what if akivili saw the end, became the end, and then started moving backward through time trying to warn people so that they could prevent the end? essentially doing what the trailblaze intends to do?
it's said that many of terminus's actions are contradictory...
ok WOW i haven’t been on this account in a hot minute but i just binged the latest hsr trailblaze mission and i have THOUGHTS. the original post i had was a little disorganized and while that’s my normal i felt like this tied into a lot of thoughts and theories i don’t actually post. and just ramble about offline. so uh. organization! It’s still going to be rambly bc that is just who i am but!! hopefully the headers make it slightly easier
it's uhhhhhhh. a theory about Terminus and Trailblazer
SECTION 1) What is an Aeon vs a God? (paths vs belief)
okay i’m going to start this by saying: I AM NOT RELIGIOUS. so pls take my thoughts on god irl with a grain of salt!! i’m mostly thinking from a storytelling perspective because i am a writer and that’s what’s relevant to me. but stories also pull from real life beliefs and customs so.
what is a god? or even multiple gods?
there are two main ways people usually go when thinking of what god is– at least powers wise. either they are all powerful and know everything, ever (or at least within their domain if there are multiple gods), or they are not, and they have limits.
in real life there isn’t any. physical? or hard evidence i guess of god being Real and being able to affect the world in modern day, but they kind of follow the “only dies if they’re no longer remembered” rule for me.
in hsr, at first, i assumed that the Aeons were gods. gods who were mortal and ascended, and with limits, but the only gods that existed and aeons was just a fancy word for gods in this universe. and maybe it is, i mean they have a lot of similarities but to me, a god in hsr is just a being with more power than a majority of people in an area that is being worshiped, and even that last part doesn’t necessarily have to be true.
an aeon is different because their existence is confirmed throughout the universe–there are phenomena that are researched and directly attributed to them. they’re on a whole different scale. powerwise is only how creative they decide to be with it. [aha of elation, for example, and the Thing we learned about THEM.]
they are limited to only their Path (domain). how exactly that applies to humans or what they take is all up to them. THEY don’t need people to believe in them, necessarily? THEY can just make emanators if THEY want to.
SECTION 2) What Does it Mean if Aeons aren’t “Gods”? (Why Do They Exist? )
to me, a fundamental part of what makes a god a god irl is that they Do Not Die. maybe fade, but that’s different to me than ‘dying.’
but Aeons are capable of dying (hence why i consider THEM slightly different than gods). we’ve known this since version 1.0, with kafka. we were told two of three known ways of an aeon dying: overlapping concepts and aeons firectly killing each other. and now the third one is revealed: forcing an Aeon away from THEIR own path.
side tangent. i CALLED THIS A LONG TIME AGO im actually really excited about that. i just want to document that for myself because i used it for some story ideas and i wasn’t sure if i said it to a friend or if i read it and absorbed it from someone else’s post (which. might have happened too)
(oh ignore the name orien placeholder name for an oc for a fic that kind of vaguely centers on Aeons. and paths. but this section touched on that idea of straying and what it might mean.)
anyway the first two ways for an Aeon to die kind of have nothing to do with the dying Aeon themself. it is paths colliding (similar or directly opposing in a war) and being a casualty. but the wording of the last way. “forcing.”
It means instinctively knowing (since there are no records currently readable in game about it) that if the Aeon strays from the path that THEY ‘created,’ THEY die. in that first image, i used the word "can't" because of like. self preservation. in my head when an aeon ascends, they are the embodiment of their path. but ‘forced’ means THEY are at least a little more than that, but can’t/won’t act in any other way if THEY don’t want to disappear and die.
and i think my point with using Nanook as an example is that. THEY were watching their home world be destroyed. that was THEIR surroundings when THEY ascended. THEY probably, if THEY had any kind of humanity beforehand, want to destroy the Propagation doing it, but also with a motive of saving THEIR home.
but in that THEIR desire to destroy was so much stronger than THEIR desire to save, maybe, or maybe it was the easier Path/concept to embody for the universe, so THEY definitely did destroy the Propagation but also THEIR entire home world, because Destruction does not care for the crossfire, it just is.
and now that i'm thinking about it, Yaoshi is probably maybe similar, because hey being hunted by Lan all the time has got to be annoying. the easiest way is to just, fight THEM head on, but that goes against Abundance and life. and in the same vein, what will Lan the Hunt if THEY do catch up with Yaoshi and fight and kill THEM? what will THEY have to resort to hunting?
gods don’t have to worry about ‘consequences’ because their actions are divine and on a different scale of justice (probably) and they can’t die.
but Aeons can.
SECTION 3) Pathstriders vs Emanators
according to the hsr wiki, “A Pathstrider is a term referring to those whose wills align closely with a Path, regardless of their views on it, and are therefore able to draw power from it.”
genuinely i thought everyone was a path strider in hsr– maybe some are weaker than the rest, but also according to the wiki, there are regular people who “[live] in confusion and without a firm allegiance]” which is kind of like. no set determined path of how to do things, more like flipping between multiple depending on the situation. which is kind of maybe like aeons and mortals and switching paths.
it’s kind of like the “jack of all trades” but they’re not even ok at the trades. a weaker connection, so it's easier to switch. less resistance.
but even for normal pathstriders, i don’t think switching paths is as ‘easy’ as the Trailblazer makes it look. in-game characters can change what path they walk on (dan shu, even herta [an emanator] in that one scenario, etc) but usually it takes a Very Big Life-Changing Event.
pathstriders & the path they’re on is determined by how live their life and i think their game paths are mostly accurate. Healers are Abundance, but mostly because their outlook is like the path of Abundance in order to heal others? and similar lines for the others.
SECTION 4) Becoming an Aeon
this is kind of iffy because i’m not sure that it has to be a path that is unique, only that there’s an open path. Sunday is the one that puts the unique into question because i’m not quite sure if he was trying to become Ena or a mix of the order & (forced) harmony? people have argued for that because of Egg Dialogue. but he was also mainly following the order up to trying to ascend.
also ruan mei who tried to recreate the propagation bug. and failed but uh. kind of close? maybe?
so there’s an option to start up a new path or just reach the end of the path set by the previous (now gone) aeon. i just dont think many go that way bc 1) do they even know it's an option and 2) if that aeon’s died you’re infinitely more aware you aren't immortal if you go down that path. if permanence wasn’t permanent, then uh. what are the chances you don’t just get eaten by harmony again or something.
the wiki says: “The birth of an Aeon gives rise to a Path, which the Aeon then has power over.” to me, this reads as “an Aeon is intrinsically tied to its path, but a path isn’t necessarily tied to/reliant on the Aeon” all Aeons are ‘Paths,’ but not all Paths are/have an Aeon. the whole “all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares” logic.
which is why paths still exist even if the Aeon that they rose from the birth of die. THEY lay the foundation and probably know best about the Path, but the Paths themselves don't cease to exist without some Aeon with power over it.
SECTION 5) Fuli and the Pure Children of Anāsrava
this was just a minor thing i don't even remember why i brought it up specifically in my rough draft but looking at it now made me think about Terminus and Fuli and the "Pure Child of Anāsrava" and how THEY've both existed forever and only at the end of the universe
Fuli is memory [of things in the past] and is constantly recording/memorizing things and is moving forward in time. technically THEY haven’t ascended yet– but i guess THEY did that, and then started at the beginning and will do so forever until the end.
but Fuli & amphoreus were the first introduction to this kind of concept of
beginning and end and not yet existing but always being there for me. and it’s strange because there are so many “paths” that exist already (destruction was a thing before Nanook ascended) but it wasn’t formal? what makes an aeon exist beyond time and space and even their own ascension? what makes them qualified for options?????
so yeah Fuli was one of the first dominos about my (later) crack theory.
SECTION 6) The Stellaron Hunters (but also Fuli)
they’re a group associated with finality, but i think that’s mostly because Elio is their leader and he has some special connection/association with Terminus. but they’re also trying to prevent Terminus and the theory of four apocalypses.
they’re called stellaron hunters because it’s just. the most flashy thing they’ve taken that people attribute to them. we don’t actually know much about them. Elio gains members by promising to get the future they want to be reality, since there are options.
when they left the Trailblazer at the space station to be picked up by the astral express, they were made to forget. specifically. multiple dialogues, only feelings to guide them.
we also don't know exactly what Trailblazer's relationships with the stellaron hunters looked like before the game. i mean, it wasn't like the stellaron hunters immediately found the Trailblazer and sent them off to the astral express. they all trained them, and probably were friendly with each other. they knew and cared for each other, but why do that if Elio was always going to send them off?
SECTION 7) Trailblaze and Finality
the definition of trailblaze, according to google, is “to be the first to do something, create new methods, or discover a new path that allows others to follow.”
there are only so many ‘new’ things one can do, even with an almost eternal life. and “There are three directions on the compass of destiny — the Unknown, the Known, and the Unknowable. THEY can tolerate the Unknown, but will never bow to the Unknowable.” ← the wiki. the known has already been discovered. one can do things with the known to create new things that were previously unknown. the unknown is what gives Akivili the ability to ‘discover.’
bringing back my fic ramble, the aeon of trailblaze cannot stop. if the express crashed then Akivili couldn’t just. make a new one or repair it because the express has been damaged before. that’s not something ‘new.’ the express has been built before, and it really is perfect for trailblazing. if Akivili got trapped, THEY would be forced to Not trailblaze, because there are only so many things you can do on a single planet, and even less very quick new things that you can constantly do.
also i think it’s interesting that they also bring up destiny. Elio, destiny’s slave, associated with The Finality, destiny implies an ‘end.’ there are events that will happen and this will be how it ends.
Terminus is from the end. from the future, because nothing can go on forever, not even the world, and they don’t so much as live backwards as ‘remember’ all that has happened until the end. but endings exist all across time, even if it’s not the Real Final Finale, so that means that they exist outside of time and space (the cats), and if i go with my theory about not being able to stray from their path or risk Dying, then Terminus doesn’t have this risk because they ARE the end. no matter what THEY do, the end will come, and so THEIR actions all bring about/don’t affect the fact that the end is there which is THEM etc etc. it might extend or shorten the time until THEY become THEM, but THEIR path is the End.
SECTION 8) My Trailblazer Theory and the Entire Reason Why I Made This Post
and here's my crack theory: Trailblazer is/was going to become Terminus in the future Elio sees.
Elio being Terminus is too easy, i think. future sight (or having already lived it in backwards time?), associated with the Cats of Terminus, more reasons i can't think of right now, but i think Trailblazer being on the path to that future has just enough breadcrumbs and is just outlandish enough at this point in the story that it makes sense.
but i think a lot of people overlook the fact that Trailblazer DID in fact see the future. they saw bronya and seele and cocolia on the hill before leaving the space station, after blocking the blow for March and before their stellaron threatens to explode. they even saw a little of the past they should have forgotten (kafka and the stellaron being shoved into their chest)
and the dialogue there is interesting too. “You must see the end of your story” “Reach the end of the story in your own way” the path doesn't matter, as long as they reach an end, to whoever that voice is.
i don't think there are "pure children of anāsrava" [multiple possible people who would “inherit” aeonhood] that all have the possibility of becoming Terminus. THEIR ascension both already happened and has yet to occur. but i think Elio & them are trying to avoid it anyway. maybe something like silver wolf level 999. more complicated than just not using the cartridge, but something similar.
memories are tied to identity, in a way, so maybe that's why they had to go before joining the express. it's not like knowing they were a stellaron hunter before would prevent them from being an astral express member. and the wiki says "[Finality] is considered the antithesis of the Trailblaze." it is, to my knowledge, the only path that directly names its opposite like this. even with abundance and destruction, or preservation, or the hunt.
does dying as a mortal/pathstrider limit becoming an aeon? that would just be their ‘end’ and if Nanook was surrounded by destruction and became the aeon of destruction, does that just mean if Trailblazer dies for real, sees their “end,” it makes them become Terminus?
“beyonds the bounds of time itself” THAT SURE SOUNDS LIKE AN AEON QUALITY. AND ALSO OF FINALITY.
i know a lot of people like to write about how close they and Firefly were, but honestly? i think she was the least close to them prior to the game. because firefly's fate was to fall to Entropy Loss Syndrome and even if i think it wasn't always the plan, it probably was decided long enough ago that getting close to someone who had to forget everything and all the experiences you had together has got to hurt enough that you don't try at all, until after it's done and there is a chance to meet again and pretend its your first time meeting. a path of self Destruction, two people who know the end and can’t avoid it, one fated for eternity and a loop (going back and consuming until the beginning of the universe) and the other death.
i got off topic but while rambling i looked up the dahlia quest with firefly and. i guess i missed this dialogue???? but now i'm even more convinced.
and i think because the traiblaze is the opposite of Finality and because aeons cannot stray from THEIR path without Dying, and the fact that Akivili has been missing/disappeared/died a long long time ago, and you can kind of maybe re-ascend into a path if their aeon died (sunday), that Elio is trying everything to make sure Trailblazer does Not follow their destined path to become Terminus.
Destruction and Nihility and Harmony are all possible options to push the universe towards Finality. and what has the Trailblazer faced? Destruction at every turn, stakes getting higher at each and every world but not Nanook’s direct gaze since that Beginning cutscene (but maybe we were just seeing the future? like Elio in a way? maybe that also explains the ‘wrong’ endings of scripts). we have contact with acheron [Nihility]. we fought against Sunday [Harmony, if an off brand kind].
“Even Nous cannot calculate the next turning point of the universe's destiny.” it's vacant. has options. but one is remembrance and that’s one that has different endings because of who might/already has ascend(ed) into Fuli’s position.
anyway that's my main reasoning. but another bit of not-so-serious evidence is: the Pure Children of Anāsrava have pink hair and half-pink eyes. and the cats of Terminus have glowing yellow-orange eyes.
and what does Trailblazer have? (and im pulling specifically from the amphoreus mission where we see the not-chosen Trailblazer)
that's right, the same glowing orange-yellow eyes.
that's it that's my theory.
anyway, thanks to whoever decided to spend their time reading this. i had a lot of fun writing it out!!
