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!
Last time I brought up how v3.2 included several of my old theories, either directly confirming them or mixing them up a little for the same effect. With all of that in play, I'd like to do another round of fine-tuning on my predictions.
To start, I think there's still a way to do a "B Team" after all. It's copium but it's doable if v3.3 just tells the story from two separate perspectives. Our player Proxy on the ground would then technically be on the B Team while the sibling along with Cissia would make up the A Team back up in Roscaelifer. Rather than alternating between sides across patches, v3.3 would coordinate between both teams still through Cissia and Severian. Rain would still face off against Youkai directly, the rest of the B Team could still be organized the same way just now by our player Proxy instead of Cissia and meanwhile Cissia will work with the sibling so we stay up to date on the situation in Roscaelifer. They may even be the ones to rescue Roxy and make use of Truvia which then sets her off on her character arc. The ending would then put all the pieces together for our player Proxy's B Team and provide a way back into Roscaelifer while the sibling is holding down the fort and setting the stage for a triumphant climax.
Side Note: We know it has to be triumphant already because unfortunately both v3.1 and v3.2's events must take place after Season 3's story. Roxy's already back with Claret, Remielle has a new role on the island, Phaethon is back home at Random Play and both Remielle and Sigrid were hanging out at the beach without a care in the world. I'd even say v3.1's event takes place after v3.2's.
The last line from Chapter 3 claimed that Phoenix would "change [Phaethon's] future forever." If she's just some girl from High Ambitions Corp that wouldn't make sense. However, then miHoYo revealed her stats in drip marketing. We can confirm she's actually from Krampus like leakers had been saying for months though they didn't figure out the High Ambitions part. If she's actually a high ranking member for Krampus, it means her identity as part of High Ambitions Corp is a plant. She likely knew or had been in the process of finding out what was going on with Mosseint and that's what she was reporting to Phaethon until Cissia KO'd her with the door. On top of that, miHoYo explained that she really is very frail and so each time she is close to death her body will automatically draw upon concentrated Ether reserves to heal her. This is of course why she's called Phoenix but it means more than that, doesn't it? Why would Ether resurrect her and not corrupt her like it would any other human? Well if she has Ethereal physiology then it makes sense. Therefore she may also tell us about Sunbringer's cloning project. Why would that change Phaethon's future? As my theory suggested, Phaethon is the most recent iteration of Sunbringer's "Herrscher of Finality" project. Rather than clones which have all seemingly failed, Phaethon represents the product closest to success that they've ever come up with. This is why their eye implants resonate with the other Enchainers.
Side Note: Btw, Reffaela is obviously based on Raphael the angel and it means "god heals" so this surname is very on the nose.
Cissia is actually even more sus than I brought up last time. We already know that Cissia somehow knew exactly the sequence of events that would prevent Nicole from participating in the competition. But Nicole has now explained that this sequence of events led to their capture by Youkai. What a coincidence. Something Cissia somehow knew step by step was also the step preceding Youkai achieving a step in its plan? It's as if it's all part of the same plan like Cissia lured Nicole into that mess which then got Anby captured by Youkai. Youkai who happened to be able to hack into the Gilded Carrot Day feed because Cissia bungled security. Youkai who spoke through the robo Romeuls which made Billy suspicious only for Cissia to dismiss it.
Side Note: And let's not forget that Cissia is only up in Roscaelifer because she was accompanying Phaethon into Pursenas Hollow to pursue Remielle. As a result of that excursion, Severian had Cissia stay with Phaethon. And why were they pursuing Remielle into that hollow? Right, because Cissia managed to place a tracker on her. And why was she even in a position to do that? Right, because she got Nicole out of the competition so she could replace her and that was where Phaethon encountered Remielle in the first place. Funny how that all worked out huh?
It wouldn't surprise me if the safe that Phoenix fell out of the sky with was also something Cissia did rather than Phoenix on purpose. It may contain a communications device fashioned together by Fairy and the sibling so we can get back into contact in spite of Youkai's hacks. It could also hold some key evidence we'll need in v3.3 to get us started on dismantling High Ambitions.
The Season 3 story is about Sunbringer's secrets and Mosseint's plot against Roscaelifer but Epaphus already lived through that once before. They know all the key players; they know all the important moments. This allowed them to infiltrate and include themselves in whatever originally happened to now guide the events in a hopefully better direction for Phaethon.
You know we could also take the expy route to the extreme. We all know now that Remielle is the Elysia expy for this game. Well, the revelation that Sunbringer is actually an original Enchainer and the master of the Hive Lord Hollow who just happened to want to help humanity, that's actually Elysia's story. Elysia was revealed to not be human; she was born as the Herrscher of Origin, the first Herrscher of the Previous Era. Unlike the Herrschers that came after her, she grew to love humanity and became the Herrscher of Humanity instead. She also worked with HI3's "first-gen Void Hunters" the Previous Era's Thirteen Flame-Chasers to defeat the Cocoon of Finality. In the end, she returned to the honkai in order to undermine it by bestowing her ability to defy it onto any future Herrschers that had a strong enough will. This action is also what let humanity realize that the cocoon could be manipulated which set up Prometheus to hijack its role in the current era. In other words, Remielle might be the expy for Elysia but her lore was given to Sunbringer. This could play out straight where Sunbringer will just do exactly what Elysia had done or it could expand to become a mix of Elysia's, Prometheus' and Kiana's roles with Arche standing in for Otto Apocalypse.
Side Note: The devs have already played into this when they had characters make the claim that Sunbringer was an Intelligent Construct because that's what Prometheus was.
Furthermore, if we link Remielle with Elysia then we could also link Elysia's relationship to the two Meis she's known. While it never got romantic, the simulated Elysia in the Elysian Realm did get close to Raiden Mei. Mei would go on to inherit her role as Herrscher of Origin. Before her was the Previous Era's Dr. Mei who was the one that created Prometheus. If the devs work off of that, then my prediction for Truvia might fit even better. As a megane working as heir to a massively wealthy company, she could be a Dr. Mei expy. After Mosseint's fall at the end of the season, this gives her her Raiden Mei tie-in. Finally, after she awakens her dormant eye implant powers and inherits Vike's Void Hunter Weapon, this could reflect Mei inheriting Elysia's HOO role. The Herrscher of Origin is a counterpart to the Herrscher of Finality which would perfectly mirror Icarus and Phaethon's relationship. Mosseint had intended for Icarus to become the perfect vessel but that turned out to be Phaethon and so Icarus becomes the counterpart.
Chapter 3 of this season revealed many of the inner workings of the Zenless universe. Chapter 4 should continue to develop them with Phoenix's revelations and Cissia and Youkai secretly pushing the plot forward from their respective roles. The information they provide will lead us towards the conclusion of Chapter 5 in v3.4 which will give us most of the currently sought after answers leading into the Epilogue and then Season 4's potential finale Season.
