Writes HI3 fanfiction. Author of Snippets of Sirin Schariac's life. Enjoys memes and anime. Addicted to videogames. Asks are open - feel free to ask me anything. She/Her
Main hook for Snippets AU: Sirin and Cecilia survives the end of Second Eruption on account of Otto not launching the nukes. Butterfly effect from there. Kiana gets an awesome (and very PTSD heavy) Herrscher big sister. Mei is taught by another Herrscher (Sirin) from the get-go on account of Sirin becoming a teacher at St. Freya High. And a lot of other changes and surprise characters I don't want to spoil here.
This is my main fanfiction that I write the most for.
Himeko adopts a stray Herrscher (finished)
Main hook for HaasH: Himeko takes half of the serum dose and injects the remaining half of it to HoV/Kiana. Himeko survives Final Lesson, but who wakes up is neither Kiana or HoV, but Sirin. Weakened from the serum and back at St. Freya High, Sirin struggles to fit in and move past her trauma.
Collapse of the Sirinverse
Main hook of Sirinverse: collaborative non-canon mashup of several Sirin's and Kiana's from different AU's (I've gotten permission to use the Sirin's and Kiana's from other authors that appears in this fic)
This is just a fun fic where the main plot is "the author wanted to see how all these Sirin's and Kiana's interact."
Those are my main works. Below are minor works that will not be updated regularly, but aren't abandoned either.
Through the rings
Main hook: everyone of the main characters are either a criminal or in the gray area of the law. Lots of corruption and shady stuff going on. One of my few M rated works.
beep boop
Main hook: MSA-209 (aka Hua) is a combat android that sustains heavy injuries and shuts down due to the cold, luckily she's saved by a mechanic (Kiana) that is absolutely not on the run from Hua's superiors.
Scars I'd gladly wear
Main hook: Zombie Himeko AU. Entirely inspired by Cloud-ya's Zombie Himeko fanart. In other words: Himeko survives Final Lesson as a half-Honkai zombie.
Expiration Date (finished)
Main hook: Turns out that Otto made the K-series clones with an expiration date. :). Enjoy. :). FuKi.
500 years ago (finished)
Main hook: Fu Hua became a Herrscher when she was killed by her students in 1454 (or whenever it was), and keeps Senti in her head for 500 years until the events of the canon story.
I have more works over on AO3, but I dont think its completely fair to say "I am still working" on fics I havent even made a WIP for in 2 years or longer.
Working theory atm, but it seems that if I take too long to enter a stage, that HI3 just enters an infinite "cant connect to server" loop that it cant recover from.
when a government bans young people from using social media, and then categorises messenger apps like Signal and WhatsApp as "social media", they are pushing those young people toward using text messages, a fundamentally insecure form of communication. texts are not encrypted in transit and can be read by both the sender's mobile carrier and the recipient's. that also means they can be leaked in data breaches, subpoenaed, or just handed over willingly to law enforcement at the carriers' discretion.
this is not JUST about destroying kids' privacy by the way, although that is bad on its own! but think about it: if you can push everyone to spend their formative social years communicating through an insecure protocol, most of them are not going to do the work of moving to a secure one the moment they're legally allowed! banning everyone under 16 from Signal and WhatsApp creates a whole population of people more likely to continue, for the rest of their lives, to communicate using a tool the government can access at the drop of a hat
Comparing Chapter 1-9 of HI3 to current-day HSR and GI plots, there is such a HEAVY focus on the CHARACTERS in HI3.
We got a cast of aboutttttt 11 characters (Kiana, Mei, Bronya, Himeko, Theresa, Fu Hua, Rita, Durandal, Otto, Einstein, Tesla) and they are not just, doing stuff. Things are happening or affecting them directly to easily 6 of these characters, and 3 (Otto, Durandal, Rita) of them are actively causing the things affecting the 6 (Kiana, Himeko, Mei, Bronya, Theresa, Fu Hua), with the remaining 2 (Einstein, Tesla) being there for support.
The PLOT is things happening to CHARACTERS and how those things affect them in the long term. Such as: Death. Trauma. Fatal injuries. Emotional distress. Questioning their own actions.
The plot isnt "we gotta save the country/planet/galaxy/universe" the plot is "oh fuck an evil being in our main character has awakened and vows to kill everything our main character loves and cares about, and we cant just kill or imprison the evil being because she is in control of our main character's body"
Hell, the Herrscher of the Void awakening is LESS about the GLOBAL THREAT SHE IS, and it is MORE about how she is going to BRUTAL KILL AND TORTURE KIANA'S FRIENDS AND LOVED ONES.
I'll never stress enough the fact that it is precisely how heavy hi3's emphasis is on its characters that make the game so memorable and impactful.
Also the reason why it has a somewhat limited cast (especially when compared to more modern hoyo games), which in my opinion, is a very good thing! No background characters who get forgotten as soon as we move on to another location! (or much less, at the very least)
That's what hooked me into the story, and I'd bet it's also the case for a lot of other players
Currently replaying the game, and you're 100% right.
Writing characters and character conflicts is Hoyo's strength that they've seemingly forgotten about. And tbh, having the protagonist and antagonists share bodies is definitely one of the most interesting things in the earlier chapters.
This is why what I want from a hypothetical Part 3, more than anything else except maybe fixing the gameplay to story ratio in the story missions which feels like a lost cause since Moon Pacing is spreading to their other games, is for them to not balloon the cast size too much.
Genshin can take one duo from nation to nation and just check in once in a while, Star Rail can do that with a small crew, that's fine I guess. (Although my favorite parts tend to be the longer returns to old characters.)
Honkai Impact 3rd has never been about and should never be about that, and while I have some hopes for Part 2 to maybe stick the landing (I just met Past Senadina I'm not current), oh my god the new core cast and entire new towns of background NPCs and the Ten Shus Tour and now we're cycling in the old cast and sending you back in time to do the Ten Shus again with reverse character growth feels like it was kind of doomed to not feel like HI3 from the start.
(Except the big Helia and Coralie part of the story, that was fucking great. Probably because they really locked in on a few characters there, who we already knew!)
This is why I liked APHO 1 and dislike APHO 2, apart from the tonal shift in the environment being jarring.
APHO 1 felt like old HI3. It was a tiny cast of characters and it ends on them being injured. But instead of doing something with that, we just move on with them being saved and alright in APHO 2.
Funnily enough your favorite chapters don’t overlap with mine at all
Though, you’re not wrong about the plotline, I think there’s also a hindsight bias. Shattered Samsara was so good because it was such a relief that This Time Nobody Died
Yup, that bias is why Im going back to replay the game, and Im going to try and be extra critical of these chapters now because I know I have a bias going into them.
But I dont actually have a problem with chapters/moments like Shattered Samsara. I just dont like that every new chapter is part of a New Herrscher Having Appeared.
Comparing Chapter 1-9 of HI3 to current-day HSR and GI plots, there is such a HEAVY focus on the CHARACTERS in HI3.
We got a cast of aboutttttt 11 characters (Kiana, Mei, Bronya, Himeko, Theresa, Fu Hua, Rita, Durandal, Otto, Einstein, Tesla) and they are not just, doing stuff. Things are happening or affecting them directly to easily 6 of these characters, and 3 (Otto, Durandal, Rita) of them are actively causing the things affecting the 6 (Kiana, Himeko, Mei, Bronya, Theresa, Fu Hua), with the remaining 2 (Einstein, Tesla) being there for support.
The PLOT is things happening to CHARACTERS and how those things affect them in the long term. Such as: Death. Trauma. Fatal injuries. Emotional distress. Questioning their own actions.
The plot isnt "we gotta save the country/planet/galaxy/universe" the plot is "oh fuck an evil being in our main character has awakened and vows to kill everything our main character loves and cares about, and we cant just kill or imprison the evil being because she is in control of our main character's body"
Hell, the Herrscher of the Void awakening is LESS about the GLOBAL THREAT SHE IS, and it is MORE about how she is going to BRUTAL KILL AND TORTURE KIANA'S FRIENDS AND LOVED ONES.
I'll never stress enough the fact that it is precisely how heavy hi3's emphasis is on its characters that make the game so memorable and impactful.
Also the reason why it has a somewhat limited cast (especially when compared to more modern hoyo games), which in my opinion, is a very good thing! No background characters who get forgotten as soon as we move on to another location! (or much less, at the very least)
That's what hooked me into the story, and I'd bet it's also the case for a lot of other players
Currently replaying the game, and you're 100% right.
Writing characters and character conflicts is Hoyo's strength that they've seemingly forgotten about. And tbh, having the protagonist and antagonists share bodies is definitely one of the most interesting things in the earlier chapters.
Well since my HI3 is still connecting I might as well continue my replay of HI3. This time I'll do the EX chapters after chapter 9.
TL:DR; mostly World Serpent introduction, altough these chapters makes them sound like a high-tech cult that wants humanity to become cyborgs to ascend from death. And their leader is a literal World Serpent from the alternate dimension "Sea of Quanta"
Chapter 9-EX1: Arc Stalker.
"Tasked with locating the Herrscher of the Void, Rita came to Arc City, one of the last human refuges agains the Honkai." oh damn, so like, the Honkai has fucked over humanity and this is one of the last remaining safe cities?
Also 4 month timeskip. According to Rita, HotV's reawakening caused global Honkai outbreaks and people are fleeing to safe places, such as Arc City.
Someone named "Gray Serpent" is an intel dealer in Arc City. Obviously a codename but yeah.
Mh-hm, so the Far East group, aka Theresa, is officially classified as traitors, and Anti-Entropy is still supporting them. Damn we working with Cocolia now? Wonder how Bronya feels about that.
Ooh Gray Serpent's like a cyborg, or a full on android.
Hmmm seems to be an android thats remote controlled by the real Gray Serpent, who seems to be a young girl with a black bunny plushie. (Genuine thoughts: thats a pretty cool character concept. Tall imposing android intel dealer, but its actually just a persona for a young little girl that is still doing black market intel dealings.)
Yeah seems like HotV's reawakening really made people move into cities for protection against Honkai beasts.
Like half the lines are just not voiced. This isnt a new issue, but it is happening very often now.
GS mentioned something about the "Serpent" and now Rita is bringing it up, so noting it here because it sounds important. Oh thank you Otto. GS is a proxy for "the World Serpent", whoever that is.
Damn Rita is just laying traps for the gang. Worth noting that she is doing this on her own - Otto doesnt seem upset about it either. So Rita is definitely high ranking in Schicksal and trusted enough to do her own plans.
"Fiyah!" "Fiyah!" "Fiyah!"
Damn, Gray Serpent is a cyborg girl hooked into the mainframe. Actually no, seems the cyborg girl is an underling of Gray Serpent, since she called him Master.
Gray Serpent likes a messy room, or database I guess. Wild.
Ooh they got quantum computers. And the cyborg girl is hooked up to one, probably using her brain to process the vast unsorted database GS got. Name's apparently Ningyo.
Hmm, Mei still got Herrscher powers despite losing the Core?
Cool lore, everyone in Arc City gets implants to monitor their Honkai levels. Having someone without that is rare. Makes sense, since the HotV reawakening disrupted global life.
Rita is also S-rank. Might've missed that before. Not sure tbh.
Damn Bronya is attentive, noticing a second beacon emitting from Mei after Rita tagged her with a tracker.
Damn, not even Otto knew they could integrate quantum computers into cyborgs? This Gray Serpent guy had access to things that Schicksal doesnt then. But to be fair I dont know how advanced the world is. I'd assume its at least on par with Schicksal and Anti-Entropy, especially with how Arc City makes it sound like. Getting machine implants is normal, at least in parts of the world.
Damn, the situation seems very grim for the world if a cyborg girl hooked up to a quantum computer cant find a way for humanity to beat the Honkai.
Theresa literally is so short range that she can barely get in range of the gunship before its hitbox pushes her back.
Rita coming in here aura farming with the music. Damn she just came in here and told Ningyo to self destruct.
Smart of Gray Serpent to have the self destruct command be tied to a reformatting instead. I'd be crazy to hook someone up to a quantum computer and then let them destroy themselves.
Chapter 9-EX2: Dark Serpent.
Einstein/AE/Schicksal already knows about this "World Serpent"? Seems that way the way Ein speaks. Thank you Teriri for the lore, secret sect specialising in making Honkai weapons. Seems like WS wants to make humanit go into cybernetics to live alongside the Honkai.
Also hello Cocolia. Seeeems we arent really working with her? But she's also part of AE is she not? Oh no we are, she's just kind of a bitch. She also still got the Gem of Desire, and Schicksal is attacking her forces for it. Buuut she mentions it as "one of the four Herrscher cores"? Isnt it a piece of the Void Core? Yeah yeah, she says Otto's plan is to collect the Gems to restore HotV to her full power. Yeah that tracks.
Ein says that Cocolia is station in "the Deep" - some sort of base in the Western Pacific?
Ooh I googled it and 11,20.9 N, 142,11.5 E is in the mariana trench. Damn AE got a base in that trench?
Gray Serpent is back! Honestly not too surprising, dude seems to be fully a machine, and its not like his body was turned into scrap to begin with.
Well damn, quantum computers are unmatched in hacking. GS just took control of the Hyperion in seconds.
World Serpent sounds like a cult for making humans transcend death through cybernetics.
Hmm? GS says Wendy lost her legs for a similar reason as Bronya lost hers. Does that mean that Bronya also had a Gem implanted in her at some point in time? Or is that just general Honkai corruption?
Wendy's death also hurt Bronya a lot, because its very similar to "the one deep in your heart" both taken away by Cocolia? The only other name that Bronya has mentioned is Seele.
So AE started aquiring talent globally after 2E in order to make better Honkai weapons like the Selene, and they aquared companies such as Mikoyan Design Bureau, but acquiring lots of things like that got the attention of World Serpent who snuck in and stole Tesla's designs. This was apparently already known by them, but they didnt get any evidence for who the mole is.
Altough Cocolia is suspected, at the very least. "AE is a huge mess" if that is factual it'd make sense about some confusion I got of AE's structure. It seems to just be Ein, Tesla, and Cocolia, as well as all their mechs.
Honestly, this game is extremely mech heavy. Outside of these handful of characters I've barely seen any other person. Like, not even as enemies (not counting Honkai zombies) (most notable at Schicksal HQ, seriously I thought they were the Valkyrie group. Is the Valkyrie group ONLY the Far East branch? Im wondering if the Immortal Blades are just mechs controlled by Durandal and Rita...)
Damn, Bronya's birthplace was West Siberia, where the 2nd Honkai Eruption happened. That turned her into an orphane, and Seele was at the orphanage that Bronya ended up at. "Project X-10 took away your butterfly" is that "butterfly" Seele?
Okay like, Seele is the only one I can assume because I've heard of nothing or noone else relating to Bronya. Also aww Bronya's emotive center was damaged so she cant feel pain or emotions. I'd guess that happened when she burned the bio-chip, but maybe that happened at X-10 instead because its not like Bronya was very emotional in the first 4 chapters.
Bronya survived X-10 and returned with the Sea of Quanta's gift??? She's fated to be the heir to the Serpent? Okay so Cocolia is working with WS by the sound of things. I dont know who else it could be that made Bronya go through whatever X-10 is. What's this Sea of Quanta about though?
I think I got another bug. New cutscene with Fu Hua's feathers helping Bronya, but there's no voices and the subtitles is from the previous cutscene.
Finaly some explanation for Fu Hua. Apparently those feathers lets her leave memories of herself in other people. That's something at least. Still doesnt explain how she's able to interact with things in the real world though. Ooh the feathers are the 8th Divine Key, Fenghuang Down.
Ein testing something called the Eye of the Deep? Also seems to be some data left behind somewhere that Bronya stumbled across, just by context of the situation. Some brown haired guy is there next to Ein.
Okay, so the Sea of Quanta is some unknown dimension that Otto knew about. It can be access through the Eye of the Deep though. Some sort of gateway in the mariana trench? Since I assume that "the Deep" is where the "Eye of the Deep" is located.
Brown haired guy is called Sovereign by Ein. This recording of the past takes place after the year 2000. Also they found a City? Is the Deep basically Atlantis? Sovereign got called Welt by Ein. Is that his actual name? Also they used the Selene on the Eye of the Deep.
Oh shit they summoning eldrich abominations from the Sea of Quanta that is coming through the Eye of the Deep.
Welt got gravitational powers? Does that mean that he is a Herrscher? That'd make him the 1st Herrscher in Anti-Entropy if that's true.
Also this SoQ is different from the SoQ from "last time"? Wasnt it an unknown dimension?
Sounds like Welt met whoever is trying to liberate humanity from something, possibly death, which I would assume to stay on topic, which would mean whoever Welt is talking to is with World Serpent.
Oh he LITERALLY met a World Serpent.
Welt used the Star of Eden (another Divine Key?) to make a black hole to achive... Something? I dont think he killed the World Serpent there. Doesnt feel like that's what happened.
The Deep is a city from the Previous Era. So basically Atlantis then. What do we count as the "Previous Era" though? Previous to what? The last 100 years? No Fu Hua also mentioned it, and she's over 500 years old. Current guess is then... 5,000 years? Idk when I think "really fucking long ago" I think of Babylonia, like ancient civilisation from around 4,000 years ago. Idk with Fu Hua being 500+ years and still talking about the Previous Era, adding 10x years to that sounds reasonable. Like Im 25, doing that on me would put the Previous Era at the year 1750. That's pretty long ago.
Also Welt's in the Deep with Cocolia apparently.
And that was the end of the EX chapters for Chapter 9. TBH its mostly just World Serpent introduction. Some high-tech cult originating from a literal World Serpent in the Sea of Quanta. Also hinted at where Kiana has disappeared to. Tbh no idea how she went from "washed up on a beach" to- actually wait, they did mention that the Hyperion was out over the coast when they returned from Arc City. So I guess it makes sense that Kiana just, washed up and Arc City was the closest city for her to hide in. Really curious how she's doing but looks like that's being saved for later.
For my "I've played this before" thoughts, pretty much the same. We still got no real context about the Previous Era other than "some advanced stuff remains from it". Humanity does seem pretty advanced though - cyborg implants are fairly normal, at least in parts of the world, and we got quantum computers connected to people's brains.
It also does really sound like the Honkai has picked up in intensity after HotV and is somewhat actively attacking human cities, which is why Arc City with its automated mech police force is a refugee site people have fled to for safety. But we get no birds eye view of the global situation, so its hard to tell how bad things actually are.
Great to hear others are enjoying this experiment!
I'll keep going until I cant replay stages anymore, so if I remember correctly this "replaying but ignoring any external or future info" thing will end at chapter 25. Which is to say, I'll likely have things to say about Kevin and World Serpent.
Out of curiosity, where would you say the game peaked, currently?
It'd be interesting to see if your opinion changes on a replay.
. . . Oh right, you can't replay Kolosten. I feel like I'm already a little biased against that one because it's when I was caught up and had to start waiting for updates, but that really sucks.
I think that the game peaks at chapter 9 and the chapters following it (except for the gameplay. Having to grind stages or whatever to max out Bronya in chapters 11~12 is not fun). But that story between and including Final Lesson to Lament of the Fallen? That's what I consider to be the peak of HI3 pre-replay.
Chapters 1-6 is very messy and is in dire need of a (minor) rewrite (the overall story can stay the same, but it NEEDS lore inconsistencies corrected). 1-4 moreso than 5-6, but 1-4 is so bad that it spills over at least all the way up to chapter 9.
(I am here, about to start chapter 10 in my replay of the game)
Chapters 10-17 is just, they know what they wanted to with the fallout of HoV's reawakening and I think they do it so well.
18-19 is cooling off (heh) from the HoV fallout. But then chapter 20+ I feel the writers fall into a Herrscher Cycle. The plot just becomes "then the next Herrscher appeared". No fallout. No period of anything between Herrschers. Its just new Herrscher, new Herrscher, new Herrscher. That becomes the plot after Lament of the Fallen and this mostly harms World Serpent extremely badly. They get no development. As well as that, no Herrscher even compares to HoV's impact. There's no chapter where we deal with the fallout of a Herrscher, OR a chapter where we deal with something related to a character.
Like Bronya entered a coma in chapter 4 and that is the reason why chapters 5-6 happens.
So I think that chapters 8-17 is the best that HI3 gets (except for some HoV lines in ch8 that is a sympton of the writing in chapters 1-4 seriously those four chapters needs to be fixed and it is a crime that they're still in the game at their current state). There's satisfying character conflicts and resolutions and it follows the fallout of a major event. It doesnt have the messy writing the earlier chapters have, and it isnt trapped in a "suddenly a new threat appears!" cycle that Hoyo gets trapped in after Mei anf Kiana's fight.
Again, that's my thoughts before replaying and critically analysis them. So we'll see.
But for Kolosten, from what I remember ehat I think about it; the start is kinda slow but I like it overall. Otto not having a Herrscher Core is a retcon to established lore that a Herrscher Core appears in condensed Honkai areas and makes a compatible human its host to cause an Eruption. Like its very explicit that Core + Human = Herrscher. And his death speech fucking broke my emotions because my hate for Otto had nowhere to go because despite beating him he still won.
I do wish they’d come up with Mobius earlier on so she feels less shoehorned into world serpent lore… those are her morbid hivemind creations
My opinion on this actually depends on if I'll feel like we even need all the Flame Chasers introduced. Like, once I get to the end of replaying chapter 25, I'll try and see what I think the story is missing or needs answered.
And yeah if we need to know more about WS, then Mobius should be introduced earlier.
I think I remember that Bronya or Seele ends up experiencing some PE stuff in the Sea of Quanta? I'll be taking notes of what we learn and dont learn there.
i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users
would be remiss not to mention that the rainbow notably straight up just removed the trans flag colors from it. like they’re gone. it’s the progress flag minus the trans flag colors.
Well since my HI3 is still connecting I might as well continue my replay of HI3. This time I'll do the EX chapters after chapter 9.
TL:DR; mostly World Serpent introduction, altough these chapters makes them sound like a high-tech cult that wants humanity to become cyborgs to ascend from death. And their leader is a literal World Serpent from the alternate dimension "Sea of Quanta"
Chapter 9-EX1: Arc Stalker.
"Tasked with locating the Herrscher of the Void, Rita came to Arc City, one of the last human refuges agains the Honkai." oh damn, so like, the Honkai has fucked over humanity and this is one of the last remaining safe cities?
Also 4 month timeskip. According to Rita, HotV's reawakening caused global Honkai outbreaks and people are fleeing to safe places, such as Arc City.
Someone named "Gray Serpent" is an intel dealer in Arc City. Obviously a codename but yeah.
Mh-hm, so the Far East group, aka Theresa, is officially classified as traitors, and Anti-Entropy is still supporting them. Damn we working with Cocolia now? Wonder how Bronya feels about that.
Ooh Gray Serpent's like a cyborg, or a full on android.
Hmmm seems to be an android thats remote controlled by the real Gray Serpent, who seems to be a young girl with a black bunny plushie. (Genuine thoughts: thats a pretty cool character concept. Tall imposing android intel dealer, but its actually just a persona for a young little girl that is still doing black market intel dealings.)
Yeah seems like HotV's reawakening really made people move into cities for protection against Honkai beasts.
Like half the lines are just not voiced. This isnt a new issue, but it is happening very often now.
GS mentioned something about the "Serpent" and now Rita is bringing it up, so noting it here because it sounds important. Oh thank you Otto. GS is a proxy for "the World Serpent", whoever that is.
Damn Rita is just laying traps for the gang. Worth noting that she is doing this on her own - Otto doesnt seem upset about it either. So Rita is definitely high ranking in Schicksal and trusted enough to do her own plans.
"Fiyah!" "Fiyah!" "Fiyah!"
Damn, Gray Serpent is a cyborg girl hooked into the mainframe. Actually no, seems the cyborg girl is an underling of Gray Serpent, since she called him Master.
Gray Serpent likes a messy room, or database I guess. Wild.
Ooh they got quantum computers. And the cyborg girl is hooked up to one, probably using her brain to process the vast unsorted database GS got. Name's apparently Ningyo.
Hmm, Mei still got Herrscher powers despite losing the Core?
Cool lore, everyone in Arc City gets implants to monitor their Honkai levels. Having someone without that is rare. Makes sense, since the HotV reawakening disrupted global life.
Rita is also S-rank. Might've missed that before. Not sure tbh.
Damn Bronya is attentive, noticing a second beacon emitting from Mei after Rita tagged her with a tracker.
Damn, not even Otto knew they could integrate quantum computers into cyborgs? This Gray Serpent guy had access to things that Schicksal doesnt then. But to be fair I dont know how advanced the world is. I'd assume its at least on par with Schicksal and Anti-Entropy, especially with how Arc City makes it sound like. Getting machine implants is normal, at least in parts of the world.
Damn, the situation seems very grim for the world if a cyborg girl hooked up to a quantum computer cant find a way for humanity to beat the Honkai.
Theresa literally is so short range that she can barely get in range of the gunship before its hitbox pushes her back.
Rita coming in here aura farming with the music. Damn she just came in here and told Ningyo to self destruct.
Smart of Gray Serpent to have the self destruct command be tied to a reformatting instead. I'd be crazy to hook someone up to a quantum computer and then let them destroy themselves.
Chapter 9-EX2: Dark Serpent.
Einstein/AE/Schicksal already knows about this "World Serpent"? Seems that way the way Ein speaks. Thank you Teriri for the lore, secret sect specialising in making Honkai weapons. Seems like WS wants to make humanit go into cybernetics to live alongside the Honkai.
Also hello Cocolia. Seeeems we arent really working with her? But she's also part of AE is she not? Oh no we are, she's just kind of a bitch. She also still got the Gem of Desire, and Schicksal is attacking her forces for it. Buuut she mentions it as "one of the four Herrscher cores"? Isnt it a piece of the Void Core? Yeah yeah, she says Otto's plan is to collect the Gems to restore HotV to her full power. Yeah that tracks.
Ein says that Cocolia is station in "the Deep" - some sort of base in the Western Pacific?
Ooh I googled it and 11,20.9 N, 142,11.5 E is in the mariana trench. Damn AE got a base in that trench?
Gray Serpent is back! Honestly not too surprising, dude seems to be fully a machine, and its not like his body was turned into scrap to begin with.
Well damn, quantum computers are unmatched in hacking. GS just took control of the Hyperion in seconds.
World Serpent sounds like a cult for making humans transcend death through cybernetics.
Hmm? GS says Wendy lost her legs for a similar reason as Bronya lost hers. Does that mean that Bronya also had a Gem implanted in her at some point in time? Or is that just general Honkai corruption?
Wendy's death also hurt Bronya a lot, because its very similar to "the one deep in your heart" both taken away by Cocolia? The only other name that Bronya has mentioned is Seele.
So AE started aquiring talent globally after 2E in order to make better Honkai weapons like the Selene, and they aquared companies such as Mikoyan Design Bureau, but acquiring lots of things like that got the attention of World Serpent who snuck in and stole Tesla's designs. This was apparently already known by them, but they didnt get any evidence for who the mole is.
Altough Cocolia is suspected, at the very least. "AE is a huge mess" if that is factual it'd make sense about some confusion I got of AE's structure. It seems to just be Ein, Tesla, and Cocolia, as well as all their mechs.
Honestly, this game is extremely mech heavy. Outside of these handful of characters I've barely seen any other person. Like, not even as enemies (not counting Honkai zombies) (most notable at Schicksal HQ, seriously I thought they were the Valkyrie group. Is the Valkyrie group ONLY the Far East branch? Im wondering if the Immortal Blades are just mechs controlled by Durandal and Rita...)
Damn, Bronya's birthplace was West Siberia, where the 2nd Honkai Eruption happened. That turned her into an orphane, and Seele was at the orphanage that Bronya ended up at. "Project X-10 took away your butterfly" is that "butterfly" Seele?
Okay like, Seele is the only one I can assume because I've heard of nothing or noone else relating to Bronya. Also aww Bronya's emotive center was damaged so she cant feel pain or emotions. I'd guess that happened when she burned the bio-chip, but maybe that happened at X-10 instead because its not like Bronya was very emotional in the first 4 chapters.
Bronya survived X-10 and returned with the Sea of Quanta's gift??? She's fated to be the heir to the Serpent? Okay so Cocolia is working with WS by the sound of things. I dont know who else it could be that made Bronya go through whatever X-10 is. What's this Sea of Quanta about though?
I think I got another bug. New cutscene with Fu Hua's feathers helping Bronya, but there's no voices and the subtitles is from the previous cutscene.
Finaly some explanation for Fu Hua. Apparently those feathers lets her leave memories of herself in other people. That's something at least. Still doesnt explain how she's able to interact with things in the real world though. Ooh the feathers are the 8th Divine Key, Fenghuang Down.
Ein testing something called the Eye of the Deep? Also seems to be some data left behind somewhere that Bronya stumbled across, just by context of the situation. Some brown haired guy is there next to Ein.
Okay, so the Sea of Quanta is some unknown dimension that Otto knew about. It can be access through the Eye of the Deep though. Some sort of gateway in the mariana trench? Since I assume that "the Deep" is where the "Eye of the Deep" is located.
Brown haired guy is called Sovereign by Ein. This recording of the past takes place after the year 2000. Also they found a City? Is the Deep basically Atlantis? Sovereign got called Welt by Ein. Is that his actual name? Also they used the Selene on the Eye of the Deep.
Oh shit they summoning eldrich abominations from the Sea of Quanta that is coming through the Eye of the Deep.
Welt got gravitational powers? Does that mean that he is a Herrscher? That'd make him the 1st Herrscher in Anti-Entropy if that's true.
Also this SoQ is different from the SoQ from "last time"? Wasnt it an unknown dimension?
Sounds like Welt met whoever is trying to liberate humanity from something, possibly death, which I would assume to stay on topic, which would mean whoever Welt is talking to is with World Serpent.
Oh he LITERALLY met a World Serpent.
Welt used the Star of Eden (another Divine Key?) to make a black hole to achive... Something? I dont think he killed the World Serpent there. Doesnt feel like that's what happened.
The Deep is a city from the Previous Era. So basically Atlantis then. What do we count as the "Previous Era" though? Previous to what? The last 100 years? No Fu Hua also mentioned it, and she's over 500 years old. Current guess is then... 5,000 years? Idk when I think "really fucking long ago" I think of Babylonia, like ancient civilisation from around 4,000 years ago. Idk with Fu Hua being 500+ years and still talking about the Previous Era, adding 10x years to that sounds reasonable. Like Im 25, doing that on me would put the Previous Era at the year 1750. That's pretty long ago.
Also Welt's in the Deep with Cocolia apparently.
And that was the end of the EX chapters for Chapter 9. TBH its mostly just World Serpent introduction. Some high-tech cult originating from a literal World Serpent in the Sea of Quanta. Also hinted at where Kiana has disappeared to. Tbh no idea how she went from "washed up on a beach" to- actually wait, they did mention that the Hyperion was out over the coast when they returned from Arc City. So I guess it makes sense that Kiana just, washed up and Arc City was the closest city for her to hide in. Really curious how she's doing but looks like that's being saved for later.
For my "I've played this before" thoughts, pretty much the same. We still got no real context about the Previous Era other than "some advanced stuff remains from it". Humanity does seem pretty advanced though - cyborg implants are fairly normal, at least in parts of the world, and we got quantum computers connected to people's brains.
It also does really sound like the Honkai has picked up in intensity after HotV and is somewhat actively attacking human cities, which is why Arc City with its automated mech police force is a refugee site people have fled to for safety. But we get no birds eye view of the global situation, so its hard to tell how bad things actually are.
Great to hear others are enjoying this experiment!
I'll keep going until I cant replay stages anymore, so if I remember correctly this "replaying but ignoring any external or future info" thing will end at chapter 25. Which is to say, I'll likely have things to say about Kevin and World Serpent.
So I feel like me replaying HI3 has sorta entered a new phase. The writing feels more solid and coherent now, and we're out of the chapters with very messy writing (to the point they genuinely need some rewriting)
However some of the upcoming chapters are also some of my favorite, and I know bias will try and influence me here, so Im going to try and be extra critical on them.
Well since my HI3 is still connecting I might as well continue my replay of HI3. This time I'll do the EX chapters after chapter 9.
TL:DR; mostly World Serpent introduction, altough these chapters makes them sound like a high-tech cult that wants humanity to become cyborgs to ascend from death. And their leader is a literal World Serpent from the alternate dimension "Sea of Quanta"
Chapter 9-EX1: Arc Stalker.
"Tasked with locating the Herrscher of the Void, Rita came to Arc City, one of the last human refuges agains the Honkai." oh damn, so like, the Honkai has fucked over humanity and this is one of the last remaining safe cities?
Also 4 month timeskip. According to Rita, HotV's reawakening caused global Honkai outbreaks and people are fleeing to safe places, such as Arc City.
Someone named "Gray Serpent" is an intel dealer in Arc City. Obviously a codename but yeah.
Mh-hm, so the Far East group, aka Theresa, is officially classified as traitors, and Anti-Entropy is still supporting them. Damn we working with Cocolia now? Wonder how Bronya feels about that.
Ooh Gray Serpent's like a cyborg, or a full on android.
Hmmm seems to be an android thats remote controlled by the real Gray Serpent, who seems to be a young girl with a black bunny plushie. (Genuine thoughts: thats a pretty cool character concept. Tall imposing android intel dealer, but its actually just a persona for a young little girl that is still doing black market intel dealings.)
Yeah seems like HotV's reawakening really made people move into cities for protection against Honkai beasts.
Like half the lines are just not voiced. This isnt a new issue, but it is happening very often now.
GS mentioned something about the "Serpent" and now Rita is bringing it up, so noting it here because it sounds important. Oh thank you Otto. GS is a proxy for "the World Serpent", whoever that is.
Damn Rita is just laying traps for the gang. Worth noting that she is doing this on her own - Otto doesnt seem upset about it either. So Rita is definitely high ranking in Schicksal and trusted enough to do her own plans.
"Fiyah!" "Fiyah!" "Fiyah!"
Damn, Gray Serpent is a cyborg girl hooked into the mainframe. Actually no, seems the cyborg girl is an underling of Gray Serpent, since she called him Master.
Gray Serpent likes a messy room, or database I guess. Wild.
Ooh they got quantum computers. And the cyborg girl is hooked up to one, probably using her brain to process the vast unsorted database GS got. Name's apparently Ningyo.
Hmm, Mei still got Herrscher powers despite losing the Core?
Cool lore, everyone in Arc City gets implants to monitor their Honkai levels. Having someone without that is rare. Makes sense, since the HotV reawakening disrupted global life.
Rita is also S-rank. Might've missed that before. Not sure tbh.
Damn Bronya is attentive, noticing a second beacon emitting from Mei after Rita tagged her with a tracker.
Damn, not even Otto knew they could integrate quantum computers into cyborgs? This Gray Serpent guy had access to things that Schicksal doesnt then. But to be fair I dont know how advanced the world is. I'd assume its at least on par with Schicksal and Anti-Entropy, especially with how Arc City makes it sound like. Getting machine implants is normal, at least in parts of the world.
Damn, the situation seems very grim for the world if a cyborg girl hooked up to a quantum computer cant find a way for humanity to beat the Honkai.
Theresa literally is so short range that she can barely get in range of the gunship before its hitbox pushes her back.
Rita coming in here aura farming with the music. Damn she just came in here and told Ningyo to self destruct.
Smart of Gray Serpent to have the self destruct command be tied to a reformatting instead. I'd be crazy to hook someone up to a quantum computer and then let them destroy themselves.
Chapter 9-EX2: Dark Serpent.
Einstein/AE/Schicksal already knows about this "World Serpent"? Seems that way the way Ein speaks. Thank you Teriri for the lore, secret sect specialising in making Honkai weapons. Seems like WS wants to make humanit go into cybernetics to live alongside the Honkai.
Also hello Cocolia. Seeeems we arent really working with her? But she's also part of AE is she not? Oh no we are, she's just kind of a bitch. She also still got the Gem of Desire, and Schicksal is attacking her forces for it. Buuut she mentions it as "one of the four Herrscher cores"? Isnt it a piece of the Void Core? Yeah yeah, she says Otto's plan is to collect the Gems to restore HotV to her full power. Yeah that tracks.
Ein says that Cocolia is station in "the Deep" - some sort of base in the Western Pacific?
Ooh I googled it and 11,20.9 N, 142,11.5 E is in the mariana trench. Damn AE got a base in that trench?
Gray Serpent is back! Honestly not too surprising, dude seems to be fully a machine, and its not like his body was turned into scrap to begin with.
Well damn, quantum computers are unmatched in hacking. GS just took control of the Hyperion in seconds.
World Serpent sounds like a cult for making humans transcend death through cybernetics.
Hmm? GS says Wendy lost her legs for a similar reason as Bronya lost hers. Does that mean that Bronya also had a Gem implanted in her at some point in time? Or is that just general Honkai corruption?
Wendy's death also hurt Bronya a lot, because its very similar to "the one deep in your heart" both taken away by Cocolia? The only other name that Bronya has mentioned is Seele.
So AE started aquiring talent globally after 2E in order to make better Honkai weapons like the Selene, and they aquared companies such as Mikoyan Design Bureau, but acquiring lots of things like that got the attention of World Serpent who snuck in and stole Tesla's designs. This was apparently already known by them, but they didnt get any evidence for who the mole is.
Altough Cocolia is suspected, at the very least. "AE is a huge mess" if that is factual it'd make sense about some confusion I got of AE's structure. It seems to just be Ein, Tesla, and Cocolia, as well as all their mechs.
Honestly, this game is extremely mech heavy. Outside of these handful of characters I've barely seen any other person. Like, not even as enemies (not counting Honkai zombies) (most notable at Schicksal HQ, seriously I thought they were the Valkyrie group. Is the Valkyrie group ONLY the Far East branch? Im wondering if the Immortal Blades are just mechs controlled by Durandal and Rita...)
Damn, Bronya's birthplace was West Siberia, where the 2nd Honkai Eruption happened. That turned her into an orphane, and Seele was at the orphanage that Bronya ended up at. "Project X-10 took away your butterfly" is that "butterfly" Seele?
Okay like, Seele is the only one I can assume because I've heard of nothing or noone else relating to Bronya. Also aww Bronya's emotive center was damaged so she cant feel pain or emotions. I'd guess that happened when she burned the bio-chip, but maybe that happened at X-10 instead because its not like Bronya was very emotional in the first 4 chapters.
Bronya survived X-10 and returned with the Sea of Quanta's gift??? She's fated to be the heir to the Serpent? Okay so Cocolia is working with WS by the sound of things. I dont know who else it could be that made Bronya go through whatever X-10 is. What's this Sea of Quanta about though?
I think I got another bug. New cutscene with Fu Hua's feathers helping Bronya, but there's no voices and the subtitles is from the previous cutscene.
Finaly some explanation for Fu Hua. Apparently those feathers lets her leave memories of herself in other people. That's something at least. Still doesnt explain how she's able to interact with things in the real world though. Ooh the feathers are the 8th Divine Key, Fenghuang Down.
Ein testing something called the Eye of the Deep? Also seems to be some data left behind somewhere that Bronya stumbled across, just by context of the situation. Some brown haired guy is there next to Ein.
Okay, so the Sea of Quanta is some unknown dimension that Otto knew about. It can be access through the Eye of the Deep though. Some sort of gateway in the mariana trench? Since I assume that "the Deep" is where the "Eye of the Deep" is located.
Brown haired guy is called Sovereign by Ein. This recording of the past takes place after the year 2000. Also they found a City? Is the Deep basically Atlantis? Sovereign got called Welt by Ein. Is that his actual name? Also they used the Selene on the Eye of the Deep.
Oh shit they summoning eldrich abominations from the Sea of Quanta that is coming through the Eye of the Deep.
Welt got gravitational powers? Does that mean that he is a Herrscher? That'd make him the 1st Herrscher in Anti-Entropy if that's true.
Also this SoQ is different from the SoQ from "last time"? Wasnt it an unknown dimension?
Sounds like Welt met whoever is trying to liberate humanity from something, possibly death, which I would assume to stay on topic, which would mean whoever Welt is talking to is with World Serpent.
Oh he LITERALLY met a World Serpent.
Welt used the Star of Eden (another Divine Key?) to make a black hole to achive... Something? I dont think he killed the World Serpent there. Doesnt feel like that's what happened.
The Deep is a city from the Previous Era. So basically Atlantis then. What do we count as the "Previous Era" though? Previous to what? The last 100 years? No Fu Hua also mentioned it, and she's over 500 years old. Current guess is then... 5,000 years? Idk when I think "really fucking long ago" I think of Babylonia, like ancient civilisation from around 4,000 years ago. Idk with Fu Hua being 500+ years and still talking about the Previous Era, adding 10x years to that sounds reasonable. Like Im 25, doing that on me would put the Previous Era at the year 1750. That's pretty long ago.
Also Welt's in the Deep with Cocolia apparently.
And that was the end of the EX chapters for Chapter 9. TBH its mostly just World Serpent introduction. Some high-tech cult originating from a literal World Serpent in the Sea of Quanta. Also hinted at where Kiana has disappeared to. Tbh no idea how she went from "washed up on a beach" to- actually wait, they did mention that the Hyperion was out over the coast when they returned from Arc City. So I guess it makes sense that Kiana just, washed up and Arc City was the closest city for her to hide in. Really curious how she's doing but looks like that's being saved for later.
For my "I've played this before" thoughts, pretty much the same. We still got no real context about the Previous Era other than "some advanced stuff remains from it". Humanity does seem pretty advanced though - cyborg implants are fairly normal, at least in parts of the world, and we got quantum computers connected to people's brains.
It also does really sound like the Honkai has picked up in intensity after HotV and is somewhat actively attacking human cities, which is why Arc City with its automated mech police force is a refugee site people have fled to for safety. But we get no birds eye view of the global situation, so its hard to tell how bad things actually are.
