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've said this before but Sandrone's death in the Nod-Krai Archon Quest was entirely unnecessary. It was done to be dramatic and it failed at that. As soon as she died, nobody thought she was actually gone and thanks to miHoYo's current marketing strategy we all knew she'd be one of the new characters to be released, denoted by the empty space in their character silhouette preview screen.
Additionally, there were suggestions that she'd be magicked back to life therefore she'd lose her wind-up key but thanks to miHoYo's silly drip marketing, we can clearly see the key is still there on her revived body. But if she's just a robot that died and there's been no hints about her being able to Ultron herself and download into say a Katheryne, how will they bring her back as a playable character? The answer is likely going to be more stupid dramatic writing. "See she was killed by a Trilune Dottore. Some moon dust magic blah blah got onto her gears and mutated her." "Her emotional bond with Columbina created a pathway for her soul to return to Teyvat from the ether and yes robots have souls too don't discriminate." "You know what? Scara knows how her mechanics work and so he made a Khaenri'ahn puppet upgrade of her and his core has her memories or something like that. Now Marionette becomes a real marionette! Holy cow!" Yeah something stupid like that.
But there is yet another stupid direction the devs could go with this and it fits into her release timing. I've said this again and again and I've been proven right so far. This year has been 100% filler. We got Nod-Krai which was confirmed over and over again (and then muddled because these devs are infuriating) that it is just a part of Snezhnaya. It is to Snezhnaya what the Vourukasha Oasis is to Sumeru or Chenyu Vale is to Liyue. And that is why after a single expansion on it, we stopped getting more of Snezhnaya and ended up getting Dornman Port in Mondstadt instead. For years now players have been wondering when we'd get this final expansion for Mondstadt. And thus there's one more place we still expect to get: Mont Esus in Fontaine. We have Mont Esus East right now but the rest of it is beyond the Paimon barrier. Given Sandrone is Fontainian, her revival in Fontaine would make sense.
But there's a little more to it than that isn't there? Mont Esus. This is the site of one of our Weekly Bosses. It was the old location for the House of the Hearth, a Fatui facility. We know the current head of this facility and we know that she's very familiar with the Mont Esus location. We also know she was deeply aggrieved by the death of Sandrone and even moreso that she
would be taking her and Pulonia's cores to the Fontaine Research Institute while taking personal possession of her notes. It wouldn't be a shock given the drama loving nature of this dev team to have one of the following scenarios play out:
Each one of these potential stories will require a facility to construct the new body so that could be located deeper on Mont Esus perhaps where Arlecchino had rebuilt another section of the old House of the Hearth or more likely built a brand new building in order to bury the old site. (And as tradition with these extra regional areas, there should be a World Quest to go along with it so perhaps something new we didn't already know about Alain and his friends. If not though, it could be our "summer region" like Tenochtzitoc was last year where there was no World Quest but there was a side quest in the middle of the event so in this case maybe the Archon Quest will have a side quest.)
Additionally while Arlecchino is never shown to remember Scara, she did have her doubts about him. In their parting scene in Act VIII, she noted his familiarity with the Harbingers. I've always said that it made no sense that they wouldn't have noticed their faction just randomly missing the Sixth Harbinger so given that Dottore ended up remembering before he died, why couldn't Arlecchino also figure it out? As such, she could enlist his help to build Sandrone's new body and that could also make her more like the Khaenri'ahn puppet that he is thus also capable of being bestowed a Vision which she probably couldn't before. That would explain her Cryo Vision as per miHoYo's drip marketing.
Besides where and who will bring her back, there's the question of what that will mean. She died a Harbinger and nothing suggested she was planning to use her death as a way to leave the organization. However, her closest friend Columbina is already out and so is her would be new creator, Scara. On the other hand, Arlecchino is still very much the Fourth Harbinger. So where might she stand?
I think we can gather that answer also from the drip marketing. In the little blurb miHoYo provided, we read what sounds like Sandrone's own funeral just like the one we saw for Signora. There shouldn't be a reason why they'd write this out if Sandrone's just going to be revived and return to the Fatui. If logic tracks (and again this is the new devs so it might not) then Sandrone will be leaving the Fatui after v6.7's story. Additionally, her Vision isn't a Snezhnaya Vision nor is it a Fontaine one.
This may mean she will be the first of some new faction thus maybe it'll actually be directly bestowed by Columbina as she'd be the only one who could bestow one with a different design and who even relates to Sandrone enough to do so. Nicole's Vision is also different but it would feel strange for the Hexenzirkel to be involved in the story and not Columbina. That said, Columbina's "Visions" should be the Moon Wheels. I'd say in this case, the idea would be that Moon Wheels were bestowed based on the older system with the Moon Sisters. Columbina might have unconsciously bestowed them while her body was just kuuvahki but now the one she'd bestow upon Sandrone would be of her own manufacture thus it could make sense to have a different design.
In any event, if Arlecchino, Scaramouche and Columbina are involved in this story, it's much more likely Sandrone will not return to the Harbingers. Instead given Scara's newfound life as Nahida's assistant, perhaps Sandrone will be Columbina's. This could even be played up for laughs given Sandrone's tsundere attitude towards the Trilune Goddess.
And there's actually the potential for one to two other players. Every year we're meant to have a Dainsleif Quest. This year was again bizarre and it could have even undermined this tradition too. Dainsleif had already made an appearance in the Archon Quest itself, given that it was a Khaenri'ah era story that directly related to him. Therefore it is possible the devs might count that appearance as having fulfilled the Dainsleif Quest for this year. But they also might not and that means he could still appear for Sandrone's resurrection. Perhaps the uniquely shaped Vision relates to him. It is a four-pointed star shape after all. Maybe it'd be what a Khaenri'ahn Vision would have looked like. Maybe Dainsleif had once been granted a Vision by one of the Archons (like Rukkhadevata when he was traveling with the Traveler's Sibling in Sumeru) and given his disdain for gods, he rejected it. However we know you can't actually throw away a Vision so the actual object remained with him as an unclaimed Vision. While he can't get rid of it, maybe a loophole could be finding someone more worthy of it so that it transfers ownership and thus Sandrone is partly revived through it. Kazuha had once temporarily gained access to his friend's Electro Vision so there is precedence. That then sets her new story up to relate more to future developments with Khaenri'ah rather than the Fatui.
The other potential player would be Skirk. Just like Dainsleif, she's an important figure for the Khaenri'ah era of the story. Therefore if not Dainsleif or maybe even with Dainsleif, she could also factor in. Perhaps it's her unclaimed Vision since she too would reject one. The only issue with both Skirk and Dainsleif being in the quest is that their interactions would outshine Sandrone's revival given Dainsleif would definitely have strong opinions about the disciple of one of his closest friends who'd betrayed him. Rerir was just an acquaintance of his and he was that motivated to deal with him. That said, these devs have proven that they don't shy away from excessively long stories and overloading them so there might be some part of the story where Dainsleif confronts Skirk and then we move back to the Sandrone stuff or vice versa.
Of course this is still very silly so let me just rant for this next section. (feel free to skip)
I've said it before but Sandrone's death was pointless. It was done to add forced emotions into a tediously long Archon Quest. Even if she hadn't died, if the point was to leave the Harbingers that could still happen. Columbina didn't die and still left the Harbingers. If there were repercussions to doing this, I'm pretty sure not even the Tsaritsa would want to upset the Trilune Goddess so Sandrone should not have to face any. Even if the Tsaritsa was foolish enough to try, her Fourth Harbinger is now her second strongest one and is also a friend to both. This is not to mention that the Third Harbinger is the aforementioned Trilune Goddess with full authority over the original rules of Teyvat including freezing time itself. With the Harbingers dwindling in number, now might not be the best time to launch all-out war just for one low ranking member of your group.
And that's only if the story played out exactly as miHoYo made it with only the one change being Sandrone not dying. This story itself didn't make sense so if we went with my predictions for it that related back to the events of Act VI, Sandrone could have been elevated to the position of moon goddess herself, being the Aria to Arlecchino's Sonnet and Columbina's Canon. Many players had assumed that Sandrone would be revived not as a robot but as a living being. As a moon goddess in her own right, the Tsaritsa would not want to make any demands of her. However, she may choose to remain a Harbinger if just in name only. This is the version of the story where they'd become acting liaisons between the Fatui and the Traveler, thus allowing our entry into Snezhnaya to not cause a national crisis which right now it probably should considering how often the Traveler's upended Fatui operations in other nations. (and yet it probably won't because reasons)
Side Note: Some of you might remember that I actually said the Tsaritsa would declare war on Nod-Krai She'd have done it because Dottore was helping her gain the Trilune Authority since she still didn't have the Pyro Gnosis. It was a backup plan. She'd also be declaring war on a Moon Goddess Columbina who was annexing her territory of Nod-Krai and not the Trilune Goddess Columbina with sole authority over all of Teyvat. Still suicidal. But it'd serve a purpose. It'd also get the ball rolling on the Snezhnaya Archon Quest. I was really hoping this filler arc was just a smokescreen by miHoYo and we'd get back on track right after so that this year would still be Snezhnaya. It had been my theory since I think Dragonspine that Snezhnaya would release backwards with the Archon Quest ending the year not starting it.
Finally if we make sense of the entire Nod-Krai Archon Quest while still keeping as much of the new dev lore as we can, then Nicole should have been Aria's successor. As just an angel (which is now proven to be no different than a god) Nicole would still be affected by Irminsul thus invalidating her role and debut in Inversion of Genesis. Only as a moon goddess at the very least who is above those laws (Columbina could feel/see the real Frost Moon beyond the false sky) could Nicole justify that scene. (the current Nicole is very different from that Nicole if you notice) In that case, Sandrone becomes a minor antagonist who was just enlisted to our side. But the devs wanted her to be playable so instead of her act of heroism and character development taking place in an already overloaded Archon Quest, she'd be a late release character and have a self-discovery Character Quest. Following the events of the Archon Quest, she'd need to reevaluate herself and her prior opinions on things like her frenemy attitude towards Columbina in the early parts of the Archon Quest and her apathy towards Signora's death. Her 180 turn from conniving Harbinger bent on subjugating Nod-Krai to slap-stick comedy tsundere bff happened at the flip of a switch and out of nowhere the Fatui operations in Nod-Krai were considered complete. Separating her development into a minor role in the Archon Quest and then a follow-up Character Quest could fix that and also be an explanation for her gaining a Vision. (and let's just mention that Nefer needed one of these as well)
Drip marketing has now confirmed that Sandrone will release as a playable character. She will also look different from how she was as an NPC as will Pulonia. She will also possess a Vision while still being a robot. This Vision is not a Snezhnaya Vision nor a Fontaine one but a totally unique design. How do we make sense of all this.
And no it's not lost on me that Sandrone is basically our Ineffa for this year. It's very likely her Cryo abilities will give us a preview into the new secret special power Snezhnaya has.
