaking now, and it would be worse to interrupt him. I’m just a mechanic, I don’t know…
“The Resistance begs your aid,” Rose says quickly, once there is a pointed silence. She’s not sure if she was meant to speak just then, because the Prime Minister’s mouth thins with disapproval and the Queen’s expression remains still and unreadable as stone. “I hope that, in time, we may come to an agreement,” she adds, desperately.
The Queen of Naboo nods as though she’s a marble sculpture, grudgingly; as though even bending her neck requires tremendous work and she isn’t sure Rose or the Resistance merit such effort. Rose bites her lip and burns with embarrassment.
A courier whisks her from the chambers soon after, and guides her to a luxurious suite full of beautiful things. “The Queen wishes you to be comfortable,” he says briskly, and then he’s gone.
Rose pictures Paige in the room, picking up the pretty baubles and scowling—or maybe just bemused, her mouth a crooked line between amusement and annoyance. What the hells is this trash? Does a queen really think people can be bought with pretty glass and soft sheets?
“They are soft sheets,” Rose murmurs. She’s lying back on them still in her robes, wondering whether she should contact General Organa and ask for an extraction—she’s the wrong person for this, for how important this is. She’s just a mechanic. She’s—
Rose, Paige says, and Rose can shut her eyes and picture her face. That fierce sincerity, the look that usually meant it was one-hundred hours and Paige was mostly-drunk. She always got like that, after she’d been drinking. Rose, don’t let them make you smaller, or meaner, or harder than you are. Don’t let them think you’re any less than them, just because—
“Because we came from nowhere and nothing,” Rose breathes. The familiar refrain.
“After all, that’s where heroes come from,” Rose murmurs, in time with the vision of her sister. Paige grins, and shifts forward to kiss Rose on the forehead. Never forget it, she says, and Rose swallows. Opens her eyes.
She’s alone, in the room.
.
0.327-alpha galactic standard.
TICO, ROSE: No progress to report.
.
After the first day of negotiations, Rose comes back and carefully does not break every object in her lovely room, which is full of glass and stone and sunlight glittering off the nearby water. She does sit on the edge of the bed with her hands carefully folded in her lap, and thinks very hard about breaking all the lovely, delicate things, and the satisfying crunch some would make under her work boots. (She packed them, her boots. Just in case.)
She does drop a plate that evening at dinner. Accidentally.
The Queen of Naboo does not even in look in her direction.
.
17.327-regal galactic standard.
TICO, ROSE: No progress to report.
.
In truth, Rose had protested when General Organa had suggested she assume the role of diplomat. “I—I’m sorry?” she’d asked, tentatively, when the General had suggested it. “I’m not….I don’t think I understand.”
It’d taken four different people, only two of which were Finn, to explain to her the proposal, and get her to accept. “Every report of your conduct has suggested that you are charming, capable, and cool under pressure,” General Organa had said smoothly, though Rose had quietly and hysterically thought she was not cool under this specific pressure and also what in all hells. “These are invaluable qualities in a diplomat.”
“I’m a mechanic,” Rose answered weakly, but no one seemed to hear. She’d had a few weeks of preparation, and then they’d put her on the first transport to Naboo.
And that was that.
.
I miss you, Rose transmits over however long a terrible distance between her and Finn. Their exact locations been withheld from the other, citing security concerns. The Resistance is small and each sentient still swearing loyalty to it is precious, they cannot afford to bargain such thing on lax security standards.
Still.
I wish I were there, she writes. I wish you were here. I wish I had someone—
Sometimes, she gets message delivery error notices, and she stares at them so long her eyes blur.
Rose goes to bed early those nights.
.
The Queen of Naboo is busy with domestic administrative duties, so Rose goes down to the stables as a way of distracting her from the monotony of her rooms. (She’s found six puzzleboxes and three hidden passageways and she’s bored, she can’t be surrounded by pretty and useless things anymore or she’ll start smashing them. Even writing back to Finn—whose last transmit was almost entirely black-censored, due to classified information—can’t stave off the boredom.)
Naboo doesn’t have stables of fathiers, the way Canto Bight did; they’re a waterlogged planet, and so their pets and beasts are aquatic. Still, Rose can’t help grinning as she dips her hand in the broad pool and the creatures—she’s not sure what they’re called, but they’re smooth and funny to touch, ticklish—lap at her fingers. The skinny ones twine around her wrists and mouth at her skin, and she giggles.
She names the spotted, aggressive creature twice her size ‘Rey’ because it seems to fit, the serious, hard-headed Jedi. There’s a smaller, thin animal that darts close and then away, and she calls that one ‘Finn’ because its scales are so bright and its mouth seems to smile. The prettiest one is ‘Poe’ obviously, since even Paige had been in love with Poe, because everyone is in love with Dameron, Rose, even if we don’t prefer male humans overall.
Rose is trying to coax out the dark-scaled, uncertain creature hiding in the rocks when a strange voice startles her:
“They like you.”
Rose forces herself to stay still, since she has Organa—a dark-grey, huge creature—wound around her hand. The creature is humming, just below the threshold of human hearing, and Rose isn’t interesting in disturbing her. “I like them,” she says simply.
The woman comes to sit beside her on the edge of the tank, and Rose vaguely recognizes her from all the many conferences. A handmaiden, or some sort of representative; maybe a duchess. Even General Organa’s knowledge of Naboo internal politics was shaky. They knew that the Queen had handmaidens, and often these were nobility unto themselves, but that was all.
“You’re the ambassador of the Resistance,” the strange woman says, and Rose half-shrugs.
“I suppose.”
“You don’t seem certain about that. Don’t you know who you represent?”
Rose smiles. She shakes off the Organa-creature, and straightens up, meeting the handmaiden-or-duchess in the eye. “A week ago, I was a mechanic. Diplomacy is…not exactly where I saw myself going.”
“Hm,” the woman says, noncommittally. Rose watches as she rolls up her sleeve, and dangles her hand in the water. The Poe-creature immediately swims up to the surface, and twines around the strange woman’s hand, trilling in a way that’s almost-audible, just enough to give Rose a low grade headache.
(Sometimes when she comes, the creatures are singing, just below the frequency of human hearing; Rose likes to lie down then, and grit her teeth and think of Paige, and Finn, and telling the both of them about the songs of these nameless creatures, which she could feel through her skin.)
“What are they called?” Rose asks, watching. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for days, but searching the holonet…”
“They’re called ildeni,” the girl says, and her absent smile is nice. Rose thinks in another sort of galaxy, they might be friends, and the thought is reassuring. “Or Naboo rays, as they’re known on other worlds. Usually, they’re very picky about who they like, I’m impressed they’re so attached to you.”
Rose blushes. “You’re the only one, then,” she mutters, staring down into the deep pool to avoid looking at the woman, her round face. She had dark, fine eyes and Rose liked them; just as Rose liked her hand as it stroked through the water, with it’s long dark fingers.
“You don’t think you made an impression on the queen?” the handmaiden asks.
“I have no way of knowing,” Rose says , as gently as she can. (She’s gotten good at this, at saying ugly things in a beautiful way. Not to alienate—) “But right now, we’re just…circling one another. I’ve seen enough negotiations between the First Order and the mining federation to know the difference.”
The woman glances at Rose. “You worked for the mining federation?”
“I served drinks to the mining federation,” Rose says sharply. She can’t quite keep the scorn out of her voice. “There’s a difference.”
Rose can feel her—the stranger, with her lovely skin, and her dark fingers, and her smile—looking. Still, Rose turns, and meets her gaze when the stranger says, “My name is Aldoré. I am a handmaiden to the Queen.”
“Rose Tico, ambassador to the Resistance,” Rose says. They shake hands, and both of their palms and fingers are wet with saltwater. “Pleasure to meet you.”
They go walking in the palace gardens, after. Rose finds herself explaining about Finn, and Poe, and Rey, and Paige, and the Resistance, and light—even Light, which was better and higher and different, somehow. About growing up hungry and angry and how nothing would feed them except revolt, and nothing would clothe them except resistance, and even then, Rose missed her sister. Sometimes sacrifice was just—it was just horror, and grief. Even if you believed in what you were fighting for.
Aldoré
listens, and she takes Rose’s arm, and they clutch one another in the gathering dusk. Aldoré says, “I grieve for your loss,” and Rose says, “Thank you,” and they are there, with the smell of the sea all around them and on their hands, and Rose thinks of Paige standing beside her, thinks of Paige saying, don’t be afraid, here I am, here I will always be.
Aldoré is beautiful, in the dusk; dark as the wrong side of the moon and lovely. Rose asks her if she’ll be at the queen’s dinner that night, and Aldoré shakes her head. “No, I’m sorry,” she says. “I have business to attend to.”
Dinner that night is stilted, quiet. Rose does not know what to say, and settles for saying nothing.
.
The next day, Rose receives a missive from the Queen of Naboo. Come, it says. We have much to discuss.
Rose barely sleeps that night.
.
43.39-aris galactic standard.
TICO, ROSE: Tentative progress. Request authority to negotiate terms of support.
ORGANA, LEIA: Granted.
.
Rose wears the same green robes, and when she bows before the throne, she knows that the Queen of Naboo sees the fraying threads at her sleeve. Mostly because the Queen of Naboo comes down from her throne and takes Rose’s hands, holds them up to her breast.
“I think,” Aldoré—or the Queen of Naboo, Rose still isn’t sure which except that she’s smiling the way the Queen of Naboo never did, her scarlet-painted mouth curling up at the corners—says, “that we have been remiss. We have been cruelly negligent.”
“Oh?” Rose asks faintly. Beneath the pale death’s mask of makeup, she can trace the outline of brown and laughing Aldoré, and she’s not sure how to think about that except hope fiercely that it somehow works out.
“Yes,” the Queen says. “After all, it was a Queen of Naboo who lit the ember of Rebellion. It seems only just that Naboo keep it burning. Kneel, Ambassador Tico.”
Rose wobbles to her knees in a borrowed, fraying green robe. Beside her, she can feel Paige, bright and hot and whispering, look at that, little sister, look at this; nothing and nowhere and no one and here you are. what did we say about heroes?
Rose Tico goes to her knees a mechanic, pressed into service as an ambassador because there was no one else and she was kind, maybe kinder than the rest.
Rose Tico rises up again to her feet wearing shimmering green, the color of hope, and leading an army.
Homestuck ships possible (don’t forget, four romances, one tri-relational) = (840 * 839 * 3) + (840 * 839 * 838) =
592,703,160
What math were YOU doing?
Alex you wonderfully saucy bastard you.
Wait, you are actually forgetting that in Homestuck it is possible for a person to be shipped with themselves (Karkat for example is in a kismesis relationship with his past/future selves). This brings the real total of number of ships closer to (840^2 * 3) + (840^3) =
594,820,800
This is of course assuming that each character is only capable of having 4 types of ships. If we factor in charms (which is the Leprechaun romance system) there are 9 types of relationships. However, it is clearly stated that Leprechauns can be in more than 1 charm with another Leprechaun. That means that the total number of combinations of relationships that a Leprechaun can have is :
=
511
There are 14 known Leprechauns in Homestuck meaning that the total number of possible “Leprechaun Only” relationships in Homestuck is (14*14*511) =
100,156
So we add that number to the previous total for 594,820,800 + 100,156 =
594,920,956
However, this is assuming that only Leprechauns can be in these types of relationships. If we assume that all characters can additionally be in these types of relationships (which I understand is a big assumption, but the fandom will probably ship everything possible anyway) then we need to add a few more numbers.
(840 * 840 * 511) =
360,561,600
I am going to add this to the first total I came up with so as not to include the Leprechauns twice. So the grand total number of ships possible in Homestuck assuming that every character can be in both Troll and Leprechaun relationships (but not both at the same time) is:
594,820,800 + 360,561,600 =
955,382,400
So yeah…
hey every nepeta ever
start on that wall
I believe I’ve addressed this before, however, I’ve decided to revisit my old calculations for funsies.
So remember how way back when I said G1 has 538 Autobots and 452 Decepticons? Remember that? And how I got that nifty calculation that said, hey the Transformers Fandom has nearly 3 billion ships in the G1 Continuity on its own?
Well, I went back onto the TF Wiki and decided to calculate the total number of characters from every continuity that could be considered Cybertonian in origin.
TOTAL NUMBER OF AUTOBOTS = 3071
TOTAL NUMBER OF DECEPTICONS = 2469
TOTAL NUMBER OF MAXIMALS = 264
TOTAL NUMBER OF PREDACONS = 310
TOTAL NUMBER OF NEUTRALS = 40
TOTAL NUMBER OF MINICONS = 610
That is a grand spanking total of 6764 Cybertronian characters. If we were simply to address one specific method of pairing characters, say Full Spark Bonding between two individuals, this would lead to exactly 91,503,392 possible ships.
However, there are five widely observed types of relationships between Cybertronians. These are Full Spark Bond (2 Individuals), Partial Spark Bond (2 Individuals), Trine Bond (3 Individuals), Full Multiple Spark Bond (3 to 5 Individuals), Partial Multiple Spark Bond (3 to 5 Individuals).
Ahem.
Following my revised calculations, the total number of possible ships with JUST Cybertronian Characters is anywhere between 2,785,363,252,480 and 929,033,938,976.
Between 2 Trillion and 900 Trillion.
In conclusion…
ROBOTS!!
Every once in a while the Transformers fandom will rear its head and you see a glimpse of infinity.
did they just dethrone us
You know what, you didn’t just dethrone us.
Let’s, for the sake of fairness, keep the calculation of Homestuck’s total ships at 594,820,800 (disregarding leprechauns, including selfcest.)
And instead add this:
No, it’s not canon. No, this probably wouldn’t apply to any form of Alternia that “exists” or ever will “exist”. But for now, forget that.
We’ve already calculated data for the main four ships, so for now those are going to be skipped. Going down this list in order disregarding the main ships, we have (840^3) + (840^2) + (840^4) + (840^3) + (840^2) + (840^2) + (840^2) + (840^2).
Simplified? 499,060,296,000 ships. Adding the original ship count gives us 499,655,116,800 – which, for those of you whom don’t want to look at such a big number, is a burning half trillion potential ships.
Not enough to scratch your total. Let’s just try not to succumb to futility, here: predictably, I’m going to go deeper.
Flagism (i.e. inside-your-caste only) required me getting a list of every canon troll. Yes, Meirfa and Nektan as well as their potential ancestors/decendants (one or the other) are counted. In cases in which it asks for a “group”, or uses “many”, I used 4 and 8 respectively, in reference to the kids. This is because things like Laytherithm, which could repeat infinitely, would probably essentially be cheating this list.
My final result is 2.484660738974071e+23, which I had to manually calculate to be a whopping total of (supposedly) 248,466,073,897,407,100,000,000. 248 sextillion possible ships. We don’t even need the leprechaun ships, because we’ve already won. *mic drop*
*cracks knuckles*
There are now at least 6766 documented individual named Cybertronian Characters (I’m way too lazy to go back to the TF Wiki a third time to verify it, but there’s probably more. They pop up like daisies). As of my writings at this time we have Full Spark Bonds (2 Individuals), Partial Spark Bonds (2 Individuals), Trine Bonds (3 Individuals), Full Multiple Spark Bonds (3 to 5 Individuals), Partial Multiple Spark Bonds (3 to 5 Individuals, and the Official Conjunx Endura (which appears to be your basic marriage synonym, assumed 2 individuals).
So Full and Partial Spark Bonds plus Conjunx Endura = 3(6766^2)
Add In Trine Bonds = (6766^3)
And all variations of the the Multiples. I only did one variation of each before because honestly, five seemed a bit unfair. = 2(6766^3) + 2(6766^4) + 2(6766^5)
Over 28 Quintillion in Cybertronian Only Relationships. If I really wanted to be unfair, then I would throw in Gestalt Bonds, which can range from 2 to 6 individuals. Occasionally there are more than six, but that’s such a statistical rarity that I’m excluding.
But hey, since I’m here = (6766^2)+(6766^3)+(6766^4)+(6766^5)+(6766^6)
This brings the total to 9,636,373,416,060,850,260,016 and does not include Symbionts (who can have symbiotic bonds with eighteen or possibly more cassettes), Splitsparks (one spark split into two individuals), Triple Changers (one spark, multiple forms and multiple personalities, or Multi-Changers (one spark, more than 3 forms and possibly more than 3 personalities).
This is one Universal Stream.
There are 54 Quadrillion Universal Streams.
I had to use google’s calculator because mine wouldn’t cooperate but that gives us this number here = 520,364,160,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Wikipedia tells me that this number is approximately 520 Tredecillion. Not as nice sounding as Quintillion or Sextillion, I’ll admit. But it’s further down the list and therefore larger, so I will put up with how dumb it sounds.
Considering that we have yet another movie this year, three on-going comic series, and a new tv show due out next summer, we may just reach a googol within the next half decade.
Aw son of a fuck.
Now, I have expended all of my possible resources for possible ships, but you must remember a novemdecillion is eighteen zeroes past a tredecillion. And even if that math did have a chance of being totally incorrect, just remember that we have seven sets of infinity sitting on top of the half-a-quadrillion ship pile.
Apologies, I counted wrong. It’s actually 520 Undecellion, not Tredecillion.
We only reach 1.03 Tredecillion if we add in Triple Changers. It’d be more if we applied every single bonding type to each personality, but I’m pretty sure that may cause some spark strain in the long run and be somewhat physically unhealthy.
I’m also not going to even attempt to calculate the possibilities of Triple Changers in conjunction with Gestalt Bonds because let’s face it, that would be a very ridiculous number, accompanied with the even more ridiculous imagery of Astrotrain and Blitzwing in an orgy with the Stunticons.
If there isn’t a fic of that already, there will be within the next five days.
As for Symbionts and Multi-Changers, there is not enough caffeine in the universe to challenge the headache that will bring me. I also forgot about Binary Bonding and again, that’d probably bring me more headache than can actually be cured. Still left out Humans and Non-Cybertronian Aliens.
But still, whatever number we manage to get for one Universal Stream, we can multiply it by 54 Quadrillion.
Okay, you know what, I know when you have to give up.
Trophy to Transformers fandom.
so. much. math. XD
Did he account for cross-continuity pairings? All the numbers sort of started to dance around.
Never fails to amuse me.
it’s time to throw this out here again
There comes a point where you just have to realize that the Transformers Fandom is the sleeping giant at the bottom of the sea.
This isn’t mentioned in Brotherhood, but the reason Roy and Riza came to Resembool scouting out the Elrics is because someone fucked up the ages on Ed and Al’s file.
Literally Roy and Riza are riding in the back of some horse-drawn carriage into Resembool chatting with the driver like “yes we’ve heard rumors of two alchemist brothers here, Ed and Al Elric ages 31 and 30 respectively. Do you know where they live?” And the driver pretty much answers with “lol what? Those kids are like 10.”
Except now Roy and Riza are already THERE so they decide “Fuck it. Let’s pay a visit anyway.”
So everything that went down in the series is thanks to some mysterious fuck up in the Amestrian Intelligence Department and I salute that person.
Bonus: He buries his goddamn face in the document at the end, like staring at it closer might make it less wrong.
When you delete things off of a mobile device (like a phone or digital camera), the file goes to your phone’s recycle bin (just like on a desktop computer or laptop), typically an invisible folder named .trashes or .trash. There, it continues to take up the same amount of memory storage as it did before you ‘deleted’ it. To empty your mobile device’s recycling bin, plug your phone into your desktop or laptop via USB as a memory device, right click on your desktop/laptop’s recycling bin/trash, and tell it to empty your recycling bin/empty trash. Your computer will empty all .trash/.trashes folders, including the one on your phone, actually deleting the files permanently this time, freeing up your phone/camera’s memory space. Reblog to save a life.
(I know this works on MAC with my Andriod, it’s not too far a stretch to do the same on Windows and/or with other phones as well. In fact, it should be easier to do on Windows since Windows Explorer is more conducive to finding hidden folders.)
FINDING THIS RANDOM POST ON MY DASHBOARD GAVE ME THE BEST ANSWER TO SHIT I’VE BEEN GOOGLING ABOUT FOR MONTHS!!!
Me in history class: Wow, humanity has been through some fascinating times! I wonder if I’ll ever live through major historical events!
Me now: NO NO NO NO NO I WANT TO GET OFF THIS RIDE
it was supposed to be space travel. it was supposed to be space travel. it was supposed to be space travel. it was supposed to be space travel. it was supposed to be space tr
=
just moving along like everyone else 