Hi guys I am Inotia King a youtuber, redditor and gamer who likes theorizing about the story. I actually cobbled together a list of some of my more important theories with respect to the game Genshin Impact and Star Rail that I have been basing all of my newer theories on. I'll be putting more of those up on Hive along with new stuff but if you're impatient I also archived all my theories here. I hope some of you guys are game theorists too. Let's try to figure out these great games together!
(This theory was originally put up on reddit. It's an old one but I think I need to have it up here so my next stuff about Natlan makes sense.)
We still don't have much to go on for Natlan even though it's set to make its debut in a few days. A long long time ago we had the Travail Trailer and the Genshin Manhua which introduced us to the African Iansan and the stereotypically Native American "Muratans." That alongside other lore tidbits led me to believe that Natlan would prominently feature the Triangle Trade and Iansan was the imported goddess to South America, part of the newly formed religion of Candomblé.
However over time it dawned on me that there's not much to go on with just Iansan's African roots in Yoruba and even less its imported South American variety. As such I started to wonder if the reason Vennessa's tribe looked like stereotypical Native Americans was that miHoYo ran into this wall as well and decided to expand into Native American tribes in general. With this expansion, Natlan could take on the rich culture of Mesoamerica like the Aztecs, Olmecs and closer to the Candomblé faith of Brazil, the Incans and their predecessors the Chavin of neighboring Peru.
But miHoYo did one better. With the release of v4.6 new Artifact Sets became available and then late into the patch we got an event, both of which dove deep into a major event in Natlan's history, previously only told through the Talking Stick. These releases came bundled with tons of new real world references and rather than just the Yoruba of West Africa, these references came from all over the continent. Finally we have our new characters including the Pyro Archon herself, now known as Mavuika instead of "Murata" as the playerbase had been calling her ++due to a poor translation of the manhua.++ Mavuika along with Mualani are Polynesian names meaning Natlan necessarily is a region that combines the unrelated real world continent of Africa with the potentially connected regions of Polynesia and the Americas. It is a first for Genshin ++(though some players are still under the impression Sumeru is this as well)++ and this complicates our ability to theorize about the lore as previously we could take cues from the region's history and folklore.
On top of that, the livestream presented two more pieces of information about the region. The first was the concept of the six tribes which was first hinted in the Unfinished Reverie Artifact Set though the Talking Stick may have been the establishing point for them. A group of six was previously seen in Sumeru with the Six Darshans. The term Darshan was actually a localization choice whereas the Darshans themselves were named after the Zoroastrian Amesha Spenta which actually number seven not six. The Natlan tribes are thusly named after the thirteen layers of Aztec heaven. We only have names for three of the six tribes but that may already be enough information.
Meztli the People of the Spring is named after the first layer of heaven which itself was named after the Aztec goddess of the moon. As we all know by now, the moon is a prominent theme in Genshin. Mondstadt and Liyue are both moon-themed names and Sumeru has Ay-Khanoum an ancient city with a name meaning Lady Moon. Huitztlan the Scions of the Canopy is named after the fourth layer that is associated with the all important Quetzalcoatl but also Hueycitlalin or Venus, the morning star and the god of dawn. Venus as it relates to the morning star would mean the Classical Planet of Venus ++which is also a reference used in Genshin++ for the shining shade Istaroth. Finally there's the big one, Nanatzcayan the Children of Echoes. Nanatzcayan is the eighth layer of heaven and is related to the gods of death, darkness and sacrifice. Before we even had this reference I had been theorizing that death through sacrifice would be the theme in Natlan and related to the potential Act V Chapter Title, Incandescent Ode to Resurrection. This was even further alluded to in the livestream by the devs themselves. I believed that the Pyro Archon was planning to use a tournament to trigger the ode in order to perform a resurrection. In the end Iansan who is named after an undefeated goddess with insight into death would set Mavuika on the proper path. Of course I believe Iansan will be part of this Nanatzcayan tribe.
Nanatzcayan is the eighth layer and the Aztecs had a total of thirteen right? Well let's go from the top down to make my next point. At the very top, layer thirteen is Omeyocan where the gods of duality reside. They are the creator gods and rulers over life itself. What does that remind us of when it comes to not just Genshin but the Hoyoverse in general? The Hoyoverse was created by the Imaginary Tree spontaneously coming into existence out of the Sea of Quanta. After this happened the tree persistently wants to absorb the sea and create more universes while the sea wants to drown the tree and return everything back into nothingness. Sounds like the epitome of duality doesn't it and sure enough if everything returned to nothingness so would the life that the Imaginary Tree bestowed meaning they do rule over life itself. The next layer down is Teteocan where the Tezcatlipocas reside, the four Tezcatlipocas. Genshin's Teyvat is a world in one of the many universes of the Hoyoverse and the lore behind that has Phanes creating its four shining shades. This layer therefore might as well be called Celestia. The layer underneath that is Teotlatlauhco also the abode of the Aztec gods of fire. With a little creative license we could imagine miHoYo interpreting this lore from the lens of Natlan itself and therefore assume a bias in favor of their Archon. In other words this could be seen as the layer of the Archons which would be under Celestia. And that gets me to the next three layers down. Under Teotlatlauhco is Teocozauhco and then Teoiztac but what they are specifically is not that important. These names are themed around color. Teo is an adjective in Nahuatl related to the gods. Iztac is the Nahuatl word for white, cozau or cozauqui means yellow or golden and finally tlatlau means red. Why is this important? Well in Genshin we have major references to alchemy and in particular, Rhinedottir and her disciple Albedo are looking into the Opus Magnum. (which is miHoYo's localizers being stupid because the real world term is Magnum Opus so they weren't fooling anybody) The Magnum Opus states that there are four steps towards creating the ultimate substance or rebus. You have nigredo that means black, albedo for white, citrinitas for yellow and finally rubedo is red. In Gnosticism this rubedo can stand for gnosis or in other words true divinity and isn't it perfect that the layers right above Nanatzcayan happen to line up white, yellow, red. Above that is Celestia and then the dualing rivals of the Hoyoverse itself.
Long story short, I think miHoYo intends to use the thirteen layers of Aztec heaven to further their lore about the Hoyoverse. However Nanatzcayan is the eighth layer right? And we only have six tribes. Which two would be excluded and why? Well for now I want to believe that they won't be. In fact if we go back to the Talking Stick, the lore there only stated that Tenoch found allies in six of the major tribes not that there were only six tribes. What if two tribes are dead in the present or were destroyed by the Abyss during that event? Now again which ones would they be? It's too soon to tell but that's my prediction, that there are actually eight tribes and not six and we'll be introduced to the lost tribes later on in Natlan's run.
Speaking of alchemy, Phlogiston. Phlogiston is an antiquated theory of combustion. It was first conceived by German alchemist Georg Stahl based on previous alchemical concepts like the ++Chymical Marriage++ which required a red king, a white queen and a catalyst like mercury or sulfur.
Stahl's theory was based on his predecessor Johann Becher's three earths, terra lapidea, fluida and pinguis. Lapidea is just glass but fluida is mercury and pinguis is sulfur in Becher's model. Stahl would rename terra pinguis to phlogiston and make the claim that everything possesses a quantity of phlogiston which allows it to burn. Once the phlogiston is used up the fire will go out. In fact one of his experiments was to burn mercury which oxidizes it and turns it to mercury oxide which he dubbed "ash." Infusing the phlogiston back into the "ash" will restore the original mercury.
Remember Dainsleif's line about how Natlan works: "The victors shall burn bright, while the losers must turn to ash." Now remember in the livestream how the devs said sacrifice in Natlan wasn't as big of a deal and it related to the idea of resurrection. Well if all you have to do is infuse Phlogiston into a Natlanian to bring them back from ash then it isn't a big deal that the losers must turn to ash does it? They can continue fighting until they win and burn bright.
Now naturally there's a sinister side to this. Phlogiston Theory is no longer in use and that's because what Stahl actually discovered was the redox reaction which doesn't necessarily have to do with combustion. Worked wonders for modern day life though considering that's battery technology right there. Also it was discovered that not everything loses mass when burned and therefore disproved a loss of some phlogiston substance. In fact that previous example of mercury is this as well since burning mercury binds it with oxygen in the air and the resulting mercury oxide is heavier than the pure mercury. Whoops.
How could miHoYo use this in Natlan? Well the plot so far once again focuses on the Abyss as primary antagonist. Khaenri'ah had followed the Abyss and used its power and one form of that power was Khemia aka the alchemy that Rhinedottir uses. It would not surprise me if Phlogiston which is an alchemical concept in our world comes from the Abyss in Teyvat. There's already precedence for that as well. In Sumeru, the forbidden knowledge that Deshret sought was actually the Abyss and once he unleashed it it plagued Sumeru with both Eleazar and the Withering Zones. Now here in Natlan we're getting this Phlogiston as its unique environmental attribute and there's even a simple glow the Natlan characters get when they use it. I think that the glow will be just like Sumeru's Akasha Terminals and be removed once we figure out the truth about it and Natlan stops using it. At the same time the Phlogiston in the environment will remain just like the Withering Zones. In terms of the story, Natlan seems to be using the Phlogiston to stave off the Abyss which they had defeated back in Tenoch's time. However as the trailer showed, Natlan is only a year away from catastrophe. Why? Could it be that the use of the Phlogiston isn't actually staving off the Abyss but rather empowering it? We've seen that the Abyss can play the long game. What if it was biding its time, soaking in the power of the Phlogiston while simultaneously corrupting the Natlanians using it and this is where Iansan and her insight into death will come in and set Mavuika on the right path?
After all this time keeping the flame burning, why isn't the Abyss being repelled? How did it invade the Night Kingdom? (And why is the use of Phlogiston called the Nightsoul's Blessing?) Why is there less than one year left under the current circumstances? Maybe it's time Natlan learns about oxidation and reduction reactions too.
Now there's one thing that worries me. See the picture above? That's our old space whale friend from Fontaine. Did it strike anybody else as odd that Fontaine's Weekly Boss was not related to the Abyss or the Archons and wasn't one of the Fatui Harbingers? Seriously what did this whale have to do with anything related to Fontaine? The story up until Act V was derived from the French Revolution. Focalors herself was a perfect stand-in for Louis XVI even including her death by guillotine. We did get hints about the whale as it related to Childe but that was a whale related to the Abyss, at least back then it was. Childe had been down in the Abyss and witnessed it which got him the attention of his master Skirk. But the whale we actually got was from space and is the only thing in Genshin that relates to space. Seriously only the Dreamers are even concocting rocket technology right now.
If you're not sure where I'm going with this just think about the Liben event we got not long after the Archon Quest wrapped up.
It's really on the nose. And if we look at the whale's drops, yeah they totally call out Star Rail as well. Lightless Mass is of course Dark Matter, Lightless Eye of the Maelstrom is a black hole and Lightless Silk String is a string from String Theory. None of this relates to Fontaine at all but we also know exactly what miHoYo was doing by putting these Star Rail references into Genshin during this time. Not long after this Star Rail players got themselves a free Dr. Ratio and tons of good press was drummed up for the game. Yes I'm saying miHoYo was using Genshin to promote Star Rail.
Now look at the Natlan trailer. Why is there an 8-bit sprite for Kinich's attacks? Why does Mualani look like Susie from Zenless Zone Zero? Natlan is a tribal nation right and has references ranging from Africa to Polynesia to the native cultures of the Americas? So why was that NPC with the dreads doing breakdancing in the trailer? Why is there graffiti? These are very modern aren't they? Breakdancing was only invented in New York during the 1970s and the earliest graffiti also dates back to this time period. It has nothing to do with the Triangle Trade period that saw Africans forcefully relocated to the Americas and is about four hundred years too late to relate to the Aztecs. But what do all of these things have in common? Zenless Zone Zero. 8-bit video game sprites? We've got a retro arcade in Zenless. Breakdancing, hip hop culture and graffiti? Yeah that's all there in Zenless and its urban setting. And again Mualani might as well be a tanned expy for Susie.
So my concern is that for all the potential Natlan's story might have, it may be another Fontaine where the payoff in the end relates more to Zenless than to Genshin. Will we get an "Abyssal" creature that looks like Ninevah? Will Phlogiston turn out to be some form of Ether? I sincerely hope not but Fontaine's space whale has my faith shaken. Why is Natlan the first region that's not based on a single nation in the real world? Why do we have cultural and historical references from across three continents? I really hope I'm wrong about this but we'll see.
Let's recap:
- Natlan is the first region not based around a single real world region. At first it seemed to be based on Brazil or at least the slaves brought over to it from the West African tribe called the Yoruba. However more recent information has references ranging from across the American continents and Africa along with Polynesia.
- The Six Tribes of Natlan are named after the Thirteen Heavens of Aztec mythology. Using all thirteen as a guideline actually fits well with the overall structure of Teyvat. The top layers can be related to the Imaginary Tree and Sea of Quanta along with Celestia underneath them and the Archons underneath it.
- The next three layers down are color coded in order from red at the top, yellow then white before it reaches the layer of Nanatzcayan. Red, yellow and white could be related to rubedo, citrinitas and albedo of alchemy with the human world that Rhinedottir burned being nigredo.
- As such it might be revealed that there's eight tribes and two either no longer exist or will be revealed later in the story.
- We are introduced to two things in the v5.0 livestream. Phlogiston and the ability to restore life. All the way back in Travail Dainsleif stated that "the losers must turn to ash." In Phlogiston Theory it was believed that you could infuse phlogiston into ash to restore it back to its original form.
- Phlogiston could actually be part of the Abyss and rather than protecting Natlan by using it maybe it's actually been powering up the Abyss all this time and that's why Natlan is on the verge of crisis with less than a year to go.
- miHoYo may be using Natlan to promote Zenless Zone Zero just like they ended up using Fontaine to promote Star Rail. This is terrible for us Genshin players as it means our game and its lore is being hijacked for the sake of something totally unrelated to it. Just like introducing a random space whale Weekly Boss into the Fontaine Archon Quest miHoYo might ruin Natlan's story with some Ethereal creature for Natlan. Fingers crossed I'm wrong about this.
Topic originally created on August 25th, 2024.