Skaia

Skaia is the world that the players of Sburb must build toward in order to win the game. Nanna describes Skaia as "a source of unlimited creative potential." It resides at the core, like a 'sun', of the Incipisphere. 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 Homestuck player initially prototypes a Kernelsprite, the size of the board seems to grow exponentially: Where Skaia 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 sixteen by sixteen square board and some pieces taking up multiple squares. When a second player prototypes his or her Kernelsprite, the board expands to a massive cube with forty-eight squares to an edge and landmarks like trees and lakes. Skaia becomes a fully spherical planet upon a third protoyping. After the fourth prototyping, Skaia 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.

The final form of Skaia is required to create the new universe, fulfilling the objective of the game. This is why a pre-entry prototyping is necessary for each player. Rose mentions a "treasure" that is in the center of the kid's 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, and similar to other powerful factors in the scope of Homestuck, such as, 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. 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.

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.

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 god Cronus, who had dominion over time.

When a player visits Prospit as his or her Dream Self, sometimes Prospit's moon eclipses the clouds of Skaia. These clouds float by the player's dream tower and portray glimpses of the past, present, and future to him or her. These clouds are also visible on the planet itself. They are capable of showing virtually anything, even things from HS 5372 (other incipispheres) or HS 5292 (wherever) Andrew Hussie is. Prospitian (and possibly Dersite) dream selves who reach God Tier are transported to a copy of their Quest Bed on Skaia.

In Homestuck
Even before any of the Homestuck Kids play Sburb, Jade Harley is able to visit Prospit during her dreams and gain an understanding of future events (much to the confusion of her friends). She also sees visions of the past, including one from 413 million years ago that shows a meteor striking what will later become her island. This meteor brings Becquerel and a "seed", a white object with a spirograph on it that eventually spawns a Frog Temple.

&nbsp After war begins on The Battlefield, the Warweary Villein, a Dersite farmer who resides on Skaia, grows tired of the war and unites soldiers from both kingdoms to rise up against the Black King. Jack Noir murders the Black Queen, obtains the White King's scepter, and starts The Reckoning well before it is intended to begin. He uses the powers gained by the Queen's Ring to ravage the Battlefield and murder all of the Black and White soldiers, excepting the Warweary Villein. He then severs the massive chain connecting Prospit to its moon, sending the moon crashing down to the Battlefield and killing Dream Jade in the resulting explosion. The Battlefield is left in ruins and with a massive crater.

John's Dream Self wakes up on The Battlefield, retrieves the White Queen's ring from Dream Jade's body, and sees his immediate future in the clouds. He is assaulted by Jack Noir, who seeks the Ring, but the Uber Bunny comes to his protection.

Rose mentions that the "treasure" known as the Tumor, located in the center of Skaia, is critical to her plans, it is later revealed that she plans to destroy the Green Sun with it, taking the power from Bec Noir and all of the First Guardians. She also mentions that John must retrieve this object, using The Windy Thing.

The chessboard that the Wayward Vagabond creates in Can Town in the Skyship Base is a symbolic representation of Skaia. In his HS 2621 (game of chess), the Black side wins, much as Derse defeats Prospit on the Battlefield.

Trolls' Skaia
In game Skaia is never directly shown in Hivebent. Jack Noir does not cause any kind of rebellion, so the Trolls are left to face the Black King on The Battlefield in their relatively standard session of Sgrub (although he has been prototyped 12 times and requires immense effort and extreme luck to be defeated). The Battlefield, having been prototyped 12 times, does not appear any different from the 3x-prototyped Battlefield in Homestuck, although it is only depicted from near ground level and never shown in its entirety, save HS 4644 (one time from far out in the Veil) that didn't really reveal anything. However, as Skaia was only a small blue dot when viewed from that far away, it wasn't exactly expected to.

However, later in Act 5, when Vriska Serket goes to confront Jack, the post-game-completion Skaia appears. It seems to be brighter than usual, with a shimmering surface that more resembles a luminous, spherical pond than sky. Lilypads on its surface glow in the colors of the Homestuck Kids. HS 5921 (Post game Skaia) appererd to have Bilious Slick floating in the center.