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!
A long long time ago I proposed the idea that Zhongli was the "Seelie" that fell in love with a traveler from afar who I believed was the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles, the Second Descender.
We seem to have more information on that now.
According to this new Artifact Set, there was a "voyager" that had drifted across many light years and charted countless peoples and civilizations which sounds just like how our Traveler siblings had traveled across many different worlds. She noticed a magnificent dragon that was also the ruler of his world, a world that it was born alongside. According to my theory about him, Zhongli was born at the same time as the planet. Or actually I should say he represents the planet. He was 6000 years old at the start of the game and that is the age Judaism says Earth will be when the Messianic Age begins. Gnosticism is an old form of Christianity and we all know that has roots in Judaism thus this birthday was a deliberate choice by miHoYo. This voyager then warns the dragon about things in a way that also sounds like the overarching system of the Hoyoverse, that there will be a lightless end and a cold tide of chaos. Chaos is even the name I gave to the Genshin interpretation of the Sea of Quanta, an embodiment of entropy that will ultimately bring Heat Death to the Imaginary Tree. It also makes sense Zhongli's goal would be to "lead my people onward to the stars" but having failed, he shifted this goal onto the Traveler. We know all this because of his Character Story 5 and then his First Character Quest where he became the first character to dub the Traveler the Witness. This title has since been reinforced by other dragons like Yae and Neuvillette. This dragon also claimed that should the "tide of oblivion" come that he would become the bulwark of the world. The English version even specifically uses the word "shield." Shield is much more on the nose but if you know what a bulwark is it also screams Zhongli, the Geo Dragon Sovereign. The line actually sounds very poetic as the specific bulwark here is a 护堤 or embankment, a raised ridge of earth that's used to block floodwaters or a river swell. This is Zhongli directly stating that his mastery over the earth would protect the world from the destruction brought by the Sea of Quanta. He's dead wrong but his line sounds lovely.
What happens next? Well the Heavenly Principles. Just like in my old theory I suggested that Phanes was sent to reshape the world to better suit humanity and it did so by having "the bones of the earth bound beneath fourfold shackles, and the soft white radiance of the sky split into seven immutable hues." In other words, setting up the False Sky by using its four shining shades and changing the original pure element of Phlogiston into the seven current elements, locking the power of the Dragon Sovereigns away. However the next detail wasn't something I could have predicted. The Second Descender hadn't actually become a "descender" yet when she met Zhongli and it adds a little to the timeline since it meant Zhongli was aware of her before the fall of the sovereigns and they didn't just meet afterwards. Also they would reunite in very different forms.
If we look at the flower from this set the Second Descender's descent actually involved what sounds like possession of a human body. Could this have led to her defeat? I'm not sure. It doesn't seem like a normal action considering that's not how Phanes descended nor how our Traveler twins descended. It seems to offer an explanation as to why she was defeated by Phanes which I hadn't been able to fully explain in my old theory. Anyway in this new body she goes and eventually finds the apparently brainwashed versions of the dragons or as they were now known as, the angels. From my Archon 101 topic we know this doesn't really change anything. Angels and gods and dragons, etc are all still just elemental beings. It's really just about their power levels and possibly their specific roles. It wouldn't surprise me at all if "angel" was even just some designation Phanes gave to the dragons it defeated.
Side Note: I'd say perhaps the Second Who Came was much more amicable, maybe even naive and this was why she chose to enter Teyvat through possession rather than normal descent. According to the set her kind weren't allowed to interfere with civilizations which may or may not conflict with the overarching Hoyoverse lore. We know for a fact that each universe on the Imaginary Tree has one of these Descenders. They are emissaries sent by the tree itself to protect the universes against the Sea of Quanta. From Honkai Gakuen lore it even seems like they can act with impunity. However the current information isn't clear enough about the rules so we might be able to suggest that once a universe has its designated emmissary that it is off-limits to others. It'd be something similar to a sales rep trying to assist a customer who was already being helped by another rep. The "lead" emissary has jurisdiction over their universe.
The elephant stomping around the room though is that the set describes the first angel as a woman while Zhongli or Morax in general is known to be male. Luckily that doesn't have to be true. From the book series Rex Incognito we actually know Morax took on many forms and that includes female ones. This is even alluded to during the Liyue Archon Quest when part of his Rite of Parting is to get perfume and no matter which scent you pick, it's noted to be a woman's scent differentiated only by age group. (We can ignore the part about the voyager's human vessel being male too because that's actually just an English localization choice and the gender of the vessel isn't specified in the original Chinese. Morax is also no longer the only confirmed dragon to take on a form of opposite gender. In the final part of the Natlan World Quest Series Kukulkan aka Waxaklahun Ubah Kan revealed that he was Bona from the previous part of the quest.)
Side Note: Furthermore his title of "dawn-daughter" might even draw upon the theories that suggested that Zhongli was one of the shades who had fallen from grace. He didn't but a child of the dawn or morning star would fit with these theories and we could also suggest that this is what Phanes called its brainwashed Dragon Sovereigns. It wouldn't be the only deranged thing it's done.
The Second Descender quickly undid the brainwashing with her Descender level power and decided to oppose Phanes and its Heavenly Principles, appalled by its actions. The story then continues on in the Moment of Oblivion and that wraps up what we had previously known about the event. The two declare their love for each other and that they'd stand together to break free from the False Sky. The moon sisters bore witness to their union (or reunion as it were) and then turned on each other, each one siding with a different faction thus making this the disaster that would lead to them no longer trading places in their silver carriage every 10 days. It is the start of the Archon War.
Thanks to this set we can now expand on the sides of this conflict. Previously I theorized that each sister sided with one of the Three Realms. One remained loyal to Phanes while another sided with the "angels" and the Second Who Came to help humanity ascend. Finally there was a third moon sister that I said sided with the Abyss but this was ill-defined back then. Now we know what that side entailed because thanks to this new set we know Phanes had already attacked the dragons and therefore this conflict would be the second war between Celestia and the dragons, Nibelung's war. We also now know that Nibelung wasn't a dragon at all and it was actually the first Durin and Elynas, a creature born from the Abyss. In another theory I had relating to Khaenri'ah, I suggested that the Khaenri'ahns were influenced to oppose the principles and gods by an emissary of the Abyss, this game's version of Siegfried aka the Vinster King. I even considered Nibelung to have previously influenced them, being the higher power they were missing since they didn't follow any gods. It makes sense for the Abyss to have used a draconian avatar to speak with the embittered dragons, convincing them to rise up against their oppressor. It is at this point that sovereigns like Neuvillette and Apep angered Zhongli and so Neuvillette will eventually go to such a roundabout way of saying he was trying to make amends. The first angel and Second Who Came wanted to "find the Genesis Pearl" and help humanity but these angry dragons just wanted to return the world back to what it was before Phanes arrived and this wasn't even their plan because they were just being played by the Abyss, the Sea of Quanta.
Anyway this early part of the Archon War ends with the defeat of the Second Who Came. We already knew that she and Morax were punished by being separated and having their memories wiped. This led to the Morax we're more familiar with later in the Archon War, the one who needed Guizhong to rekindle his faith in humanity. We're learning a little more about that too. Previously the "Seelies" mourned their defeat and thus withered away. I likened this to all the times Archons let themselves wither away like Andrius and Marchosius. Apparently now it's just another direct action by Phanes, another kind of curse that is applied when they fall in love. (not really sure how I feel about this choice by miHoYo) In any event the first angel form of Zhongli which was already a diminished and brainwashed into memory loss version of his original dragon sovereign form was once again diminished into his Archon War god form. He lost his memories again, he was cursed with erosion and it took Guizhong to slowly remind him of who he is such that even in the modern day he will not talk about what Phanes did to him. That's some serious trauma.
This new set also connects my theory with the Prayers Artifact Series. I had pieced together the different tiaras back then and most of that lore has already been explained. However the last part where priests ventured deep into the "antediluvian ruins and long-buried altars" to offer their white branch crowns had yet to be addressed. I took a few guesses at it but it seems my earliest was correct. I said the priests were the ones that found something with a warning for them to stop building their tower into the sky since it would anger Phanes. These priests remained subservient to the principles in order to not incur Celestia's wrath. In the Bestowed Banquet piece of the new set this is exactly what those priests believed. They'd received the warning from Morax who was the one sealed away down there, brainwashed by the sevenfold radiance star-crown on her head. Our Second Who Came is now also revealed to be the very person that incited these humans to question Celestia in the first place. To an extent it actually justifies how Phanes reacted.
Side Note: Something else that may also strengthen the idea that the dragon and the first angel were both iterations of Morax is the city the angel Morax was located under. It is consistently being called the city of gold. Morax was first named the God of Gold or Deus Auri by fellow dragon sovereign Neuvillette and gold is a motif that follows him. The Golden House for example was the place where he minted Mora.
So let's do a quick updated summary on this old theory:
- We now know that Phanes arrived on the planet already a tyrant, arrogant and with a temper. It immediately set about attacking the Dragon Sovereigns and setting up the Heavenly Principles underneath the False Sky. Then it created eternal star-crowns of sevenfold radiance to control the dragons, calling them its "angels."
- Morax had actually encountered the Second Who Came before Phanes even arrived. She had warned him not about the Heavenly Principles but the incursion of the Abyss as the Sea of Quanta attacks every universe on the Imaginary Tree and leads to their decay and eventual destruction to return their matter back into itself and maintain entropy.
- The Second Who Came was more naive of a Descender and chose to possess a human body instead of truly descending which possibly led to her defeat.
- As a human she unwittingly influenced the rest of humanity just by questioning what Phanes had done. It sparked doubt in humanity and motivated them to try reaching the heavens themselves which was forbidden under the principles. The priests had even received a warning from its angels to not question it so they had her also visit the angel underground to understand the severity of her actions.
- This let her reunite with Morax who was now in a female "angel" form. She was horrified by what Phanes had done to the dragons. With her Descender powers she easily broke the mind-control crowns and freed them. She and Morax decided to oppose the principles together and they were joined by one of the moon sisters while another sister remained loyal to Phanes, the morning star she loved. Disaster had struck and the sisters turned on each other.
- The final moon sister joined the Abyss which just as the Second Who Came had predicted was making its move to destroy the world. It had influenced the angry and now freed Dragon Sovereigns into a plan to return the world back to its original state before Phanes. Of course this would have led to the world's destruction and as such Zhongli came into conflict with Neuvillette and Apep.
Personally I'm not sure how I feel about Phanes starting out as a tyrant and I'm really not sure about the curse of the "angels" withering because they fell in love. That seems to be an odd addition since the massive amount of Seelies we have in the game would have to suggest all of them happened to fall in love and only after they were cursed when they would have known falling in love would lead to their withering. I think I still prefer the idea that because of the injustice of its actions against the Second Who Came and Morax that some of these elementals just chose to wither out of defiance or mourning or both which was how the lore went previously.
However it's good to have all these new details to elaborate on this old theory.
PS: There is one issue with it though. In the feather it describes the dragon as "a lord of dragons who had yet to fall into darkness." While we could interpret this as just his defeat by Phanes, the words used in the original Chinese specify that this fall was to Abyssal Corruption. We may be able to suggest that Zhongli did actually fall to corruption though. While later on he didn't side with Nibelung and thus wasn't corrupted during that war like Neuvillette and Apep were, perhaps the reason Phanes started out by subjugating the Dragon Sovereigns was that the Sea of Quanta had attacked and Zhongli wasn't able to be the bulwark like he thought he could. In this case Phanes would have been justified in its actions even though mind-controlling the dragons afterwards was still going too far. Perhaps the corruption was too great such that even a Descender couldn't purify the dragons anymore and so it had them mind-controlled to prevent them from causing harm to the humans? Over however long it was between their defeat and the Second Who Came's return they were purified and so the misunderstanding led to the Second Who Came being appalled by Phanes. In other words the Dragon Sovereigns were all tainted by the initial incursion by the Abyss to which Phanes had no choice but to subdue them and control them. Actually we already know Xiuhcoatl was tainted before Nibelung's arrival so this could line up. Then as time progressed these powerful dragon elementals were able to cleanse themselves of the Abyss and only after it was gone did the Second Who Came arrive to free them. Now thanks to the mind-control nobody remembered what had happened and so then the Abyss came back and retainted some of the dragons. And this is why knowledge is power kids lol
Topic originally created on April 20th, 2025.