[Fic] "Trollstuck," part 22 - Homestuck

[edenfalling]

back to part 21

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Trollstuck, part 22
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====>Answer the person trolling you

Hold on, you need a minute to get set before you try anything fancy like flying and typing at the same time! Your rocket bike is pretty sweet -- Davven put his stupid irony shtick away for one night to help you with the paint job, and the green slimeghost decals are the epitome of awesome if you do say so yourself -- but it can be a little tricky to ride sometimes. Which is probably your own fault for buying an adult-sized machine, but really, why buy something smaller and keep having to replace it when you can just get something that lasts? And it wasn't that hard to learn how to stop falling off in midair.

You gain altitude as fast as you can without actually going vertical -- that tends to stall the engine for some reason -- level off in the general direction of Vriska's hive, jam your feet as far forward in the footrests as possible, and stick the accelerator lever in place with a wad of gum.

Okay. Now you can pull out your handheld wireless computing device, or, as you prefer to call it, Casey. (What? It has this nifty blue chrome case with a sort of stylized wind pattern and... you know what, you don't need to justify yourself to some imaginary voice behind a computer screen. So nyah!)

Oh, hey. It's Tavros.

====>Answer Tavros

-- adiosToreador [AT] began trolling ghastlyTrickster [GT] --

AT: uH, hEY, jOTHAN,
AT: i DON'T KNOW IF YOU'RE THERE, aND ALSO WILLING TO TALK,
AT: bUT i THINK MAYBE WE SHOULD,
AT: eVEN IF i dON'T,
AT: dON'T WANT TO TALK IN GENERAL, i MEAN,
AT: aND ALSO NOT TO YOU, sPECIFICALLY, bECAUSE OF YOUR ROLE IN ME BREAKING MY LEGS AND BACK,
AT: nOT THAT YOU BROKE THEM YOURSELF, dIRECTLY,
AT: bUT YOU WERE INVOLVED, aND, i THINK THAT IS A BAD THING,
AT: tHAT IS TO SAY, pROBABLY, aND i'M SURE YOU DIDN'T MEAN ANYTHING BY IT,
AT: bUT,
AT: iT HAPPENED,
AT: aND, uHH, aRE YOU EVEN THERE,
AT: i FEEL A LITTLE SILLY TYPING INTO A VOID,
AT: uNLESS THIS IS A PRANK, iN WHICH CASE i STILL FEEL SILLY,
AT: bUT MAYBE IN A DIFFERENT WAY,
GT: ~~ hi tavros, sorry i took so long to answer!
GT: ~~ i'm on my rocket bike heading over to vriska's hive to make sure she's ok,
GT: ~~ so i'm typing one-handed on casey.
AT: wHAT'S A CASEY,
GT: ~~ my handheld wireless computing device! she's awesome! :)
GT: ~~ hey, speaking of your legs, i had the best idea just an hour ago.
GT: ~~ robot legs!
GT: ~~ you should totally get robot legs now that yours don't work.
GT: ~~ would that or would that not be the most awesome thing ever?
GT: ~~ and don't worry if you can't pay, i'm sure vriska and i can pitch in and maybe we can even talk equius into making them.
GT: ~~ i hear he's pretty good at that stuff. :)
AT: uHHH,,,
GT: ~~ you don't have to decide now, but think about it!
GT: ~~ we can figure out the details tomorrow.
GT: ~~ anyway, what did you want (or not want) to talk about?
AT: oH, wELL, tHAT IS,
AT: fIRST i WANTED TO TELL YOU, tHAT gAMZEE ARRIVED SAFELY,
AT: mORE OR LESS,
AT: iF CRASHING HIS SAIL-PROPELLED FLOATATION VEHICLE INTO THE CLIFFS, cOUNTS AS ARRIVING,
AT: bUT HE IS ALMOST DEFINITELY NOT HURT, aND IS BAKING SOME PIES FOR US TO SHARE,
GT: ~~ have you ever had gamzee's pies before?
AT: nOT THAT i REMEMBER,
GT: ~~ with gamzee's pies, that might not mean much. hahahaha!
GT: ~~ but you are in for a real treat. :)
AT: i WILL TAKE YOUR WORD FOR THAT,
GT: ~~ good!
GT: ~~ what else did
AT: uHH,
AT: yOU STOPPED TYPING, aLL OF A SUDDEN,
AT: dID YOU CRASH YOUR BIKE,
GT: ~~ haha, nope, but i accidentally flew through a cloud and couldn't see for a minute, whoops!
GT: ~~ then i dropped casey while i was cleaning off my glasses and had to swoop down and dramatically save her from smashing on the mountains.
AT: tHAT SOUNDS LIKE A SWEET CATCH, i GUESS,
AT: bRO,
GT: ~~ it sure was!
GT: ~~ so like i was saying, what else did you want to tell me?
AT: iT'S LESS SOMETHING i WANTED TO TELL, aND MORE SOMETHING i WANTED TO ASK,
AT: iF THAT MAKES SENSE,
GT: ~~ sure, ask whatever you want!
GT: ~~ i promise to listen very carefully.
AT: wELL, wHAT i WANTED TO ASK WAS, sOMETHING LIKE,
AT: wHY DID YOU HELP vRISKA,
AT: dID YOU KNOW WHAT SHE WAS PLANNING, oR EVEN IF SHE WAS PLANNING THAT, sPECIFICALLY,
AT: oR IF SHE WASN'T, wHY SHE WANTED aRADIA AND tEREZI DISTRACTED,
AT: bECAUSE, i'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THE INCIDENT, aND IT NEVER STARTS TO MAKE ANY SENSE,
AT: bUT YOU KNOW HER PROBABLY BETTER THAN ANYONE,
AT: sO i WONDERED,
AT: iF YOU COULD EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED,
AT: aND MAYBE ALSO WHY,
GT: ~~ oh.
GT: ~~ tavros, i am so sick of talking about this.
GT: ~~ i've talked about it with literally every single person we know, ok.
GT: ~~ but i'll tell you the same thing i told everyone else.
GT: ~~ i distracted aradia and terezi because vriska asked me to, and because it was funny. that's all!
GT: ~~ i did not know vriska was going to make you jump off a cliff. i also did not know falling off a cliff would make you break your legs and your back. and i don't know why she did it.
GT: ~~ she's been trying to make you stronger.
GT: ~~ maybe she got frustrated it was taking so long?
GT: ~~ she can be really impulsive when she's upset! i'm sure she's sorry you got hurt and will apologize once i get this mess with aradia's ghosts straightened out.
GT: ~~ i'm sorry too, but like i said, robot legs! think about it!
AT: sHE HAS SAID SHE'S SORRY, bEFORE,
AT: bUT IT DOESN'T STOP HER, fROM NOT LEAVING ME ALONE,
AT: aND, i GUESS, i DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY SHE BOTHERS,
AT: iF SHE THINKS, tHAT i'M WEAK,
AT: wHICH MAY BE TRUE,
AT: eSPECIALLY COMPARED TO HER,
AT: wHY NOT FIND A DIFFERENT FLARP TEAM TO PLAY WITH,
GT: ~~ because she likes you, stupid!
AT: uHHHH,,,
AT: mAYBE, tHERE IS SOMETHING, tHAT i'M MISSING,
AT: bUT, iF SHE LIKES ME, wHY DOESN'T SHE EVER LISTEN TO ME,
GT: ~~ i'm sure she does! she's always telling me things you said.
AT: yES BUT, sHE DOESN'T PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT i WANT,
AT: i THINK,
GT: ~~ don't be silly, everyone wants to be strong!
GT: ~~ obviously she didn't pick the best way to make that happen, but i know she only wants what's best for you.
GT: ~~ you are a neat guy, deep down inside!
GT: ~~ you have a good sense of humor, gamzee says you rap really well, jarlia says you take care of the animals that live near your hive, you have cool psychic powers, and all kinds of stuff going for you!
GT: ~~ you just need some confidence, which i guess is what vriska was trying to teach you.
AT: tHAT SOUNDS NICE, pROBABLY,
AT: bUT, hOW IS MAKING IMPOSSIBLE FLARP CAMPAIGNS,
AT: sUPPOSED TO MAKE ME FEEL CONFIDENT,
AT: wHEN i ALWAYS LOSE,
GT: ~~ you lose because you always abscond. durr, tavros, durr.
GT: ~~ sometimes you have to fight!
GT: ~~ even when you think it's impossible!
GT: ~~ even when the whole world is against you!
GT: ~~ there is always a way to win. :)
AT: ThAt ThErE iS a TrUe WoRd FoR fUcKiNg SuRe.
AT: MoThErFuCkInG mIrAcLeS, bRo.
GT: ~~ ...
GT: ~~ gamzee????????
AT: YeAh It'S mE. pIe'S dOnE sO i AlL sNuCk In AnD sWaPpEd A pIeCe FoR tAvBrO's KeYbOaRd. :o)
GT: ~~ wow, it's weird to see your quirk in brown!
AT: HaNg On I sHoUlD fUcKiNg ChAnGe My HaNdLe So It'S sTrAiGhT oVeR rEpReSeNtInG mE aNd NoT aLl MaKiNg OuT wItH lIkE i'M sOmEoNe WhO i'M nOt.
TC: HoNk.
TC: HeY mY mAiN sAiLbRo, HoW's ThE wInD tOnIgHt?
TC: It'S aLl BlOwInG mOtHeRfUcKiNg FiErCe Up ArOuNd HeRe At TaVbRo'S hIvE bUt We'Re AlL aT bEiNg SnUg aS tWo BuGs In A rUg InSiDe Of ThE dOoRs.
GT: ~~ that's good to hear!
GT: ~~ the wind is fine, which i can tell you firsthand because i'm flying on my bike over to vriska's hive.
GT: ~~ i am trying to cheer her up like you're doing with tavros.
TC: HaHaHa AwEsOmE.
TC: YoU wAnT i ShOuLd AlL bE sEnDiNg YoU sOmE pIe, MoThErFuCkEr? NeVeR kNoWn AnY tRoLl As Up AnD cOuLd ReSiSt ThE mIrAcLe Of HoMeCoOkEd ShIt.
GT: ~~ i think the postal drones would take too long to deliver it, but thanks for the offer.
GT: ~~ vriska definitely needs to know her friends are looking after her.
GT: ~~ aradia was way out of line taking vengeance when tavros obviously didn't want to, and we need to show her we're on her side.
GT: ~~ oh wait, do you know about that?
TC: Do I hAvE mY kNoWiNg On AbOuT wHaT?
GT: ~~ it's a long story!
GT: ~~ but basically aradia set ghosts to torture vriska and now jarlia is conspiring against her too, trying to make people think vriska is going to kill aradia in revenge.
GT: ~~ which is obviously ridiculous, but vriska sounded really upset when i talked to her so i'm going to help her figure out what to do to solve this.
GT: ~~ revenge is stupid and dumb and i am so sick of this mess making everyone grumpy.
GT: ~~ we need to get back to being friends.
TC: MoThErFuCkInG cRaZy, BrO.
TC: BuT gHoStY bItChFiTs SoUnDs LiKe ArOuNd FaIr FoR tAvBrO's LeGs, If ShE aLl Up AnD cALlS tHeM oFf AfTeR vRiS sIs SaYs ShE's At BeInG sOrRy NoW.
TC: AnD mOtHeRfUcKiNg MeAnS iT.
GT: ~~ of course she'll say she's sorry! because she IS sorry!
GT: ~~ vriska's a good person. she just gets confused sometimes, and does stuff she doesn't really mean when she's upset.
GT: ~~ which is why i'm going to cheer her up now. :)
TC: CoOl JoBrO, yOu LoOk AfTeR vRiS sIs AnD i'Ll KeEp My MaIn MoThErFuCkInG eYe On TaVbRo AnD iT's AlL bEiNg SwEeT.
TC: HoNk :o)
GT: ~~ honk honk!
TC: HaHaHaHaHa!
TC: PeAcE oUt MoThErFuCkEr.

-- terminallyCapricious [TC] ceased trolling ghastlyTrickster [GT] --

====>Reflect on conversation

You'd love to, but right now you really need to concentrate on flying. You're getting very close to Vriska's hive, and you've been flying close to the ground to avoid any further mishaps with clouds -- on due consideration, falling from high up won't actually give you extra time to correct your trajectory. It will just make your landing more violent. But it's tricky to navigate the cliffs and canyons around Vriska's hive.

You tilt your bike and gain altitude. Then you lean forward and begin scraping the gum off the accelerator lever. It has a lot more sticking power than you expected! It's hardened and frozen into a weird, brittle-sticky lump that's nearly impossible to get off, and now the lever doesn't want to pull back.

In fact, you think the lever is jammed.

Well, shit.

Now what are you supposed to do?

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What should happen to Jothan? He is nearly at Vriska's hive, but that also means he is nearly at Equius's hive. If he bails off his rocket bike before it crashes, he could end up pretty much anywhere in their general neighborhood and all kinds of things could happen. Also by the time he is in any shape to answer his handheld wireless computing device again (executive decision; Casey survives the impending crash), Karkat should be done talking with Alonde. Alternatively, Terezi should be done talking with Davven, since that conversation was happening offscreen in parallel to Alonde's inadvisable memo with Karkat and Nepeta, and Davven is not in any particular hurry to reach Aradia since he can do that in a heartbeat whenever he damn well wants. Or I could throw in random Feferi or Eridan, just for kicks! Eridan and that Squiddleterror have been a dangling plot thread for a good long while now...

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continue to part 23

And now to bed, since my parents will arrive around 10am and I would like to not fall asleep over breakfast. :-)

Comments

[branchandroot]

*winces* That was a kind of ouchy log, yeah. It /really/ shows up how sheltered Jothan is and how hesitant Tavros is about stepping past his self-effacing.

[edenfalling]

Yeeeah, pretty much. Not a social situation I like writing in the slightest. Partly because it is not healthy for EITHER of them, and partly because I always want Tavros to stand up and just punch people in the goddamn nose all over the place -- but that's not who he is and not a solution that would work for him in the long run, so. :-(

The more I think about it, the more I am leaning toward using chapter 7 to knock Jothan upside the head with the realization that, regardless of his opinion on her moral status, Vriska IS going to try her damndest to kill Aradia. And yeah, she didn't come up with the idea on her own and she's stressed way beyond her limit -- what Aradia did to her is about the worst possible punishment for an empath -- but even so, her habitual response to stress, frustration, and other problems is NOT GOOD. And she feels sorry afterward, yeah, but she's sorry about the consequences to herself, not sorry for her actions and their effects on her victims. (Or even if she is sorry for her victims, it doesn't make her change.)

That will put a huge strain in Jothan's relationship with her (and maybe also in his own self-image, if he can connect what he sees her doing to stuff he's done himself), but it's a realization he needs for both their sakes.

[branchandroot]

*nods* That seems like what the story needs to move, yeah. It feels like it'll stay pretty deadlocked until Jothan has that realization; he seems like a fulcrum for the whole group on this particular issue.

[explodingfrogs]

Does this mean that the Vriska-POV "the Plan is put in motion" chapter is going to be pushed back?

'Cause, y'know, that would make it Chapter Eight, which seems very appropriate.

[edenfalling]

No, just that this is a thing I want to have happen in that chapter, though it will end up being seen through Vriska's eyes rather than Jothan's. (It WOULD be appropriate for Vriska's chapter to be #8, but inserting an extra intervening chapter would screw my pacing to hell and back.)

[red-volpe.livejournal.com]

[edenfalling]

Two votes for Eridan! *marks tally sheet*

[askerian]

Davven put his stupid irony shtick away for one night to help you with the paint job, and the green slimeghost decals are the epitome of awesome if you do say so yourself
... it's... sweet... that he'd trust davven that much... XDDDD

oh dear lord not warning him about the pies, asshole.

... and wow this is making me not like jothan much, with how he excuses vriska and dismisses tavros' troubles, but at the same time, yep, ic. :/ I'm glad gamzee is on Tavros' side first. >:/

Eridan would be fun! Or Jothan crashing in Equius' window.

[edenfalling]

Jothan's rocket bike is decorated to be reminiscent of John's slimer pogo ride thing from back in Act I. Because I can, and because I think he'd think it was neat (and Davven would find it screamingly hilarious). :-)

Well, he kind of implied a warning, with the whole "you might not remember eating them before even if you had" business, but yeah. Much funnier to keep his mouth shut and watch the reaction afterward. :-/

A thing I hadn't expected when I started this story, but in retrospect really should have, is how John's relationship with Vriska changes in context. In canon, he doesn't know any of the people she's hurt and couldn't have done anything to intervene in her past crimes, so he can listen to her with a clean slate, as it were. But if you toss him into the middle of her life on Alternia, you immediately run into the problem that he now has a chance to intervene. The trouble is that if he tries to make her change, she'll shut him out like everyone else... but if he doesn't, he comes off very badly, and even somewhat morally culpable by association. :-(

Eridan would be fun! Or Jothan crashing in Equius' window.

There is no reason I can't include both of those suggestions, come to think of it...

[marici.livejournal.com]

Remember, when Kanaya punched Vriska, Vriska <<<<<<3'd at her. She might be unexpectedly receptive to Jon giving her a hard limit. I'm glad your treacherous body has not managed to drown you -- it's good to see another chapter of this. I like the idea of catching up with Eridan, of Jon talking to Vriska directly, maybe saying the things to her that he won't say behind her back.

[edenfalling]

I think, based on the general desire to catch up with Eridan and my own sense of plot/character arc and stuff, that Jothan will not be talking to Vriska again this chaper, but he will definitely see her in person in chapter 7. Which will be from Vriska's POV, of course... but then again, Vriska IS an empath even if she tends to ignore that facet of her powers in favor of the mind-control aspect. And her sudden crush on Kanaya is indeed a useful thing to keep in mind when thinking about how she might react! Thank you for reminding me of that.

[explodingfrogs.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like the idea of Jothan meeting Vriska right after she's done something awful that she can't take back and can't be easily fixed, and Vriska's empath-ness makes her feel how horrified he is, how Not Okay it was that she did it, that Jothan is Very Disappointed in her and isn't entirely sure how much he can trust her any more, not after she crossed this line, what a horrible betrayal of his trust this is--and she can't just shrug it off and dismiss him as just another troll who doesn't get how awesome she is, because it's Jothan, and she can also feel how much he cares for her and wants the best for her and doesn't want to believe that she's the kind of person who does things like this...

And she just

breaks

down.

(Aside from being a possible component of the resolution to the first story arc, this would also be an excellent way to kick off a subplot in which Jothan comes to realize that he's been seeing Alternia through rose-colored glasses, and Vriska starts taking true responsibility for the things she's done instead of rationalizing it all away.)

As far as what happens next in this chapter goes, though...

Hm. Consider this another vote cast for crash-landing at Equius's hive and getting an update on Eridan.

Although I am curious to see more of Kanaya, particularly in relation to this incident...is there any reason that Jothan might think that trolling her would be a good idea at this point, or vice-versa?

[edenfalling]

*makes notes, refuses to share them* :-p

You know, I'm not sure if anyone has told Kanaya what's going on. Huh. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not even sure what Jarlia has been doing after she trolled Alonde. It seems unlikely that she'd just stop trying to fix things, so... oh. Hey. Wait a minute. *plots evilly* (In a way unrelated to Kanaya, sorry! Like Gamzee and Feferi, she's basically extraneous to this plot arc, though I do want to include her in at least one of the reaction/aftermath scenes that will make up chapter 8.)

Jothan will definitely be getting a character development arc along those lines, possibly combined with a more general world-building arc. Vriska likewise, though hers is a little more thematically tangled with the overarching plot structure (aka, "the Gl'bgolyb Problem").

[vehrec.livejournal.com]

Jothan: Crash into an incomplete doomsday device and activate it before it's completely assembled.

Also, I was wondering what the various in-empire stations of the four new castes would be... maybe Alonde's caste are staff officers and high level bureaucrats? Jothan's caste tending towards mid-level paper pushers (Hi dad!) and rather boring troll bussinessmen and small minded rules lawyers? Jarilia gets bio-technicians, terraformers and other post-conquest integrators who take newly conquered worlds and turn them into useful slave-worlds. And Davven's caste...well at the bottom of the heap caste-heap, there's always corpse disposal and suicide missions. It's hardly worth using that caste, you need to keep them in cryo-stasis if you don't want them to be dying by the time they reach the battlefields. Worse than rustbloods!

[edenfalling]

Oooh, that's a good suggestion! *admires shiny idea*

I am actually working from a slight variation on canon -- I originally thought it WAS canon, but I guess Hussie has said otherwise somewhere? -- in which the hemospectrum is more of an actual spectrum instead of a strictly delimited set of specific hues with no in-between shades, so the kids are not "new" castes, just different gradations on the same old scale. And I don't think each blood color has such strictly limited roles anyway -- they have inherent social status, and there are jobs that trolls on the lower end of the hemospectrum will never hold, partly because of prejudice against giving them the chance to apply, and partly because promotion takes a long time so they die before they can rise very far -- but just being a blueblood doesn't lock you into any specific job. You can do science (any field!) or medicine or bureaucracy or military command or engineering or accountancy or politics or art/literature/entertainment or whatever, really. :-)

Also, Davven's nominally between Aradia and Tavros (though his color code really ought to stick him between Tavros and Sollux, argh, please ignore my visual failings), so he's not the bottom of the heap. And if the Empire wanted to make full use of resources (assuming someone didn't just eliminate him for being Dayblade's descendant, or for being way too potentially dangerous -- fates that might also befall Aradia, Karkat, and Tavros, incidentally), they'd stick him in covert ops as an assassin. His talents are perfect for that.

And I'm pretty sure trolls have FTL. The reason is took the Condesce 600 sweeps to return to Alternia is that the Psiioniic died and her ship fell out of hyperwarp and was left coasting at approximately lightspeed. So travel times are not such that they would prohibit rustbloods from fighting on multiple planets and campaigns before they died of old age.

[vehrec.livejournal.com]

Aw crud, I forgot in the heat of the moment about Davven's hemocaste being there and for some reason I placed him at the bottom of the heap in an Untouchable section. And I wasn't viewing them as strictly limited, more as the average or the median range in which most members find themselves and are stereotypically regarded.

And of course, Troll society has always seemed to be so much more teeth than tail, so I thought it could use a bit of bulking up. The tail of the beast, that is, the rear-area administrators and the Trolls ruling over the recently conquered, not yet exterminated remains of the previous civilization. Really, do all the rulers and soldiers of this vast empire come from just one planet? Either they depopulate their slaves at an incredible rate, or Imperial society has some major elements we're missing out on. I guess my generalized sentiment here is that someone needs to be filing the paperwork.

As for FTL, just because you have it does not mean that you are still home-free with regards to travel time, especially at galactic scales. If you can travel at 10,000 times the speed of light it will still take ten years to cross the galaxy at the very least. Given the long lifespan of Troll nobility and elites, this likely would mean that the lowest hemocastes would have to spend a significant portion of their time just getting to the front, wherever it is. After all, this conquest has lasted for thousands of sweeps-what then shall we do when all habitable planets are conquered?

[edenfalling]

Probably because in the few trollstuck stories I've seen, the kids tend to keep their eye/typing colors as actual blood colors, which would shove Dave into the same "mutant, unclean, unclean!!!" category as Karkat. But I specifically did NOT want to copypaste Karkat's issues onto Davven, so I just gave him Dirk's color, which, since I am using the alpha kids as the beta kids' Ancestors, is a perfectly justifiable move. :-)

And actually, I just went and fiddled the color codes in the AO3 work skin I'm using, so now Davven really DOES fit between Aradia and Tavros, and tweaked Alonde and Jarlia a touch while I was at it. The basic rule seems to be that troll colors only use (at most) two of the three slots in the hex code system, and it's the ratio between the two "present" colors that determines their position. So I tweaked Davven's green value down a bit, nudged Alonde's blue value down an even smaller fraction, and upped Jarlia's red and green values to distinguish her a little more from Nepeta. (Jothan, interestingly, was fine as-is.)

The new codes (for everyone) are as follows:

Aradia, apocalypseArisen: #a10000
Davven, turnwiseGears: #dd5000
Tavros, adiosToreador: #a15000
Sollux, twinArmageddons: #a1a100
Karkat, carcinoGeneticist: #626262
Jarlia, gleefulGorgon: #5aa500
Nepeta, arsenicCatnip: #416600
Kanaya, grimAuxiliatrix: #008141
Terezi, gallowsCalibrator: #008282
Vriska, arachnidsGrip: #005682
Jothan, ghastlyTrickster: #0022a9
Equius, centaursTesticle: #000056
Gamzee, terminallyCapricious: #2b0057
Eridan, caligulasAquarium: #6a006a
Alonde, tentacleTormentrix: #990088
Feferi, cuttlefishCuller: #77003c

I guess I always assumed a huge back end to troll society, which we didn't see directly in canon because it had no bearing on the plot. But the existence of a spacefaring army automatically implies the existance of a supply system, a LOT of technical and engineering support systems, and some kind of organizational bureaucracy to hold everything together. Plus Terezi does mention the existence of senators and embezzlement in her into role-play trial scene, so clearly there's an economy and a layered government out there.

I am not sure there IS a point to the trolls' conquest of the galaxy, beyond a way for Scratch to prepare the players for Sgrub and to create generalized chaos in which Lord English can work. But as for the FTL thing, given that trolls rely on psychic powers to move their ships, and the Vast Glub and other psychic emmanations seem to cross space with no discernable lag, I am inclined to think that even the added strained of moving physical mass rather than pure "energy" (or whatever psionics are, beyond ~handwavey~) doesn't slow them down more than, say, the equivalent of intercontinental sea voyages in the 18th century. In other words, yeah, it may take a few years to cross the whole galaxy, but it's also implied in canon that the trolls hadn't spread through their whole galaxy yet, so I don't think the logistical issues had become insurmountable. Just really annoying and tedious.