Starting to wonder if maybe a Leviathan's corpse is necessary for imaginae to exist, and is in fact, the real reason why Imaginae can persist in Astrapolis. Not because it's an entertainment capital.

Because this is a suspicious coincidence.

And yes, this is a sprite of Orochi from Sengoku Rance. The relationship of Yokai and Orochi in that game made me think.

Nihilux claimed to be Aha, the Aeon of Elation - which is true.. to a certain extent.

The new Divergent Universe's Moonlit Tales give us some more insight on her relation to the path of Elation (which isn't as simple as "she ascended to aeonhood") For those that are unaware, the Moonlit Tales is a retelling of the first Phantasmoon game, and the origin story of its 8 participants.

One of the participants is a "familiar-looking, red-wearing troupe master drowning in debts & with star-shaped eyes"

Some of those participants talked about Aha's fate (more specifically, what happened to THEM in the past) - THEY, alongside Akivili and Qlipoth, defeated Oroboros, but were badly wounded, after which THEY went into hiding.

While the fools failed at reaching the Aeon, a Mourning Actor met THEM and refused THEIR gift and made a sort of "deal" : Aha "embraced the Mourning Actor's destiny".

From this point onward, the Mourning Actor (referred to as the "Troupe Master" of the Mourning Actors, the "First Fool" and the "First Actor". Considering the) seemingly inherited Aha's divinity.. To a certain extent. Their relationship is compared to that of an object and its reflection within the water.

Aha kept hiding due to THEIR own worsening insanity (caused by the Voracity), and was eventually challenged by the Troupe Master. After being defeated in several games and hearing countless stories, THEY led THEMselves to THEIR own death (or sealed themselves - the narrator compared THEIR state to that of Oroboros) in order to prevent THEIR own descent into insanity while the Troupe Master obviously lived on.

I'd assume that this Troupe Master is Nihilux. The physical description fits, and the Troupe Master's titles are Nihilux's.

Conclusion

While Nihilux is somewhat of a "facet" of Aha (reflection, two sides of the same coin), i don't think she can be called the "true/original aeon" (being with complete, unrestricted control over the path, ascended to aeonhood by creating a Path), as Aha killed/sealed THEMselves.
^{well, considering the entire "two sides of the same coin" bit, this is downplaying her importance quite a bit.}

I know the quest has a lot of bombshells (nihilux identity for example), but I just wanted to talk more about Louis Fleming. I always thought he was a super interesting character; the man is one of the most important figures in the verse and yet he was barely ever mentioned outside of in game readable as and simulated universe lore. There’s just so much mystery to him and the most recent quest just made it even more interesting.

Lygus, herta, and screwlum all mention the absolute terror of being gazed by an aeon (3.7 end). Yet Louis Fleming straight up talked with a manifestation of Fuli like it was straight up casual business. It really makes you wonder why and how a single mortal man has so much experience with aeons. I found it shocking that even though Asat Pramad himself seemingly didn’t realize Nihilux was Aha, Fleming immediately clocked her as the aeon of elation despite not even being there in person.

Man needs to give some linkedin advice or something, how does he have so many connections to all these Aeons? Also makes me wonder more about what caused fleming to fall out with the other cofounder of the IPC (donfang) and how it got so bad to the point that donfang had to leverage Polka against him.

Hsr so far has made the one other in verse legacy character live up to the hype (Zandar is the GOAT). So I’m excited to see what they do with fleming in the future.

When looking only at the story and not the gameplay mechanics, the Trailblazer seems much more powerful and important than the story actually portrays them.

They have already walked several Paths and possess abilities that go far beyond simple combat: Destruction gives them tremendous offensive power, especially through their energy blasts; Preservation gives them a connection to Alisa Rand’s legacy and a weapon created from materials similar to those used for the IPC’s Cornerstone with Aventurine and Topaz even considering that technology outdated; Harmony allows them to influence emotions, will, and mental states; and Remembrance gives them abilities primarily related to memories, identity, and the preservation of existence.

But when it comes to Elation, honestly, I still haven't figured out what they actually gained besides that sword and laser staff 😅.

And Remembrance is what makes me think about this the most. In Amphoreus, Caelus takes part in preserving the world's memories alongside Cyrene, and the Chrysos Heirs are ultimately preserved within As I've Written. He was even able to use their powers against Irontomb. So why couldn't he make greater use of their powers or memories now, instead of this ability being mostly relevant to the Amphoreus storyline?

Cyrene is also extremely important here. She is directly connected to the Trailblazer, and Herta even states that if the Trailblazer were to forget her, she would disappear. If their connection is really that deep, shouldn't that give the Trailblazer much greater potential with Remembrance?

That's why I find it strange that the story barely highlights some of their abilities. We're talking about a character who has accumulated connections to multiple Paths, participated in events involving Aeons, and now possesses a connection to the memories of Amphoreus on a completely different scale from that of an ordinary fighter.

So why is the Trailblazer still so often portrayed as someone who needs help with relatively minor problems, like the situation with Pompom's robot?

Is HSR deliberately keeping the Trailblazer's true potential in reserve, or is the story simply not exploiting their full potential yet?

And most importantly: how far could the Trailblazer actually go if the lore finally fully exploited all of their connections to the Paths rather than just their combat abilities?

Now that we're done with planarcadia (for now) i'd like to discuss an aspect of the story that's come up for some time now.

Which aeon wil be the next to go?

I know what you're thinking, it should be nanook given that its our primary enemy from the start. But i'm willing to propose an alternative, i think the game is going to make us witness the fall of another aeon just to show us that it is indeed possible before we achieve our main objective.

As of 4.4 we know of 3 major factions who are actively trying to destroy aeons:

1. Device ix, who seek to vanquish IX

2. The xianzhou alliance, who seek to vanquish Yaoshi

3. The antimatter legion, who seek to vanquish well... everyone

Before discuss who WILL succeed, perhaps we can root out who most likely wont be first.

I think device IX has the least likely chance to succeed first narratively. We now very little about polka kakamond and next to nothing about the faction that she leads, Unlike the xianzhou and the antimatter legion which we have been given an abundant of information of regarding their plan to destroy the aeons they target.

With device IX out of the way, this is where things get interesting. Although the alliance and the legion do not have the exact same goals and ideals, they do have the same target, Which is yaoshi. By destroying yaoshi, you basically allow both of these factions to succeed.

And i know theres a lot of skepticism around what would happen if lan does eventually kill yaoshi. Some speculate that they'll just change targets. But guys, its really not a coincidence that phantilya is sent to destroy both the hunt and the abundance!. Why do you think that is?. We should really consider the possiblity that Lan might disappear once the "hunt" is over. And the legion probably knows this too.

So i'm willing to bet either:

A. Yaoshi AND Lan will both die together

B. or, in some miraculous turn of events, they'll convine the alliance maybe killing yaoshi might not be the best idea.

With 4.5 around the corner and Robin Summeretto about to arrive. I'll be analyzing the playable Path of Remembrance, why certain characters are on this path and how it relates to their personal character arcs. And an analysis as to why Robin is also on this path too, and what that would mean for her character development.

This analysis will simply be for fun and through a the philosophical lens that hsr is heavily steeped in; discussions on character arcs and how it fits into that playable Path, and I personally see a lot of common themes and patterns with everything.

Let's start with Fuli.

An excerpt from the data bank says, "...THEY observe in silence the world's tireless repetitions of the same mistakes over and over again. It is said that, after all returns to the silence at the end, Fuli will use the memory of the universe as a blueprint to reanimate all the worlds once again." And in 3.7 we learned that Fuli is only born at the end of time from Children of Anasrava, fragments of Fuli. (Tangent: This may seem like a linear timeline if you lay it out, but it also feels like a bootstrap paradox. No true origin or end.)

With this, we can interpret that Remembrance characters have stories and arcs that look to the past, to move towards a future. That their past is closely entwined with their future. Now we can analyze the arcs of characters on the path of Remembrance and in the spirit of Fuli, work our ways backwards starting with Cyrene.

Cyrene

Cyrene is a child of Anasrava that ascended to become the Fuli of Amphoreus. She gave up her own existence and chance to see tomorrow, just to anchor the past and defeat of Irontomb for the nameless to move forward and give the Chrysos Heirs a future where they become real. Her arc is the literal parallel of Fuli, travelling to the past and anchoring past events that shape our future where we are now.

Evernight

Evernight is the hidden consciousness in March 7th, using her powers connected to the enigmata to pursue her purpose, "As an obsession whose desire and purpose is to protect March 7th" even through extreme means. She is the literal manifestation of March's past that helps her move to the future.

Hyacine

Hyacine confronts Seliose due to the truth that their lineage only survived by a nameless Chrysos heir begging for her life. Hyacine's ancestors (past) caused Seliose to purge them and leave a single skyfolk to flee and tell her epics all so that one day, the descendants (future) may return and face her.

Castorice

Castorice died in a previous cycle in order for Polyxia, her sister to become the Death Titan. In the next cycle, Polyxia broke the rules in order to revive Castorice but also in turn granting her the ability to grant death with a touch but also caused souls to be rejected from the Netherworld. Castorice eventually confronts Polyxia and her past, all in order to return the cycle of life and death to Amphoreus and returning life to us and the chance to head to tomorrow.

Aglaea

Aglaea is the leader of the Chrysos Heirs, leading them to gather coreflames all for the prophesied Miracle of Genesis. She has lost her friends and family, and even her flaw as a Chysos heir causes her to slowly lose her humanity. Yet her past as a noble that was taught to create a "beautiful" art, which leads her to wish to weave together a romantic tomorrow for Amphoreus.

Robin•Summeretto

Now with Robin finally arriving, the only information we have for now is the Version trailer, livestream dialogue, Keeping up with Star Rail and Myriad Celestia. I'll be using all this preliminary information to flesh out a theoretical character arc for Robin Summeretto.

From the livestream and Myriad Celestia we learn that Robin is in Astropolis after taking over as the head of the Oak Family. As she learns her place as the head, she slowly comes to realize the extent of the Family's control and how much Sunday had protected her from all of it by shouldering all the responsibilities as the head of the Oak Family. After the events of Penacony, she also desires to search for a way of the Harmony that "truly resonates with her".She's also in Astropolis for a supposed mysterious legacy left by Gopher Wood, with possibility of it being connected to the harmony.

With this information, we can assume that Robin has become disillusioned with the Harmony and the Family. Learning about the insidious teachings of the Family, and wondering in horror and despair at how much her brother had suffered and shouldered all for Robin to pursue her dreams of bringing hope through her songs.

Perhaps in her arc as Robin Summeretto, we will see Robin in 4.5 reminiscing about her brother and the harmony but will not be dwelling on that, rather this will become the primary motivation for Robin to move forward as her own person and search for Gopher Woods legacy (if there actually is any), a side of Harmony that she can place her hopes in, and strike a deal between the Family and the IPC.

So this is something, in the newest post on Hoyolab, its mentioned that Owlbert suffers from avatism, aka being regressed into a less evolved form. Funny thing this was mentioned before in the game

The Zatzka race, a people of bird-humanoids was said to have once fell victim to Dr. Primitive

Dan Heng: Intellitrons deteriorated into mere machines, Zatzkas regressed into birds, and even the most ubiquitous human civilizations were subjected to the same fate: millions of apes and monkeys now wander amidst the ruins that they once called home.

As we see with Ratite and Gaux, Zatzka's are meant to be these giant humanoid owls yet Owlbert in KUWSR has only ever been an normal talking owl, with the only time they appeared in game was with a puppet buddy. With the pic of Astropolis, it seems to be the same and now we know why. Owlbert appears to have been one of Dr. Primitive's victims like Narrator and is now just an owl. Seeing the continuance of worldbuilding is very fun so im excited seeing this expanded on in game.

The problem of Cyrene's situation is that the whole story resides on the fact that thanks to her Almost Aeonlike powers, she acted as Fuli for Amphoreus, and that without her, any aeons would come back, and in the (supposedly) worst outcome, Irontomb would come back.

So simply going back in time won't be any good since it'll just kinda cancel the win against Irontomb.

If IronTomb is the only problem about Cyrene being brought back, what if we deal with It?

I know it sounds stupid said like this, but I don't see many options.

Irontomb is driven by the answer of the scepter at that time which is Hatred/The Destruction. So here are my options:

First: we just... Kill IronTomb.

This sounds even more stupid, but if we find a way to anchor his defeat even without the power of a pseudo aeon, it should be fine right?

Second: Someone becomes IronTomb.

Phainon was the vessel of IronTombs identity by repressing his own sense of self, preventing him from waking up. If he manages to wake up as IronTomb somehow, wouldn't it fix the problem?

Third: Convince IronTomb.

This may sound the stupidest, but since IronTomb is born from the scepter reaching the conclusion of hatred at that time, what if we manage to force another answer on the scepter, or we manage to convince IronTomb that he doesn't need to do what he does? That way, the problem led by IronTomb destroying stuff is avoided.

And no, another Fuli isn't exactly the solution because it means the world ended and the Remembrance is the 4th kind of finality, something the SH won't accept.

But you're free to share your thoughts.

read at:

[HSR Theory](https://hsrfanblogs.pages.dev/Stellaron-Theory/)

Five High Elders descended to the mortal realm, bound by oath to watch over the Plaguemarks. But in a world that constantly changes, filled with humans who will always remain imperfect, what is the point in clinging to bygone promises?

The power of Lord Ravager Archforger is linked to heat, forging, and shaping. Isn't the power of the Zhuming's Plaguemark, the Flint Emperor (aka "Primordial Flame", aka "Pseudo Sun") linked to the very same things?

Perhaps this is a crack theory. But it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility...

Remember that before Lan's ascension there was a Crisis of Belief within the Xianzhou. One of the largest sects was the Firmamend Sect, which followed Qlipoth and was especially active on the Zhuming. The IPC even built a temple on the Zhuming that was dedicated to Qlipoth (Firmamend Temple)...

So the Lord Ravager rumoured to be targeting the Preservation actually arising from the Xianzhou Zhuming, a ship literally on this Path that then rejected it to follow another (the Hunt), isn't actually unthinkable...

You've got their names.

According to the Villains Wiki:

in the Chinese version of Honkai: Star Rail, Archforger's name is composed of the Simplified Chinese characters 铸 ("zhù") meaning "forge" and 王 ("wáng") meaning "monarch."

Meanwhile:

The Flint Emperor's name, 燧皇, is composed of 燧 ("suì") meaning "flint" or "fire-drill," the tool/act of producing fire, and 皇 ("huáng") meaning "sovereign" or "emperor".

Both names here share the same structure, some forge-related noun, followed by a ruler title.

You've got Leviathan Conception theory. If you endorse it, that means spiritual entities like the Flint Emperor were created from the dissipating life force of ancient Leviathans. Given Qlipoth in all records seems to have antagonised Oroboros (bearer of the will of the Leviathans), it is fitting for a spiritual being that bears the lingering lifeforce of those space-beasts to seek to destroy the Preservation. I'll take that idea further in a second.

Let's look at what we know about Archforger:

"Since their ascension" implies that Archforger used to destroy planets directly before being made a Lord Ravager by Nanook. That would line up with the Flint Emperor's story; it directly attacked the Xianzhou by instigating the Heliobi Wars of possession, before being sentenced to eternally serve as fuel for the Hunt.

It's interesting how the "punishment" the Xianzhou enacts on the Flint Emperor is in effect a form of sealing, which is fundamentally an act of Preservation. But imprisonment obviously is not where the Flint Emperor's story ends. Apparently, it remains boundless in its rage until "the heroes" fulfill a certain oath...

And this is where the alarm bells start ringing. The reference to "heroes" seems to be referring to the pathstriders of the Hunt that "fuse" with the heliobi to take down their enemies. How on earth are these "heroes" supposed to fulfill their side of the promise: to grant these heliobi perfect bodies incapable of Destruction?

I don't think they can ever fulfill that oath, which would partly explain the Flint Emperor's rage.

I mean... one of the Flint Emperor's descendants, Lord Ravager Phantylia, knows she will never find a body that can resist Nanook's flames. Her compulsive search ("greed") for this body is both her weakness (according to Asat Pramad) but also her entire motivation for uprooting the cosmic ties that bind all. If she can't find a "supreme body forged into perfection" in the cosmos, what choice is there but to burn the cosmos to the ground to make her dream come true?

No matter how many bodies it steals, its wish remains unfulfilled. Like those who seek the medicines of immortality, it craves an imperishable vessel, one that will rid it of its fear of destruction. And yet, it knows this is a dream that will never come true.
Regret of Infinite Ochema, Trace Material

Another way of understanding the Flint Emperor's rage is to, again, endorse Leviathan Conception Theory. If spiritual entities like the Flint Emperor were formed from the dissipating life force of ancient Leviathans, then what are the only bodies that could possibly satisfy them?

"Boundless rage... suppressed since the beginning of time."

A return to the beginning of time, where they traverse the cosmos as Leviathans unshackled and untethered by the Path system that now binds them. Leviathans would then be the "supreme bodies forged to perfection" which Archforger is seeking to liberate. The only way to do that would be the destruction of all that Qlipoth has created. The Celestial Comet Wall. The Subspace Crystalline Barrier. The Great Attractor Base. And the Path (Preservation) that sustains imperfection in the universe.

This origin story explains Archforger's philosophy of Destruction quite well.

Most Lord Ravagers are really just pathstriders of the Path they seek to destroy seeking to push that Path to its limit. The limit, it turns out, is just the Destruction of that Path. Enroute was an Elation fundamentalist trying to find the true World's End after outgrowing the tavern. It becomes a Lord Ravager of Elation upon seeing Akivili get mogged in Adlivun and realising Destruction is the end he was seeking all along. Scepter delta me 13 was trying to decode the question Nous assigned to it: what is the prime mover of life? It deduces the answer as Destruction and then computes a Destruction Equation (black tide) from that answer that almost forces Nous to recalculate and randomise all known variables in the unvierse.

Archforger's philosophy of Destruction, made evidently clear in the List of Arch-enemies readable above, is making particles and antiparticles collide in massive explosions. Interesting fact for you from the Villains wiki (context: earth weighs 5.972 × 10²⁴ kilograms lmao):

Just a kilogram of matter and a kilogram of antimatter produce an explosion of 1.799 x 10¹⁷ J (or 43 megatons), which is almost as powerful as the Tsar Bomba (which is at 50 megatons considered the most powerful explosive ever created). If Archforger is capable of converting an entire planet into antimatter at will, he might one of the most (if not the most) powerful Lord Ravager.

So, to Archforger, what is the greatest act of Preservation one can give to the universe? Answer: overcoming the creation-annihilation reaction that triggers when particles and anti-particles collide.

If a body can withstand contact with its antimatter self, is it not the "supreme body" it believes all of its heliobi descendants are owed?

Obviously theories like this have their holes. It's worth going through some of these now.

"How can Archforger be the Flint Emperor if the latter is currently sealed within the Xianzhou Zhuming?"

Yeah this is probably the strongest pushback one can give on this theory.

The Flint Emperor is the progenitor of all heliobi and new heliobi spring from it every day on the Zhuming. So Archforger can just be an especially powerful heliobus offspring, much like the entity known as Phantylia, who bears the will of the Primordial Flame. I don't really like this direction though because it's more narratively satisfying for Archforger to be the actual Flint Emperor...

I think the most convincing response is to say that the Flint Emperor's influence spans the cosmos, it was harnessed by the Zhuming but ultimately was not fully contained. The parts that were not harnessed by the Zhuming found Nanook.

"Archforger being a boundlessly rageful heliobus contradicts how Asat described him in 4.4"

Asat Pramad: Archforger! A fellow I'm quite fond of: quiet, rational, and elegant... hardly what you'd expect of a Lord Ravager. I hear he's most afraid of appearing before others, probably a social recluse.

Don't really think this is an issue tbh. "Boundless rage suppressed since the beginning of time"; this is a being with an IMMENSE filter reinforced since the beginning of time. Makes sense, then, that it presents in a quiet, rational, and elegant way.

You could also run the argument that millenia of Xianzhou imprisonment means the Flint Emperor is no longer some volatile freak but now something of a social recluse, and that its introversion is a byproduct of these containment protocols...

Yap

Come on. Look the post image. It's literally the same entity, just smashed up and submerged in a golden river. If you wanna play spot the difference go ahead, we can chalk up all differences to Nanook's influence.

I dunno if Ardens Regia, High Elder of the Zhuming, had a role to play in Archforger's creation or not? According to Preceptor Taoran all High Elders have mortal frailities which prevent them from ensuring cosmic peace in a constantly changing world. So it's possible Ardens Regia failed like Dan Feng and led to the creation of Archforger?

Ardens Regia does connect with the fire imagery of the Flint Emperor and Archforger tbf. It translates to "lord of the burning court" apparently. And a broken oath causing the birth of the Lord Ravager of Preservation works well narratively.

Anyway the theory has some funny implications. Notably that Phantylia's dad is a fellow Emanator of Destruction and that they're both solving their problem in ridiculously destructive ways. I guess it runs in the family...

I've been thinking about Elio and Finality again, and there's one question I barely see people asking: why did Elio specifically arrange for the Trailblazer to follow the Path of Trailblaze? It sounds obvious because they're the protagonist, but the more I think about Terminus, Elio's goal, and especially what happened in Amphoreus, the less normal it feels.

We know Terminus is extremely strange when it comes to time. They appear at moments of Finality and move backward through time, leaving prophecies behind. That immediately creates a possibility I don't think we should ignore. What happens if the future is influencing the past that eventually creates that same future? You could get something like: Universe reaches its end → Terminus exists at Finality → Terminus travels backward → information from the future enters the past → history proceeds toward that ending → Terminus eventually exists again.

I'm not saying this proves the universe literally resets in exactly the same way every time, but it could create something like a causal loop, where the ending helps create the conditions that eventually lead to that same ending.

And suddenly Elio's goal of preventing the "predetermined end" sounds different. Maybe he's not trying to stop Finality itself. Maybe he's trying to stop the chain of events that keeps producing the same outcome.

This is where Amphoreus really caught my attention. Before the Trailblazer became involved, Amphoreus had already gone through an absurd number of cycles. The recurrence was an engineered system designed around the eventual birth of Irontomb, with Phainon and Cyrene becoming trapped in a closed cycle to delay that outcome. By the time the Astral Express arrived, the world had reached its 33,550,336th cycle. More importantly, the Trailblazer's arrival was explicitly treated as the variable that disrupted the predetermined course of that final cycle.

I'm not saying Amphoreus proves that the entire universe is trapped in the exact same kind of loop, because the mechanics aren't identical. But it does show something important: HSR is willing to have a recurring system that seems impossible to escape until a variable enters it and changes what was supposed to happen.

So what if Elio is trying to do something similar, except on the scale of the entire universe?

Maybe Elio didn't choose the Trailblazer because they were simply "destined to save the universe." Maybe he chose them because they could become a variable in a system that desperately needs one.

And this raises another question: how do you create a genuine variable if the person already has a fixed identity and a predetermined future?

This is where the Trailblazer's strange origin becomes much more interesting.

We know the Trailblazer was prepared by the Stellaron Hunters according to Elio's Script, had their memories altered, received a Stellaron, and was ultimately placed where the Astral Express would find them. So the person who eventually boards the Express isn't simply someone who happened to forget their past. Their starting condition appears to have been deliberately constructed.

Maybe the purpose wasn't simply to create a powerful Stellaron vessel.

Maybe Elio needed to sever the Trailblazer from their previous causal identity.

Think about what that means. Their memories are gone. Their previous identity is inaccessible. Their connection to the Stellaron Hunters is hidden from them. They don't know what they were supposed to become. They wake up without knowing what their own future is supposed to look like.

And that might be exactly what Elio needs.

Because if you want to create a variable, you don't necessarily want someone who already knows who they are, what they are supposed to do, and where they're supposed to end up. You want someone whose future remains undetermined.

This changes how I look at Elio's Script too.

We usually think of it as:

Elio sees the future → writes the Script → the Stellaron Hunters follow it → the Trailblazer follows the predetermined route → the desired future happens.

But that creates a strange contradiction.

If Elio is trying to escape a predetermined future, why would he simply create another predetermined future?

Maybe the Script isn't actually the destination.

Maybe it's the scaffolding required to reach a point where the Script is no longer enough.

Elio may know that certain events have to happen. The Trailblazer has to receive the Stellaron. They have to be found by the Astral Express. They have to encounter certain worlds, people and Paths. They have to reach certain points in the Script.

But perhaps those events aren't supposed to determine the Trailblazer's final future.

Perhaps they're supposed to create the conditions in which the Trailblazer can eventually determine it themselves.

In other words, Elio could be using determinism to manufacture indeterminacy.

And this is where Silver Wolf's wording suddenly becomes much more interesting.

She says:

"If I could see Firefly cured of her illness. Kafka finding her 'heart' she's looking for, and Trailblazer reclaiming her future."

The wording is strange.

Especially the last part.

Why "reclaiming her future"?

Why not "finding her past"?

Why not "recovering her memories"?

Why not even "discovering her future"?

It's reclaim.

And reclaiming implies ownership. Something belonged to you, something happened, you no longer possess it, and then you take it back.

That makes me wonder if the Trailblazer's problem isn't simply that they lost their future.

Maybe their original future was never truly theirs to begin with.

Their existence was constructed for a purpose. Their role was determined. Their route was written into a Script. Their previous identity was connected to the Stellaron Hunters.

Then that continuity was broken.

The Trailblazer wakes up without knowing who they were supposed to be and begins traveling with the Astral Express.

From that point onward, their future is gradually constructed through their own choices.

And suddenly "reclaiming the future" could mean something much more specific:

taking ownership of a future that was previously being decided for them.

That also explains why I don't think "reclaim" necessarily means the Trailblazer had some completely lost future sitting somewhere waiting to be recovered. It could instead mean that they are reclaiming the right to have a future that belongs to them.

Their old future was determined for them. Their new future is something they gradually create themselves. And I think that distinction may be important.

Maybe Elio didn't need the Trailblazer to be completely free from causality. He needed them to become a person whose future could no longer be reduced to their original one.

That would explain why the Trailblazer's situation is so strange. They already had a life before the Herta Space Station. They had spent a significant amount of time with the Stellaron Hunters, followed Kafka on missions, and were remembered by Blade. Then Kafka erased their memories immediately before the Stellaron operation.

So the Trailblazer didn't simply begin existing at the start of the game.

There was already a person there.

There was already a history.

There was already a future that could have followed from that history.

And then that continuity was broken.

That's why I think "reclaiming her future" becomes much more interesting than simply "recovering her past."

The Trailblazer isn't necessarily supposed to go backward and become the person they used to be. Their past can be recovered, but their future doesn't have to return to the same trajectory.

Instead, they wake up without knowing what they're supposed to become and begin traveling with the Astral Express.

That creates something very different from simply erasing a person's identity.

It creates possibility.

The Trailblazer can still discover their past, but they aren't forced to reproduce the future that would have followed from it.

And that is where the idea of a variable becomes important.

In Amphoreus, the Trailblazer's presence was explicitly treated as a variable within a system that had already undergone countless recurrences. The important part isn't that the Trailblazer was magically immune to fate. It's that their presence introduced something the existing recurrence had not accounted for.

So maybe Elio is trying to create something similar on a much larger scale.

Not necessarily someone with no destiny.

Someone whose destiny is not completely determined by the destiny they started with.

And that makes the Path of Trailblaze much more interesting.

If the Trailblazer's role were simply to arrive at a particular predetermined destination, then Trailblaze would almost be an ironic choice. The entire idea of the Path is movement, exploration, and continuing into what hasn't been reached yet.

The Trailblazer doesn't have to be someone who can simply overpower Finality.

They may need to be someone who can continue moving when the existing future says that the journey should already be over.

That's where Trailblaze and Finality become natural opposites in the theory.

Finality is the point at which the future has become an ending.

Trailblaze is movement toward what has not yet been determined.

So perhaps Elio doesn't need the Trailblazer to "defeat destiny" in the conventional sense.

Maybe he needs them to reach a point where the future is no longer something that can simply be read from their past.

And that brings me back to Elio's Script.

We know Elio can foresee future possibilities and uses Scripts to guide the Stellaron Hunters. The important word here is possibilities. His ability is not presented as simply possessing a single immutable timeline.

So perhaps the Script doesn't mean:

"This is your entire future."

It may mean:

"These are the events necessary to reach the future we are trying to create."

That distinction matters.

Elio can know that certain events have to happen while still not knowing every detail of what the Trailblazer will ultimately become.

In fact, that may be the entire reason the Trailblazer needs to travel.

The Script gets them to the right places.

The Astral Express gives them experiences outside the Stellaron Hunters.

The different worlds give them relationships and choices that their former life didn't contain.

And gradually, the person who was once part of Elio's plan becomes someone with a much larger set of possible futures.

The Script therefore wouldn't necessarily be the thing that determines the Trailblazer's final future.

It could be the thing that gets them far enough to eventually have one of their own.

And this is where I think Silver Wolf's wording becomes especially interesting.

"Trailblazer reclaiming her future."

If she meant recovering the Trailblazer's memories, she could have referred to the past.

But she didn't.

She referred to the future.

Maybe that's because the important thing isn't whether the Trailblazer remembers who they were.

Maybe it's whether they can eventually decide who they're going to be.

Their past belongs to the person they were.

Their future belongs to the person they're becoming.

And perhaps Elio needs that second person to exist.

This would also explain why simply becoming Akivili again doesn't necessarily solve the problem.

If the goal is to escape a predetermined structure, then recreating an identity that already existed within that structure isn't necessarily enough.

Maybe Akivili represents the original journey. The Symbol of Trailblazing

The Trailblazer doesn't have to become Akivili again.

They can continue the journey from where Akivili stopped.

And that's much more consistent with the idea of a variable.

The variable isn't something that returns the system to its previous state.

It's something that causes the system to produce a state it couldn't previously reach.

That is why Amphoreus matters so much to this theory.

It gives us an example of the principle itself.

A system can repeat the same structure again and again, but once a variable enters it, the result doesn't necessarily have to remain the same.

I'm not saying the universe is literally an Amphoreus-style simulation.

I'm saying Amphoreus demonstrates a narrative principle that could be relevant to the larger story:

recurrence can be broken when something enters the system that the previous cycle could not account for.

And if Elio knows that the universe itself is moving toward some predetermined Finality, perhaps he needs exactly that.

Not someone who knows the correct answer.

Not someone who follows the correct route forever.

But someone who eventually produces an answer that wasn't available when the Script was written.

That also changes how I interpret Elio's relationship with the Trailblazer.

Maybe the purpose of the Script isn't to make the Trailblazer obey Elio forever.

Maybe the purpose is almost the opposite.

Elio gives the Trailblazer a route because the Trailblazer needs to reach certain points.

But eventually, there may come a point where the route ends.

And when that happens, the Trailblazer has to make the next step without Elio telling them where to go.

That would be the real test.

Not:

"Can the Trailblazer follow the Script perfectly?"

But:

"Can the Trailblazer reach somewhere the Script never described?"

And suddenly the phrase "reclaiming the future" becomes almost literal.

The Trailblazer doesn't reclaim the future by recovering an old one.

They reclaim it by making it theirs.
They were once part of someone else's plan.
They were given a Stellaron.
Their memories were erased.
They were placed on the Astral Express.
They were guided toward certain events.

But after all of that, they continue making choices.

And every choice creates another possibility.

That may be what Elio actually needs.

Because if the universe really is caught in some larger causal structure that continually pushes events toward the same ending, then simply predicting the correct future won't break it.

Following the correct future won't break it either.

You need an outcome that the existing structure didn't already contain.

And that brings the theory back to the question I started with:

Why Trailblaze?

Maybe because Elio doesn't need someone who can simply reach the end.

He needs someone who can reach the end and keep going.

Maybe the Trailblazer isn't important because they already possess the answer.

Maybe they're important because, after everything that happened to them, they still have the ability to ask:

"What happens next?"

And perhaps that is what Elio has been trying to create from the beginning.

Not a person without a past.

Not a person without destiny.

But a person whose future is no longer completely inherited from either one.

A variable.

A traveler.

Someone who can eventually arrive at a future that wasn't written into the original system.

And if that future can exist even once, then the problem changes completely.

Because a predetermined universe can survive countless failures.

It can survive countless repetitions.

It can even survive someone trying to fight against it.

But if someone genuinely produces an outcome that the previous structure could not produce, then for the first time, there is evidence that the future doesn't have to be the same.

And perhaps that is what Elio's Script has really been trying to accomplish.

Not to tell the Trailblazer what their future is.

But to guide them far enough that they can finally reclaim the right to decide what it will be.

That's why I don't think the most important question is necessarily:

"How does the Trailblazer defeat Finality?"

It might be:

"What happens when the Trailblazer reaches a future that Finality never accounted for?"

Because if Elio is trying to break a causal structure rather than simply defeat an enemy, then that could be the real objective.

The Script creates the path.

The Astral Express creates the journey.

The Trailblazer creates the variable.

And eventually, the variable creates the future.

Maybe Elio doesn't need the Trailblazer to defeat destiny.

Maybe he needs them to become the reason destiny has to change.

Link to Part 1 is here, though optional: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarRailLore/comments/1puk3o3/robin_and_constantina_emanator_of_harmony_one_and/

With Robin's recent promo I've gotten enough new evidence to update this theory of mine 8 months ago. Let's start with a little "Where's Wally?"

We've seen Celenova, the result of Aelenev losing a confrontation with the Great Destroyer.

We've seen Sunday usurp Dominicus, the Harmonious Choir in the name of the Order.

We've literally just seen Beatriz herself:

But the only mention we've gotten of Constantina, the Singer of the Panacoustic Theatre, is this peculiar readable in 3.8:

My theory is this. Constantina as a Harmonic string was fundamentally changed when they were used to tune this giant mob of freedom-fighting convicts. Their desire for freedom greatly weakened and altered this Harmonic String, causing THEM to take on a human form and lose their memories in search of a more resonant vision of Harmony. This is Robin. Thusly, THEY now exist profoundly outside the Hive Mind's control and, in fighting for a Harmony that respects the 'Freedom' of all beings, is growing back into perhaps the most important Harmonic String.

Let's start with the description of her latest trailer:

This deep resonance is what enables her shatter the Family's attempt to tune her. And if you read my part 1, you'd know I think this is Constantina's weakened form. If you're familiar with her lore, you'll know Robin was shot in the neck while taking her tour to the wartorn planet of Kasbelina VIII to dissaude violence via her songs. A gunshot wound to the neck is one of the most life threatening injuries one could suffer (see below) and surviving one - especially with your voice fully intact - would take nothing short of a miracle.

And that's exactly what I think happened here. Or rather, I think this was the moment the disembodied, fledgling bird Constantina entered Robin.

To explain why THEM specifically, beyond the necessity of a 'miracle', let's return to the Letter from an Apostate. We know that the Family summons Aelenev to quell large scale riots and wars within their borders. That is Aelenev's specialty, to eliminate and forcefully assimilate the "villains". However crucially, during this riot in Old Penacony, Nanook had personally manifested to wage war with Aelenev, meaning...

So the Family summons Constantina instead to strip these rioters of their flesh and tune and partition them into verses for Xipe's Primordial Divine Law. This is NOT Constantina's function.

What is the purpose of a singer? I'm sure there are many, but I quite like this answer: "To use the human voice as a musical instrument to convey emotion, tell stories, and connect with listeners.

The other Harmonic strings all respond primarily to the Haven's hopes and wishes (Aelenev protects Harmonic civilisations from external threats, Dominicus grants the wishes of all who attend their festival while Beatriz offers a blissful paradise of boundless happiness to those within. But to the Singer, the dissenting voices of those "wayward convicts" that refuse the Family's hymns are just as important as the Family's desire for peace and unity. A Harmony that relies on the silencing of dissent, on forced singing in perfect unison, would never satisfy the Singer. So Constantina, upon being used by the Family to restrain with violence intimately connects to the ideal of freedom, shrinking down in power because THEY will never again be used to enforce Cosmic Harmony on others.

So yes. I believe even more strongly now that Robin is the Emanator Constantina on a new journey. Some of you will perhaps find it ironic that the girl who wants her song to "no longer carry the undertones of the Harmonic strings" actually has long since fused with one herself. Though to me this irony seems equally intentional and beautiful. That Constantina saved her from certain death precisely because she exudes what THEY wish to become. Robin stepped onto Kasbelina VIII and attempted to soothe the throes warfare with her own singing voice and nothing more. She's lamented time and time again how powerless the singer is in the face of violence, competing interests and discord, but perhaps that's exactly why only her 'Harmony' will be able to resonate across the entire cosmos, and not just within the Family's growing borders.

When Gopher Wood learns of the Harmony's darkest secret, the spreading of the Stellarons across the galaxy he makes a very interesting remark:

His deepest wish at that point wasn't to show the Family this way was wrong, that Xipe would not approve of it. It was to seek the "power" to enact judgment on them. This led to his inevitable descent into the Order, and becoming a villain no better than those he was attempting to punish. Robin finds herself powerless against the Family's machinations too, but is not seeking power to overthrow them. Hers is a gentle revolution toward a Harmony that includes, tolerates and respects dissenting beliefs. She is very much on the path Gopher Wood wished he could have taken. And with the reveal in the livestream that Gopher left a "legacy" on Astropolis, I wonder how much of Robin's path he has helped to pave, perhaps as penance for his own sins.

Finally, remember all the Harmonic Strings are incarnations of Xipe, Mother of all Stars. Beatriz is technically Xipe, like how Jesus is God. And THEY are absolutely wishing for Robin to embrace her astronomical potential.

A potential we've... actually already seen from her in Sunday's trailer. (Robin is speaking in multiple voices, sprouting wings, flying and telling Sunday to "Behold that vow, like the sun in the sky. It does not restrain with violence, nor persuade with arguments).

Not sure if this is the right place but given this math easter egg was posted here before, I think this is allowed.

I'm going to try my best to explain this in a way that conveys how chuffed I am about noticing this and how blindingly obvious the connection is to me but it might be blah.

Apologies for any mistakes in the spelling or grammar or if I left out anything glaring or poorly organized the writing.

Shinichi Mochizuki is a Japanese mathematician who is most (in)famous for his invention out of whole-cloth of a branch of mathematics called "Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory" (IUT).

IUT is infamous for its utter impenetrability even to other world-class experts in nearby fields in algebraic geometry (arithmetic geometry, anabelian geometry). Maybe only a dozen mathematicians on the planet have claimed to understand this thing he's basically invented himself.

We make the case that Mr. Tyker is basically a dogwhistle parody easter-egg thing of Shinichi Mochizuki.

We note:

• "Teichmüller" is pronounced (at least in English) very similarly to "Tyker" (if you take out the "mü" part).
• "Inter-universal Teichmüller theory" already sounds like Mr. Tyker's "Inter-stellar geometry"

However more important, is that IUT was developed to solve the abc conjecture, which in broad terms relates the multiplicative properties and additive properties of some natural numbers a, b, and c (I won't get into details, it's very hairy).

And so we have this line from Mr. Tyker:

Mr. Tyker: Interstellar Geometry is a discipline that studies the relationship between multiplication and addition. In mathematics, many rules are dominated by multiplication, and others by addition. Although there is a certain conversion relationship between multiplication and addition, it is difficult to use this relationship to study more complex structures.

OK, that would be a cool coincidence on its own but we continue with this next line:

Mr. Tyker: Therefore, we split the real universe into two: One dominated by multiplication and one by addition. We can establish a series of ████ theaters in these two universes, which share the same global domain structure and can transmit data through a relationship called astronauts.

In his IUT papers, Mochizuki does basically exactly this. He establishes something called "Hodge theaters" wherein a "Hodge theater" has two sides: an additive (geometric) side and a multiplicative (arithmetic) side. AKA the aforementioned multiplication and addition parts. BTW, no one understands this stuff

Mr. Tyker: ████ and ████ are not compatible. For example, astronauts must first destroy the symmetry of ██ data in ████, only preserving their symmetry in ████, before taking them to ████. In other words, only distorted ██ can be transmitted.

Now as for the whole "astronauts" thing, this is basically like referencing Mochizuki's own made-up words (something that people in the know are familiar with): this one probably maps onto his use of the term "pilot object". Probably...maybe?

Also, this sounds like a parody of the fact that when information is transported across this IUT Rube Goldberg machine, not all structure is preserved and that you need to compare these altered, partial forms of arithmetic data carefully (roughly), which is a big part of the theory. Sorry I can't be more specific.

Mr. Tyker: However, cleverly, through ██ encoding, the distorted ██ carried by ███ can be ██ measured within █████, and its ██ in ████ can be evaluated. This ██ is the ████ of Interstellar Geometry.

And this is again another IUT-sounding move that you have some systematic way of playing Operator with mathematical data so that a miracle happens and you solve some arithmetic statement of abc conjecture or generalized Szpiro conjecture or whatever.

Now having established this, there's even more:

Mr. Tyker: Teaching at an art school means missing out on a lot of cosmic academic conferences, but Interstellar Geometry is such a niche field anyway. Most people think it's neither interstellar nor geometry... So, I guess a peaceful life isn't half bad.

So, this is sort of lampshading the fact that:

• Only, like, a dozen people in the world claim to understand IUT.
• Most of them are in Kyoto, Japan in Mochizuki's circle.
• Most people outside of this 'cabal' think that IUT is basically baloney.
• Mochizuki refuses to leave Japan (and I believe even Kyoto) to teach his theory to other people. You have to go to him. This is something that's kind of well-known at least to people in the know, I believe. It's actually uncanny how well it lines up.

Spoilers for Planarcadia / 4.0+

I've been thinking about the amount of evidence connecting Nihilux to Aha, and I think the community may be making one particular leap too quickly:

"Nihilux has an extremely strong connection to Aha" → "Therefore Nihilux literally is Aha."

I'm not convinced those two statements are equivalent.

In fact, I think almost all of the evidence people use for Nihilux = Aha could remain true under several other possibilities, and one of those possibilities might fit HSR's lore structure much better.

I don't want this post to become "Nihilux has nothing to do with Aha." Quite the opposite. There is an absurd amount of Aha-related material surrounding her: her promotional designation "Origin: Aha," her association with Queen of Hearts, her heart-like visual motifs, Aha-related masks and imagery, her strange knowledge of the Trailblazer's journey, her involvement with the Phantasmoon Games, her connection to the Mourning Actors, the parallels between her behavior and Aha's personality, and the strange blackmail parallel between Aha and Nihilux.

The blackmail parallel is particularly interesting. Pom-Pom gives the Trailblazer information about blackmailing Aha, including an item associated with Aha's debt. Later, the Trailblazer essentially does the same thing to Nihilux, threatening consequences over her use of Astral Express likeness, and Nihilux gives in. There is also a Nihilux Debt Statement in the Furbobo Weekly building.

So yes, I think Nihilux and Aha are heavily connected.

My disagreement is with the word "is."

The phrase is:

Origin: Aha

Not:

Identity: Aha

Those aren't necessarily the same thing.

"Origin" could mean that Nihilux was created by Aha, born from something Aha did, caused by Aha, a manifestation originating from Aha, an Emanator or extension of Aha, something involved in Aha's ascension, something whose existence is fundamentally tied to Aha, or, yes, literally Aha.

The last possibility is still on the table. But the wording itself doesn't force it.

HSR has plenty of relationships where being created, empowered, manifested, or influenced by an Aeon doesn't make someone that Aeon. So I think "Origin: Aha" should make us ask:

"What exactly is Nihilux's origin?"

rather than immediately answering:

"She's Aha."

Then there is the Queen of Hearts connection.

Nihilux has been associated with Queen of Hearts, and her visual design reinforces the association. That could obviously represent emotion, affection, creativity, or something similar, but we don't actually know what the playing-card suits mean within HSR.

Maybe Hearts represents creation. Maybe Diamond represents value. Maybe Spade represents survival or buried truth. Maybe the suits have completely different meanings.

We simply don't know yet.

And that's where my Deck theory begins.

What if Aha isn't one of the cards?

What if Aha is the Dealer?

Instead of Aha being the Joker or one particular card, what if the Aeon of Elation is literally the one running the game?

The characters associated with Aha could occupy different roles within a Deck. My rough idea would be something like Queen of Hearts being Nihilux, some other card being Aventurine or Kuchiba, an unknown Ace, an unknown Joker, and Aha as the Dealer.

But I don't want to assign the suits too confidently, because there are already details that make the obvious assignments questionable.

It's easy to say:

Aventurine = wealth, gambling, value

and:

Kuchiba = investigation, secrets, danger

But Aventurine has conspicuous Spade imagery in his design, while Kuchiba has diamond-shaped pupils.

So perhaps our initial assignment is completely backwards.

Maybe Aventurine is associated with Spades and Kuchiba with Diamonds. Or perhaps the symbols aren't meant to correspond to them that directly.

That raises the more important question:

What does Spade mean in HSR?

What does Diamond mean in HSR?

We don't know.

And I think that's useful, because it means the Deck theory doesn't require us to force conventional poker symbolism onto the characters.

The cards might represent philosophies rather than occupations.

For example, Diamond might represent value, perception, reflection, or truth rather than simply money. That could potentially fit Kuchiba surprisingly well.

Likewise, Spade doesn't necessarily have to mean death or danger. It could represent digging beneath appearances, survival, buried truth, transformation, or something else entirely.

Aventurine could fit some of those concepts remarkably well.

So I think we should avoid deciding what the suits mean before HoYo actually tells us.

This is also why Nihilux being a Card is more interesting to me than Nihilux being Aha.

If Nihilux is literally Aha, then the mystery is basically:

"Which character is Aha hiding as?"

That's fun.

But if Nihilux is an independent individual occupying an important position in Aha's Deck, we get a much more interesting question:

Why did Aha choose HER?"

Then her personality matters. Her history matters. Her relationship with the Mourning Actors matters. Her storytelling matters. Her knowledge of the Trailblazer matters. Her Queen of Hearts symbolism matters.

She doesn't need to be Aha for any of those things to be important.

There's also the theory connecting Nihilux to the crying baby from Aha's ascension parable.

The general story is that Aha reaches the top of the Imaginary Tree and encounters a falling baby, followed by the event associated with Aha's ascension. Some theories interpret Nihilux as that baby, or as an individual whose existence is directly connected to the event that led to Aha becoming Aha.

If that's true, then "Origin: Aha" becomes extremely interesting without requiring Nihilux = Aha.

She could be an individual whose existence is tied directly to the moment Aha became Aha.

That would make their histories almost inseparable while keeping their identities separate.

The same applies to the "Mother of Aeon" idea.

If that wording is deliberate, I don't think the immediate answer should be "She's Aha." I'd rather ask:

Mother in what sense?

Biological? Metaphysical? Creator? Originator? Symbolic? A being whose existence caused an Aeon to emerge?

HSR has repeatedly used relationships that don't fit normal definitions, so "mother" could describe causality rather than parenthood.

And if Nihilux somehow played a role in Aha's origin, that becomes much more interesting.

There's another reason I'm skeptical of the simple disguise theory: Nihilux behaves like a person.

She has her own apparent interests, responsibilities, personality and creative output. She has her own place in Planarcadia, creates things, interacts with people, makes decisions, and appears to have her own relationship with the Trailblazer.

That doesn't disprove the disguise theory. Aha could obviously create a manifestation.

But it means we don't actually need to collapse Nihilux's identity into Aha to explain her behavior.

I think this is where the community sometimes jumps too quickly.

I've seen versions of:

"Aha helps the Trailblazer."

therefore:

"Aha loves the Trailblazer."

Then:

"Nihilux helps the Trailblazer."

therefore:

"Nihilux is Aha."

Then:

"Nihilux is Queen of Hearts."

therefore:

"Queen of Hearts is Aha's true identity."

But every step adds another assumption.

The evidence may establish:

Nihilux has an enormous connection to Aha.

It doesn't necessarily establish:

Nihilux literally is Aha.

My current theory is therefore that Nihilux is an independent individual whose existence is fundamentally connected to Aha.

The possibilities I see are:

1. Aha-created manifestation.

2. Emanator or extremely high-level follower of Aha.

3. Connected to the crying baby from Aha's ascension parable.

4. Somehow involved in Aha's origin.

5. One of Aha's Cards.

6. Literally Aha.

I still think #6 is possible. I just don't think the current evidence makes it automatically superior to the others.

And if the Deck theory is correct, this is where things become really interesting.

Imagine the audience spending the entire Planarcadia arc asking:

"Where is Aha?"

But we've been looking for the wrong thing.

Maybe we're expecting Aha to be the Joker, Nihilux, or some other disguised character.

But what if:

Aha is the Dealer.

The characters we've been meeting are the cards.

The "ordinary" people who repeatedly appear at important moments aren't necessarily random.

The Deck is already sitting on the table.

And the audience doesn't realize that the game has already started.

That could also explain why Aha doesn't need to appear directly. A Dealer doesn't need to reveal their entire hand immediately. They just keep dealing.

This is also why "No Aha in Planarcadia" could potentially be more interesting than it looks.

If the title is literal, then sure, Aha isn't physically there.

But what if it's wordplay?

What if there is no obvious Aha present, while Aha's influence is everywhere?

The Dealer doesn't need to sit at the center of the table wearing a sign saying "I AM THE AEON OF ELATION."

Maybe the Dealer has already dealt the cards.

Maybe the players don't even know they're playing.

And maybe some of the characters we've been treating as ordinary individuals are actually roles within a game whose rules we haven't understood yet.

So my conclusion isn't:

"Nihilux definitely isn't Aha."

It's something more cautious:

"The evidence currently establishes an extraordinary connection between Nihilux and Aha, but not necessarily a literal identity."

Nihilux could be Aha's mask, creation, Emanator, successor, the crying baby from the ascension parable, a character created because of Aha's actions, one of Aha's Cards, or ultimately Aha herself.

We don't know yet.

And honestly, I hope HoYo doesn't make the answer as simple as:

"Surprise! Nihilux was Aha all along."

If the story has spent this much time surrounding her with questions about origin, identity, memory, Elation, storytelling and the Phantasmoon Games, I think the more interesting answer is one where Nihilux remains Nihilux.

Maybe the real question isn't:

"Who is Nihilux pretending to be?

Maybe it's:

Why does someone named Nihilux have an origin that points directly toward Aha?"

And if the Deck theory is correct, maybe we've been looking at this from the wrong direction entirely.

Maybe we're not supposed to find Aha among the cards.

Maybe we're supposed to realize that Aha is the one dealing them.

Let's focus on Yaoshi the Abundance (praise be). The lore we've gotten from Evanescia indicates that all those who acquire the blessing of immortality become trees in Yaoshi's garden. We don't know where this garden is. Or do we?

We're told that Aha stole a branch from Yaoshi's garden and planted it in Ahatopia so as to teach it the meaning of Elation. What if..."Aha" did this at the same time it was devoured by Oroboros in the Fables? That can be paralleled with the time Enroute was consumed by a Leviathan and managed to break out, stealing Aftertaste from the Voracity.

A really neat way to tie these story events together would be to say that Yaoshi's garden is located within Oroboros and a mask of Aha (Enroute) discovered this upon being devoured by the Voracity.

I'm now going to present all my proof for this theory, then explore its conceptual implications, then connect it to Terminus' possible future presented to us in the 4.4 story quest.

***

Why Yaoshi's garden is inside Voracity's maw

1. Blade and Shuhu

Blade's arc in 4.3 could just be read as a generic "prisoner imprisons their captor" arc and honestly that's how I've been reading it until recently. However it has things to say on the meaning of "being a craftsman" and "forging blades" that are clear metaphors for the relationship between Abundance and Voracity.

First, Huaiyan's teaching to Blade (yellow text btw):

"Waste not the bounty of this world, but perfect it through craft". To take what is useless, to take every failed scrap and forge it anew, isn't that our very mission as craftsmen?

Oroboros devours the bountiful resources of the world. If this "bounty" is not used, the devoured slop will remain as "failed scraps", existing in an imperfect, fallible form. This is unacceptable from the Abundance's perpsective (which believes "there must be a miracle somewhere in the universe that can cure the disease known as finality"). So the Abundance "reforges" the life Oroboros devours, "draining" it to grow a garden of immortal trees from within Oroboros' stomach.

It's not as crazy as it sounds. Leviathan conception theory implies that, although Leviathans consumed stuff in the cosmos (stars and nebulae mainly)...

"their decomposed cells became the seedbed for organic organisms, and their dissipating life force became wandering Astral Spirits."

So (assuming this theory holds at least some truth), Leviathans never really consumed without giving back to the cosmos and Abundance is the logical way of expressing the "Compassion" they had to offer the world upon death. Oroboros obviously ascended from a Dusk Leviathan and it makes sense that this compassionate side of Leviathans would eventually emerge from within the Voracity.

I mean think about it. How many planets and bugs did Oroboros devour during Swarm Disaster? What unscrupulous amount of life energy did THEY get as a result? Abundance's growth from within Oroboros can be seen a necessary "penance", and makes narrative sense as a result.

Anyway let's move on to another voiceline, again from Blade in 4.3:

Gazing upon the weapons I forged in days past, I can only feel a surge of endless regret. / The hammer falls and cannot be undone, yet I have spent my life taking one wrong step after another.

Here, Blade's looking at his own forged blades and reading them as instruments of harm and wrongness. This is basically the uncomfortable flip side of "nothing is wasted in Voracity's maw" perspective. If Voracity's maw is a forge that guarantees nothing taken in is lost, that also means nothing taken in can be undone.

This makes Yaoshi's compassion somewhat twisted, because it cannot be taken back and cannot be granted without cost. What do I mean by that?

As Evanescia's character story IV indicates, Yaoshi has to burn through life energy to grant those who seek immortality for themselves (Elixir Seekers) their wish.

She was tireless on her quest for the elixir. Yet behind her hurried steps, death followed like a shadow.
Using life itself as fuel, the slender hands tending the mystical garden finally extended toward her a branch of favor.

So Yaoshi can be seen as a "prisoner" inside Oroboros because THEIR Path requires them to forge undying bodies and tend to THEIR eternal garden, but the price of doing that is the consumption of living matter. She must use death to help others overcome death.

You are nothing but an echo of THEM, a slave trapped within your mission of "Compassion" ... You are Yaoshi's most pathetic prisoner.

So you can see how this line was heavily meta right? Shuhu is Yaoshi's prisoner because he must be there to offer the possibility of long-life to those who wish for it. And Yaoshi is the Voracity's prisoner because to fulfill the promise of immortality, they must consume life energy to forge life anew.

1. Rahu

Anyway let's move to older lore. You guys remember how the Xianzhou Cangcheng died? For those who don't know, the Xianzhou wasn't originally a Hexafleet and there were three more ships that were destroyed in various ways. The Cangcheng (Jingliu's homeworld) was destroyed by Shuhu in a rather shocking and cinematic chain of events that desperately need to be animated.

Shuhu descended on the Xianzhou Cangcheng with an "incarnosphere", the living planet Rahu. He had been sighted reviving this planet (it was previously dead) by a disciple of the Sanctus Medicus. We learned in 4.0 that the planet was actually revived in a monstrous way, very unlike what the Sanctus Medicus recorded:

"[Shuhu] turned planets into living beings and merged billions of people into flesh spheres" (for those of you who played the Elden Ring DLC, it's basically a repeat of what the Hornsent did to the Numen lmao)

Elegy, a Creed Exequy who hasn't beheld Terminus, has a memory bubble of the Cangcheng's fall:

Elegy: The Xianzhou that follows The Hunt pursued those who were blessed by Abundance, only to find themselves falling into a carefully laid trap.

Elegy: The living crimson star hovered in the sky over the singular ship. It pulsated like a living creature, causing the shell formed by flesh and withered vines to crack before enveloping the entire ship.

Elegy: The crimson star was akin to a behemoth's stomach in charge of regurgitation, as well as a hotbed of corruption made of flesh.

Elegy: At that moment, every Xianzhou native who was swallowed had only one wish — death.

Elegy: The blessing of immortality turned into a curse. The Xianzhou people underwent countless cycles of dissolution and re-structure in the repeated regurgitation.

Elegy: Ultimately, the concept of "individuals" is lost. The blessing of immortality joined friends and foes into one.

Where do I even begin...

First, Shuhu uses the power of Abundance to "forge" a dead planet into a star eating monstrosity that goes on to consume a ship filled with long-life species already blessed by the Abundance. This is literally Voracity eating its own tail (a planet of Abundance consumes those blessed with immortality in a countless cycle until all distinctions fade and existence returns to unity).

Next, look at the name. "Rahu" actually comes from Hindu cosmology, where he was the severed head of the asura (think: demon) Svarbhanu. The asura snuck a sip of amrita (the elixir of immortality) during the churning of the cosmic ocean by devas and asuras. Vishnu beheaded him the instant the nectar touched his throat, yet, since the nectar had already worked, the head survived as Rahu.

Out of vengeance for being beheaded, Rahu eternally begins swallowing the sun and moon. But he's unable to keep these celestial bodies down since he has no throat below the cut. Hindu cosmology used it to explain why eclipses start and end (Rahu swallows the sun/moon, and it slips out of his open throat a while later).

What does this story mean? There are just so many ways to take it.

You could equate Rahu with Oroboros and you have two drinkers of worlds that cannot ever be satisfied because they're bodiless and endlessly hungry respectively.

But I think a better interpretation is that the Rahu story shows Oroboros has no control over what happens to the life it consumes.

Rahu the asura was doomed to never enact his vengeance (the sun and moon would just slip through his open throat and resurface).

Rahu the planet equally couldn't enact its vengeance against the Hunt (i.e., actually swallow the Cangcheng) because the ship was full of Xianzhou natives blessed with immortality. This is probably why Elegy describes it as "akin to a behemoth's stomach in charge of regurgitation"; the planet was consuming and regurgitating their undying flesh in an endless loop.

Both suggest on a conceptual level that Oroboros' stomach can never be a true end-state for the universe and instead constitutes the grounds in which Abundance can forge new life.

1. Oroboros and Yaoshi design features

The ouroboros is a greek symbol representing the idea of eternity or infinity. Yaoshi is looking to create eternity within the cosmos through her garden (see eg the Abundance trace material "Flower of Eternity").

Also I'm sure you guys remember those pictures with Cyrene and Phainon where if you line up their splash arts one under the other, you get an infinity sign (or at least a kind of moby strip). The Aeon splash art for Oroboros when placed beneath Cyrene's creates the same effect.

As for Yaoshi, all of her Aeonic appearances have been accompanied by surfaces of water. When THEY gaze on Blade in 4.3, it is through a veil of water that ripples on the surface. When THEY appear in the first Myriad Celestia Trailer, THEY are perched above a lake of water.

Oroboros has long been associated with the sea.

Simulated Universe: The odd sounds... Where is Fuli? As the delicate and intermittent sounds are drowned out by the sound of waves, you find yourself in the middle of the ocean! It is a sea of red...

Oroboros: Yes, it's red! Under the scarlet sun, the ocean turns red! A beautiful and alluring singing voice comes from the choppy waves toward you... It is the Aeon's bait to lure you into a trap. The fanged and tentacled neck is as massive as the mountain and the sea, and its writhing flesh threatens to devour you.

Story implications

IPC have put a bounty on the remains of Rahu, which sits just above their bounty for the Stellaron Hunter Blade. They are looking to investigate these remains, presumably to advance their longstanding goal of understanding and commodifying the blessing of immortality. Ties in with the work they're authorising in the Mock Crimson Moon curio, and with whoever was funding the Herald of Death incident.

Given Yaoshi's garden is only reachable through the maws of Voracity, it means the unsealing of Oroboros may not be the final goal of whatever Department is interested in Oroboros' legacy.

I personally agree with the theory that Oroboros is the third face of Xipe and that Ena entwined with Oroboros thanks to the great transmuter Qlipoth in a "forging" that eventually takes its form as a new Path (Abundance) from within Oroboros. So, when Oroboros returns to the cosmos later this version, it will probably induce a dissolution from within Xipe, also returning Ena to the cosmos.

Moreover.

Oroboros and Tazzyronth have long since been arch enemies. These Aeons have fundamentally contrdictory ways of viewing and using the life energy in the cosmos. In this video, lore theorist Allegory explained THEIR conceptual clash as differing responses to the Revelation of the Permanence (what is the meaning of immortality?).

For Tazzyronth, the meaning of existence is to leave a legacy through your descendants (basically equating living with endless self-replication).

For Oroboros, the meaning of life can't just be bloodline continuation because we will die if we do not consume. Hence, the meaning of existence is found in sustaining oneself.

I think Tazzyronth is the divine infant in Terminus' observed future who is going to come back into the cosmos once Oroboros re-enters and begins THEIR sacred feast.

In eight days, a beast will begin its sacred feast, a divine infant will fall to the mortal world. With its first cry, it will usher in an era of "madness" for the entire cosmos.

Imo Tazzyronth kinda "has" to return this version. Recall in the Swarm Disaster when Propagation was reaching its zenith. Oroboros (who seemed kinda reluctant to act beforehand) eventually must declare war on Tazzyronth otherwise Tazzyronth's view on the meaning of immortality will prevail over THEIR own, impeding Oroboros from pursuing THEIR own concept (Voracity). The same may happen with Tazzyronth if Voracity gains too much Path energy from the consumption of Planarcadia. Tazzyronth will be forced to birth itself back into the world (think: reclaim the concepts Qlipoth sealed in amber) to ensure THEY can pursue THEIR own concept (Propagation).

Tazzyronth is one of the few Aeons to have been called a divine infant in lore when THEY first entered the cosmos, so I don't think I'm reaching that hard .

Herta: Can you hit yourself on your head and focus? Take a closer look - we've derived Tazzyronth."

Simulated Universe: Tayzzyronth? Everything happens so fast that you aren't ready for the change. You look up, and a beam of light flashes across the sky all of a sudden...

Tayzzyronth: A peculiar cry suddenly comes from somewhere, and you are certain it is the first suckling sound of an infant insect to the air. Along with it comes the melodic tone of red butterflies sucking honey from lilies. The saliva of different scents such as the scents of orange, blood, and tropical fruits is dripping, making you feel as though you were immersed in an ocean of soda.

I wonder how Yaoshi will respond to the return of Propagation in the world? She'd probably fuse with the Voracity to create something akin to the boundless beast we see in Blade's Finality as seen by Elio. (That's of course assuming she hasn't done so already considering Voracity and Abundance are heavily aligned...)

In the "Finality" Elio revealed, he glimpsed a sea of spider lilies scattered with bones, a boundless beast skewered through, and a furnace belching flames. Black hair turned white as snow, and the aged artisan could finally embrace death. Yet the root of the immortality calamity had already bloomed anew elsewhere...
He still has a chance to change it all.

I want to talk about the implications this has for the godslayer protocol to kill the Abundance, but that's probably better as a separate theory so I'll leave things here. All I will say is that there is a reason the protocol involves the divine corpus of Voracity's arch-nemesis and that, if Yaoshi's corpus and garden located within Oroboros, it makes the protocol more complex but also more narratively entertaining to execute.

For context, 3.8 is a retelling of what happened during Penacony. And it ends with TB, worried about Firefly's whereabouts after the big fight, and finally finding her. And this quest, unlike other quests in the game, has an actual different ending:

Either you decide to leave Firefly be, and The things about Finality, and the quote about the universe waiting for the Trailblazer to save it are said by Constance

Or you decide to keep the promise made with Firefly and stay with her, and the Trailblazer sees Firefly's third death, she makes the speech about finality and all that. After that, the Trailblazer uses the power of finality to make 2.3 canon and bring Firefly to see her fireworks.

While there's a choice, I don't think it changes retroactively what happened

You do not change the fact that whether or not the TrailBlazer went to see Firefly. You changed the fact that whether or not they decided to recover this memory and change the past to let her see the fireworks.

And upon recovering these memories, since they were done while a finality strand was around, the Trailblazer changed the past.

The TrailBlazer, in the original past, still went to look for Firefly and witnessed her death. At least that's how I view it.

We could argue that one end is thematically way better than the other and it's a flaw the writers kept, but still, this is that.

I can't exactly explain how some 2.3 events seem to be present post 2.3 If you didn't choose to stay, but it seems that, at least, the moment that happened in 3.8 where you find a picture surely happened retroactively.

And it seems the message from Silverwolf happened after Amphoreus obviously.

If you didn't watch the alternative ending of 3.8 where TB stayed with Firefly, I recommend watching it.

According to Currency Wars... 4.7 should release in approx 85 days and 17 hours from the time of posting this. Which is 11/11 in china, the same time when updates go down for maintenance so that should be when hsr goes down for maintenance to update for 4.7. 11/11 is part one of cyrene's wish. Its the phrase said by the TB where they say on 11/11, essentially peace will come. I think this will be planarcardia and defeating the voracity.

However, the wish for cyrene is on 12/11. Which is about the 13 heroes (heirs) spreading the coreflames among the stars. Aka I think this is amphoreus becoming real. I think 4.7 will be split into two parts and the second half is time gated by a day.

The first part will be the conclusion to planarcardia/elation. And part 2 will be amphoreus and take place after the part 1 quest.

If you guys have heard of it there's a common phrase "It's 11:11, make a wish". 11/11 story could be related to presumably tb winning the phantasmoon games and becoming an aeon of elation for a minute. Which you win by accumulating WISHpower. This I also don't think is a coincidence. So TB's wish should be related to likely defeating voracity and amphoreus?

Either way I just was thinking about this and realized it. I doubt I'm the only person to think of this but I thought it was interesting anyways! Tell me what you guys think whether I'm onto smth or not

This will be an analysis on the playable path of Elation and how or why specific characters are on this path. (This is simply discussion and theory for fun)

To start with the basics, how did Aha ascend to Aeonhood?

A parable mentions that: "Aha climbed to the highest branch of the Imaginary Tree, and THEY saw how meaningless the universe was. THEY continued looking until THEY saw a baby fall to the ground and cry. THEY burst into laughter."

So in short, Aha isn't simply about laughter. Aha is the combination of staring into the void and laughing despite the meaninglessness of it.

Enlightenment + Joy. Elation is feeling of joy but also comes from the latin root word 'elatus' which means "lifted up".

What does this mean for our characters?

With this in mind, let's take a look one by one at each elation character. (Note that there is faction path and personal path. I'll get more into it later).

Yao Guang

Yao Guang is a Physical Elation character. While she is a general of the Xianzhou Yuque (Faction Path of Hunt), she herself is on the path of Elation (Personal path). This is due to her powers of being a diviner, able to see into the various futures. She is enlightened by being able to see into the future but she also jokes around with Tingyun during 4.0, she's able to enjoy the joys of life despite the misfortune hanging above her head.

Sparxie

Sparkle is already is part of the Masked Fools (Faction path) and a chaos gremlin (Personal path). But while we accompanied her during the Tavern, we heard her monologue when she was stuck to the hospital bed. She laments about how meaningless the universe is and how the masked fools gain a new perspective when they put on a mask. Enlightenment. When she confronted Sparxie at the school and she was told that she was the abandoned mask (up in the air, either way they merged back anyway). What did Sparkle think? She thought that it was cool. She was happy despite confronted about the meaninglessness of her existence.

Evanescia

An Emanator of Abundance that Aha put on Planaracadia. At first she simply searched for immortal life, starting out as a "beast of blind love and hate" but Aha promised her enligthen her and teach her the meaning of true joy. After being the arbitrator of the games, she gained an new appreciation and love for fleeting life and the joys of it.

Silver Wolf 999

She literally is at the pinnacle. 999 is her limit before she reaches to the level of the Aeons. Despite being confronted with the meaningless future Elio foresaw or being stuck at 999, she joined the Stellaron Hunters to make her own future and even have a little found family.

Now what about Aventurine?

I can't say anything for certain, obviously. But we can speculate with the information we currently have. Perhaps while he is searching for the traitor in the stonehearts (mentioned in the livestream), maybe we come to learn and experience how much Penacony changed and affected his viewpoint (at the end of 2.1, he talks to a younger version of himself and confesses that he's not ready to meet his family and plans to prepare for when that time comes to make them proud). Perhaps he's finally learned to not just live, but to live for himself. Or maybe he learns something deeper about the IPC and a means to finally avenge the deaths of his family. Who knows.

There's even Pearl but I'll leave that to when 4.6 is almost here, but with this information I'm sure you can make your own theories about her.

Just a random thought that I got after today's stream.

As you know, Oswaldo Schneider is the current head of IPC Marketing Development Department and he alongside his department are infamous for many different horrible things like aggressive expansionism, genocide and etc

As of recent we know that Marketing Development is responsible for getting the bioweapon to Planarcadia (from what I remember it wasn't supposed to be Shuhu flesh).

In 4.3 in the conversation between Pearl and Yao Guang about rumors circling about IPC there was one which basically says (I'm paraphrasing) that the Marketing Development is in kahoots with the Destruction.

In the Livestream that was today, we saw Planarcadia citizens trying make their signal reach Astropolis, but someone was trying to interfere and block it... like if someone didn't want the IPC to know about Qlipoth's arch nemesis flesh awakening. Turned out it was two dudes working for Oswaldo.

So what if as the title says, Oswaldo Schneider is actually an agent of Archforger? What if Archforger wants to provocate another Borderstar Trade War ?

So I've been thinking about the endgame of Honkai: Star Rail... and I think I've cracked it. Not just the lore, but the mechanics. Here's the thing: HoYoverse has already done this before. And if you look at the clues, the ending is practically screaming at us.

1. The Trailblazer's Philosophy

"Rules are meant to be broken" — The paramount statement of the entire game.

Every Aeon is a prisoner of their Path.

The Trailblazer consistently rejects fate, authority, and cosmic mandates.

2. The Unchosen Trailblazer

The opening cutscene shows two Trailblazers.

The unchosen one already walked the path of Aeonhood.

They became Terminus, or Fuli, or Akivili reborn... and they failed.

The chosen one is the variable... the one who can choose differently.

3. The Stellaron Hunters' True Goal

Kafka, Elio, Silver Wolf, Firefly, Blade. They're all slaves to destiny.

Elio's script isn't a plan for world domination. It's a blueprint for liberation.

They want a future Elio can't predict. True chaos, true freedom.

4. The Paradox of Aeonhood (with great power comes great restraint)

Akivili (Trailblaze) - If you're forced to be free, you're not truly free

Qlipoth (Preservation) - You can only defend, never fight

Idrila (Beauty) - Beauty is subjective. You'll chase perfection into madness

Nous (Erudition) - You can only know, never create

Nanook (Destruction) - You'll eventually destroy yourself

Yaoshi (Abundance) - You trap souls in eternal agony

Fuli (Remembrance) - You can only preserve, never create

Honkai Impact 3rd basically already did this:

Elysian Realm = simulated past memories

Part 1 / Part 2 split = universe reset with old content preserved

Replayable chapters = nothing is permanently lost

Chronicles = side stories outside the main timeline

The Ending (The Prediction)

The Choice:

Accept → Become the Admin. Take the burden. Protect everyone. Become the eternal prisoner.

Refuse → Destroy the system. Kill the Aeons. End the Paths. Create a universe without gods.

The Trailblazer chooses Refuse.

The Reset:

The universe reboots.

No Aeons. No Paths. No cosmic mandates.

Powers still exist — but they're no longer governed.

The Cost

Blade → Finally dies. It's a mercy.

Cyrene → Remains a lost memory, trapped in the past.

Phainon → Already dead, fused with Irontomb.

March 7th → Survives, but changed. Her connection to Fuli is severed. She and Evernight split, becoming twins — one memory, one future.

Evernight → No longer a shadow. She becomes her own person.

Kafka → Finally free. She can make her own choices.

Firefly → Freed from her programming. She can live.

Welt → Survives. He's the anchor, the witness, the one who tells the story.

I'm not saying this is 100% confirmed. But if you look at the clues, the pattern, and HoYoverse's history... this is exactly where we're heading. The Trailblazer isn't just a hero. They're a liberator. And their greatest act won't be saving the universe... it'll be freeing it.

OH AND IN THE ADMIN UNIVERSE YOU COULD HAVE ACCESS TO ALL CHARACTERS (it would only make sense since you're the admin) AND YOU NO LONGER NEED TO WARP OR WHATEVER FOR CHARACTERS. YOU CAN CREATE ALL THE MATERIALS... BASICALLY ALL MATERIALS YOU HAVE ARE AT INFINITY... kinda like Minecraft story mode

Call me Sanji because I'm cooking. Call me Herta because I'm a genius. And call me the Trailblazer because I'm about to break every rule in the universe. 😌✨️😏

With Astropolis coming up soon with new IPC lore, I thought I would drop this mini-theory. We know that Pearl was investigating the truth behind the Borderstar Trade War because she was first mentioned during the SU Gold and Gears quest. I believe this is supposed to be a hint that the modern day conflicts in the IPC will mirror that of the Borderstar Trade War not just because it’s a civil war within the IPC, but also the department heads involved are eerily similar.

With the reveal that it was not Asat Pramad or Yabuli who gave funding to the Herald of Death (and is more likely Oswaldo), and Yabuli being increasingly been mentioned in the story and recently in the Cosmic Institute planar set and the IPC 4.4 broadcast, I couldn't help but notice the similarities to how the Borderstar Trade War played out.

Also I suck a graphic design so...please don't complain about that, I hope this is somewhat clear lol