- For the pre-scratch version of this character, see Kankri Vantas.
Few knew the name of Karkat Vantas' ancestor, “presuming quite reasonably he had none”
, so he was called the Signless for his lack of a sign. He was also sometimes known as the Sufferer.
Biography[]
The Signless among his followers.
The Signless' meteor landed in the brooding caverns. Due to his mutant blood he was unable to receive a lusus or sign after his trials, however; so the Dolorosa took him to the surface, where he would “wander the world alone for many sweeps, concealing the color of his blood to avoid certain execution.”
Possibly due to his mutation - or due to his role as Seer of Blood, according to Aranea Serket - the Signless began to have visions of his world “before the fall”, which inspired him to preach “forgiveness, compassion, and equality among all bloodlines” to the Alternian masses. The Highbloods opposed his teachings, and a war between the Signless' followers and opponents subsequently spread throughout the galaxy.
Among the Signless' most trusted followers were the Dolorosa, the Ψiioniic, who was inspired to free himself from slavery by the Signless' teachings, and the Disciple, who was his most devoted follower, recording his scripture and ultimately entering a relationship with him which “went beyond the four quadrants, transcending the grid entirely. Whatever that nonsense actually means.”
The Signless was eventually caught and executed by the highbloods, with the Dolorosa and Ψiioniic both being sold back into servitude of the empire; the Disciple was to be killed alongside him, but was spared at the last minute by the E%ecutor, who took pity on her. During his torture and execution, the Signless' compassion “underwent a divine transformation, into limitless, burning rage”, and he released a Vast Expletive which contained somewhere within it the “truth in his teachings, waiting to reveal itself to any who would inherit his burden.”
Though his body was burned, and only the Cancer-shaped irons used to hold him were left behind, thanks largely to his Disciple's cave records of his word, his teachings survived long after his death.
Connections to Karkat[]
The Signless' silhouette as it appears over Karkat in the 5x SHOWDOWN COMBO.
The rage that overcame the Signless at his execution seems to continue on in his descendant, with the truth encoded in its wavelengths perhaps also being encoded somewhere within Karkat. One of the Signless' teachings was that “another Signless would come, heralding the end times for their planet”, obviously referring to the Reckoning that would come with Karkat playing the game Sgrub, and echoing real-life mythology surrounding the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, whose story the Signless' life parallels. It is thanks to this prophecy that Karkat has a lusus, with the crab lusus presumably having been bred in secret by the Signless' followers who believed in this prophecy.
The Signless' hope of uniting all of Alternia's blood castes was in a sense realised by Karkat's leadership of a team of heroes from across the hemospectrum.
In Paradox Space (Dubiously Canon)[]
Suffering Through/For the People[]
The Signless preaches that he doesn't “think one can, quote, "do a genocide," unquote [...] ...quote, "as a joke," unquote” and that a “good leader doesn't need constant validation from their followers”. An indigoblood attempts to infiltrate his sermon; however the gathering takes a break when the Ψiioniic begins to fire lasers into the crowd.
Mother & Grub[]
The Dolorosa fends off various monsters attempting to take an infant Signless for themselves, including a crocodile with six eyes with red or brown blood, a green blooded lion with two mouths, and a large bird of prey. After being struck with a coconut, the bird drops the Signless into the back of a laden cart driven by a blue blood and a green blood, who consider selling him to paint mixers, food processors or skinners before the Dolorosa takes him back and burns their cart.
Secret Sufferer[]
Terezi Pyrope and Kanaya Maryam tell the human inhabitants of the ectobiology meteor of a tradition called “S3CR3T SUFF3R3R”, derived from the story of the Sufferer: the story goes that after the E%ecutor let the Disciple live she continued to teach the Sufferer's lessons in secret, and “The Sufferer's Followers Would Routinely And Anonymously Send Dangerous And Threatening Gifts To The Highbloods As A Way To Remind Them That The Sufferer's Lessons Were Still Being Taught.” This evolved into a tradition of 12th Perigee's Eve gift-giving among young trolls. This story references the real-life Jesus' connection to the Christmas holiday, during which Secret Sufferer was published.
In The Homestuck Epilogues (Dubiously Canon)[]
Alternate Calliope uses a heavily abbreviated version of the Sufferer's story - “a martyr died and said fuck” - to demonstrate the concept of narrative control to Aradia Megido.