Drone

“When the IMPERIAL DRONE comes knocking, you had better be able to supply genetic material to each of his FILIAL PAILS.”

Drones are enforcers employed by various regimes throughout the history of Homestuck and its spinoffs. First used on Alternia, Her Imperious Condescension later created robotic copies of them for her rule of Earth.

Concept and creation

In real life, drones are a caste in various social insect hierarchies, such as those of ants and bees, usually involved with the fertilisation of a colony's queen; being biological in nature, it is possible that Alternia's drones are also related to trolls in the same way the mother grub is. A 'drone' is also a common named for an unmanned aerial vehicle, particularly as used by the military, owing to their use as remote enforcers by the empress' regime.

On Alternia

Drones sometimes called imperial drones are responsible for collecting the genetic material of adult trolls and delivering it to the Mother Grub to be combined into the slurry from which all new trolls are created. Failure to produce material from either of the concupiscent quadrants is punished by immediate execution.

Other drones, called culling drones, are at least partially involved in Alternia's process of culling or exterminating the “unfit and infirm”.

Drones should not be confused with the “CARPENTER DROIDS” involved in the construction of young trolls' hives, which may be robotic. His Honorable Tyranny, who shares a similar thorny, chitinous appearance and bleeds like a living organism, may however be somehow related to the drones.

Elite drones

Imperial drones descending on Outglut.

A figurine of a drone.

During the time of Joey Claire's visit under the reign of the heiress Trizza Tethis, a unique kind of drone decorated in her distinctive fuchsia, black and gold color scheme are deployed around Outglut, aggressively burning down hives and attacking residents during Act 1 and forcing Xefros Tritoh to escape with Joey Claire. Trizza uses her drones to harvest colorful low-caste blood with which to paint her nails. These drones are capable of rocket-propelled flight, implying they may be technologically enhanced in some way.

Tegiri Kalbur possesses an action figurine of this kind of drone.^{[citation needed]}

Pilot drone

Drones are responsible for controlling the trains out of Thrashthrust.^[image?]

On Earth

Three Crockercorp drones in flight.

In fitting with Crockercorp's post-scratch rebranding, some time after Jane Crocker and Jake English's entry into the Medium the Condesce began to employ drones sporting her signature white and scarlet. Finding the usual human method of reproduction “revolting”, she attempted to use these drones to impose the troll method on humanity, requiring humans to also provide samples of genetic material to them. It was seemingly not until this process had been in place for some time before robotic drones were introduced, implying the Condesce had some success in replicating the non-robotic drones of Alternia, but deemed the process too resource intensive. The new robotic drones are armed with both machine guns and missiles.

Even after the extinction of a majority of the human race, robotic drones continued to be used to police the Earth, possibly in order to keep its new carapacian population in line. They were used to locate and attempt to eliminate the last remaining humans, Dirk Strider and Roxy Lalonde, but ultimately defeated. In addition to a new army of drones, the Condesce may have constructed a new fleet of battleships in addition to an army of drone-like battlemechs flagshipped by the formidable “DRONEGORG”.

In The Homestuck Epilogues (Dubiously Canon)

In the Candy volume, Jane Crocker created a new fleet of drones of her own. These drones, sometimes called Imperial Drones and manufactured in large, fiery factories, are used to perform strikes on rebels like Karkat Vantas and Meenah Peixes.

In Homestuck: Beyond Canon (Dubiously Canon)

Jane Crocker continued to employ her drone fleet against rebels as the war escalated.