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!
I had thought that by v3.5 this retelling of Genshin's original story through Amphoreus would be done and they'd need to move on in order to bring Amphoreus back in line with Star Rail's lore. We did start to get pieces that linked it back there what with Amphoreus revealed as a super computer called the Emperor's Scepter that was running simulations for Nous to find the "Prime Mover of Life." But by the end of v3.7's story there was still more Genshin, including this second edition to my previous "Predicting the Original Intent" topic.
Starting in v3.6 we finally got confirmation about the March 7th lore. She did in fact turn out to be the hidden Chrysos Heir of Time and her alternate form even took the name Evernight which again I'd pointed out referred to Genshin's Istaroth in her Enkanomiyan capacity as Tokoyo ruler of Tokoyonokoku, the Land of Evernight. I also theorized that Mem aka Cyrene was March's memories and the Paimon of the story. In the end, it wasn't March's memories that Mem or Cyrene were but rather both of them turned out to be aspects of the Aeon Fuli which makes this topic much more interesting.
A very long time ago I proposed two versions of an endgame theory for Genshin. The first version was created before Enkanomiya when we learned about the four shining shades of Phanes. Back then the idea was that Paimon was an aspect of Phanes that it had split off of itself in order to better understand the world it ruled. Paimon then goes and finds the Traveler. By the end of the game, the Travelers shows Phanes the error of its ways and so to make up for it it sends what I called a spark back into the past which would lead Paimon to the Traveler thus ensuring this ending. This was based on the Gnostic ending for the Demiurge where the Aeon Christ shows it the error of its ways and it reforms and assists in helping the humans to ascend. The version of this that came after Enkanomiya simply extended the lore to the other three shades and reconciled their roles with Istaroth, the only known shade. The new devs have since changed this but originally I believed that Istaroth's dominion over time coupled with the fact that her Enkanomiya sigils were the Light Sigils and not the Time Sigils showed that her true power came from the element of Light which would have also been the element of all the Descenders, demonstrated by the white highlights on the twins at the start of the game.
Both versions of this theory were confirmed by v3.7. March 7th and Cyrene being aspects of Fuli mirror the shades being aspects of Phanes. Both Cyrene and March 7th hold the authority of Oronyx in some capacity also linked back to being aspects of Fuli. In this way, they do not have separate dominions like what the new devs did to the four shining shades. Instead they both (and by extension all aspects of Fuli which was explained in v3.6) hold the power of Remembrance which translates to Time on Amphoreus. On top of that, this power of Remembrance is often referred to as love by Cyrene throughout v3.7. Istaroth gets her name based on a combination of Astaroth and Ishtar. Astaroth is a name from the Ars Goetia just like Paimon but Astaroth is derived from Astarte the Phoenician Goddess of Love who is herself derived from Ishtar the Babylonian Goddess of Love.
In Genshin, all of this would have played out in the final battle. For Amphoreus, they gathered together allies from all the previously visited worlds in the Star Rail universe and it was a combined effort by all their forces on the outside to defend against Irontomb, while within Amphoreus the main force of the Trailblazer, Dan Heng, March 7th and a certain version of Cyrene (I'll get to that in the next section) face off against it directly. As this battle rages, Irontomb deletes all of the forces outside of Amphoreus. They are then saved by who else? As explained in my "Human Plan" the Traveler was tasked to remember all of Teyvat in the event something destroys it. This is exactly what we see happen in this battle and it's through their memories that the Trailblazer and Cyrene are able to bring the Star Rail universe back from annihilation.
The fight itself is a battle of opposing ideals. While they are both agents of the Imaginary Tree, Phanes holds the belief that humanity must be contained to prevent the takeover by the Sea of Quanta which is a sentiment shared by HI3's Cocoon of Finality while the Traveler on the other hand is meant to help humanity ascend and achieve gnosis. This can be seen as a battle between hope and hopelessness, that there is a way to preserve a universe without destroying humanity and resetting it. For Amphoreus, we see this as Lygus/Zandar's despair against the Paths which led him to manipulate the Emperor's Scepter into precipitating Irontomb's creation aka the Path of Destruction that would destroy humanity (and all intelligent life) versus the Path of Remembrance that had nurtured the Demiurge with countless memories that led it obtain its own consciousness.
Side Note: This intention becomes more clear when knowing that Amphoreus is the box that Pandora opened, the one containing all of the plagues cursing humanity and then one glimmer of hope at the bottom that safeguarded us against them.
There is one thing though that Star Rail illustrated that didn't even come up with my old theory. I said that the Demiurge having been reformed by the Traveler would send a spark back into the past to ensure that things played out exactly as is as a form of repentance. What I could never have predicted was that these old devs from miHoYo would pull the classic miHoYo and make this action emotionally traumatizing.
At the end of the battle, Herta speaks to the Demiurge Cyrene to explain that since Fuli was the one that inspired the events leading to Irontomb's defeat and the reason it is the Aeon of Remembrance is that it was born in the future where all of history had already happened, there is a chance that Irontomb could be created again in some future point before Fuli's birth. To remedy this, Herta suggests that Cyrene who was born through the events of Amphoreus leading to Irontomb's defeat could replace Fuli in the sequence of events and be the thing that inspired them towards Irontomb's defeat instead. The cost of doing this though is that Cyrene's timeline becomes a loop and she can never break this loop or it undoes the action of replacing Fuli.
Thinking about it this way, I think we could apply it to the Normal Ending from my old theory. The original version of this ending played out the prophetic lines in the Traveler's Profile where they'd take the throne of the gods. (translated as "for you shall ascend" in English) This means that they would no longer be able to leave Teyvat, having stepped in place of Phanes. With v3.7 though perhaps the Traveler was never meant to replace Phanes but rather Paimon would have. Paimon had once stated that she'd always be by the Traveler's side which just doesn't make sense since she's from Teyvat while the Traveler's whole purpose for traveling across the planet has been to reunite with their sibling and then leave to continue traveling to other worlds. Cyrene now has also voiced her desire to remain with the Trailblazer forever which ended up with her trapped in a time loop in order to prevent Irontomb's return.
An ending like this would work best in my older prediction from before the shining shades but this can be remedied by having the other shades either not survive the battle or merge together with Paimon in order to strengthen her individuality against Phanes thus allowing her to succeed it. This is essentially how it worked for the Demiurge Cyrene as well, with all versions of PhiLia093 Cyrene passing their memories of Amphoreus onto her before being deleted by the system. Also while March 7th does survive this, she was a creation of the Star Rail game from before Amphoreus so there wasn't much of a chance they could kill her off. Istaroth doesn't have this same luxury. Her fate in Genshin could go either way.
Side Note: Also I'm wondering if it was maybe intended for Istaroth to be Genshin's expy for Elysia.
I might even suggest the Paimon ending be a secondary Normal Ending. The worst ending would simply be losing to Phanes which leads to a new cycle for Teyvat as per the Human Plan. The best ending is humanity attaining gnosis so that they no longer need any Descenders to take care of them. Then the difference between the Traveler taking the throne ending versus the Paimon replaces Phanes ending would be dependent on an affection rating for Paimon. As with Cyrene, the more "lament" nourished the seed, the more it came to know "love" and want to preserve the world. Out of love for the Traveler, Paimon will choose to remain and continue their work to help humanity progress and to stave off the Abyss. On the contrary, if you constantly pick the dialogue options that belittle or poke fun at Paimon then the Traveler will end up sitting on that cold throne themselves. Paimon will still hang around though.
I had thought we were done with Genshin stuff in Star Rail when Phainon showed us how the story might have ended without the Traveler. It didn't. We were then treated to several fates worse than what the new Genshin devs came up with in Fontaine before finally ending the entire Amphoreus arc of Star Rail with this lore about what the old devs might have intended for Istaroth, Paimon and Phanes. I think it's been made clear that these old devs were not happy seeing what their replacements did to their game. It has been incredible to see what would have played out in Genshin and even more impressive to see it reworked so well for a totally unrelated game. I look forward to seeing where these guys go next now that they can put this grudge behind them.
Topic originally created on November 23rd, 2025.