#hermithius

While it doesn't change the final outcome for her, I imagine one of the newt ladies would have hidden False away in a spare room in the castle and bandaged her up rather than leaving her to lie on the floor until the king decides he has a use for keeping her alive. It also leaves the possibility open for Andrias to menacingly show up to the room they thought they had her well hidden in and 'take pity' on False and have her moved to a healing tank. This could lead directly into The Scene when they get to the basement, or that could wait a bit until False has been healed a bit more, it doesn't really matter. This series of actions is more so because I felt them just leaving False there would be a bit out of character for the ladies.

The other thought was what if The Core decided it wanted to hijack The Hermethius as another contingency, but I realized that wouldn't work because of Grumbot... but reconnecting Grumbot to the Grumbot hivemind would arguably be a better contingency than simply weaponizing The Hermethius, and realized there was a really easy to go about making that possible, that being Grian's Jrumbot wrist computer. Maybe it studies the AI in the lead up to True Colors, but, more plausibly, the strap snaps durring either Grian's failed attack on Andrias, or the fight with Anne or Andrias after that. He doesn't realize it's missing in the chaos or even after until much later, but The Core certainly does.

It'd be in-character for Olivia & Yunan to want to help and/or hide False away now Andrias has shown his true colors. What follows with his "pity" & False's subsequent possession by the Core will do well to show they were right to fear the menace both he & the Core might bring, & variations of the scenes we all know & dread would likely follow.

It just occurred to me that if the lockout were to effect anything for Doc, it would be The Hivemind, which, based on what he has said it is IRL, would in-story be something like a telepathic or electrical network connecting technical players for purposes of requesting and giving help on problems, possibly hosted by Scicraft. One would only really open their connection to it when they need aid with a project or have free time to give it.

All this to say that if it were included in the story, no one would question Doc being "offline" for months, save for sporadic, seemingly accidental, moments (occasions he's around a flash of Calamity activation) until he actually sends an SOS (durring True Colors after Gem has stabilized him buy when Anne's activation is about to end)

It's already been established that Amphibia is far off from known interdimensional 'space,' so by the time help arrives the space battle with the moon may well already be underway.

The Hivemind is absolutely a Scicraft invention. A sort of mixed telepathic & digital network that directly connects the senses of multiple players, basically piggybacking extra levels of input on top of whatever other communication channels players have access to.

Doc's keyed into it via a chip in his cybernetics.

But because Hivemind members being sporadic is a given, nobody bats an eyelid at Doc's radio silence for a very long time. Even the Scicrafters - while mildly concerned - don't think much of it at the start. It's not the first time Doc's taken leave, after all.

But then several months go by, & the reports come in that nobody has heard from any the Hermits, lately. Not the Scicrafters, not the Emperors, not the Noxcrew, nor Martyn, Skizz or anyone else in the periphery.

They've gone dark, not responding to casual messages, MCC invites or anything else.

The Hivemind pings Doc directly when they learn this, but their own message comes back at them as if its been bounced, not even having reached its destination.

They can't talk to Doc, & Doc probably can't talk to them, either.

And that got me thinking through a very likely scenario

Consider: the Hermethius is programmed to drop emergency supplies on each hermit's last known location should something go catastrophically wrong and they're left stranded. This is a bit of a special scenario, where that information does not exist. But it has its own Grumbot and Pilots to resolve oversights.

The Hermethius begins mapping the planet and scanning for player activity, and, when it's finally completed months later, launches 26 supply drops to the areas with the highest centers.

The hermits honestly weren't even expecting the supplies to come, but they do recognize what those twenty odd shooting stars spanning out from a single point are.

They do have parachutes that deploy, so they shouldn't cause too much damage, but they quickly realize the problem when one lands near their location.

They may not know exactly why they're landing where at first, but they figure it out quickly.

You see, it's not until the resistance is already under way that the supplies drop. Only one drops on the revolution base. Beef estimates that one landed in Cub's custom biom, another seemed to be landing near Bdub's mountain, he thinks two landed near Pearl's and False's houses respectively, one fell into the ocean,

And one landed in Newtopia.

So Andrias knows what the drops were.

And now it's a mad dash to try and keep each other from getting those resources.

When I mentioned the Totems of Undying on the Hermithius, I was thinking about The Hardest Thing, but this is a fun scenario as well, so here's some thoughts on that.

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Normally all the Hermits have some sort of signalling device on their person in case there's a genuine emergency. This is what the Hermithius uses to identify drop sites for supplies, but with the ship half-functional - the wash of dimensional energy blew out a lot of key systems - it wouldn't be able to complete this task, even if the Hermits had been carrying signallers when they were scattered, which they weren't.

As is, Renbob & Goatman have been trying to patch up the ship's engines as best they can while using momentum to help the onboard Grumbot - disconnected from the hive after past fiascos - navigate into orbit of the planet Xisuma's suit transponder's pinging from.

Unfortunately, the ship's damage prevents them from getting a clear fix on X - if he's even still on Amphibia by the time the vessel arrives (either late Season 2 or very early Season 3).

So they resort to doing things the more time consuming way. Grumbot runs an algorithm through the geology scanner - X usually uses it at a "Season" start to identify strong "spawn" candidates - focusing on any land activity/structures that match certain Hermits.

After weeks of searching & double checking, it gets 26 verified hits.

Some are clustered together, whilst others are more distant, but they're enough to work with for now. By this point, the pilots have had time to repair the supply drop mechanism to enough accuracy to set the emergency boxes - bespoke for each Hermit's needs - down where geographic evidence would indicate they're likely to find it.

They can only work with the limited information they have, though.

One night midway through Season 3, while listening to Sasha run through a plan, Tango's attention's stolen as 26 stars rain down from a single part of the sky, dropping all across Amphibia.

A sight he knows all too well, & that fills him with hope.

Several drop close enough that the Resistance finds them in a matter of minutes. False's house is nextdoor, & Grian & Pearl's is nearby, among others.

One drops over South Tower, though, & another near Quareller's Pass.

One drops on the coast, near-directly where TFC will emerge from tunneling under the ocean, several months from the present.

One drops over Cub's massive structure, & another near BDubs' artificial mountain.

And more still fall in places both known & not.

Only one drops over Newtopia, but Andrias & the Core are smart enough to put the pieces together about the same time Beef does about what they contain & where they'll land.

The Guardian is panicking big time because it doesn’t know how to get things back on track, and might never get to retire.

The Core and Andrias never get the Calamity box, and just have to cope with never bringing back the Newtopia golden age of the past.

And who knows what’s happening with the trio themselves.

When I first started thinking about the then insane idea of a Hermitcraft-Amphibia crossover AU, the thought of flipping which half served what role (destination-wise) did cross my mind. I settled on what we have now, but the idea of flipping the script's still interesting.

So in a hypothetical Reverse!Hermitphibia AU, the world of Amphibia sees life go on as normal. Uninterrupted by any outside force. Andrias & the Core wait in Newtopia for a prophecy that isn't coming, Grime continues putting the fear into his soldiers at South Tower, & Sprig & Polly grow up & play in Wartwood.

Nothing changes, for better or worse.

The Calamity Trio are having a bad time, however. Stranded in a world even more hostile to the uninitiated than Amphibia - especially when you only have one life - all three girls are separated from each other in far flung parts of the world.

Marcy's freaking out. This is not the world she was imagining, & the horror & guilt of what she's just done begin to set in even as - elsewhere in the world - Anne desperately opens & closes the box to try & reactivate it, while Sasha has an angry anxiety moment of her own.

And the Guardian has their head in their paws, as eons of patient waiting just went down the drain.

The Hermits, meanwhile, are trying to start a season as normal whilst simultaneously investigating whatever the hell that energy blast that just nearly totalled the Hermithius was.

They're more cut off from the wider multiverse without the ship, after all.

And once they discover they have three more mouths to feed, that's also going to make getting their new friends home very difficult without a reference for where Earth is.

I'm thinking about those emergency supply drops the Hermithius does in Season 3, and more specifically False's drop. It's one of the several that set down near the resistance base & is collected for picking over by the Hermits & Amphibians.

But once they remove all the more general supplies, they leave what's left. These are the more bespoke items. The specially made/optimised armour & weapons, the stash of carefully calibrated splash potions... the locket necklace containing a photo of two blonde haired girls, that Renbob packed specifically.

All the things meant specifically for False Symmetry are left be, respectfully.

When Anne & her contingent finally make it back to Amphibia, though, the Resistance Hermits unanimously agree Anne should be allowed to take what she needs from the gear.