The Shattered Gods | A Honkai: Star Rail Theory

0:00SPOILER ALERT for Honkai: Star Rail up through 3.7, HEAVY on the 3.7 spoilers, as well as

0:05speculation about upcoming updates. Hold onto your butts for this one this is gonna be interesting.

0:12How do you kill a god? (wow, what a way to start a video) There are a shocking amount of answers

0:17given that gods are supposedly immortal. Probably the most common way in legend is by being killed

0:22by other gods, and when this happens, very often what’s left of a god - either their body

0:25or their spirit, will go on to form a landmark or some new concept or a tree or something. In other

0:31legends, gods dying (and coming back) is about as normal as sunrise and sunset. In modern day,

0:36there’s a completely new definition for death that can be applied in this context - death

0:40by explanation. What is Divinity? If it’s nothing more than something we use to cover

0:44over things we don’t understand - the weather, the changing of seasons, the

0:48movement of planets and stars - so we don’t have to admit we don’t know, Then in the modern age,

0:53where we’re able to fill gaps in our knowledge with science and nothing more, the very concept

0:57of gods becomes unnecessary. “God is dead,” as Fredrich Nietzsche said. “We have killed him.”

1:02Turning religion into funeral rites rather than worship. That’s IF you believe the explanation of

1:07the unknowable is the only purpose of Divinity. Star Rail, however, is a world where most of the

1:12unexplainable things that inspired our terrestrial gods in the past have now been explained, and

1:18yet divine beings still exist. Because the vast majority of aeons don’t really exist to “explain”

1:24anything about the universe, they exist just to embody the most important forces in it. Now,

1:29they can still be killed in the same way as gods, by another aeon, by the shifts in the

1:33cultural forces that influence ideas, and, if I’m right, by reaching the natural end point of their

1:38philosophy and falling into meaninglessness. But no matter how the aeons die, there is one

1:43specific thing that almost always happens to them - they shatter [Aeon shatter compilation]. Of the

1:49eighteen Aeons we have names for, seven are at least missing, and of those seven,

1:54five are explicitly said to have been broken into pieces in some way, six if you stretch

1:58the definition just a little. But what does that mean? Why do the aeons shatter? What

2:03do they become after they shatter? And what would happen if someone tried to put one back together?

2:09Hello, Internet People! ‘TIS I! EmaMae! Welcome to part two of…I honestly still don’t have a proper

2:14name for this - a breakdown of path and aeon mechanics? Anyway. Last video we talked about

2:19how the paths are a non-visible spectrum of light created by imaginary energy passing through Fuli’s

2:24crystal structure to recreate the world according to the memories in that crystal structure (That

2:29sounds so much more insane than I thought it would when writing that) (and I have SO MANY thoughts on

2:34that after 3.7. We’ll get to those). TODAY we’ll be building on that and talking about the Aeons,

2:38specifically how we came to have the set of aeons we have today (call it a family

2:42tree of sorts). I’m super excited to share this theory. This is another I’ve had in my

2:47back pocket for a while, but wanted a little more evidence for and I’m SO glad I waited,

2:51because we have learned so much about how the aeons work in that time! As always,

2:56please leave your thoughts in the comments, unless your comments include leaks,

2:59in which case I will BLAZE A NEW DAWN USING YOUR ILL-GOTTEN PROPHECIES AS FODDER. I hope you enjoy!

3:06OK! Let’s start by talking about everything we learned in 3.7, because I generally got

3:112 kinds of comments after the update dropped. The first was “wow, this got DEBUNKED” and the

3:16other was “wow this is almost entirely correct” and my reaction to this was “oh I’m gonna have

3:21so much fun explaining this.” So here’s what happened in 3.7! We got all our allies together,

3:26and we went and shook our fist at the sky and Irontomb was birthed in a shockwave of energy

3:30and then…everyone died. No, actually, that’s what happened. Everyone except

3:34the Trailblazer and Demiurge!Cyrene ceased to exist. BUT unfortunately for Irontomb,

3:39we have TIME POWERS. We were able to yoink everyone’s memories at the last second,

3:43and use them to supercharge ourselves with the power of peach and vois-freakin-la! We win!

3:49Except the story’s not over! Turns out, all the times we interacted with Fuli on Amphoreus? Yeah,

3:53that wasn’t actually Fuli. Remember a few months back I said Amphoreus was stuck in a time loop?

3:58Well I was on the right track, but kinda sweareved a bit before the finish line. The day and night

4:03cycles were just Lygus resetting the experiment to run it again 33 million times. But there IS

4:08a loop. It’s just only being experienced by one character. Cyrene as we know her started

4:13her life as the Demiurge. she was visited at the end of each cycle by Philia!Cyrene, or “Peach,”

4:18who would tell the Demiurge stories from the cycle. Over time, Demiurge!Cyrene developed a

4:23consciousness fueled by the stories’ memoria, and after 33 million plus cycles, the demiurge escaped

4:28containment and ended up in the wider simulation as Mem, our cute little pink rabbit squirrel puppy

4:34friend, and she followed us around through the final few cycles, eventually becoming Cyrene,

4:38fought Irontomb with us, and when everything was finished and everyone was safe, Cyrene time

4:43traveled all the way back to the beginning of the 33 million cycles. And on her way backwards

4:48through time, she made a few pit stops. Turns out, our helpful sky father that’s been checking

4:52in on us during Amphoreus, was never Fuli. The person who kept our memoria stable when we died

4:58and put us on the path of remembrance, it was all Cyrene doing those things, using memory as anchors

5:03to certain moments so she could revisit them. And at the end (or beginning) of her journey,

5:08Demiurge!Cyrene goes to Aides Elysiae in Cycle Number 1 and becomes the quote-unquote “original”

5:14Cyrene, and travels through the 33 million cycles again, finding her way to the Demiurge each time

5:20before being reset and telling stories to her past self to guide her into the future. This

5:26makes so many things click into place that I was still struggling to wrap my brain around,

5:30But more importantly - and here’s where we get into our Aeon analysis - Cyrene’s

5:35story is important because it’s also Fuli’s story.

5:38Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying Cyrene is THE Fuli. Fuli’s role is to be a time capsule

5:44during the apocalypse. Right now, while the universe is up and running, memokeepers collect

5:48the stories of the world and put them together in the Eden of Blessed Insight or the Garden of

5:52Recollection, just like Philia collected stories for the Demiurge. When the apocalypse happens,

5:57theoretically, Eden will survive, and the universe can be recreated using the memories

6:02there as a template. And Demiurge!Cyrene did play that role in the Irontomb disaster - we

6:07yoinked peoples memories right before the irontomb shockwave pretty much wiped out the world - but

6:12the distinction is, we didn’t recreate the world using them, we just used them as a powerup,

6:16turned back time, and took another run at Irontomb. Bottom line, this time, the apocalypse

6:22was reversible. But someday (probably sooner than we’d like to think), the world will be so broken

6:27that there will be no choice but to start over, and when that happens, that’s when THE Fuli will

6:32actualize and create everything over from scratch, and I talked about how they’d do that last month.

6:37But the next question is - is there any reason why our present-day universe couldn’t have been

6:42created the same way? We were told Amphoreus is a microcosm of the universe. What if the 33

6:47million cycles are included in that? Maybe there was some previous, irreversible apocalypse that

6:52wiped everything out, an older version of Fuli actualized during THAT, took that cycle’s memory,

6:57recreated it, and vois-freakin-la again, here we are. This would mean, Fuli is a “once and

7:03future aeon” they don’t exist now, but they have before, and they will again. Next question - then

7:08what happened to that Fuli? Well, once they’ve done their time capsule-y thing and served their

7:12purpose, what reason is there for them to stick around? They’ve reached the end of their path. So,

7:16they shatter. Unlike the dying Nous imagery we got, I do believe this actually happened, because

7:22in this case we’re also shown what happened after they shattered. Fuli is made of frozen memoria,

7:27so when they shattered, they sent big ol’ chunks of memoria ice flying through space,

7:31kinda similar to what the Garden of Recollection was trying to do with

7:34implanting a seed of Remembrance in Amphoreus, so when it exploded, the seeds would be scattered.

7:39Now, just for a moment, I’m gonna pivot to a different topic. Bear with me. It’s important.

7:43You know how each memokeeper has their own way of preserving memoria? (Pictures, films,

7:48books.) Fuli has one too and it’s called the children of Anasrava. Their memory storage

7:53system is a bunch of li’l pink people. So when those chunks of memoria ice exploded outward, they

7:58took portions of this memory storage system with them (hmm cute little pink girls floating in ice

8:03through space. Where have I heard that before?) [are you tryna catch the stars?] March, Cyrene,

8:08and probably many others we’ve met on our journey, are either descended from or are the embodied

8:13fragments of Fuli’s memories. Makes it sort of ironic that more than one of them has experienced

8:18having no memories of their own, but what if that’s the point? At the end of 3.7, Herta made

8:23it sound like only one of these Children of Anasrava would ascend to be the new Fuli (and

8:28if that is true it’s obviously gonna be March), but what if it’s all of them? Picture this - Fuli

8:32uses the memories, not of the memokeepers, but of these girls to recreate the universe,

8:37effectively emptying them out, then when Fuli shatters, the seeds are sent out into the world

8:43as empty vessels, meant to be filled with new memories and experiences. Then at the apocalypse,

8:48they’ll all assemble back together in a very pink “power of friendship” moment and sacrifice all

8:53their memories and combine them to create Fuli, and once they’re empty, they’re sent out into

8:58the newborn universe all over again. If you know the oscillating universe theory, it’s pretty much

9:02that. Expand retract expand retract ad infinitum. Hoyoverse could reframe the entire universe

9:07within the span of a single update, they’ve already done that about six different times,

9:10and it definitely is a lot more complicated than this on a technical level, but as far as the basic

9:15framework of how the universe works, I think this is it. Which makes Fuli not just the first aeon

9:21of each cycle, but potentially the Demiurge of the entire Star Rail universe. [TV STATIC]

9:26I’m talking quiet cause it’s late and people are sleeping but we are heading into December. The

9:31time of year for snow, decorations, and stressing out over Christmas gifts because you can’t decide

9:35what to get people. But not to worry! This video is sponsored by Tokyo Treat and Sacuraco,

9:39and they have the perfect festive boxes for you to give to a friend, or give yourself if

9:43you want. And not only are the snacks amazing, the boxes are gorgeous too. Every single month,

9:48I’m always excited to see what they do next with the designs. This is the Tokyo Treat December box,

9:52which is themed “Snackin Wonderland” and it’s full of fun and exclusive Japanese snacks,

9:57such as exclusive KitKat Flavors, which this month is “Double Berry” the double berries being

10:02Strawberry and Raspberry, it is so delicious. And speaking of Soda-licious, one of my favorite items

10:07was this Joy and Cheer Cola gummy. It reminded me of one of those silly slap hands that were popular

10:13when I was in elementary school so…well? (So it’s not…as effective. Oh, it’s kind of effective! It’s

10:20sticking! Oh no! Ok, ok. No, come on XD ok, I’ m gonna steal it’s fingers XD). My inner child is

10:34so happy right now. If you’re into savory snacks more than sweet ones, they’ve got plenty of those

10:38too - the French salad chips were wonderful, and I’ve said this before, Japan’s flavors

10:42for things are just so different than what we have in America, and I do genuinely think for

10:46most flavors, Japan does it better. The booklet that comes with each box gives information about

10:51potential allergens (many of the snacks are also vegetarian-friendly), and it also give information

10:56about Christmas traditions in Japan! Such as, a lot of people on the internet know now, but

11:00it’s a tradition for a lot of people in Japan to have Kentucky Fried Chicken for Christmas dinner.

11:05Now, while the Tokyo Treat Box is more like, popular culture stuff, Sakuraco is a lot more

11:10traditional. This month’s Sakuraco theme is “Holidays in Japan” and these snacks are made

11:14by artisans in Japan. They take the time in each month’s booklet to tell you a little bit about

11:18some of the people who made these snacks. This month’s it’s Seiki, the maker of these Matcha

11:23Mochi. Matcha isn’t usually one of my favorite flavors, but I’m getting more and more convinced

11:27that I just had a really bad first experience, because dang! They don’t miss! [And Another win

11:32for matcha, ok]. Sakuraco also sends a household item with each box, and this month’s is the

11:37Mino Ware Indigo plate, and I’m tryna get it to catch the light so you can see the craftsmanship

11:41on this. It’s so beautiful! A few of my favorite snacks were the grilled prawn crackers, they were

11:46really crunchy and just a little spicy, VERY good. This white chocolate sandwich cookie, and the

11:51cheese and sugar cashews. I have had more sugary cheese from these boxes than I ever realized even

11:57existed and I have never disliked it! Ever! I’m a bit shocked. [That’s a fascinating flavor] And

12:04of course, there’s the tea. This month’s is a Matcha Sencha. And what do I have mine with?

12:09Just a little bit of honey! Not too much, cause I still want to be able to taste the natural complex

12:13flavors, but just enough to take the bitterness off cause I tend to overbrew my tea and…[take

12:18sip] yeah I’m convinced, I just had a really bad first experience with Matcha. This is really good!

12:22Tokyo treat and Sakuraco want people to experience the delights of Japan from the comfort of their

12:27own home, and my goodness, they’re good at it. I come away from every single box like my third

12:32eye has been opened or something, cause I just like…didn’t know food could do that? If you’ve

12:37ever considered getting one of these boxes, I highly recommend you do it this month specifically

12:41- these December boxes are incredible. And if you know someone who you think would like these,

12:46you could always get a subscription for them for Christmas! Or my family always gets some

12:50new snack, something a little bit exotic and eats it together on Christmas eve. Maybe you

12:54could start a Christmas tradition like that with these. If any of this sounds cool to you, the

12:58links to these boxes are in both the description and the pinned comment. Go check those out and

13:01be sure to use code “EmaMae” at checkout for a small discount. I get a commission

13:05from each sale and you get a little taste of Japan. Now, let’s get back to the video!

13:11Before we get into the weeds, let me just say,

13:13Star Rail lore is weird. I have praised it MANY times for its realism, which I stand by,

13:18but unfortunately with realism comes a certain level of inconsistency. Records get destroyed,

13:23or changed, or misfiled. People lie. It gets messy. The further back we go in the Lore,

13:28the more difficult it is to sort through what is and isn’t real. And at this point,

13:32we’re gonna talk about the very very beginning of history where most civilizations couldn’t

13:37even see the universe beyond their own sky yet. So the records we have from this era are either

13:411. COMPLETE fabrications, 2. Scientific theories, or 3. Just don’t exist at all. So from here on out

13:48I have MOMENTS that I’m really confident in and, while I’m still staying within what we know about

13:52how Aeons work, everything else between those moments is…leaps between stars. There’s still

13:58SO MUCH about the history of the aeons that we just don’t know yet. All I’m saying is, many of

14:02you are gonna disagree with me in the next few sections, and that’s fine. Just please be nice.

14:07Ok, now with the oldest aeon out of the way, let’s talk about the rest of them,

14:10cause this is the part where things get interesting

14:12If we’re doing this chronologically, then after Remembrance the next one must be equilibrium,

14:17right? Eh, think again. I don’t think HooH is the oldest for one simple reason - they’re an

14:22aeon of balance, right? There’s nothing here yet for them to balance! And this is a good

14:26time to ask - What is HooH balancing? They ain’t using that scale to measure

14:31how many pounds each Aeon put on during thanksgiving dinner. So what is it? I’m

14:35not gonna draw this out. It’s imaginary and quantum. I finally get to talk about this,

14:38I’m SO EXCITED. Last month I mentioned how the Imaginary Tree is kinda Hoyo’s multiverse,

14:43what I didn’t mention is that it’s only half of the multiverse. The other half is something called

14:48the Sea of Quanta - a super freakin chaotic place full of unorganized data from destroyed universes

14:54all jumbled together. So it’s less “half of the multiverse” and more “the multiverse’s junkyard.”

15:00There are things living there, our Mr. Yang spent about a year there before being rescued, and

15:04there’s also giant eldritch abominations monching on the imaginary tree’s roots because guess what,

15:10the Tree itself is ROOTED in the sea of Quanta and takes data from it to create new universes

15:16and worlds in its branches. Then as universes are destroyed, their broken data falls from the

15:21tree’s branches into the sea. It’s this ecosystem where the tree and the sea both consume and create

15:27each other. It’s so cool! Now, I have talked about this before in my video on the character elements,

15:31so I wanna clarify real quick - the Imaginary and Quantum elements we see attached to characters and

15:36the Cosmic Imaginary and Quantum I’m talking about right now are definitely connected,

15:40but they’re not quite the same entities. That’s gonna make more sense as I keep talking,

15:44but just to keep things straight, when I’m talking about the character elements,

15:47I’ll call them “Imaginary” and “Quantum” and the big Cosmic imaginary and quantum will be “Cosmic

15:52Imaginary,” and “Cosmic Quantum.” With that said, the Cosmic and the character elements do share a

15:58LOT of characteristics. Quantum and Cosmic Quantum both have to do with breaking things down, taking

16:03them apart, possibility. It’s connected to the primordial sea, this dark chaotic ocean from which

16:08everything was created, and it’s also connected to the divine Feminine. On the other hand, Imaginary

16:13and Cosmic Imaginary are all about building, organizing, directing, and are connected to

16:18the divine Masculine. (I told you guys there was a reason!) It’s basically entropy and anti-entropy,

16:23respectively. They are Star Rail’s Yin and Yang, and they are the two sides of HooH’s scale

16:28So in order to set things up for HooH, we need Quantum and Imaginary in the works first.

16:33And I am being very punny right now because the Quantum and Imaginary embodiments both

16:37have scales. Remember those eldritch chompy chompy bois who nom on tree roots IN the sea of Quanta?

16:43Well they may or may not be the leviathans that Qlipoth is guarding so diligently against. So it

16:48only makes sense that our Embodiment of Cosmic Quantum would be a Leviathan. You know ‘em,

16:53you love ‘em, it’s Oroboros the Voracity everyone. As the voracity, aka the person voted “most likely

16:59to eat a building” in their high school year book, they are the ultimate breaker-downer of things,

17:04AND something else! Quantum characters are often seen breaking reality. Little known fact:

17:09Oroboros can create wormholes. The ability is called Borehole blitz, and while the Swarm is also

17:14capable of it, it’s directly referenced in Oro’s “Fables about the stars” intro, and you see how it

17:19looks like they’re coming out of a portal in their splash art? They have cosmic quantum written all

17:24over them. Meanwhile, our Cosmic Imaginary, Long the Permanence, has been associated with trees in

17:29a few different places. True, most of the tree associations tend to be to Dan Heng in whatever

17:35form he’s taking at the moment but I feel like it counts because he’s so connected to Long. I

17:39have known in my bones for SO LONG that Oro and Long were supposed to be connected, but I had no

17:45comprehension of how, and there’s absolutely still more to this story, but for today’s video, we’ll

17:49keep it at “these two came into being” and pretty soon after, came along to keep them in check.

17:54And it’s at this point that the rest of the paths start popping up in some surprising ways.

17:58Oroboros seems to have remained roughly the same from their birth, all the way up to their most

18:02recent sightings during the swarm disaster, but Long is different. People think of them as super

18:07ancient, but they’re not actually any older, they just died so much sooner, so we have less

18:11information. We do have a Myriad Celestia, though! And even though this is one of those that has been

18:15discussed A LOT, I don’t think people realize how important it really is. In the video, Preceptor

18:20Taoran (yes, that Taoran), and a Vidyadhara historian named Oppenheimer (what) discuss Long’s

18:26life, offspring, and the meaning of Permanence. They say Long traveled the universe “seeking the

18:31answer to existence,” and finding multiple sort of “Expressions” of Permenance, which kinda gives the

18:36impression that even the people in-universe are a little confused by this path sometimes. The first

18:40is Individual Immortality, or the "Permanence of Power.” The second is the “Continuance of

18:45bloodline,” and the third is “Ensuring Cosmic Peace,” and eventually at the end of the video,

18:49they land on my interpretation of the Permanence, which is the idea of every ending being a new

18:54beginning - permanent cycles. Here’s the thing about these four expressions of permanence - there

18:59is a path associated with each of them, beyond just Permanence. Permanence via individual

19:04immortality is explicitly linked to Yaoshi in the video - Taoran calls it “The Fallacy of the

19:09Plagues Author” - but Continuance of Bloodline? That’s propagation! Cosmic Peace is tricky,

19:14but if we think of it like as the dance of the planets and stars that keeps everything in its

19:18place and in Order (see what I did there?), that is literally the role that Ena plays. When we look

19:23at the aeons as a whole, these three specifically align with Cosmic imaginary more than any of the

19:29others, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. The theory is, you know how Fuli is the crystal

19:33chalice the light shone through? What if LONG is the light? We already know the light is imaginary

19:39energy, and Long is the embodiment of imaginary energy. And the video makes a point of telling us,

19:44“Countless new creations emerge when one dragon meets its end.” So what if those

19:48“countless creations” include more than the three dragon races we call Long’ s Scions.

19:54What if it also refers to the paths? The video also says Long traveled the universe “seeking

19:59the answer to existence.” Doesn’t that also make them the original philosopher? And since

20:04the paths are all connected to philosophies, wouldn’t them all coming from Long make sense?

20:09Ok, let’s zoom out again and take another look at HooH’s scale. Do you see what I’m going for now?

20:13On the Quantum side of the Cosmic balance scale we still just have Oroboros, but on the Imaginary

20:18side, we now have three different Cosmic Imaginary aeons. In fact, I’d go as far as to say five,

20:24because five seems to be associated with Long in other ways, and Idrila, our AEON of meaning does

20:29have some striking similarities to Long as well, so let’s just slot them in there as well. And I’ll

20:33tell you the fifth one in a few minutes. This is sort of my alternative to the “aeons come

20:37in pairs” theory by Ashikai. Yes, I finally did break down and watch it. It’s very good,

20:42and there are definitely some aeons that are direct balances to each other, but my one

20:46gripe with the aeon buddy system is, it doesn’t feel like it accounts for the ways paths evolve

20:52over time. The Path-Aeon system isn’t monolithic. Taking the paths we have now and pairing them up,

20:57takes some thought but isn’t terribly difficult, but the paths we have now didn’t always exist.

21:02What about the past? Like in Ashikai’s video, Nanook and Qlipoth are opposites. Who was

21:06balancing Qlipoth before Nanook was born? And that’s not even mentioning the growing evidence

21:11I’m gonna talk about next month that one aeon may be able to evolve into another aeon (don’t bash

21:16it ‘till you hear the evidence, that’s all I’m saying). I do believe the aeons balance each other

21:20out, its just less of a 1 to 1 thing, and more of a light side/dark side Star Wars type thing.

21:25And speaking of, we are currently looking like something needs to

21:28bring a bit of balance back to the force. So it’s time to talk about the Swarm Disaster!

21:31Little addendum real quick - These are the paths we know of that came from Long,

21:35which is why I talked about them all at once, but Tazzy didn’t exist before the Swarm disaster. See,

21:41we don’t always know what sources we can trust when it comes to the aeons, but one thing that

21:45gets brought up over and over and over is, those older aeons are TERRIFIED of Oroboros. Can you

21:51really blame them? So I believe the [Cosmic] Imaginary aeons got together and said “hey,

21:55if any of us try and take them on alone, we’re just gonna be an entree, so what can we do

22:00together?” And together they created the perfect enemy for Oroboros. If Oroboros always consumed,

22:06then they’d make something that would never let Oro stop consuming. And so they orchestrated the

22:11rise of Propagation as an independent path. The power of limitless creation,

22:16this sort of “divine authority of propagation” did already exist, but it belonged to Yaoshi,

22:22and I have 2 main pieces of evidence for this. The first one’s not as strong and gets a little more

22:26meta than I usually like to - if you look at the wiki, the original name for the Path of Abundance

22:31during development was the path of Fertility. This is not the canon name, it was never canonically

22:37used, and there are a lot of reasons why the devs might’ve changed it. But this could mean that at

22:41some point in the planning process, Yaoshi had some sort of domain over Propagation as well. My

22:47second piece comes from the readables. There are records from two different cultural histories that

22:52imply a MAJOR shift happened in Yaoshi’s divine authority after a certain point. The first is the

22:58Xianzhou - not too long after they were blessed by Yaoshi and became immortal, they started becoming

23:03Mara struck. No huge surprise there, but when looking at the readables, they talk about it

23:07as if it were Yaoshi theirself that changed - “Merciful Medicus became the Plagues Author.”

23:13The Vidyadhara record something similar from their history BEFORE they joined the Xianzhou (and the

23:17Vidyadhara connect to Yaoshi because Long has Three offspring and of the 3 paths mentioned in

23:22the video, the Vidyadhara most closely align with yaoshi). Early in their history the Vidyadhara

23:26had the ability to transmute the bodies of other sea creatures, called the Transmutation Arcanum,

23:31and they’d use it to like…remove the bones from fish or take a fish and bloat it with meat so

23:37they could eat it. But that sounds not unlike Tayzzyronth’s abilities! Then at a certain point

23:41they just lost that ability, and the only ones who still have it are the High Elders who have

23:45a closer connection to Long, and notably this ability of Transmutation arcanum can be used

23:50to create new vidyadhara, a thing which is not supposed to be possible. Propagation. What if

23:54the reason the Vidyadhara populace lost this ability was, this power of creation suddenly

23:59split off from Abundance and started it’s own path. We have been told there was more to the

24:04rise of Tayzzyronth than is recorded in history, but given that it’s not recorded, we haven’t been

24:09told who or why. I think the other aeons did it, and in their defence, it did work! Tazzy created

24:14so many offspring that it quite literally out-ate the voracity in the cosmos’s biggest competitive

24:19eater contest and claimed the crown, otherwise known as the divine authority of voracity. Without

24:24that divine authority, Oro finally gets full and as all of us do after eating a big ol’ meal,

24:29they fell asleep. They got everything they w anted and now have lost their ability to want

24:34anything. Let’s look at HooH’s scale again. Uh oh! Now we have another problem! We went from Too much

24:39Quantum to too much imaginary. So what happens? BOOM! Quantum aeons. (Quick aside: Do you see now

24:44what I was saying about Evernight ages ago? She has connections to these paths not because of any

24:50real connection to the paths, but because she’s connected to the Cosmic Quantum) (and I am just

24:55realizing as recording this oh my goodness does that make her and march an equilibrium standin?)

25:01(I know I’m confusing people right now because I just said last month that the paths came

25:05from light refracted through fuli, and idk what Oroboros is but THEY AIN’T LIGHT. But there is

25:10some weird wiggle room if the two of them have a closer connection to HooH than we currently know,

25:15maybe even being not just HooH’s scale but the two halves of HooH theirself. I do still

25:20believe in the rainbow paths, and in the Cosmic Quantum and Imaginary being the two halves,

25:24but there is information missing here to make it all align. Hopefully they address it in game soon)

25:28Ok, I’m glossing over a lot here in the interest of time, I’m gonna talk about each of them more

25:32when I restart my explaining the aeons shorts, but Nous was made by Zandar, as we know,

25:37Lan ascended to protect the Xianzhou, and then Mythus and Aha we have absolutely no idea,

25:41and any story we have about them is probably a lie. I do have a theory that the baby Aha saw fall

25:47is the “Infant in the mirror” Idrila, and at the very least Aha, Nous, and Mythus are connected to

25:52Them in some way, since the most simple definition of Beauty seems to be “Meaning” and all three of

25:56them have to do with the deconstruction of meaning in one way or another.they all seem

26:00to have ascended by deconstructing something that draws from or is made of imaginary energy,

26:05which is Quantum by nature. So what you should be noticing is paths over time

26:09are getting narrower and narrower, with earlier paths having a lot more under their authority.

26:14Not long after the birth of the Quantum aeons and the death of Oro, though, without something

26:18else to monch all the now voracity-fueled bugs, the aeons looked at each other and were like “oh

26:23crap we overcompensated. We messed up!” Lucky for them, sunshine and rainbows over here said

26:27“Hey! We can take ‘em!” This is Xipe. Where did they come from? They’re one Tayzzyronth’s kids.

26:33Let’s reverse-engineer this one for a second. In present day, Xipe has three faces and three paths

26:38attached to them - Harmony (duh), Order, and I’m 90% sure the third is Beauty, but during the Swarm

26:44Disaster, it was all just one. So think about what modern Xipe does, now subtract order from

26:49that. You’d end up with something a lot more chaotic, but still unified, and with beauty

26:53in the mix maybe it’s even pretty. Now take away beauty. That sounds like the swarm to me. I will

26:58talk more about that trainwreck of an aeon in a short). So with Xipe’s help, the Quantum and

27:02imaginary aeons all united and did the thing and now there’s no more Tazzy. In the process, Xipe

27:07absorbed Ena and Idrila, and this is pretty much what our scoreboard looks like up to the present.

27:12But we’re missing a few important faces, and I saved them for last for a reason

27:17I’m sure there are people who have been yelling at me the entire video because there is a large

27:22portion of the community who believes that Qlipoth is the oldest Aeon. And to those people I say,

27:27you see how easy it is to fall for propaganda. Qlipoth being the oldest is an IPC lie. I’m not

27:33being a conspiracy theorist. This is straight from Herta’s mouth. The thing people always

27:37quote when saying Qlipoth is the oldest is o ne of the SimU Devlogs, where Herta says according

27:42to the IPC records, qlipoth is the oldest. And then in the VERY NEXT DEVLOG, she lists all the

27:48evidence for why it’s not true. Let’s not forget for a moment that the IPC is, first and foremost,

27:53a religion. It’s in their interests to convince the galaxy that Qlipoth is the oldest, the best,

27:58the most powerful, the one the Galaxy is most indebted to. Because the more they are indebted

28:03to Qlipoth, the more they’re indebted to the IPC. So what is qlipoth really? On a surface level,

28:09they have all the main hallmarks of an imaginary aeon - they summon things into being, like the

28:13Skywall. They’re definitely old. They could easily be seen as another expression of the “Ensuring

28:18Cosmic Peace” fragment of Long that Ena stands for, Qlipoth even took on some of Ena’s duties

28:22when they died. But Qlipoth also has a bunch of really interesting themes that aren’t connected

28:27to the Cosmic Imaginary at all. There’s this thing called a Golem in Jewish mysticism. It’s a statue,

28:32usually made out of clay, that’s brought to life and used for whatever the maker wants,

28:36but usually to protect something. They’re strong and durable, but they have no will of

28:41their own. They must be told what to do, which is a theme we see in our Preservation pathstriders,

28:46Qlipoths followers, and ALL OVER the path of preservation. Even the word

28:50“Qlipoth” means something like a shell or a husk, and what this implies is,

28:54Qlipoth probably isn’t operating under their own steam. They are being controlled! I know

28:59it’s been the topic of conversation on my channel that Qlipoth is being controlled by Tayzzyronth,

29:04and that’s still possible, but my gut says they’re more like Tayzzyronth 2.0. Think about this. The

29:10first thing we hear about Qlipoth doing that we can confirm is killing Tayzzyronth. So what if,

29:15they were also created by the other aeons for that purpose. A perfect enemy for the Voracious Swarm.

29:21I’ve talked quite a bit in the past about how I believe the swarm in its current form encompasses

29:26both Voracity and Propagation. They want to eat and eat and eat, so Qlipoth is built with

29:31no desires of their own. The swarm wants to grow and spread, so Qlipoth walls off the planets and

29:35separates them from each other. And as a little bonus for the rest of the aeons, not having a will

29:39of their own means they can’t go off the walls like Tazzy did. Drawback to that bonus: not having

29:44a will makes them very easy to corrupt, meaning the more time Qlipoth spends in the presence of

29:49Leviathans and swarm fragments, the more likely they are to take on their attributes. Enter:

29:54the IPC, the followers of Qlipoth, whose main goal is to grow grow grow consume consume consume,

29:59bigger bigger bigger bigger bigger, buy my thneed, All for the Amber Lord at the expense of literally

30:05the entire cosmos *breath* and everyone in it. And…it can absolutely get worse.

30:11And this right here is the theory I’ve been holding onto for a year

30:14that gets more and more evidence with each update

30:16The Godslayer Protocol scares me. But not for the reasons you guys might think. Thank goodness we

30:21dodged the timeline where an actual lord Ravager came out of that conflict, but the timeline

30:26we’re on now, if I’m correct, might be even worse. Let’s for two seconds think about this,

30:31ok? What’s gonna happen, do you think, when we put the very injured, very not whole fragment of the

30:37swarm aeon into close proximity with the aeon that compulsively heals everything around them. It is

30:42no longer going to be a swarm fragment that we’re dealing with ok? And then? It’s gonna eat Yaoshi.

30:48And what happens when Tazzy specifically eats another aeon? They claim their divine authority.

30:53Meaning hey! Congratulations for winning the stupid game Xianzhou Alliance and friends! Here’s

30:58your stupid prize - the galaxy’s on fire! We end up with a Tayzzyronth that’s MUCH more difficult

31:03to kill with Yaoshi’s healing on their side, and multiple other Tayzzyronth fragments that they

31:08could now heal into fully grown other tayzzyronths like a Starfish. And what does this have to do

31:13with the IPC? I am literally referencing ALL my past theories in this video, but Luocha is an IPC

31:18operative, ok? I’m still thoroughly convinced he’s either Diamond or Oswaldo Schneider, and there’s

31:23still room for him to be both. The reason why the idea of an Abundance-fueled Voracious Swarm

31:28bothers me so much is because…it’s inevitable, but it’s not supposed to happen like this.

31:33Real quick, let’s jump all the way back to Long the Permanence again. They’ve got

31:37allll these different concepts attached to them, but the thing that encompasses them

31:41all (somehow) is cycles. Every ending is a new beginning, just like the phases of

31:46the moon or the tides. Which means that Long is another Once and Future Aeon,

31:51like Fuli. They died, but because of the nature of cycles, they will return. Now,

31:55how about we zoom out to HooH’s scale *one* last time - this is what it looks like currently,

32:00and after the Godslayer protocol, it would look like this. The aeons are recombining! Aside from

32:06the death and destruction that would inevitably happen from an Abundant Swarm’s birth, there

32:10isn’t anything inherently wrong with Long being reborn. None of the aeons are really good or evil,

32:15and Long at least seems peaceful. MY issue with it is that the freakin IPC seems to be trying to

32:21orchestrate it! Because they don’t want to just “follow preservation.” If they did, we’d see them

32:26embodying the will of other civilizations rather than trying to impose their own. No!

32:31They want to BE. PERMANENT. If they’re somehow able to stuff Xipe and Abundance Tayzzyronth

32:37into Qlipoth Ennard style - Qlipoth whose name literally means the outer shell of a thing; they

32:41are Aeonic tupperware! Then theoretically they could recreate Long the Permanence. The problem

32:46with this, of course, is the divine authority of Voracity is still in there, and I genuinely don’t

32:52think there’s a way to get the swarm to un-eat the divine authority of eating. Well, at least in

32:57the end we can be assured that our lovely Astral Express is gonna be there to save the day, right?

33:02Except that’s also part of the plan. No, we’re not done yet. Remember there was one last path

33:06I didn’t tell you? One last fragment to the shattered window that is Long? All

33:11these other imaginary Aeons inherited aspects of Long, but what none of them

33:15really got was the concept of Cycles. It’s encoded into their concepts on some level,

33:20but the idea of each ending being a new beginning was inherited by none other than Akivili. In order

33:27to TRULY resurrect Long, the IPC needs US, too. And they’ve been putting in hours to

33:33get on our good side since Belobog. And if that wasn’t bad enough, if my theory about Nanook’s

33:39identity is true (which I’m gonna do a whole video just about them next month, stay tuned),

33:42then that means now that they have their hands on the remains of the scepter technology,

33:46they might even be able to contain the aeons with them. The IPC is now a shareholder in the Harmony

33:53Family’s base of operations, the Abundance war Part 4, this time with Bugs, is right over the

33:58horizon. And here they are, following us from planet to planet like a shadow. And while

34:03we know any attempt to resurrect Long isn’t going to go how they expect, that isn’t going

34:08to stop them from trying. They are about to make everything they’ve done before look like child’s

34:13play. We barely were able to take down a dang emanator with all our forces combined. What can

34:18we do against an aeon, especially when our most powerful ally is the one pulling their strings?

34:26Hi, Internet people. That’s the end of this theory. I really hope you liked it. A couple

34:32months ago, I was spending a LOT of time making shorts about the paths and aeons,

34:35and this video is the reason why. I wanted to truly nail down what the path philosophies are

34:40so in this video I could show you how they all connect. And I spent copious amounts of time on

34:44that to set up and prove my claims before I built on them, aaaand then I realized I had

34:49too many shorts and not enough time. So the shorts will be continuing after this video,

35:02You *may* have noticed there is one aeon conspicuously absent from all of this,

35:07I’ll be talking about them in my next video as well. I’m going to do my best to get that

35:10out before the end of December, but I want to prioritize celebrating Christmas with my family,

35:14so if you don’t see another long video like this before then I

35:17hope you have a very merry everything you celebrate, and while we’re on the subject,

35:21if you’re looking for a good christmas gift for someone or just a holiday treat for yourself,

35:24I genuinely can’t think of anything better than a TokyoTreat or Sakuraco subscription. Check out

35:29those links in the description or in the pinned comment to buy for yourself or give to a friend,

35:33and don’t forget to use code “EmaMae” at checkout. I hope you have an incredible December, remember

35:37to take care of yourselves and the people who care about you, and above all stay safe, and stay kind!