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 is long and there's much to cover so I've added a summary at the end. Also it's a Part 3 for my predictions when it came to the story so I've linked where relevant to the previous parts that were put on reddit.)
The final part of the Penacony story is out now so it's time to check the verdict.
"Death" was how they picked the best outcome. It was done in a very clever way but ultimately that was the case. Acheron "killed" everybody in the whole dreamscape to force them awake and return to the real world. I had said that Acheron would do like she did for Aventurine to help us get there; I had not realized miHoYo intended for that same attack to have brought everybody there already lol. I thought Acheron would have to "kill" us to send us into the correct dreamscape. I mean she does get us to the correct dreamscape but that came later as part of a different part of my predictions.
However the Oppenheimer reference did come into play. I thought this was going to be the Trailblazer doing it but apparently they were just in for the ride and it was all down to Acheron.
This "time loop" did end up just like Sumeru's Act II. The whole thing is a dream but it's layers upon layers of dreams and it's very difficult to wake up from something like that. Back then in Genshin the loop reflected the beliefs of Gnosticism. We needed to realize the truth. In Star Rail it's about Buddhism and choosing the right path out of the dream.
That has now come up several times in the new mission as if to drive home the point first brought up all the way at the beginning when the Trailblazer meets Acheron. Firefly for example tried several approaches only to still end up fulfilling Elio's script and her first death.
And if it still wasn't made clear enough there's always Black Swan telling it to us straight.
The Trailblazer will use all Paths, picking and choosing the best one to use in any given situation and then collapse that waveform into the single best outcome. (It's curious. Looking back they didn't get a new Path from the Xianzhou. It could have been either the Hunt or the Abundance. I wonder if that means we'll be revisiting down the line.)
Side Note: Gallagher also brings up that if they weren't all on different Paths they could have worked together.
I wonder if that means the Paths themselves are a problem just like how the individual elements are in Genshin. We've seen that several Paths converge and the Aeons that represent them are merged into one, absorbed by whichever Path is more prevalent. Maybe there should only be one Path but something caused them to split apart so it'll be up to the Trailblazer to experience them all and find their common ground to reunify them, thus collapsing their different waveforms into a single common sense outcome.
I also love how this game humorously handles us choosing the wrong Path lol. Get some fake as hell credits and then we're thrown right back into the story. This time it was forced onto us. Really early in the game we're allowed to just decide not to go off on the adventure and then the game just ends like that with us left on the space station. In this one mission we ended up getting two of these but more on that later.
When it came time to get the new Path, I had predicted that the Trailblazer would "die" again. We had seen both previous times that they took lethal damage before being given their new Path and escaping harm unscathed. However this time they didn't even get hurt. Instead the new Path came from Mikhail's hat as his memento for future Nameless. Of course because of how these Paths work, it necessarily means that our Trailblazer once lived as Mikhail; it was one of their past lives. Paths are tied to the person who bears them. You can't just pass on your Path with a hat. (However, there is a possibility that miHoYo used the plural nature of Xipe to suggest perhaps that the Trailblazer was Mikhail in some other superposition unrelated to the one in the current reality. It might be a way to illustrate Xipe's own existence as a collapsed superposition.) As such, for all intents and purposes the "Trailblazer" did die to get this new Path.
Besides the superposition Buddhism theme there was another discussion in this mission about nature vs nurture. It's shown in the cover image for this topic. One day Sunday and Robin found an injured bird. Under Gopher Wood's suggestion they agreed to cage the bird to nurse it back to health whereupon Robin was planning to release it back into the wild while Sunday believed it was better to keep it sheltered. This is unfortunately reinforced when the bird was freed only to die shortly after. Based on this experience Sunday became jaded and critical of self-actualization.
This isn't the first time miHoYo's told this story either. Even further back than Sumeru in Genshin, we had Inazuma's Archon Quest where Raiden Ei also wanted to shelter her people from potential loss based on her own experiences. Essentially it's control, the autocratic kind. To maintain control the Family nurtured people's negative emotions, making it more desirable to escape into their sweet dream instead of forging their own path forward.
The Robin and by extension the Buddhist approach is to help where possible but always with the understanding that everybody needs to find their own way. You can't reach nirvana if you never even leave the comfort of your own home. (That said I suppose it's easier in Buddhism since there's reincarnation and you'll always move on to a life with better conditions for reaching nirvana so long as you live your lives to the fullest.)
Speaking of which that leads me to bring up how Sunday's name is literally his MO, that he would prefer that every day be Sunday and a time for rest and indulgence lol. His boss name "Septimus" also just means Sunday or more specifically the seventh day in Latin. In this case it doesn't actually reference any Roman named Septimus which I only need to clarify because over in Genshin we did actually get a reference to a Septimus.
It's also not the only seven reference we got from this mission though I have no idea what this one's about. The Seven Lineages that get brought up also by Sunday don't really seem to have any rhyme or reason. Four of them are flora, three are fauna but "beast" could be any number of animals including the birds and insects so I'm not sure where he was going with that. Still, it's a seven reference and not only Genshin but we've also recently got one for HI3 too with the Seven Shu of Langqiu.
This was very clever concealment. It explains why a clock had the power to change people's emotions. In the overall theme it's again about guiding people back onto the right path which is a compass attribute not a clock's. But a clock is symbolic of mortality which is what Sunday was terrified of and also what Acheron represented under the Nihility. It showed that while "time" is what everyone used as a guide for their choices, it's a mistake to let it control you. This confusion between a clock and a compass was previously seen in reverse in Genshin's Perilous Trail event. The Fantastic Compass is called a compass in English but it is based on a bagua astrolabe or luopan that helps with spatial situation for things like fengshui. In game it allowed time travel within the illusion for the purposes of character development.
And the confusion over clocks played out in a hilarious easter egg I wonder if any of you guys got.
107336 is the model number for a watch, MontBlanc Timewalker Chronovoyager UTC Automatic 107336. I thought that was really cute lol
Besides the above, there were a few things that are left open-ended.
I don't think anybody was shocked by this revelation. Everybody knew Acheron was some kind of Mei. I'm also really glad to see many theories besides mine suggested all kinds of different Meis for Acheron to be. There are several similarities between her and the Mei from HI3. I mean we literally get this-
probably the most famous scene of the girl since the cutscene released. There were also those suggesting specifically that the Mei we're seeing is from the APHO era. I had previously suggested the Mei from Honkai Gakuen but by the v2.1 mission I changed my mind to just another Mei from the Honkai branches of the Imaginary Tree, one where Kiana didn't exist and Kevin took her place.
Sadly we didn't get anything yet to confirm or deny any of these theories. The only unique aspect to this Mei over the others is that she's given herself the middle name "Bosenmori." Bosenmori 忘川守 just means protector 守 of the river for the forgotten 忘川. It's basically another way of alluding to her alias Acheron. Hopefully by the Interlude Mission we'll get more information.
I had suggested that Xipe herself would also be part of the converging Paths thing. She is the plural Aeon after all, a great way to illustrate what superposition is. But I don't think anybody realized that the specific way she'd be involved was that one aspect of her was the fallen Ena the Order. Having a plot element like that opens the door to several interesting stories. For example, what if late into the game the Trailblazer themselves encounter versions of themselves on other Paths? Would they compete against each other to figure out which of them gets to survive and make their Path reality? Or would they work together, weaving their ultimate fate as an amalgamation of all of their Paths?
I have a feeling "Stellaron Disaster" is going to be Star Rail's "Hijacked by Ganon" trope where it's just going to be a Stellaron problem in every new place.
I suppose we'll have to see if any of these are wrapped up by the end of this Trailblaze Mission. Yeah it's pretty clear the Interlude Mission is just a continuation of this mission. How do we know this? How else? We got fake credits again. But besides that we know the story didn't really end yet because two storylines have yet to conclude. What's up with Sparkle's panic buttons? We still don't know. Aventurine is just back all of a sudden. What did he do that whole time after Acheron sent him to the real dreamscape? I mean v2.1's story was the Aventurine Hour and then we didn't see him at all until the end (of an eight plus hour mission!) so he must have been doing something during that time. So we'll see what happens in v2.3.
I don't know how to feel about this. Gallagher is our ally in the Penacony story but he's a follower of the Enigmata. Fictionologists aren't a real thing. If anything it's a meme about a religion that believes in whatever they want. That's what Mythus the Enigmata wants, purposefully screwing up facts to blot out history. On its own this is what I've been combatting in real life, how we're in an era of memers over thinkers. But in the context of Gallagher I think the purpose is to not linger on the past. It's the nuclear option though. The past is still important so long as you don't paralyze yourself with it like Sunday did. (for example how we've been caught up in a nostalgia kick in Hollywood lately, stifling new projects and ruining old franchises)
LOL I love this self-aware joke. All of these options are pretty much a player review for the patch.
Ok well that was long. Here's the short (but still kinda long version lol)
- I had predicted that "death" would be the way to resolve the problem in Penacony, that it would bring everybody to the best outcome.
- The exact mechanism didn't work out as I had thought but it ended up being a different part of my old predictions instead so it still worked out.
- The reason why it didn't was because miHoYo decided to be clever and instead of the Trailblazer "dying" to get their new Path, Mikhail died instead and passed the Harmony Path onto the Trailblazer. (based on how these Paths work though it still counts as it means in some form the Trailblazer lived the life of Mikhail)
- Funny enough it was the Oppenheimer reference in my predictions that became the mechanism. Acheron just killed everybody and that was the "death" that resolved the story.
- miHoYo did end up going the dream route just like we previously had in Sumeru's Act II.
- And the purpose of all of this was in fact, directly stated by Black Swan, the Trailblazer will experience it all.
- The Robin/Sunday thing was previously seen in Genshin's Inazuma Archon Quest. Sunday mirrors Ei's belief. He wants to keep everybody dreaming because "self-worth" is a bad thing. That's the same as Ei's quest to snuff out "ambition."
- Sunday's name literally reflects his belief. He's "Sunday" because he would like it if all the days of the week were "Sundays" lol
- I'm not sure what the Seven Lineages are but it's another seven reference and we keep getting those in Hoyoverse games. Even HI3 has a recent one, the Seven Shu of Langqiu.
- Clockie was interesting. He's actually a compass which makes sense over what he can do. Sunday's flawed perspective though would actually fit more with the clock motif than the compass because he was so worried about mortality and harm.
- While we do know that Acheron is Raiden Mei that never surprised anybody. What we wanted to know what who this Mei was and sadly we still don't know.
- Xipe having Ena be one of her faces suggests the possibility of a future story where the Trailblazer also has weaker Paths that might vie for control and have to be subdued.
- I'm not the biggest fan of knowing that Penacony's problems were also caused by a Stellaron. I was all for a story just about corruption in the Family but now it looks like the Stellaron will always be the culprit behind the issues in all of these new regions.
- Sparkle's buttons and Aventurine's actions following the previous mission have yet to be revealed. That coupled with how we got another fake end credits scene means the upcoming Interlude Mission will just continue the Penacony story so maybe we'll get answers for the Mei thing then.
- The character Gallagher is an ally for this story but his role, messing up facts and making it hard to figure out the real story is not something to endorse. The only reason I think he's a protagonist here is because Sunday was being shackled by the past instead of learning from it and growing.
I guess that's where I'll leave it. Hopefully we'll get some more answers and a real conclusion to the Penacony storyline in v2.3. It would be nice to know where this Mei comes from and I think we'd all like to know what Sparkle's buttons do.