There are far worse fates

-than "being cursed" to live as a goddess for five hundred years. Isn't that right Mr. Khaslana?

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!

My actual Amphoreus Theory is over. I think that I've covered all the information we'll get from the original devs and they are still moving back into Star Rail territory. That being said I think they had one final note to leave us with in v3.4. So let's talk about that.

In the latest Trailblaze Mission for Star Rail we relived the plight of Phainon. I think everybody had already figured out that he was the Kevin Kaslana for this series (though Acheron comes from another universe that was also a Kevin variety) and therefore has committed to some kind of destructive strategy in order to stave off the inevitable end. Thanks to leaks of his gameplay model and attacks, people had also theorized that he'd fall into the Path of Destruction or become an outright Ravager. While that was actually the intention in-universe, I don't think anybody realized that he would have already known and actively fought against it which is admirable.

However as it relates to Genshin the entirety of that mission seems to be the original devs illustrating what Teyvat's story would have been if the Traveler twins did not arrive. @inotia-king/the-rivalry-to-end-all-rivalries" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">I had theorized about this a long time ago. What Phainon is doing is what I had called the "Human Plan." The Human Plan is named after the Three Realms of Teyvat's lore: Light, Human and Void Realms. They are based on the real world Taoist realms of heaven, human and underworld which anime fans might know best from their Japanese names tenkai, jinkai and jikai. Anyway Amphoreus has so far committed to two of these plans the Void Plan and Human Plan. The Void Plan is the one Lygus is undertaking, namely to create a vessel for Irontomb who will destroy not only Amphoreus but become a threat to the rest of the Star Rail universe. The Void Plan is one that progresses the goal of the Sea of Quanta which is to destroy everything. The Human Plan is essentially a failsafe against that. If every other action fails and the universe is destroyed but there's a record of everyone that once existed then they can reset the world and try again. This was first seen in v1.1 through Zhongli's Character Quest where he told the Traveler that he once tried carving Teyvat's history into stone but then discovered that even immovable earth may eventually disappear. He then became the first to set the Traveler down their path of Witness, to be a living record for Teyvat and remember everything so that it would not be lost. Later on in the Sumeru Archon Quest we saw the first major effect of the Witness: The Traveler is now the only record that Rukkhadevata existed. So in Amphoreus that's exactly what Phainon became, a living record of everything and everyone. Only it got so much worse for him.

The Traveler is a Descender and therefore has a much greater capacity for taking on the role of Witness than any person within Teyvat. I had said that Phainon represents Childe in Amphoreus and his role while under Aglaea did reflect this. However I think in v3.4 Phainon no longer really reflects Childe, at least not necessarily. What's happening here is the devs showing us what a reset would really look like. I'd theorized a long time ago that while the Human Plan is in play for Teyvat, no reset has happened yet. Teyvat is still on its first run and if the story had remained consistent it should only have this run. Teyvat was meant to be the healthiest universe in the Hoyoverse thus far, one where the sea had barely breached and so the strict order of the emissaries of the Imaginary Tree was guiding the world. Phainon is living through a pseudo-Honkai Impact 3rd version of this story where the world had been reset several times just waiting for something different to happen that could save it. In Honkai that came in the form of the Flame-Chasers of the Previous Era who managed to set up Prometheus as a false Cocoon of Finality to manipulate events and alter Kiana's fate. In Star Rail thankfully there wasn't just a Kevin but also an Elysia called March 7th who might finally play out her role in v3.5. (and then to be very overt about what Amphoreus is, the devs have Screwllum dub the Trailblazer a witness too) Finally the Traveler is what stops these resets from happening in Teyvat.

If we make use of Childe in a version of the original Genshin story sans Traveler, it could be suggested that Childe caught the attention of the powerful players working against the world's destruction. Skirk saw promise in Childe because he had awakened the Abyssal whale. Before it was used in the Fontaine Archon Quest to promote Star Rail, I had been theorizing that the whale was the original Leviathan form of Neuvillette the Hydro Dragon which was mentioned back in Enkanomiya's very notable Byakuyakoku Collection. As the lore suggested, the dragon was corrupted by the Abyss and then died, fated to be reincarnated as a human. It stood to reason that Childe possessed a quality that roused the dragon and this also allowed him to be the only other human character we know of who can wield two elements at the same time, his own Hydro Vision and the Electro powers from his Delusion. It actually takes an Abyssal technique called the Foul Legacy in order to do so though and the technique takes a toll on his body. We may be able to relate this to Phainon's collecting of the Coreflames which was burning him up and slowly training him into becoming Irontomb's vessel. Therefore without other options, perhaps Childe would have been given the role of Witness and because he's not a Descender, he'd be powerless to stop the impending destruction of Teyvat. His role as Witness might even have been hinted at since he was the active Harbinger in Liyue and drew the attention of Morax who again was the one to appoint the Traveler as Witness. Given that the Tsaritsa was also collecting the Gnoses and we never really got an answer as to why, if we look at Amphoreus then perhaps her goal was as simple as using the Descender powers of the Gnoses (assuming they were still going to be made from the body of the Third Descender) to allow Childe to retain his memories in the reset. Childe would take on the exact role of Phainon, possibly even collecting all reset iterations of the Seven Gnoses which would imbue him with immense amounts of Light Elemental Power. And this may also have eventually corrupted his soul (which keep in mind was already influenced by the Abyss) so a supercharged version of Foul Legacy might have also converted him into a Lord Ravager equivalent like a Sinner or Vinster King.

What we're seeing then is what every universe looks like when there isn't some kind of intervention. As the "black tide" of the Sea of Quanta encroaches on a world it slowly and patiently corrupts everything. To stop this an avatar sent by the Imaginary Tree shepherds human development and will start a controlled destruction of it should it get to a point where the sea's influence becomes strong enough that the world itself starts working towards its own destruction. The people caught in the middle of this struggle would try their best to save themselves but against the unfathomable forces of both heaven and hell they really don't stand a chance. If they're lucky they end up like Honkai Impact's world where one lucky break of installing Prometheus into the role of the Cocoon of Finality finally breaks the cycle with something new. Phainon on the other hand was lucky to have bided his time until the Nameless arrived. However when there isn't anyone to save them you get the 33,550,336 cycles of one human understandably losing his marbles. And then that universe is done for. If the sea penetrates too far into the universe you get Zenless Zone Zero where the Imaginary Tree has already abandoned it and it's the sea running the show. The Void Plan. (that being said Zenless is set to become one of few examples of saving a universe even in those dire conditions)

Side Note: I didn't know where else to put this but his Fatui title itself might point to this potential role had the Traveler not been around. Childe is an old English word for the son of a noble. This is the same in Chinese. It is an honorific title suggesting elevated status just like how Phainon was the Deliverer. (actually considering he's since passed this title onto the Trailblazer that may make the connection even stronger)

Speaking of repeating your life over and over again until you finally give in to pure hatred and nihilism, I have been a @inotia-king/7sbssk-can-an-adaptation-be-better-than-the-original" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">major critic of the Fontaine Archon Quest. One major feature of that quest was the plight of Furina who was "cursed" with immortality to live out 500 years while pretending to be the Hydro Archon. There were many players who were sympathetic to her struggles because she was shown crying and feeling alone, living a lie over the span of many human lifetimes. However I pointed out even back then that simply being alive for a long time is hardly a trial when it comes to the Hoyoverse. To that effect I brought up hilichurls who were both cursed with immortality but also disfigured into beastlike creatures and forced to live out in the wilderness, hunted like animals by uncaring humans who didn't know what hilichurls really were. Unlike Furina they eventually rot away thanks to erosion and become immortal dust. Besides them we have fellow Archon Nahida who was also 500 years old only instead of spending that time in the lap of luxury being treated like a celebrity, she was kept in stasis inside of a bubble in the Sanctuary of Surasthana and could only interact with children through their dreams. She would only be freed in Act V of the Archon Quest and that was the first time since her birth that she was able to move. But all of the previously existing fates that were already worse than Furina's pale in comparison to what Phainon was put through.

In a direct parallel to Furina, we actually had cuts of several repetitions that Phainon undertook. Furina had a whopping 182,376 days worth of living her lie. Phainon....

Yeah he had to deal with something a little north of that number. And keep in mind his wasn't days. 33,550,336 is the number of resets he's lived through where each one by itself already accounts for several hundred years as a new round of the Flame-Chase Journey took place. We were shown that he anachronously met with Aglaea, Tribios and Hysilens long before his original self was even born. And each time he completed a repetition he kept all of the Coreflames because returning them to the Vortex would trigger Era Nova and the end of Amphoreus. So not only is he effectively immortal, not only does he have to stay true to this unending path for fear that diverging from it could lead to the destruction of Amphoreus and not only does he suffer from the wounds he suffers across each repetition which included eventually having himself killed by himself so that his older body could die and all of those memories, experiences and most importantly the collected Coreflames get passed onto his new body -deep breath- but besides all of that he also has to murder all of his friends every single time because in every reset they disagree with whatever he tells them and if they should do anything off script, it could once again lead to the destruction of Amphoreus which he needs to prevent. I'm fairly certain this is a far worse fate than anything Furina had to go through. (It's actually even a far worse fate than the 50,000 years Fuhua lived through as a MANTIS.) And I love how the devs even used the same story structure of a title card listing how long it's been to drive that point home.

Side Note: But of course these old devs never just stop at a quick reference. They go deep. So that giant number itself is significant. Furina's number is just the number of days in 500 years which lets us know she was playing Archon for exactly 500 years to the day once we reached the end of Act V. Phainon's number though is what's called a perfect number which among other uses was studied for having divine power to bring harmony to the universe. What was Phainon trying to achieve? I think they even used the word harmony at some point. But we're done with that number. Instead we're entering the 33,550,337th cycle and that is a number related to the perfect numbers called a Mersenne prime number. Mersenne primes are useful for things like cyber security. In other words we know that Phainon's strategy was actually part of the calculations of the Amphoreus Emperor's Scepter. One facet of that device was the ability to keep outside forces from affecting the program. This is the firewall that Herta and Screwllum encountered that prevented them from actively assisting Dan Heng and the Trailblazer. But now Phainon has run through that many scenarios. You might say he brute forced the passcode and has now unlocked Amphoreus and we just happen to be entering this new phase where outside forces are allowed to affect and change the situation in Amphoreus. The Trailblazer is immune to the resets (just like the Traveler) while March 7th has found her own way in, actually being summoned into it. (likely by herself just not the herself who thrust herself outside of Amphoreus but rather the herself made up of her true memories aka Mem) And of course Dan Heng had escaped Amphoreus and will now be working with Herta and Screwllum to infiltrate Amphoreus and free it from the program in order to prevent Irontomb's creation. (though this will probably fail since we need another boss)

I've always said that miHoYo is more than capable of creating stories filled with existential dread.

The Three Realms Gateway Offering had us travel to an underground chasm being encroached on all sides by darkness that sapped our strength while making the monsters stronger and a new monster could be found down there that was given the name Shadowy Husk. Perilous Trail literally had a fear domain with an Eldritch Abomination of black tendrils and ghostlike entities that was feeding off of all those trapped inside. The first part of Act III in the Sumeru Archon Quest featured us intentionally driving someone insane. And finally before they turned her into a gothic anime girl, Ronova the Ruler of Death and Shining Shade of Phanes also looked like your typical Eldritch Abomination, a giant floating eye against a blood red sky with another eye inside of it to serve as a pupil along with a ring of eyes for its iris. Now we have the old Genshin devs telling us exactly what a world in their Hoyoverse would look like without a protagonist. If you were so bold as to try fighting fate you'd live through millions of repeating cycles of an uncaring world bent on marching towards its own destruction until all the trials you endured wore away at your humanity and you became a monster haunted by your once heroic promise.

Yikes. Really drives home the importance of our Traveler doesn't it?

Topic originally created on July 20th, 2025.