okay if you've clicked this video you're probably thinking about playing honkai Star Rail and if you've seen any of the promotional material you probably realize that it's a pretty story heavy game and story heavy games tend to have a lot of new stuff to remember especially Sci-Fi games like this one and that steep learning curve often makes for a confusing first few hours while you wrap your head around what's going on and what it all means but not this time this time dear viewer you have me ashikai Lauren Theory Enthusiast to assist you in understanding this brand new world of honkai star rail so this video is a gentle mostly spoiler-free introduction to the world and lore of honkai star rail the general idea here is to help ease you into some new terminology and give some more context for how the world within the game works so you're not totally blindsided and Confused or overwhelmed when you pick up the game for the first time now I did say mostly spoiler free because there will be some minor spoilers for the first hour-ish of the game just because the context is needed but before we begin I know a good chunk of you are probably wondering do I need to play honkai impact third to understand the story of honkai star rail because you know they both have honkai in the title and the truth is no no you don't while playing honkai impact may increase your enjoyment of honkai star rail the two games take place in entirely different universes so even if characters in Star will share looks and names with characters from honkai Impact they're not the same people so you don't need to worry about not knowing their backstories or anything there is one exception to this rule though but we'll talk about him later but if you are still worried that you might be missing out on some important lore or World building by not playing honkai impact I will start this video by explaining the most relevant part of hoyo's Multiverse setup that carries over from the World building of honkai impact it's short simple and it'll probably get explained independently in Star Wars at some point anyway but here you go now within hoyo's Multiverse setup which I will now just call the hoyovers there are two Primal forces the imaginary tree and the Sea of quanta so it might be easier to think of them as the tree of order and the Sea of chaos it's a gross oversimplification but I think it's easier for the unfamiliar people to conceptualize it this way since the forces of Order and Chaos are generally at odds with each other and the imaginary tree in the sea of quanta are trying to devour each other so same kind of concept now metaphorically speaking the Sea of quanta is basically this pool of infinite possibilities from which grows this imaginary tree which takes those possibilities and orders them branching out into countless directions the leaves that Sprout at the end of these branches each contain an entire universe in and of themselves and because these universes are part of this imaginary tree they all operate based on the laws of the quote imaginary so this imaginary energy from the imaginary tree makes up the basis that is called honkai in honkai Impact but star rail just calls it imaginary energy imaginary energy is pretty important in Star rail as eons and paths which we will go over in a bit are very powerful entities made up of imaginary energy it basically makes the world go round regardless of how it manifests though imaginary energy is likely the reason why honkai impact and honkai star rail share the honkai in their names but that's really it that's where the connections between the game's end and where our introduction to the unique world of star rail begins but if you're still worried you're missing out on something I will leave a link to Island xd's guide to honkai impact for Star rail players now let's set all that impact talk aside and get familiar with the world of star rail let's start by talking about paths star rails universe is focused on this concept of paths and those who walk by path are known as path Striders paths are basically philosophical ideas given some kind of metaphysical form through the accumulation of imaginary energy which makes them incredibly powerful forces by believing in and practicing the concepts of a chosen path a person can draw on the powers of that path and become a path Strider now like I said a path is a philosophical idea or a concept those who follow a path believe in its Philosophy for example path Striders of the path destruction May believe that the universe is a mistake and therefore must be destroyed however Mortals are not bound to any One Singular path any more than they are bound to any one way of thinking if their philosophy changes their path can change as well for gameplay purposes paths manifest as a type of class if you will those who follow the path of abundance for example might be considered to have the class of a Healer or a cleric while someone following the path of Destruction has abilities more like a fighter or obserker now if one finds themselves completely committed to a path and manages to explore the deepest parts of it to truly comprehend it in its entirety they may transcend their mortal form and become something known as an eon now you'll notice I did not specify that the one ascending had to be human and that's because they don't any sentient life-form whether organic or inorganic has the capability of becoming an eon so that includes things like artificial intelligence as for what an eon actually is they are something like the embodiment or master of a path while they're not traditional gods they are beings of god-like proportions to put it into context they're kind of like an ocean while a paths Rider is a mere droplet of water and while they are ageless they are not actually Immortal as they can be killed by either another Eon or by ceasing to walk their path because remember they're the embodiment of their path so without their path they're basically nothing this means that an eon is forever bound to their path and they cannot stray from it the Eon of Destruction can't just wake up one day and decide to walk the path of Harmony for example to become an eon you trade your ability to change for incredible power derived from One Singular path now as god-like entities of cosmic proportions and eon's interest in Mortals may vary with some eons choosing to meddle more than others but ultimately the lives of Mortals are small and inconsequential to them sometimes though a person with a powerful Affinity or Talent within a given path will pique the interest of an eon this is known as drawing the Gaze of an eon and those who have been gazed upon by an eon become something called an emanator which is kind of like the eons will-given mortal form emanators are extremely powerful and often attract other followers of the same paths in doing so they form something called a faction which is really just a fancy way to group followers of an eon together under one at a cohesive label now though factions tend to follow the will of an eon forming a faction doesn't necessarily guarantee any sort of special blessing or assistance from the Eon regardless of whether or not a faction contains an emanator in the end factions are just people Bound by a common way of thinking so it's handy to know the philosophy of each Eon and their path in order to understand the goals of their Associated factions although since factions are mortal Creations their understanding of their path can often be twisted or far removed from its original intended meaning the meaning of things is pretty subjective after all currently there are 18 known eons but only seven of these eons paths are available to playable characters every Eon will play a role in the story at some point and I will probably make a video going over all 18 at some point but there are only two that we're going to familiarize ourselves with today those are acaville the trailblaze and Nanook the destruction akaveli was one of those rare eons that enjoyed mingling with Mortals in fact they're considered to be the Eon that was closest to Mortals they were also responsible for laying down the rails for the astral Express train system throughout the Universe and they invited Mortals to board these trains those who did so joined the trailblaze path and formed the faction known as the nameless Machiavelli would often Adventure alongside their path Striders making them very unique among the eons but I'm using past tense here because acaville died in a mysterious accident that derailed the astral Express and wrecked many of its train cars without the astral Express the nameless also vanished but his luck would have it one of those broken trains landed on the planet himiko was from she managed to repair it reforming the nameless faction and making the trailblaze path accessible once again this is the astral Express train car that we board as a player now rumor has it that accaville's heart is in the core that powers the astral Express and that's what allows the train to travel across the Galaxy but there's no evidence to support that claim but there must be some level of Truth to the nature of the core of the train if only because without the power of an eon travel via the express would be difficult for just a normal path Strider unlike the free-spirited and benevolent acaville the Eon of Destruction known by the name Nanook believes that the birth of the universe was a mistake and desires the destruction of all civilizations their followers are known as the antimatter Legion or just the legion and actively attack civilizations with the goal of total Annihilation Nanook is the one responsible for the distribution of stellaron throughout the the universe and stellarons play a huge motivating role in Star rail story so while we don't really understand nanook's motivations Beyond destroy everything he is a key Eon to pay attention to because of his connection to the stellarons so what is a stellaron well a stellaron is widely believed to be a seed of Destruction created and distributed by Nanook the destruction they're also called the cancer of all worlds these seeds fracture reality and spawn Rifts that lead to interdimensional spaces called fragmentums and those attract monsters so you can see why that would be problematic the genius Herta claims that stellarons are actually a type of life form since they do appear to have some sentience and have been known to communicate with those of a certain aptitude she also claims that celerons can tether themselves to an eons path and that they are capable of responding to the cumulative desires of a world or planet that it happens to find itself on in certain circumstances it can even fulfill those desires but that comes at a cost stellarons are the seeds of Nanook after all and even if they can perform Miracles they ultimately bring disasters now within the first hour or so of the game we the player and the crew of the astral Express will learn that the Trailblazer has a stellaron inside of their body of all places This is highly unusual and while it seems to be pretty stable in there it's too risky for the Trailblazer to stay in any one place for too long if the Celeron becomes unstable for any reason they could bring destruction to any shipped space station or planet that they happen to be on luckily the nameless aboard the astral Express are quite experienced in dealing with the Celeron since simply having an unstable Celeron within range of the train tracks can cause the train to come to a complete stop and it won't move again until the offending stelaron has been neutralized but as long as the Celeron inside the Trailblazer's body is stable the astral Express can move unimpeded if it becomes unstable though well there are at least people around who can deal with it right away all in all the astral Express is the safest place for the Trailblazer to be I've mentioned the nameless faction quite a bit but I haven't really talked about them individually so let me Rectify this now because as members of this faction ourselves will be spending a lot of time with them to start we have the elegant scientist himacho also known as the one who found and repaired the astral Express and that kinda makes her the boss she might also look pretty laid back but welt says she's extremely driven and may be chasing a very big but unknown dream now she does share looks and name with a popular character from honkite Impact but it's very important to note that they are not the same person next we have Don hung who's level-headed and clever he boarded the train to escape a pass that he doesn't like to talk about and he kind of functions as the Train's Guardian he says he's running from something or someone but he can't quite seem to remember what or who it was so he's never stayed in one place for too long until he came aboard the astral Express like done hung March 7th has a bit of a foggy past she was found by the nameless floating through space inside of a big chunk of weird Magic Ice she doesn't remember anything about her past so they just named her after the day that they found her which was March 7th she's excitable carefree and at times a little bit careless but you can always count on her for optimism and her trusty camera welt is among the oldest members of the astral Express and is from the planet Earth a planet that no one else seems to have heard of before long after the honkai threat on Earth had been dealt with welt found himself forced to travel into space with a friend to deal with another threat unfortunately his ship passed through a portal and broke down stranding him until he got picked up by the astral Express he's searching for a way back home though but until then he's just kind of chilling now welt is the only character who's actually from the world set in Hong Kai impact and so far all references to that game are only relevant to his personal backstory I think it's possible that through weld we might learn more about the true nature of the events that occur in Hong Kai impact but I'm not convinced that any of those Revelations will be impactful to the story of star rail that said if you want to learn more about him most of his really interesting story beats and accomplishments are actually found in comic form so I'll leave some links to those in the description box if you're interested and that leaves us with the player character the Trailblazer the Trailblazer has a pretty well defined and Sassy personality and does have voiced lines throughout the game unlike some of hoyo vs previous player characters the Trailblazer is a character with no known past or family and in fact they appear to be completely synthetic created by a mysterious faction known as The stellaron Hunters during the first hour of the game two Celeron Hunters Kafka and silver wolf infiltrate her to space station and create the Trailblazer as a vessel to house a stellaron that was being kept by Herda while their exact motives are unclear the stellaron hunter seem to want the Trailblazer to board the astral Express in order to reach the end of their story whatever that means so with no past no ties to any planet in particular and a ticking Eon bomb of unknown purpose in their body the Trailblazer doesn't really have anything except that singular goal of reaching the end of their story to guide them now this is just speculation on my part but the astral Express was created by the Eon acavillian Achilles origin planet is known as pagana pagana is a location where the Silver Rails of the astral Express begin and end so if the Celeron Hunters want the Trailblazer to follow the path of the trailblaze and reach the end of their story via the astral Express perhaps the Trailblazer's Destiny lies in the final destination of pagana as for the reasons behind the journey and what they might find when they arrive at the final stop of the astral Express you'll just have to play the game and find out for yourself I however will be covering the lore of this game including story recap summaries of in-game materials character profiles and so much more so drop by whenever you need a break from combat honkai star rail has a ton of compelling characters to meet stunning locations to explore Across the Universe and plenty of mysteries to uncover and this is just the beginning so again my name is ashikai and allow me to formally welcome you aboard the astral Express with non-stop service to well anywhere you want to go so good luck have fun and I'll see you next time