would sburb recognize a returning player if they tried to play the game again?

I meannnnnn Vriska in the new universe is able to go up the Echeladder in Beyond Canon despite the Shurb game not even being launched yet and idk hmmm I think Beyond Canon explores how Sburb affects greater Paradox Space so I would think so?? But I can't say for sure. Rose never played the rain, but might end up doing so before HSBC ends in a sort of weird roundabout way.

I think an unexplored aspect of Paradox Space is the fact that characters' lives are already affected by the game ever since conception of their very existence. Nannasprite has cookies that make you feel really good, life aspect, even though she's not(?) a god tier. Captchalogueing in it's entirety and sylladexes. We don't see The Sufferer and gang using captchalogues though, but in general we don't see much of them at all so hard to say if they had access to that stuff. This and other aspects of Homestuck I hope are things that get explored in Beyonnd Canon. Let one of the Karkats god tier and finally become knight of blood. Vriska also became helltier which is like a new form of god tier even without the game running. Life itself is game and will never stop being game so long as we're observing it as the audience has been my takeaway so far.

In this case, it really depends on what you want to do with it, in terms of story direction. RoseMultiverse is right, in the new universe, even if SBURB hasn't started yet, it still has a major and persistent influence on the universe (particularly through the first guardian, if there is one). Having a player from another SBURB session, particularly a god-tiered one who was never meant to be part of the session, could make things weird.

The implications of that, though, are up to you. Maybe Mydi was actually fated to get there all along. Maybe the first guardian of that universe is trying incessantly to kill her and she only escapes by being protected by the void, like how Equius couldn't be seen by Doc Scratch. Maybe the game outright rejects her upon entry or her land is corrupted, or maybe not. There's no definitive answer -- whatever contributes to the story you're trying to tell! ^u^

I'll first say that that is a very specific scenario, and one that hasn't any equivalent in any of the canon or post-canon material that we can draw for (as of now), so I don't think there is any wrong way of doing i, and thus, I'd recommend going with whatever fits your story better.

That said, as for my interpretation of such a scenario:

As it's been pointed out above, Sburb influences the reality of its players since conception, as they, and their ancestors, are literally conceived within a session in most instances. Of course, there are exceptions, such as the Beforus trolls not being able to be born in the Ectobiology lab, and thus scratching their session, and then being made by Karkat in the Alternian trolls' game; or how the Alpha Kids had already been made by John in the Beta Kids' session, thus making Ectobiology redundant.

This is not to say, however, that everything is predetermine in Sburb. The Kids' and Trolls' session were uniquely messed up due to their connection to Lord English, and as those are the sessions we follow in Homestuck, some have the tendency to think doomed timelines are a feature of every game. And they might be, considering its reliance on self-fulfilling paradoxes, but I would argue, not as much as the ~4 sessions we see play out in Homestuck.

This is all to say, I think it is absolutely possible for a player from another session to become a proper player in another one (as opposed to what we see in Homestuck, where players enter other sessions, but the sessions themselves still fill very separate from each other, if that makes sense). How that would play out, however... Well, there are a few scenarios I would consider exploring.

First, consider the player's classpect: a Muse of Void. One of the most powerful classes, one who inspires Void, so, secrets, obfuscation, the occult, the Furthest Ring, and endless potential. This to me actually makes a lot of sense to a guide type player. How Sburb would react to their presence is, again, up to your own creativity, but with that was presented, I would probably go with a sort of. New Game+ approach. The session was scratched after all.

Hope this wasn't too big a wall of text I also just woke up I so hope it isn't all gibberish lol

I reckon there are many, many ways to mangle a Sburb session, so go for it!

Remember, in canon, we have NEVER seen a complete, successful Sbrurb game that ran with no outside interference as the game is supposed to run. We don't really know how such a game would play out, and we don't know what other kinds of Weird Multiversal Time Shit are possible.

If Sburb permitted all the paradoxical shenanigans that went on in Homestuck, I'm sure the game would happily decide that your escaped player was destined to start the new session all along. (Meanwhile, I'm working on a fan session where most of the sprites are dead players from other sessions....)

re: rosebot

"Life itself is game and will never stop being game so long as we're observing it as the audience has been my takeaway so far." This is such a cool way to view Homestuck omg- also I never considered the possibility that Sburb affected the universe even before the kids play it! I was always of the belief that that was just how the world worked, not the game itself bleeding into everything.

re: passeriInformal

"Maybe the first guardian of that universe is trying incessantly to kill her and she only escapes by being protected by the void, like how Equius couldn't be seen by Doc Scratch." ngl ive completely forgotten about the first guardians AND the fact that equius couldnt be seen by doc scratch so thank you for the reminder lol

"Maybe the game outright rejects her upon entry or her land is corrupted, or maybe not. There's no definitive answer -- whatever contributes to the story you're trying to tell!" funnily enough i was always tossing around the idea of her land becoming corrupted after she joins the new session so it's kinda cool to see you have the same idea too! i was thinking of something along the lines of sburb missing assets for her land in particular and everything looking glitchy and weird like in one of those 'top ten game glitches that terrified players' or something

re: chthonikix

"First, consider the player's classpect: a Muse of Void. One of the most powerful classes, one who inspires Void, so, secrets, obfuscation, the occult, the Furthest Ring, and endless potential. This to me actually makes a lot of sense to a guide type player. How Sburb would react to their presence is, again, up to your own creativity, but with that was presented, I would probably go with a sort of. New Game+ approach. The session was scratched after all." ooooo a new game+ is SUCH a fascinating approach to this scenario; maybe there could be more content that was opened up because of her nature of being a guide! i was gonna say 'oh i doubt the new content could be as big as finding the source code of sburb or whateverthefuck' but her being a muse of all class DOES open up that possibility! again tho maybe not finding sburb's source code cause i dont really know what use that would be of her given her whole personality, but maybe the new content could be finding legendary items cause i believe those were a thing but im not really too sure since it's been YEARS since ive reread homestuck

re: tavroscrocker

"Remember, in canon, we have NEVER seen a complete, successful Sbrurb game that ran with no outside interference as the game is supposed to run. We don't really know how such a game would play out, and we don't know what other kinds of Weird Multiversal Time Shit are possible." god there must be so much weird multiversal time shit that could take place it's both an exciting topic to think about and also terrifying at the same time

"(Meanwhile, I'm working on a fan session where most of the sprites are dead players from other sessions....)" FASCINATING tell me everything about it that sounds so interesting :0

re: jupiter

My players come from an alien civilisation that has a kind of limited interdimensional travel technology between timelines (powered by Elder Gods, naturally). The main thing they use it for is to hunt valuable artefacts in asteroid belts left behind by planets that have had a particularly severe Reckoning. Several of those artefacts turn out to be the remains of players who got the bad ending, one way or another.

I think Skaia is omniscient, so yeah it would recognize a player. It's never been shown to be immune to its own brand of "magic", though, so maybe it would fail to recognize a void player or someone otherwise veiled by Void stuff. I mean, maybe it's not immune, or maybe it's immune but it likes to/is forced to play along with it, that's another possibility. If a player is pulling a fast one, and does it competently, maybe Skaia has to pretend to be tricked by that to make the narrative better. It really depends on how you're interpreting the "behind the scenes" mechanics of the session.

(When I ran a game a few years ago, I decided the way it worked for that game would be that the Aspects were in conflict with one another and each session was a sort of roleplaying game being run by a particular aspect playing the role of Skaia. The point of these games was for that Aspect to "make an argument" for why it deserved to take up more "conceptual space" than the rest. The players and the denizens were the game pieces of the Aspects as well, but with much less power to bend the narrative. The idea in my mind was to treat the original comic's narrative as all sessions being run by the Time Aspect. It was an interesting way to look at it and very useful for deciding what the narrative bent towards and away from, what decisions certain NPCs would take, etc. All the other aspects were helping the players but fighting each other at the same time)

@Rose Multiverse The Vriska echeladder thing fuels my theory that Sburb never ended and they've been playing the same session the whole time for the last 7-10 years.

re: tavroscrocker

thats so cool wtf

re: 1ant

the idea of skaia being aware of a player doing things they're really not supposed to be doing but playing along with them anyways has so many implications and idk how i feel about a living game just letting that happen cause it think its funny (jk i actually love that idea thats such a cool/terrifying headcanon

re: elegantspinstress

god with the echeladder thing i might actually buy into that theory too

RE: @jupiter

Glad to help! Just wanted to pointed out tho, Sburb's source code is no secret. It's spelled out in the walls of the Frog Temples, which is how Sollux was able to build the game for the Alternian trolls, and so on.

Again, your story, you can do whatever you want, but again, I'd think about the class and aspect. Void is heavily associated with the Furthest Ring, which is in turn associated with Derse, who are opposers to Skaia and the Genesis Frog. It's also where the Horrorterrors live. You can play around with that aspect of this New Game+, as the whole point of the concept is that the game is the same, but more, be it more difficult, a diverging route later on, etc.

Best of luck!

re: chthonikix

once again ty for the valuable information regarding sburb's source code good grief i should reread homestuck lol

funnily enough mydi is connected to the void class in more than one way cause she (and i mean this with no exaggeration like she did not plan it out at all) prototyped herself with a horrorterror artifact! so shes a muse of void AND partially horrorterror youd think shed be OP but ironically shes just doing this for the sake of "maybe it'd be funny"

a diverging route DOES have potential especially for her in particular- while i understand the general gist of the horrorterrors is "no one really know their true motives and trying to do that have the potential to make you go grimdark", it DOES open up some potential possibilities she could go thru. hell maybe it could be the case where the new route shes going through could like. involve said horrorterrors???

idk if skaia whole thing is bringing about the birth of the universe then maybe this new thing could be the quote unquote "death" of something else that isn't the genesis frog cause that thing is still important BUT it does have some potential so im not completely dismissing the idea

this reply ended up with me rambling lol ty again for the response!

I think it would, like, your godtier and scales would be the same even after a new session or a scratch. Just like John and the others after the scratch.

I think it would be funny if it just gave you another classpect and let you reach God Tier twice.

re: spades

omfg thatd be so funny could you imagine? godtier... 2 !!!