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!

Ok so the Loom of Fate was pointless. I mean how many of us weren't expecting Khaenri'ah to come back in this game? From Day 1 we had the Travail Trailer that told us to expect a Khaenri'ah Chapter. It's just a little upsetting that after 5 years and 6 Dainsleif Quests the culmination of all of that story was that "Khaenri'ah will return!" Even with my low expectations for the Loom of Fate I thought more was going to happen lol. What's worse though is the splash damage from this quest. I forget who said it but there's an idea that if a sequel to something is made poorly, it can actually reflect worse on the previous entries of the series. So in this case I was a fan of both Caribert and Bedtime Story. They had their issues but were good stories for the most part. Now thanks to this quest, I look back at those two and notice where things were headed the wrong way. So let's talk about that and how we can fix it.

One thing that I had only blamed the in-game NPC for back then was Chlothar telling us that pure-blood Khaenri'ahns were the "greater sinners" and so they were cursed with immortality while the immigrants like his Mondstadter wife and half-blood son were cursed into becoming hilichurls. That was ridiculous because just a Dainsleif Quest earlier we were told that the hilichurls were also immortal and suffering from erosion. So actually the "greater sinners" were the ones who defected from their god-run nation to become Khaenri'ahns. That became a minor discrepancy in this quest. Dainsleif claimed that Direidyth must have been descended from pure-blood Khaenri'ahns because she knew about the "Savior." Clearly this means he believed only the pure-bloods knew about this Vinster King rhetoric meaning if Direidyth wasn't pure then she shouldn't know about it. We know she can't be "descended" from the pure-bloods because she was revealed to be a Khaenri'ahn from the Cataclysm and Dainsleif only said she was descended because he didn't know that. Now if she's pure-blood as Dainsleif surmises then according to Chlothar she wasn't cursed to become a hilichurl. But the hilichurl who had Lumine's/Aether's key is revealed to be modern day Direidyth. Therefore either Chlothar is wrong (and I was right) and pure-bloods weren't the greater sinners (and more likely it's just whoever had greater resolve held onto their humanity for longer) or Dainsleif is wrong and the non-pures also knew about the Savior. The thing is that you'd probably expect the Twilight Sword and Captain of the Black Serpent Knights or a member of the royal regency to know about these things. This new dev team has created its own Catch-22. Either way there is conflicting information so pick which one it is guys. Which of these Khaenri'ahns is wrong about their own culture and history?

And Direidyth's whole scenario itself is a major issue. Let's just review it. At the start we see a hilichurl with a hibernation chamber key. Later on we either give our key to Direidyth or the sibling gives her their key. That supposedly closes a time loop of events thereby making Direidyth that hilichurl. Problem 1: This isn't a time travel story. The Loom of Fate didn't displace Khaenri'ah from its point in time 500 years ago. It just reassembled its Ley Lines. Once upon a time we had the Inversion of Genesis quest and I had some strong opinions about that one too. One way that people tried to counter my arguments about the issues with that story was that Irminsul (and the Ley Lines by extension) do not change what really happened in the past and can only alter the memories people have of the events. In the case of Inversion, it would be that while Scara was still responsible for the destruction of the Gokaden, everybody remembered the altered story of one Gokaden member going insane. Therefore what we got in the new quest was once again a self-contradiction. Do the Ley Lines represent the actual events or just the memory? If they represent only memories then the Direidyth we encounter is only an image and we never actually encountered the real Direidyth of the past. Therefore we can't give an image a tangible object like our key and images can't become physical hilichurls in the present. However if the Ley Lines do represent the actual events and thus the Loom of Fate reconstructing Ley Lines of Khaenri'ah is actually an out of phase physical place superimposed over modern day Natlan, then Teyvat's timeline is fluid so long as you have control over Irminsul. That means the Cataclysm can be overridden and going back to the Scara situation, he really did erase himself and alter the events in time.

Side Note: The scary part is that while I actually didn't think it could affect time which already countered the counterarguments back then, we were actually shown timeline changes even in Inversion. Scara was shown as the Wanderer after erasing himself. If time couldn't be changed then even though he erased the events leading to his becoming Harbinger, the new memories would still have to explain his being the Harbinger with altered events. The fact that he was able to give himself a new life shows that time was changed. The powers that were sealed by Ei and unlocked by Dottore were sealed again. Wanderer did not have his Harbinger's power. In fact the counterarguments used against me back then failed to notice that I myself made that argument back then, saying that because time shouldn't be changeable that Scara shouldn't be Wanderer even if he changed events. You can think of it like this. If you bought a hot dog and then erased your memory of buying it, you'd still be holding a hot dog in your hand only now you wouldn't know how it got there. If you weren't holding the hot dog in your hand then you didn't just erase the memories, you erased the actual actions from time.

And of course that opens up another can of worms doesn't it? Problem 2: Who was the hilichurl then? How did a key find its way there and who's was it? Over on youtube I actually came up with 3 possible scenarios. The sibling explains that the time loop was another of Istaroth's machinations. So that's one scenario. Another is Irminsul. In Inversion we get very detailed information about how anything connected to Irminsul and the Ley Lines will have their memories affected by any changes. Finally if we take the issues from Inversion's portrayal of Irminsul then there's a physical spacetime displacement scenario we can work with. Each one would have dramatic impacts on the story moving forward which again makes this quest nonsensical.

The Istaroth scenario runs into a snag because of how Ley Lines actually work. Since they are supposed to just be memories then the Direidyth we met isn't real, just the Direidyth recorded by the original Khaenri'ah Ley Lines. Therefore for Istaroth to have sent a Direidyth who met with us back into the past to find the sibling and show them our key, we need a real Direidyth. Where would we find one? Well that's yet to happen. If this dev team knew what it was doing and they were following this scenario then we'll necessarily need to find another Direidyth during the Khaenri'ah Chapter of the game. By then the sibling would have found the host location for their New Khaenri'ah and so Direidyth would also be part of that Khaenri'ah. Now the question becomes why would we give this Direidyth our key? We were already upset at knowing her cruel fate in this quest and players got to choose to prevent it from happening by not giving her the key thus leading the sibling to do it instead. My only guess is that Istaroth will explain to us that the only way to ensure the rescue of our sibling is to allow this sequence of events to play forward. Finally there's another issue with this scenario and that is how the real Direidyth from the past would have found her way to the very same cave that New Khaenri'ah's Ley Lines Direidyth ran to. That's a big coincidence seeing as how Ley Lines Direidyth was overlayed onto Natlan and wouldn't have to run very far. Real world Direidyth on the other hand would have had to find her way to this cave from Khaenri'ah and her stint at this cave would have to coincidentally coincide with our happening to be helping Iansan with patrols at the time. There's really no other way around it. (and speaking of which the fact that we started this quest by randomly going to the Collective of Plenty to find out that Iansan needed us to patrol and then happening to go to that cave is quite the plot contrivance itself)

Now if Irminsul and its Ley Lines are literal constructs of whatever memories they contain then the spacetime superimposition is possible. However that's a very interesting take. There can't be two Khaenri'ahs right? Therefore if the Direidyth from this Ley Line construct is also the real Teyvat's Direidyth, then her Khaenri'ah must be the real Khaenri'ah. In other words, the Loom of Fate didn't just rebuild Khaenri'ah's shattered Ley Lines; it plucked Khaenri'ah from its place in time and overlayed it onto modern day Natlan. With this setup we could even suggest that the "Cataclysm" that "destroyed" Khaenri'ah had nothing to do with the gods or even Celestia. It was this closed timeloop situation of the sibling having seen the "destruction" of Khaenri'ah and committing to the Loom of Fate operation which then became the reason for Khaenri'ah's "destruction." The sibling is responsible for the Cataclysm that motivated them to undo the Cataclysm lol

Ok all jokes aside we have an actually interesting take that I personally favor. (though I have zero faith that this new dev team can pull it off) Irminsul is only capable of altering memories based on whatever memories it has stored. It can only affect the memories of those connected to it as well. Therefore the scenario that we witnessed in this quest could be a very unfortunate red herring. The sibling and all of Khaenri'ah's major players including those now making up the Abyss Order believed that it was the sibling that doomed Khaenri'ah during the Cataclysm. Instead of defending it on the front lines, Direidyth found them and showed them the key which led to their abandoning the fight in favor of finding us and then precipitating the first cutscene from the game. However what really happened was that some situation led to the fall of Khaenri'ah during the Cataclysm where the sibling chose to escape with us but this also failed. This then led to the sibling committing to the Loom of Fate operation to restore Khaenri'ah by rebuilding its Ley Lines. The test was then to overlay it on top of modern day Natlan which led to Ley Lines Direidyth interacting with us. Because these are Khaenri'ah's Ley Lines that we interacted with, whatever memories are affected necessarily affect everybody connected to Irminsul including the sibling. Therefore by overlaying this new Khaenri'ah onto Natlan where we happened to be, the sibling caused their own memories to be rewritten to fit this quest's story. In other words they never met Direidyth in the past. Or they did but it was unrelated to the events of this quest. (Maybe they just thought Direidyth looked pretty back then and suddenly their memories of Direidyth presented a memory of her in the overlay. She does have inteyvats as a hair accessory. If the sibling is Lumine maybe she remembered Direidyth strongly because it was from seeing Direidyth that she decided to wear inteyvats in her own hair?) Where that becomes interesting is that now we have two distinct versions of Khaenri'ah, the version affected by the superimposition which will make up the one we interact with in the Khaenri'ah Chapter of the game and then the true Khaenri'ah from the past. If this story is done right, we'd have quite the mess to sort through. At any time the information we get out of Khaenri'ah could have come from either the real historical events or the spotty memories of the Abyss Order and the altered memories thanks to the superimposition. We'd have to somehow find out which is which. And by having a story like that, it further emphasizes the importance of the Traveler's role as Witness.

Side Note: This last version also has that same issue from the Istaroth version right? If Direidyth is just the memory superimposition, who was the hilichurl and how did it get our key? Here's a scenario. We are allowed to not give Direidyth our key. If we do that then the sibling gives her their key. However this isn't a physical person. She can't actually take any physical object and the sibling only tosses the key at her feet. Therefore once they leave and we are left despondent, who's to say the key went anywhere? Instead what if the Sustainer whose portal we saw during that same part of the cutscene took the discarded key back into the past so that any random nearby hilichurl found it and brought it to the very close-by cave? It wouldn't even need to be any distant past. The Sustainer just needs to bring it back to before the quest started. Then at the end, someone touches our hand to soothe our dreams right? Well last year in Bedtime Story we learned that Caribert used the last of his strength to add Chlothar's bedtime story to the consciousnesses of all hilichurls thereby easing their pain. Since touching Direidyth's hand gave us a glimpse of her memories, it is possible that any hilichurl touching our hand would pass along their memories too including the bedtime story memory which soothes. Therefore while it would be nice if that hilichurl happened to be Direidyth, it doesn't have to be in this scenario. Instead it's more like one final act by Caribert. (also if Direidyth is just a memory then we're looking at a Ley Line disturbance just like the one in Caribert which allowed us to see our sibling's memories from 400 years ago thus it is possible to "touch" Direidyth and gain her memories)

Ok so that was the superimposition issue. There's still a little more lol. These next ones are smaller though so we'll run through them quick. The Loom of Fate started out as such an important item for the Abyss Order. Even as recently as last year, we learned that it could generate new Ley Lines. Not reweave Ley Lines mind you. Caribert stated that it could weave Ley Lines meaning make them from scratch. A couple of weeks ago you guys read how that might have gone. Instead all the sibling did with it was rebuild Khaenri'ah's Ley Lines which could have waited. Rebuilding Khaenri'ah is literally the core plot for the Khaenri'ah Chapter. On top of this, a couple years ago we had a Sumeru World Quest Series that led us to Khaenri'ahn facilities where we learned about Azosite which was a power source Khaenri'ah came up with prior to relying on the Abyss. Azosite is produced by draining the Ley Lines lol. Therefore Khaenri'ah destroyed its own Ley Lines and the genius plan is to rebuild those? Wasted potential new dev team. And how did the sibling come up with this idea again? They recently found out that Natlan had a Night Kingdom. We know the Night Kingdom is thousands of years old and long predates Khaenri'ah. The sibling had already finished their journey across Teyvat right? Why are they only now learning about this? And then they decide to attack Natlan because - as the sibling states - they needed time to speak with Yohualtecuhtin. However nobody in Natlan knew they were even speaking to them. Citlali who is by far the most capable of noticing these things only felt a small oddity in one of her dreams about the Night Kingdom. In other words if the attack never happened, Natlan would not be aware of their conversation at all. Talk about pointless operations. Now perhaps the true objective was to lure Dainsleif out so they could mine him for his memories. Except Dainsleif is actively hunting them. Therefore they didn't need to attack Natlan to get his attention. They could have just appeared anywhere out in the open and that would already throw up a big neon sign saying "Twilight Sword, please come kill us! And tell us a story too, pwetty pwease?" In that case they could have just found some deserted, Abyss infested area of Ochkanatlan to do it. The Natlanese took forever to figure out that they were right there off of the Statue of the Seven in Ochkanatlan (the entrance to the city) so chances are if they didn't think the Abyss Order was attacking, nobody would have cared that they were organizing some kind of battle there. It would have quietly attracted Dainsleif, they would have gotten the memories out of him that they wanted, the sibling would have talked to and initiated the superimposition with Yohualtecuhtin's blessing and we might not have even realized what was going on until the ending cutscene where the sibling goes "aha, so that's how it happened." So that was Problems 3 through 6.

Now for all the flack I've given them, the new dev team did come up with something good with this story. It was sadly very subdued and I wouldn't be surprised if you guys missed it but we finally got an ending to the ongoing Capitano story arc. When the Natlan Archon Quest ended, Capitano returned all the Khaenri'ahn souls back into the Ley Lines and merged himself with Yohualtecuhtin to give her his immortality. However because of the pre-existing reasons for why the Khaenri'ahns were kept out of the Ley Lines, with them returned we began to see those consequences. Erosion in the form of the fetor struck Liyue during Lantern Right, Abyssal Power reinvigorated the Nightmare in Inazuma and finally the curse of immortality afflicted Antu in Natlan and allowed it to remain a spirit outside of the Night Kingdom for an extended period of time, far longer than any spirit was previously shown to be able to sustain itself. Paralogism was meant to be the consequence in Mondstadt but we know what happened there. Fontaine and Sumeru have also both been omitted for no reason and Snezhnaya didn't get any mentions either so we can suggest the new devs forgot about or didn't know how to include them in this story arc. However the conclusion is genius. The sibling spoke with Yohualtecuhtin and neither we nor Citlali could understand why she allowed the superimposition and creation of New Khaenri'ah right? Yohualtecuhtin also had a condition for this allowance which she also didn't explain to Citlali right? Well what are these new Ley Lines? Khaenri'ah. Who were the dead souls Capitano returned to the Ley Lines? Khaenri'ahn. Therefore what happened was that Yohualtecuhtin saw an opportunity to solve the ongoing crisis. She allowed the sibling to both rebuild the Ley Lines and superimpose it over Natlan so that she had access to now send all of those polluting Khaenri'ahn souls right back to where they belong, Khaenri'ah's already polluted and still separated Ley Lines which are currently being stored in the Atlas. With every Khaenri'ahn soul now removed from Teyvat and sent into the Atlas, they can't continue causing problems for Teyvat. On top of that, those Khaenri'ahns get to go home. Win-win.

And further win. Capitano fused himself with Yohualtecuhtin but she explained that he was still with her. That could mean she kept his soul separate and only merged the curse into herself. Therefore we now have a freed Capitano soul that she can release into those same Atlas Ley Lines. Therefore in the Khaenri'ah Chapter it is a likely possibility that Capitano will be back and in his true state as well. Of course this means he'd still be powered by the Abyss but so is Dainsleif who will also be a playable character by then. While I'm loathe to undermine Capitano's sacrifice, if the devs do a good job of it (they won't) I wouldn't mind such a heroic character getting a new lease on life.

Wow. So that was something. With all of that out of the way how do we fix this story? lol

Well honestly I can be fine with the Irminsul scenario and conclusion to the Capitano arc. We already knew that the Abyss Order was being foolish. I even titled my topic from last year's quest "yet another foolish plan." So for the sibling's memories to be rewritten six ways from Sunday and then be played for a fool by Yohualtecuhtin who used their plan to resolve the ongoing crisis in Teyvat and even give Capitano a reward for his valor, I'd call that a win already.

However if I was telling this then the busted elements of the story would need to be fixed. Firstly, we need a better use for the Loom of Fate. This is an operation and a device we've heard about since v1.4 of this game! For that to just be some plot contrivance to lead us into the Khaenri'ah Chapter we already knew about since Travail, it's just a waste. Therefore we'd need to review all the pieces of that operation like the creation of an artificial god. Taking all of that together I'd say the Loom of Fate could be a realization of Dottore's spoken plan in Sumeru: the creation of a successor god for the region to return it back to its golden age under its original Archon. In terms of Khaenri'ah, the Osial/Inverted Statue mecha god might be a being that's strong enough to hold the powers of the Loom of Fate. They go through the same story of Bedtime Story to get the Core of the First Field Tiller and then resume that original operation, farming Osial's limbs and grafting it onto the statue that was left unguarded at the end of We Will Be Reunited. Perhaps even the pool found in the inverted city could also play a part. Osial is a god of water with a body seemingly composed of water so its limbs might be able to absorb the curse dampening powers of the water and then amplify it using the Venti statue and Osial's own divinity. It would stand to reason the Abyss would assume gods had some link with this pool of likely Celestial manufacture. Finally in this version, the Loom of Fate will generate Ley Lines rather than just rebuild Khaenri'ah's.

Therefore this quest plays out as a culmination of the Loom of Fate operation. In a similar way to how the Exaltists over in Zenless were trying to create a Sacrifice that they could control, the Abyss Order was trying to construct a Celestial-tier god under their control. This "god" would have the power to manipulate the Ley Lines just like Celestia was able to reconfigure the ones in the false sky into an Abyss-resistant girdle. It is the first attempt by the order to confront Celestia but of course this ends poorly. Given that the "god" consists of both pieces of Osial and Venti - one a proud Archon and the other a mischievous one - they'll lose control over it midway through the operation and thus this becomes a Weekly Boss for us. If we keep this quest v5.7 then based on my theory about how the ongoing Capitano story would conclude, this operation would take place in Sumeru before ending in Natlan. Therefore we have a direct assault on Irminsul in order to retrieve the souls Capitano sent into the Ley Lines. This part will succeed.

At the start Alhaitham, Tighnari or Cyno contact us about a situation in Sumeru. Perhaps they are even just warning us to stay away for the time being. However based on their description of the issue we recognize it as yet another instance of the ongoing situation plaguing Teyvat. Having just taken care of the reviving bodies of Elynas and Durin and getting intel from Lyney about a similar situation in Snezhnaya we realize that the only region left unaccounted for is Sumeru and it is the home of the core Ley Line tree, Irminsul. We go to the Sanctuary of Surasthana to speak with Nahida and find her with Scara who is talking to her about the situation with Durin and how it's related. We confirm his suspicions and Nahida sends us into Irminsul to purify the Abyssal Energy while she sees if she can isolate the other issues like the curse of immortality. However in the middle of this mission and under the sibling's command, the order attacks with their now complete "Loom of Fate" god. As it turns out it worked to their benefit that Nahida was isolating the issues since that meant she was collecting all of the loose Khaenri'ahn souls now inside the Ley Lines. The god tears into Irminsul and absorbs the souls which effectively removes all the contaminants from the Ley Lines.

Everything seems to be going according to the order's plans but given the chaotic nature of the Abyss and the conflicting attributes of the curse of immortality on an already immortal being the order loses control of their mecha god whose partial Osial and Barbatos personalities are roused by the Abyssal Energy into a new being. During this time the sibling reunites with us and had been giving us the same "we'll be together again at the end of your journey" spiel but thanks to the out of control god, is forced to join forces with us. Our goal of course is to defend Sumeru. Our Sumeru friends all assist in either the fight or evacuating the city. At the same time Mavuika and Ifa had made their way to Sumeru as well when Ifa realized what had been affecting Antu in v5.5 and Citlali had informed Mavuika of the impending danger in neighboring Sumeru. They also help with the fight and evacuation respectively. Meanwhile the Abyss Order's goal is to recover the core which now not only powers but also contains the Loom of Fate. To that end they open a portal to a subspace in their network. (like the one Skirk uses) Once it's weakened the sibling immediately turns on us in order to get the core but thankfully while Nahida and the Sumeru crew remained behind to assess the damage, Mavuika was able to tear open the portal with her Archon powers and provide backup. She helps prevent the acquisition of the core so the sibling is forced to open the portal again now leading to Natlan. During this struggle the "god" recovers and now we have the real Weekly Boss fight which will become Natlan's second boss.

With the arrival of Natlan's forces, we destroy it while Citlali and the Masters of the Night-Wind contain the Abyss contaminated pieces of Osial and the Venti Statue and the remaining forces capture the Abyss Order including the sibling. With things settled down Mavuika moves to collect the core while we go help Citlali purify Osial and the statue. And it's then that Dainsleif attacks in order to reclaim the core since he believes that no Archon can be trusted with keeping it safe. He also has no love for Archons at all and even less respect for a human willing to pose as one so he has no problem antagonizing Mavuika. With the Abyssal Energy surging from the Archon pieces, we're stuck trying to purify them and in the scuffle the sibling manages to free at least some of her forces which lets her claim the core and disappear back into the network.

Finally having purified the pieces we go to calm things down between Dainsleif and Mavuika by pointing out that we have Abyssal forces to stop. Once they're taken care of Dainsleif is cornered by Natlan but Mavuika allows us as the hero Tumaini to question him first. We tell him about the situation to which Dainsleif explains that he noticed a massive surge in Abyssal Power in the order's network and came to investigate only to see the Loom of Fate Operation in full swing. In a panic (my story here will actually bring up how Dainsleif was tricked into losing the core back in Bedtime Story) he immediately went to retrieve the core in a futile attempt to stop the operation. Seeing the dormant god remains of Osial and Venti he realizes the operation had failed but now there was a bigger threat. The loom had all of the souls previously stored in Capitano. With some luck and enough time they may be able to bring back Khaenri'ah but the Khaenri'ah at the point in which it was destroyed. This means all aspects of the Cataclysm including why Khaenri'ah had to be destroyed to begin with will return too. With that said Dainsleif heads off to find them while promising that he'd contact us as soon as he had any information as he knew he'd need our help. This sets up the Khaenri'ah Chapter.

With the immediate danger taken care of we speak with Mavuika and Citlali to see if there is any lingering threat of Abyssal contamination. After that Mavuika takes us on her motorcycle back to Sumeru so that she can pick up Ifa while we speak with Nahida, Scara and Alhaitham about the damage to Sumeru. As it would turn out it was thanks to the Loom of Fate that all contaminants in the Ley Lines were removed and Irminsul is back in peak form. In fact even some of the Withering Zones had weakened and one day Sumeru may be free of them as well. (doesn't affect the overworld) However Nahida informs us that she'd done some analyzing of the mecha god of the order and the core is unstable as it is of hasty manufacture. (foreshadowing part of the future plot for the Khaenri'ah Chapter) Whatever the sibling is planning, it could have devastating consequences for Teyvat, greater even than the situation we'd already dealt with from the Khaenri'ahn souls. With both Mavuika and Nahida there they suggest gathering together the Seven in order to come up with a plan. It will be the first time in a long time that they'd gathered. (which can also be when some lore drops happen about the Tsaritsa since she's still running her own separate campaign and will likely not join)

Ok then, let's review:

• Either Chlothar or Dainsleif is wrong about what it means to be a pure blood Khaenri'ahn. There is no way around it. The new dev team has conflicting lore.

• The Atlas has Khaenri'ah's Ley Lines which isn't the physical Khaenri'ah so there is no spacetime to be had here. It's just memories overlayed onto a physical space. (For example if you played a home video that shows your family 10 years ago. That 10 year old version of your family has not time traveled to your present and you cannot interact with them.)

• The new dev team's major conflicting lore then becomes what do the Ley Lines actually do and there are 3 possible explanations because there are elements of each in the quest and they all conflict:

  • Istaroth Version: If Istaroth is responsible then she needs a physical person to displace in time. We don't have that because the Ley Lines store memories not physical objects and people. Therefore we'll need to meet a new Direidyth one day and do this whole thing over again. On top of that the real Direidyth that gets sent back to Cataclysm Khaenri'ah would need to turn into a hilichurl and wander from Khaenri'ah to the cave in Natlan and be living in that cave right at the time Aether and Paimon happen to help Iansan with patrols and find that cave.
  • Spacetime Version: If Istaroth is able to use Ley Lines Direidyth and of course this Direidyth was tangible then it necessarily means the Ley Lines store the physical existence of whatever memories they have. And there can't be two copies of the same physical memory. Therefore the Cataclysm was actually caused by the Loom of Fate aka the sibling and had nothing to do with Celestia. In that case you don't even need Istaroth. It was the real Direidyth from 500 years ago having her existence overlayed onto present day Natlan and she meets the Traveler and then takes the key back in time. Same issue with getting herself back to present day Natlan as a hilichurl though.
  • Irminsul Version: If the Khaenri'ah superimposition is really just memories then the sibling may have rewritten their own memories by conducting this test. That will lead to two distinct Khaenri'ahs, the memory Khaenri'ah from the Loom and the true Khaenri'ah from history. During the Khaenri'ah Chapter, this plot will come into play where memory scenarios will not tell the true story and we'll need to uncover the actual events from the past to resolve present day Khaenri'ahn conflicts. In this case Direidyth is just a memory and the hilichurl has nothing to do with her.

• One actual good point for this new dev team's story is a conclusive ending to the ongoing story arc started by Capitano. Yohualtecuhtin's reason for allowing the sibling to create their Atlas was to allow all of those Khaenri'ahn souls that were polluting the Ley Lines to be sent back to Khaenri'ah and take all their curses and Abyssal power with them.

• My Version: Bringing back all of the Dainsleif Quests, we have the creation of an artificial god so a being of that power should be able to house the Loom of Fate which can weave new Ley Lines. This is essentially a makeshift Celestia. The Abyss Order might want a god that they control rather than one that controls them, thus maintaining their pride as Khaenri'ahns. But humans controlling gods is probably never going to work so it fails and thus we get a new Weekly Boss, the Osial Venti Statue thing I had proposed making a Weekly Boss since v1.4 lol. Finally the "god" is defeated, the sibling makes off with the core, the situation is dire which sets up the plot for the Khaenri'ah Chapter and because it's so massive the Seven may even congregate again to deal with the issue thus potentially leading to a Cataclysm 2.0.

PS: I might also want to point out that based on both my versions of the Natlan Archon Quest and now this quest, we would have upheld the Poetry Theory as well. In my version of the Archon Quest we'd be facing the corrupted remnants of Xiuhcoatl and then purifying him of Gosoythoth. This mirrors the Abyss polluted Apep who we had to save in Sumeru. Now this artificial god would mirror Scara and further show that humanity isn't quite capable of creating a real god as yet. This shows both room for growth and also the misguided efforts of humanity to create some kind of god rather than elevate themselves which will again be part of gnosis. It is also the reverse of Fontaine where we reestablish rule under the dragon as we as a group of humans would be rescuing the Pyro Dragon.