Ok hi, did you miss me? It's been a hot minute since I made analyses and explanations of the differences between the two (now defunct) lores, but I think it's actually important to precisely point out the differences as it's easy to mix up details and get the impression that implications from one are the same in the other, which is not the case. And apologies for my distaste for the 2016. version being visible.
For example: Universe 2016. lore says that Viktor identified human error as the cause of disasters in Zaun before he was 19. That extends into him viewing humanity, emotions and "human involvement in any part of a process as a grossly inefficient aberration - a view that put him at odds with a great many of his fellow students and professors".
You'd assume the same should be true for the 2011. version, right? Because in 2011. lore it's also mentioned that he wanted "to eliminate the jealous human emotions which festered inside him"?
The original 2011. version does not imply that he viewed general human involvement as a problem. It doesn't imply he viewed others as emotional and defective. It doesn't imply he had thoughts and opinions about human emotions before the traumatic event of a professor stealing credit for his PhD which was also a revolutionary invention.
It only tells us that he got the idea that there's something wrong with his emotions which he could not control, and that he desired to be rid of that burden.
After that it could be theorized that he'd extend this view onto others, but the origin is important!
To continue this thread, here are some additional differences:
Original 2011. Viktor went to Zaun's prestigious College of Techmaturgy, as Zaun was its own independent and technologically advanced city-state. He never went to study in Piltover.
Nothing is said about his parents!
There's no implication of Viktor ever working in Zaun's industry, even before college; unlike the Universe 2016. lore which creates a situation where Viktor reduced the rate of accidents in Zaun by an astronomical margin (but somehow disasters kept happening frequently enough to warrant future actions, we'll get to that). Universe 2016. lore here introduced the aspect of Viktor believing humanity has weaknesses that give rise to errors since his childhood
Viktor was never colleagues with Jayce; instead he worked alongside a team of other Zaunite PhD students to create Blitzcrank
Original Blitzcrank wasn't made for rescue missions, but for a hazardous waste reclamation process in areas too dangerous for human supervision - which means similar robots required operators to be close. Blitzcrank was different because the students programmed him to be able to make judgments on his own.
Original lore did not say Blitzcrank was made simply by inserting a magical crystal in a repaired chassis. That means it's legitimate to assume he was built from the ground-up and programmed as a PhD project, especially as there was a heated struggle for who would claim the achievement as their own. Meanwhile 2016. Universe lore says Viktor doesn't know how to replicate the artificial sentience - original lore doesn't say he doesn't know how to replicate it.
Original 2011. Viktor was heavily shaken when professor Stanwick Pididly stole the credit for developing Blitzcrank's sentience, and Viktor actually lost the legal battle. Imagine you're the real creator, and you fucking lose to your plagiarist professor. And all the newspapers report on how you lost and probably flash lights into your face as you're walking in/out of the courthouse.
Viktor withdrew from College of Techmaturgy.
He was not expelled like he was in the Universe 2016. version, which had him be kicked out as a continuation of a brand new aspect Universe 2016. introduced - him believing humanity has weaknesses that give rise to errors and disliking/disregarding humanity and emotions and free will since his childhood.
Original 2011. lore Viktor never worked on creating any kind of diving suits, nor did it imply he ever had a negative opinion on free will - Blitzcrank was an achievement precisely because of free will after all.
The Universe 2016. lore explicitly says that Viktor tested his technology on victims of disasters in Zaun first, and said victims actually dying - original 2011. lore only reveals to us that Viktor started applying augmentation technology when he applied it on himself. There was no reason for him to do it before his mental breakdown after Blitzcrank got stolen.
In conclusion, the biggest differences Universe 2016. lore introduced were that:
it downplayed the impact of both Blitzcrank's creation and theft. (This was the core incident that generated Viktor's transformation in 2011. lore.)
removed Viktor from his Zaunite environment and colleagues, in favour of having him interact only with Jayce, revolve his thoughts around Jayce, ask Jayce to testify for him, argue with Jayce over free will, fight Jayce, etc. (Jayce didn't even exist when Viktor's original story was created as a concept.)
changed Viktor from suffering a traumatic event that shook and shifted his mental foundation to the level of him getting the idea that self-harm could perhaps allow him to gain back what he had lost due to Blitzcrank's theft - respect and credit in the scientific community and academia
to Viktor somehow believing humanity and free will were always aberrations since his childhood. This narrative actually shifts the blame from society and Academia's impact on mental health onto the individual who was apparently just weird and had wrong ideas since childhood.
explicitly stated that Viktor's patients die, that his technology doesn't work pretty often, and that he doesn't know how to replicate Blitzcrank. All significant downgrades from the 2011. chad version where he started testing his technology on himself first as proof of concept, succeeded with (at minimum) a triple auto-amputation and likely knows how to replicate Blitzcrank's sentience, implied by his robotic third arm playing a prank on him and thus proving he's a formidable (and worrying) force on the rise in Zaun.
References:
- https://original-lore.tumblr.com
- https://wiki.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/Universe:Herald_of_the_Arcane
- https://wiki.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/Universe:The_Great_Steam_Golem
- https://wiki.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/Universe:The_Defender_of_Tomorrow
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