Honkai Star Rail

On the question of the storylines, I think I better folder it to avoid a wall of text.

Edited by raziel365 on May 11th 2024 at 11:17:19 AM

But the Luofu follows the Hunt, not the Abundance. It makes sense that it wouldn't be the place to discuss what a society dealing with immortality would be - we already had one planet centered around the Preservation, one around the Hunt, one around the Harmony, I assume that down the line we will see an actual Abundance society. The Abundance being depicted as villainous works because they're not supposed to be here.

I don't think it would have been the time and place for an in-depth exploration of what it means to be immortal for a society. I do agree however that after so many stories, the Luofu still doesn't really have an identity, unlike Belobog or Penacony. So whoever attacks this lackluster society, will look lackluster too.

If they had decided to explore what it meant to have long-lived and short-lived species coexisting, then maybe I would have thought differently - but it wouldn't really have been in-keeping with what the Hunt is about and could have been applied to absolutely any planet.

The problem is that the Xianzhou used to follow the Abundance before turning to the Hunt, the Hunt vs Abundance conflict is central to its identity and unlike Belobog and Penacony we don't why the Hunt could be so important, it doesn't even play a role in the finale for crying out loud.

We know the Hunt goes after the Abundance, we know that plenty of people died in the wars against it, but we don't get why is fighting the Abundance so important. We actually get some reasons for why people would follow the Abundance (Dan Shu) but beyond the "immortality is bad" message we don't have a good enough argument for the Hunt, as I said previously, Boothill is a better representative of the Hunt than whatever the Xianzhou has given us so far.

Had the writers made the Mara a disease related to the Abundance and made it clear that anyone who gets immortality through it runs the risk of eventually becoming a thrall to the Abundance it would have been another thing, because ok who actually wants immortality if you become a zombie thanks to it? Or maybe have the Abundance be too prone for being a vector of plagues while the Hunt protects against them by killing the origins of the plague, that justifies the cycle of life and death.

I know this might be nitpicky because the Luofu's story is really more about Dan Heng and whatever the Stellaron Hunters were setting up for the future than the Luofu itself, but that just makes the ship a big background stage that could be shifted around with a planet or moon and you lose nothing, and that's a failure of world building in my opinion.

Edited by raziel365 on May 11th 2024 at 11:46:24 AM

I don't know, that's the understanding I have of it, but it's called "blessing/curse" instead of "disease".

The only exception we know of is Jingliu because of Rule of Sexy...I mean reasons.

I still both think that A/the Luofu storyline was botched by being directionless and lacking a strong central theme and B/the Abundance and its consequences will be explored in the future on another planet.

I mean, from what I gathered, due to the Chinese market's pressure, mihoyo will always, in every patch cycle, include some new Chinese-themed characters - so, from the Luofu. Instead of forcing a detour like they are probably going to do here once Penacony is done for, an "Abundance planet" would be the perfect opportunity to add more Luofu characters while being focused on the main storyline. Because it's likely some Xianzhou denizens would want to get involved with a planet that's worshipping their sworn enemy.

You know, it seems to be a bit All There in the Manual that becoming an Aeon involves a Death of Personality, and that Sunday was therefore essentially attempting suicide to keep from sacrificing Robin.

I think Omega Radiance mentioned that the Mara is a disease that’s unrelated to the Abundance per say, hence why I said that the Mara should have been a zombie-like disease directly related to the Abundance to justify the hatred of the Xianzhou.

If I had a stellar jade from every suicidal boss we have faced in Penacony, I would have two, which isn’t much but it’s weird it’s has happened twice now.

I think Omega Radiance mentioned that the Mara is a disease that’s unrelated to the Abundance per say, hence why I said that the Mara should have been a zombie-like disease directly related to the Abundance to justify the hatred of the Xianzhou.

I'm not sure this is true, though? He really wants to believe that the abundance is a good thing

Edited by Hylarn on May 11th 2024 at 6:47:46 AM

Ok, I'm reading the wiki and the answer is just both apparently? Dan Shu directly attributes the mara to Yaoshi while Fu Xuan and Bailu say this is related to memory overload innate to long-lived species with no direct mention of Yaoshi.

I don't get why the writers haven't fixed this inconsistency when Dan Shu's explanation helps in painting the Abundance in a more negative light, though given that Dan Shu's quest was made optional I imagine that any plans to touch on that were shelved so that Phantylia and the Legion could be the final boss.

Yeah Fu Xuan herself says it’s a disease Foxians and Vidyarha can get if they live past their lifespans. This doesn’t usually happen because as has also been stated Foxians instantly croak when they hit 300 most of the time and Vidyarha go to their hatcheries for rebirth.

This is also why the Sanctus Medicus could inflict Mara on them and why they had the Trailblazers shut down the devices releasing the chemical turning all three species Mara as well.

Edit: There’s also the fact that the Permanence is the source of the Vidyardhas immortality. So suffering Mara when it has no ties to the Abundance is even more bizarre.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on May 11th 2024 at 7:23:29 AM

Memory overload doesn't make sense given that it doesn't happen to people who've cheated death by abandoning their physical body...

Memes die as well. One NPC mentions this in the Dreamflux Reef. Only Memokeepers are immortal in the Remembrance dominion.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on May 11th 2024 at 7:32:49 AM

Well, *ahem* Related to the point I just made about Sunday becoming Ena essentially being a suicide, can we acknowledge that all Aeon activity is so far off the scale of Blue-and-Orange Morality that it isn't really debateable?

Yaoshi is Abundance, and Life, and preserving lives way past sanity or necessity, and isn't cancer itself a form of life? Why shouldn't we give cancer an equal voice? There is nothing against THEIR principles in letting followers live forever in agony.

The fact that Aha isn't super evil is because of THEIR sheer disregard for morals. THEY explicitly empower those who most believe and most disagree with THEIR hedonism, because THEY think that's funny. And why shouldn't the embodiment of Elation do whatever could cause the most chaos, even if it could plausibly destroy THEM?

We can even see it now, with the Galactic Rangers who are the truest followers of the Hunt, those who would do anything to see justice, all willing to throw their lives away for the symbol of a dead colleague just for Honor Before Reason purposes.

Hot take, but reading all the lore only the Destruction and the Trailblaze seemed to have some sense of themselves, and the death of the latter probably threw the former all sorts of out of whack.

Edited by IniuriaTalis on May 11th 2024 at 7:36:52 AM

Ena also doesn’t seem to care if she dies for the sake of ascending Sunday to Aeonhood either, what with that hand that’s a mix of hers and Xipes that descends for that one attack. In fact considering how much they present her as puppetting things with strings and preventing Caelus/Stella from becoming Destruction in the Simulated Universe, she likely chose to be consumed as part of her long term goals for Order.

But then she was the only Aeon who managed to get together an alliance to oppose the Propagation.

Also the Trcilops=Ena got even more fuel cause puppet stringed Clockie has the same eyes as Aventurine.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on May 11th 2024 at 7:41:43 AM

..Wait, isn't Ena already dead before the start of the story? I might have misunderstood some things if THEY aren't. (And yes, no matter what squishy binary organics gave rise to them all Aeons are canonically all-caps THEY/THEM and I think we should respect that. :P)

Ena was absorbed into Xipe, but as they make a point what does “death” truly mean for an aeon? Especially when Penacony is in Ena’s Dream.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on May 11th 2024 at 7:48:25 AM

For what is worth, the story acknowledges that Ena was apparently briefly brought back but died before they could be fully manifested again, and it makes the point that this time Ena took their death with dignity.

As near as we can tell, aeons just can't fully die. Tayzzyronth's so-called death was actually them being "diluted" enough to not be able to function anymore. Something similar seems to be true for the other "dead" aeons that weren't absorbed into a broader path, since they all left their path behind. And even the ones that were absorbed still have some level of existence. You can still do order magic, it's just a heretical form of harmony magic now

Tangent: I strongly suspect that Yaoshi ate Long

While we're on the talk of Aeons:

If Xipe subsumed Ena and the Order became part of Harmony, then why do Sunday & Dreammaster make a big deal about using the path of Order to resolve Penacony's situation? Wouldn't by following Harmony, they would also create order among the people?

Or perhaps the remnants of Beyond the Sky Choir (I don't know if Oak Family is actually made out of their remnants - source for this please?) just wanted their Aeon back? I doubt it, Sunday explicitly wants a paradise ruled by humans alone

The problem with Sunday's Order is that its a perverted form of Ena's original Order, which was natural order. Their goal was to stop disasters on a galactic scale such as the destruction of planets and such.

In that bird allegory... Ena would side with Robin.

Sunday's Order would have been exactly what Ena would want to fight against. As well as if they absorbed Xipe then would instantly come in conflict with The Destruction.

The problem with Sunday's Order is that its a perverted form of Ena's original Order, which was natural order. Their goal was to stop disasters on a galactic scale such as the destruction of planets and such.

Where are you getting that? Everything I've seen about Ena was that they were all about micromanaging society. They have a puppet motif for a reason

If Xipe subsumed Ena and the Order became part of Harmony, then why do Sunday & Dreammaster make a big deal about using the path of Order to resolve Penacony's situation? Wouldn't by following Harmony, they would also create order among the people?

Well, we can definitely see that what Sunday wants is quite a bit different than what the Family has been doing. Though from a path perspective, the main issue might be that Harmony wouldn't be okay with having one person running the show

> Well, we can definitely see that what Sunday wants is quite a bit different than what the Family has been doing.

Probably cuz the Penaconian Family had been too... Complacent? Corrupt? Dunno the right word, but Sunday (and DM) seems to be the only one doing something meaningful to address Penacony's future

Acheron herself says that Penacony has been straying from Harmony (I recall she also said that it's no different from worlds suffering under Nihility?)

The problem is that Sunday's solution is going too far in the opposite direction and ends up straying away from Harmony again.

The Harmony is implied to respect free will and chaos, it doesn't destroy it so much as it sees it as another part of the great canvas like order and civilization.

Sunday's plan hinges on taking away everyone's agency and forcing the universe as a whole to dance to his tune so that bad things can't happen ever again, that's why it opposes the Harmony.

This is, ironically, another similarity he has with Aventurine, he's essentially going "all or nothing" in his notion of paradise while others are willing to embrace an, as Gallagher puts it, imperfect tomorrow.

x3 Herta has stated a lot of civilizations managed to thrive and exist during Enas time that would have been impossible in the current eras precisely due to Ena. She allowed life to thrive where it was improbable, and her work was on a cosmic scale as her being absorbed resulted in countless worlds collapsing.

Not to mention it was her work in opposition to the Voracity and Propagation that helped convince The Amber Lord to stand against the Propagation, even after Xipe consumed her. So her actions absolutely influenced things on a cosmic level due to the nature of Paths and Aeons.

@Memers: Herta herself says Ena is a Control Freak. That’s why they strongly imply it was her in some form who helps him during one of his attacks when he contacts an Aeon.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on May 12th 2024 at 8:00:24 AM

If Sunday's "7-day story" about the Order is any indication (damn the biblical references do be thicc) it seemed that people were actually angry when they realized that they saw Ena as "puppeteering" them and were happy for "The Great One" (Xipe) for absorbing THEM

So can I take it as Xipe respecting free will? But isn't "Order" part of "Harmony" now?

Relatedly: I think Xipe would be fine with chaos, but THEY would hate discord (i.e purposeful chaos)

And of course those were the ones who survived to gloat about it, while the ones who didn’t…well….