however, it has been chosen based on the appearance and apparent function of the object.
Shown only in A2 and B2 so far, the victory platform is, according to the author commentary of Homestuck book four, a game construct on Skaia's battlefield meant to assist with fighting the Black King. Following his demise, the platform changes color from green to gray and appears beneath Skaia. The platform is metallic and consists of three thick lily pad shaped rings stacked on top of each other, with the symbolic image of a frog on the top of the platform, surrounded by a wide spirograph logo. Beneath the platform is a glowing sphere with the image of a narrower spirograph. It is unclear what triggers the platform itself to appear and whether or not it is simply present from the beginning of a session.
The Ultimate Reward[]
The Ultimate Reward is what awaits players who have successfully won a session of Sburb. After the necessary actions for winning have been performed, a structure resembling the session's Sburb logo appears on the victory platform. The structure has a door with a smaller version of the respective Sburb logo on it, with a doorknob resembling a dream bubble, adorned with the same narrow spirograph. The door serves as an entrance into the new universe the players have created, and it is apparently unusable if it has been structurally damaged. The door itself also might not appear right when the Sburb logo structure does, but that is currently unclear.
What, if anything, the Reward includes beyond access to the new universe is currently unknown. It is implied here that the reward for a normal session would include ruling over the created universe, but it is possible that the implication was more about Karkat's intentions than the reward itself. This is corroborated by Vriska's later statements on the matter.
The A2 trolls were prevented from claiming their Reward when the B1 Jack Noir arrived in their Incipisphere and destroyed the door before they could open it. The A1 trolls and B1 kids were unable to win (though for different reasons) and had to scratch their sessions. The B2 kids were stuck in a void session, but it became winnable post-retcon when the B1 kids arrived and the Condesce made Jade deposit their Battlefield into Skaia. After Collide, the B2 session was won, and its Reward was claimed. Caliborn and Calliope's dead sessions are unable to produce a new universe, so their victory and defeat conditions (and presumably their Ultimate Rewards) differ from that of a normal session.
Trivia[]
- The Ultimate Reward structure in the B2 session was initially colored like the Sburb Alpha logo, but faced the same way as the Sburb Beta logo. After the Genesis Frog matured, the logo flipped to the Alpha orientation and turned white before the door to the new universe appeared. This may reflect the fact that the session was a unique situation which required the combination of assets from several different sessions to make the game winnable.