Welcome back, one and all, to another Honkai: Star Rail video. It's been a while, but I am back. It's kinda hard to stay away when Penacony has been such a fun ride but, I gotta admit, the last three patches worth of quests were... a lot. It's about 20 hours of dialogue and cutscenes of dreams within dreams and schemes within schemes so I thought right now would be an excellent time to go over the entire story of Penacony thus far. We do have the epilogue still to play through next patch which should clear up a few loose ends, but that's ok. That just gives us a little bit more time to speculate. Now, there's a lot to cover, so, in the interest of time I'm gonna try and keep this recap focused only on the events within the quest itself, with some additional context taken from some side quests and collectibles. It's a shame I don't have time to go into each character's unique philosophies and backstories (because those are fascinating) but I will at least include some small theories and speculations at the end of the video so hopefully that makes up for it, a little bit. So, okay, expectations set. Let's not waste anymore time because time is very precious right about now. So, time stamps, spoiler warnings, related content and links for more information will be in the description box while post video notes and corrections can be found in a pinned comment. Now, let's take to the stage and revisit Penacony: The Planet of Festivities. So, after all of those shenanigans and escapades on the Luofu the Nameless receive an invitation to visit Penacony on behalf of The Family. For context, millennia ago, Penacony was an IPC prison colony located in the Asdana star system. Now, Asdana appears to have been something of a whole or a macro void that allowed memoria to leak out from the Memory Zone and into the universe in vast quantities. Overexposure to memoria can cause severe dizziness hallucinations, lucid dreaming, and warped memories, among other things. So, if this rift was allowed to grow and the memoria was allowed to spread then it would be a monumental catastrophe for the universe at large. So, this IPC penal colony, aka Penacony was therefore established to mend the rift to prevent it from spreading. And, of course, the leftover memoria was salvaged for the Garden of Recollection. But over time, the prisoners' prolonged exposure to memoria caused their consciousnesses to become one gigantic shared dream which eventually turned into an entire dream world. Around that time, a Stellaron appeared in Penacony and that marked the start of the war of independence where the prisoners would fight for their freedom alongside several factions, including the Nameless and The Family. Three of those Nameless: Tiernan, Legwork, and Razalina were never heard from again so Pom-Pom wants us to investigate and see if we can't figure out what happened to them. But immediately after making the warp jump into Asdana the Trailblazer is sucked into a dream. Well, kind of. This Dreamscape is actually the border between reality and the Memory Zone. And since we're definitely gonna come back here later I'm going to call this place the borderlands because I think it deserves a name. So, in these borderlands, we meet Acheron a self-proclaimed Galaxy Ranger who serves as our guide through the borderlands. Here, we find some shadows (or echoes) of people that we haven't met yet. So, you can kind of think of them as visions of the future but not actually. Maybe memories of the future would be a better way to put it. See, dreams are formed from memories and memories don't really have to be arranged in a linear fashion inside of a true Dreamscape because their true nature is quite chaotic and erratic. However, inside of Penacony's Sweet Dream, memoria is a lot more stable thanks to The Family's influence so this will happen less often once we're inside. Now, I could be a little bit wrong on how this works because the game isn't super clear about it but I think this is close enough for the purposes of a recap. Anyway, Acheron leaves us with Misha (who is deceptively important) but before she leaves, she asks us if we've met somewhere before. She also asks if we remember her which makes me think that she's already been through the entire story within the dream, but we haven't yet; hence the whole ''memories out of order'' thing. Acheron then tells us to return to the waking world which is not only the theme and ultimate goal of the entire quest but it's also a bit of a misdirection. See, as we exit this area and head into the Reverie Hotel we think we're going back to reality, but we're not. In fact, we've entered a dream version of Penacony. And we can confirm this is the case, because Misha is here. As we learn later on, Misha isn't a real person. He's actually a Memetic Entity that can only exist within the dream world. And since he appears inside this version of the hotel we must be in a dream (although we don't know it at this point in time). Anyway, check-in does not go smoothly but, fortunately, Aventurine shows up and introduces himself. Himeko bargains with him and between that and the arrival of Sunday we're finally allowed to check-in properly. Robin says that she will be performing at the Charmony Festival (which will be taking place in Penacony during our stay) and Sunday is the lead organizer for it. This festival is a really big deal which is why security at the hotel is so tight. Welt then points out that Robin's voice sounds a little bit off and wonders if she should be performing at all. This is our first clue that something is not quite right in Penacony. From here, Himeko reveals our true objective which was hidden in a secret message in our invitation encrypted using information only a Nameless would recognize. We need to witness the impossible in the realm of dreams and find the Legacy of the Watchmaker. This suggests that The Family did not invite us but, instead, a Nameless did, or at least an ally of the Nameless. Shortly afterwards, Aventurine meets us in our room and requests our assistance in the weirdest way possible. He gives us a poker chip-shaped transmitter to hold onto, until we decide whether or not we actually want to help him and then Acheron chases him out. We're not the only ones he's requested help from though. He's already contacted the Garden of Recollection the Annihilation Gang, the Masked Fools, and the Knights of Beauty. Black Swan has already responded from the Garden Sparkle is already here on behalf of the Fools and Argenti is from the Knights of Beauty. So, Sparkle makes contact with Aventurine and they seem to strike a deal with each other. The deal's details are never expanded upon but likely has something to do with the buttons that Sparkle hands out. However, if I may speculate for a second: much later in this quest, Aventurine mentions ''detonating a Stellaron'' as part of his plan, but also something that he cannot physically do. Now, Sparkle is handing out detonator buttons to lots and lots of people telling them to press the button at a certain time during her performance at the Grand Theater. Now, my hunch is that Sparkle is actually setting up a means to blow up the Grand Theater which is the Stellaron, and that this will take place during the epilogue. And that's what all these buttons are for. But I can't prove that. It's just speculation at this point. I just need some sort of resolution for all these buttons because they come up way too often for them to be completely meaningless. So, with that out of the way, now it is time to enter the Dreamscape for real or at least a Dreamscape within a Dreamscape, technically. We're just going to the Golden Hour, okay? There's lots of nested dreams within this quest. But we wake up in a kinda creepy hallway where Misha guides us to the Golden Hour. He says that the hotel is under renovation and this becomes a bit important later on. After a brief run in with Sunday and Robin who help us acclimate to the memoria we meet Firefly, a sweet girl accused of being a stowaway. Now, it kinda threw me off how instantly friendly she was during my first playthrough, but it actually makes sense in hindsight because Firefly is also Sam who is very likely the first Stellaron Hunter or at least the one who has been with Elio the longest. Chances are she knew the Trailblazer from their time before they joined the Astral Express and Kafka wiped their memories. This is also where we meet Gallagher for the first time but more on him later. For now, Firefly is gonna play tour guide with the, uh, help of Sparkle disguised as Sampo. This tour is interrupted by Clockie requesting help for Misha who seems to be in a bit of trouble. So, Clockie gives the Trailblazer the power of Clockwork which allows them to use the power of Harmony to tune people's emotions within the dream. This is kinda similar to what Robin and Sunday can do but they do it through slightly different means. Acheron is also here, by the way and although she can't see Misha or Clockie it does seem like she can sense them. She also mentions meeting Black Swan and say we've only met once before when we've actually met twice. Anyway, Firefly takes us to Dream's Edge and tells us that she is also looking for the Watchmaker's Legacy and she also shares a bit about herself. The touching moment is short-lived, though as Sparkle shows up once again, disguised as Sampo and knocks both of them out accidentally forcing us into the Primal Dreamscape which is, yes, another layer to the dream. This dream world has a lot of layers, okay? It's like an onion. Within this primal dream, we can hear Misha calling for someone named Mikhail. We follow his voice and eventually encounter a Memory Zone Meme. Also named Death. But before it can really do anything, Black Swan arrives and yeets us into another part of the dream. She then explains how these dream layers are structured. Think of a true dream as being chaotic and turbulent and as enigmatic as the depths of the ocean. In order to create some kind of order or stillness within such a space one would need to erect powerful walls to isolate a dream (or water, I guess) and free it from its natural chaotic state. And that is what the Sweet Dream of Penacony is. It's a bubble within the sea of the true dream. Now, as a sort of bubble dream Penacony should have been floating on top of this memoria ocean. But the stability of the dream of is failing and Penacony itself is literally sinking back into the true dream within the Memory Zone. This is why we had to pass through that corridor earlier with Misha. It's basically like a tunnel or an elevator that goes down through the true dream to get to the controlled dream. It was never necessary before when the bubble of Penacony was floating on top of the memoria and this whole ''renovations'' thing is just a lie used to cover up the fact the Penacony is sinking. So, this is obviously a huge problem so the Nameless agree to help Black Swan investigate the true dream and hopefully try to find a way to prevent Penacony from sinking. So, we go back into the true dream to find Acheron once again. But it turns out Firefly was also still there deep within the dream and in very deep trouble. Death comes for her, and she explodes into memoria. This eventually leads us to our first encounter with Sam who engages Acheron in combat. But before the Trailblazer can actually join in Black Swan yeets them back into another part of the dream to meet Aventurine, because, as you might recall from earlier the two had a little bit of an arrangement. So, Aventurine decides that this is a great time to tell us that not only is Acheron not the Galaxy Ranger she claimed to be but that she is also an Emanator of Nihility. And she also killed a prominent figure from the Annihilation Gang and she also stole his invitation to Penacony. So, you know, we should probably be pretty suspicious of her. After all, Aventurine should be trustworthy, I guess? And he doesn't trust Acheron at all. He then says that the only person capable of creating death in a dream is Acheron, because the walls of Penacony's dream bubble are made up of the linked minds of the family's dreamweavers who protect its safety and stability. The only thing that can circumvent that mind wall is the power of Nihility a statement that is also supported by Black Swan. He also reveals his ultimate goal of reclaiming Penacony for the IPC and asks the Trailblazer to talk it over with the other Nameless. Aventurine then meets up with Ratio and the two pay a visit to Sunday at his request. Once there, Sunday asks Aventurine several questions: did he hand over his Cornerstone to the family? Yes, he did. Did the Cornerstone belong to him? Yes, it did. And then he asked some questions about his lineage which aren't really gonna be relevant for the purposes of this recap but this is where we get our first taste of just how clever Aventurine really is. So, Sunday asks if Aventurine's stone is in this box and Aventurine says yes, it is. It's a lie and Sunday knows it, but the brilliant thing is that Aventurine's stone was never in the box by design. The Cornerstone in the box belonged to Topaz while a second hidden Cornerstone belonging to Jade was placed inside of a bag full of golden gems. Now, Aventurine knew Sunday would find out that his Cornerstone wasn't in the box through some means (in this case it was Ratio who spilled the beans) and Aventurine knew that Sunday would find the second stone in the money bag. But the aventurine and jade stones are similar in color and easily mistaken for each other so he was betting on Sunday not knowing the difference between the two stones. He played a double decoy. Aventurine actually shattered his own Cornerstone ahead of time and had hidden the pieces within that money bag. So, yeah, his stone was in the bag, just in little fragments that were completely unrecognizable to someone who didn't know what they were looking for. Now, I know I said I wasn't going to go into the different, uh, backstories and personality of each character but I think it's really important to point out here that Aventurine is not entirely reliant on luck. The thing about professional gamblers is that most of them don't rely on luck. There's so much math and strategy that goes into most games of chance especially if you're playing against another human being. And as we've seen, Aventurine is far more strategic than anything else. In fact, in his backstory, we can see that he originally referred to himself as smart and that it was his cleverness that let him get out of really tricky situations. But it was his family that made him believe it was all luck. Is there some luck involved in these schemes? Absolutely. But to say he relies entirely on chance is just false. But this mix of scheming and strategizing and calculating all your odds ahead of time is kind of what makes Ratio a really good working partner for Aventurine because Ratio is extremely clever and he had already pieced together Aventurine’s plans so he had pretended to betray him ahead of time by telling Sunday about the Cornerstones thus nudging things in Aventurine’s favor. In other words, he's, uh, you know, stacking the deck a bit. Also, I don't know if it's a glitch or intentional but when Aventurine calls Ratio a wretch, he smiles then frowns. You know he knew what was up. Okay, that side note aside Sunday then curses Aventurine to die in precisely 17 hours. He also gives Aventurine his cash bag back which has the shards of his Cornerstone inside. So, Aventurine won his gamble which means he can move on to the next phase of his plan which involves handing out coins and gems on the street to gather intel and to draw Sparkle's attention so that he can ask her a couple more questions. She gives him some cryptic answers and a self-destruct button which, again, probably won't get used until the epilogue. Meanwhile, Welt and Acheron have a little chat and form a tenuous alliance since they're both seeking the same thing. Acheron thinks that whatever is causing death in the dream and all of the chaos is coming from within the Family itself not an outside disturbance, and, you know, Welt agrees. She also says that the collapse of the dream or rather the sinking of the dream is caused by the people of Penacony themselves. When consequences and pain cease to exist and people lose themselves only to the pleasurable things in life they've kind of already entered a state of decay where death is the inevitable conclusion. Welt then tells Acheron a story of a man named Kevin from his own world. Now, Kevin is from Honkai Impact 3rd so this is kind of an easter egg but in order to save the world from the threat of the Honkai he created something called Adam Kadmon, or rather the spiritual Adam and he did this by fusing the minds of all the people of the world together in a sort of collective unconsciousness. He would remain alone in the real world disconnected from the collective. Now, I am paraphrasing a little bit, but I'm keeping things simple because this plan of Kevin's is actually very similar and structure to Sunday's plan but we'll get to that later. But speak of the devil, Welt and Acheron decide to pay Sunday a visit although he's not in the mansion, so they rummage through his things as ya do and learn that not only has Robin been conducting her own investigation into Death but that Death isn't even a new phenomenon in the dream just one that's been a bit dormant for a while. They also learned that the Dreammaster is not happy with Sunday's investigation, nor are the other Family heads. They're not nearly as concerned with Death as much as they are the success of the Charmony Festival. Sunday shows up and tells them that he shackled Aventurine and therefore doesn't expect that the IPC is responsible for the trouble within the dream. Although the IPC should be the prime suspect given how the IPC and the Family are kind of like archenemies at this point so Welt and Acheron find this a bit strange. Even so, he still warns them that Aventurine is headed to Clock Studios Theme Park alone and is also acting a little odd. Meanwhile, the rest of the Nameless reconvene and head to Dream's Edge, asking around for Gallagher who should have more information on what's going on but no one actually seems to know who he is. And of course, at that moment, he just kind of shows up and said “Yeah, I got info. Follow me” and then he takes them to a bar to tell them a little bit about the Watchmaker and his backstory and then to Clock Studios Theme Park where he continues his story on the Watchmaker and his friends. And I guess we'll just talk about them later because Gallagher's story gets cut short as a call comes in about an incident and so he's got to go. So, with Gallagher gone, Welt and Acheron meet up with the rest of them and Welt says that he thinks Aventurine knows way more than he's led on about the situation in Penacony and that everything he's done so far has just been part of his plan to reveal the truth. And of course, as soon as Welt says that Aventurine announces his presence at Clock Studios Theme Park over the loud speaker, so... I guess that's where we're going. Aventurine takes center stage and begins the final act of his grand plan which is plant the seeds of doubt in the hearts of the people of Penacony: was the Family's dream truly safe? Could you really die within the dream? Those were the things that he wanted them to question. So he goads the Nameless into combat by threatening the safety of the people in Penacony and the Nameless themselves, forcing Acheron into a corner. He'd spent all this time casting doubt on Acheron's trustworthiness and motivation so that he could be certain that they would be on opposite sides in this final stage. So, in order to prove her intentions are good she has to stop him, and that means drawing her blade an act that would surely result in his death within the dream. Of course, Aventurine was sure this wouldn't result in a real death. After all, he has the power of preservation protecting him but Acheron's blade managed to cut a rift into the dream walls of Penacony and that opened a path to the true dream which, of course, was his real target all along. See, Aventurine had a theory that he didn't need to find the Memory Zone Meme named Death. He just needed to find someone capable of doing the same thing as the Meme could, which was killing him. After all, he tried to do it many times himself but was unable to actually circumvent the protections of the Family. But as you might remember Nihility kinda nullifies the abilities of the other paths so odds were very good that Acheron, as the Emanator of Nihility would be capable of circumventing the Family's protections and could successfully kill him. So, when Aventurine finally wakes up he has a chat with Acheron about the truth of Penacony. Now, as I mentioned at the start of this video the Golden Dream of Penacony isn't a sea at all but an island, or a bubble with high walls built by the Family to create the illusion of safety, and the whole structure is sinking deeper and deeper into the sea of memoria within the Memory Zone. So, Aventurine wanted to go beyond those artificial walls and then return safely. He needed to see what was beyond the boundaries that the Family erected so he set off to do just that. But don't worry, he's fine. Remember how Aventurine mentioned requesting help from the Knights of Beauty earlier? Well, they responded with Argenti, and Argenti is gonna help Aventurine and return back to the Golden Dream later on. So for now, that's the end of his story. Oh and you remember how Gallagher kind of vanished? Yeah, well, he's a lying liar who lies. Turns out he didn't have some incident to investigate. He just decided to pay a visit to Sunday. Sunday then reveals that he's been watching everything going on in Penacony via his All-Seeing Eye Ravens. He was responsible for clearing the stage at the theme park so that Aventurine could cause a scene freely because he knew that that would draw Gallagher out and Gallagher is the one Sunday suspects of being the murderer since he doesn't actually answer to the Family. Not really, anyway. He answers to the Watchmaker and he's also an Emanator of the Enigmata an Aeon that strives to conceal the truth. At least we think so. We're not actually sure. I guess that's kind of thematically on point. Sunday also points out that Gallagher is actually just a Memetic body, non-corporeal kinda like Black Swan and also Misha, but we'll get to that. And this body was designed based on the traits of all 52 family members some kind of Frankenstein Patchwork. Kinda dealio. So, anyway, Sunday demands answers and Gallagher acquiesces by summoning Death to kill him and also just to take him to the true dream. Meanwhile, the force of Acheron drawing her blade sent the Nameless into another part of the dream altogether. The Trailblazer finds themselves face to face with Sam who reveals that they are really Firefly. She then explains that after Death stabbed her she didn't actually die (big surprise) but instead ended up waking up in a different layer of the Dreamscape; the original one made by the Watchmaker. She had returned to the dream as Sam intending to share this information but her confrontation with Acheron put a little bit of a damper on that. So, she tracked the Trailblazer and the rest of the Nameless down and called for Death to take them to the land of the exiles also known as Dreamflux Reef. It's here that we learn that Death isn't really Death. It's actually the guardian and kind of a ferryman of Dreamflux Reef. It abducts people from the Golden Dream and brings them back here. Now, sometimes it grabs the wrong guest by mistake and that kinda leads to this misunderstanding where the people in the Golden Dream think that there are murders going on, but there's not. They're just kidnappings. Oh, and, uh, Death's real name is Sleepie, apparently. So, after meeting back up with Welt the Trailblazer runs into Misha again who apparently lives in Dreamflux Reef and, uh, for some reason, Welt can see both Clockie and Misha. Well, not for some reason. The reason is because Welt follows the Path of the Trailblaze and those Pathstriders can see Clockie while people like Firefly who don't follow the Trailblaze can't. This is because Clockie was made by a former Nameless someone else who followed the Trailblaze. So, Robin is also here, as well as Gallagher who kidnapped Sunday for a little bit of a Q&A session. We meet up with Robin first, who tells us what she's discovered so far. She says that while she was away the boundaries of Penacony's 12 Dreamscapes kinda kept expanding outwards which made the dream unstable. She then found some letters from Aventurine that hinted at the existence of Dreamflux Reef (the original Dreamscape of Penacony) and that the Family was using the myth of Death to hide its existence. She also says that the loss of her voice was due to a disturbance in the Harmony's presence within the Sweet Dream and that Dreamflux Reef has much better resonance with the Harmony, so she's been able to recover. After that, we meet up with Gallagher and Sunday. Gallagher explains that the Nameless Pom-Pom asked us to look for Razalina, Tiernan, and the Watchmaker fought for the freedom of Penacony during its war of independence. Razalina died in the war, while Tiernan just went missing. Oh, also, Gallagher was the one who sent out all those music-box invitations that we got at the start of this whole thing. Basically, he's orchestrated this whole shebang. Now, earlier, when we found March she explained that Dreamflux Reef was the original Penacony and predated the arrival of the Family and that there are many such locations littered throughout the Memory Zone kind of like islands within the ocean. So, the sweet, controlled dream of Penacony is actually an anomaly and that's why the Harmony's resonance is stronger within the reefs or the islands. So, what makes Penacony the anomaly besides the presence of the Family? Well, technically, the entirety of the Sweet Dream of Penacony is a Stellaron disaster; like the whole thing. Remember the history lesson from the beginning of this video? How a Stellaron arrived in the Asdana star system during the Freedom War? Well, it arrived in Penacony. The Nameless warned against messing with it but with Razalina and Tiernan gone the Watchmaker had to deal with everything himself so a small group took advantage of this power gap and activated the Stellaron causing its power to seep into the primordial Dreamscape. Now, the Family knew of a way to seal the Stellaron and this knowledge allowed them to gain prestige which they leveraged to quell civil unrest which made them a valuable ally to the Watchmaker. Together they built the Sweat Dream of Penacony and began promoting it as the Planet of Festivities. But the Stellaron was never actually sealed. Instead, it was concealed taking on the form of the Grand Theater. Gallagher then says that there is a cost to maintain a dreamland that is as stable as Penacony's and in this case, the cost is the lives of the people within the dream. Remember when Acheron talked about people falling into perpetual decay once pain and consequences were removed and all that was left was pleasure? That's the cost to maintain the dream: perpetual decay. So, in this way, the Family effectively created a new type of prison, just like Robin suspected. They created a prison of the mind. The promise of a perpetual sweet dream with no worries, no pain, and no suffering. Who in their right mind would ever want to leave such a place? Gallagher also explains that he created the memetic creature known as "Death" based on a bit of a loophole. See, Death is actually Dormancy or rather, the concept of sleep. The idea was that people can't actually fall asleep again once they're inside the Sweet Dream 'cause they're technically already asleep hence the name "Dormancy." This is the, quote unquote, "impossibility" that the invitation spoke of: sleeping within a dream. So, the logic to Sleepie's murder victims (which previously seemed to have nothing in common) is that all of them probably tried to fall asleep within the dream. So, Sleepie was probably like, "Oops! I gotta get them to the Reef," and then yoinked them out of the Sweet Dream and brought 'em all the way back to Dreamflux Reef. At least, that's the explanation that makes sense to me. So, with all this new information in hand the group has a brand-new goal: find the Stellaron. And I say that like it's not the goal of every expedition, but whatever. Now, this Stellaron should, in theory be controlled by or at least used by Gopher Wood who is the current Dreammaster which kinda makes him a bit like Cocolia. And if you remember what was going on with Cocolia there was kind of this weird, mutualistic arrangement between the Stellaron and her. It was kind of controlling her but it was also granting her wishes. The same sort of thing is going on with Gopher Wood. Now, there's just one thing we gotta do before we go find that Stellaron and that is to obtain the Watchmaker's Legacy which is actually a Dream Bubble. Well, an empty Dream Bubble. But there has to be some sort of reason why this Dream Bubble is empty so Himeko seeks help from Misha. Her logic is that dreams are formed from memories and since this bubble was formed around the memories of Penacony Misha might be able to help unravel the mystery of why it's empty since he would know Penacony best since he's the hotel bellboy. I think she's kind of fibbing when she says that because I have a sneaking suspicion that Himeko knew that Misha was actually Mikhail and Mikhail is the Watchmaker. See, Mikhail created this Dream Bubble and then filled it with his own childhood memories and those memories eventually took the shape of the memetic Misha. Misha is both the Watchmaker and the Watchmaker's Legacy. He was supposed to wait for the Nameless of the future inside of the Dream Bubble but when Penacony grew unstable he left the bubble with Clockie. Being apart from his Dream Bubble caused his memories to fade until he completely forgot who he really was. But having recovered all his memories Misha returns to Dreamflux Reef says his good-bye to Clockie, and sits down in his chair for a final rest. And with one more mystery solved and the Watchmaker's Legacy in hand it is finally time for action! And that means... strategizing. Welt borrows the poker-chip transmitter that Aventurine gave the Trailblazer earlier in the quest, and says that it can be used as a communication device. Now, previously he had proposed working with Aventurine and the IPC in general as a means to keep the Family in check. 'Cause, you know, we were kinda suspicious of the Family. And since we're about to go face the Family having the means to contact the IPC for backup is a good thing to have. And that was probably something Aventurine was planning on. For now, though, we need to infiltrate the Grand Theater, and March wants us to do this by... entering a Charmony Festival competition. I'll be real with you guys, though. Most of this competition isn't really worth mentioning at all as it's just a means to access the theater. But this is where we get to meet Argenti so after you either talk him down or beat him in a fight he'll run along and eventually go find Aventurine and help him return from the true dream that Acheron threw him in. Unfortunate that this happens off-screen, but it is what it is. Meanwhile, Sparkle, masquerading as Robin continues to hand out her special buttons. And, judging by the rumors swirling around Aventurine's attempt to shake people's faith in the Family has been pretty effective. Welt doesn't participate in the competition and instead follows Sunday and Robin so they can meet with the Dreammaster, Gopher Wood to see if the Family can't be convinced to do something about the Stellaron. Can I just say before we continue I had a hard time taking Gopher Wood's name seriously because... there's a gopher in it. So, I did a little digging to figure out why they picked that name, and it turns out the term "gopher wood" is used in place of an untranslatable Hebrew word in the Bible that most English translations use "cypress" for. Both cypress trees and gophers are considered symbols of death so I guess it works out? But in my head, all I see is a silly little guy. Sorry. We're moving on. Robin expresses her concern that going through with the Charmony Festival will activate the Stellaron and spread its power over the entire planet locking everyone within the Sweet Dream and preventing them from accessing the real world ever again. Therefore, the Stellaron must be sealed properly. But the Dreammaster assures that this isn't the case, and as a show of good faith he asks Sunday to use the power of the Harmony as a lie-detector test to prove to Welt and Robin that he has no ill intent. But he's a slippery one! Sunday, who is also in cahoots with Gopher Wood asks questions like, "Have you ever betrayed your god?" and the Dreammaster answers truthfully. But these answers are kinda meaningless because the Dreammaster's god is never defined beforehand. It's assumed to be Xipe, the Harmony but in truth it's Ena, the Order. Clever bloke that he is, Welt picks up on this pointing out that divine laws have never been a part of the Family's Harmony. The Dreammaster gives kind of a non-answer to this but Welt is having none of it. Robin realizes in this moment that the reason why she had been losing her voice within the Sweet Dream was because the Order had created dissonance within the Harmony, hindering her ability to sing. So, after this frustrating conversation Sunday meets with the Nameless and tells them that he cannot agree to the Nameless's request of sealing the Stellaron, as per his conversation with the Dreammaster. He also says that while Penacony does require change sealing the Stellaron would warp the dream into a place that was chaotic and disordered just like Dreamflux Reef. This is where we get some proper insight into Sunday's philosophy and his plan. I know I said I wasn't really gonna go into character philosophies but this one is kind of important for the plot. Sunday and Robin both believe in a future where people can be happy. But the two differ in how this happiness should actually be achieved. And these two different perspectives are a direct result of their life experiences. Robin traveled throughout the universe which allowed her to broaden her perspectives. She came to understand that the road towards happiness can be full of challenges and it's only by facing these challenges head-on that people can reach their final destination. And, sometimes, people will need a bit of help to get there. So, we have a sort of social obligation to support and help people who are struggling even if it's just moral support. Metaphorically, Robin believes that if you find a little bird that can't fly yet, you should shelter it until it's strong enough to learn and then you need to give it an opportunity to try flying for itself. We can see this illustrated between her two splash art depictions wherein one Robin is sheltered within a cage while the other is flying free of a broken cage. In contrast, Sunday was mostly stuck on Penacony listening to the poisoned whispers of Gopher Wood and watching countless people choose to indulge in Penacony's sweet, blissful dream as a means to escape from their problems rather than face them head-on. He began to believe that this escapism was a valid way to achieve happiness because to him, happiness was merely the absence of suffering. And that's why he decided to martyr himself and provide a means of escape from suffering for all the other people within Penacony. He falsely believed it would make everyone truly happy. And, in a way, this was also a means for him to escape from his own problems. And if you look at the raven that's meant to depict Sunday you'll notice that he's not caged like Robin is meaning no support was provided to him during the time before he knew how to fly. In fact, he was purposefully harmed instead. If you look closely, you'll notice that one of his wings is clipped so even if he wanted to fly, he couldn't. Someone deliberately hurt him in a way that would make it very difficult for him to fly on his own. So, if you were a bird that was meant to fly but couldn't what would you do? Well, you'd run, and that's exactly what he did. Ultimately, these philosophies boil down to a question of free will wherein Sunday wishes to remove people's freedom to choose their own fate while Robin believes that people have the right to choose their own fate even if that fate is tragic. And honestly, there's so much to say about each character's philosophy here because each point of view is very, very interesting and worth talking about. But in the interest of time I think I'm just gonna leave things there. So, finally, Sunday reveals his plan. He will become a martyr, the one person who is awake so that everyone else can remain safely within the Sweet Dream. Basically, everyone would be inside of his, or rather, Ena's dream no longer existing within reality itself. So, you remember that story that Welt told about Kevin creating a collective unconscious? It's more or less the same plan. Slightly different execution, but it's close enough. Hooray for foreshadowing! Sunday then asks the Nameless to make a choice: will they support his plan for Penacony, or will they reject it? They reject it, obviously. And doing so causes the Trailblazer to catch the gaze of Xipe. But Sunday is nothing if not fair so he proposes a contest a battle of wills for the future of Penacony and he says he'll meet them at the Grand Theater. Firefly bows out here, since she has another mission to take care of courtesy of the script Elio gave her. So, the Nameless head to the Grand Theater without her. Now, while all this heavy stuff was going on Boothill broke into the Astral Express to request help from the Nameless. Well, I guess it's just Dan Heng, really. He's the only one left on the train besides Pom-Pom. But anyway, Boothill needs his help because he needs to hunt down Acheron on account of her pretending to be a Galaxy Ranger. The problem is he doesn't have an invitation. Dan Heng eventually agrees but is unable to help as neither can actually check into the hotel without confirming their identities with the other Nameless and at this point, those guys are stuck in Dreamflux Reef so no one can really get in touch with them. So, they wait for Black Swan instead and she eventually shows up with Acheron in tow. Acheron had been forced out of the dream by the Dreammaster, Gopher Wood and she's very concerned about his reasons for doing so. She believes that the followers of a dead Aeon, Ena the Order have infiltrated the Family and are attempting to resurrect their Aeon. Back at the Grand Theater Sunday meets with the Dreammaster one last time to discuss their plans which are basically trap a planet's worth of people within the dream of one person who will always remain awake. And apparently, that awake person is the one who would sing at the festival meaning it was supposed to be Robin. She would have become the dreamer without anyone actually telling her about it which is pretty messed up. But Sunday always intended to take her place, so I guess it's fine. And Gopher Wood isn't even put off by this change of plans because apparently, either sibling will do so, he uh... just kinda offs himself, I guess while Sunday prepares for his performance. Sunday then guides the Nameless through a simple three-act play about the history of Ena the Order and Penacony. Then he reveals that he never intended to resurrect an Aeon at all or ascend to Aeonhood himself. He actually wants to create a world without Paths or Aeons and I don't think that was something that the Dreammaster knew about. So, he takes the form of Dominicus and begins the tuning process. The Nameless fight back, but the tides don't really turn until Dan Heng shows up with Jing Yuan in tow and they smite Robo-Sunday. The force of this attack knocks out everybody and they all wake up back at the hotel apparently victorious. But something's not quite right. Everything's a bit too perfect, and also... unrealistic? I mean, the IPC offering their full support to the Family? Screwllum canceling the Simulated Universe project? There's no freaking way. I don't care if the credits are rolling; that is not the end. Black Swan helps us realize at this point that we are actually still trapped inside the dream specifically Ena's dream. And you remember that whole thing at the very beginning where I told you about how Misha was a memetic dream entity and couldn't actually exist outside the dream and therefore we were at the dream from the very beginning? Well, this is where we actually learn that we've been in a dream the whole time. There are dreams within dreams and schemes within schemes, like I said. So, just to be clear one more time the goal of the followers of Order was to leverage the power of the Stellaron at the Grand Theater to merge the memoria into the material world within the area around Penacony. That means that this dream world that engulfed the entire Asdana star system was now part of the real world which is weird and trippy, and I'm still not sure how that works but apparently, as soon as you realize that you're within a dream you can break free from the dream and enter the Borderlands a rift between Ena's dream and the rest of the universe. And yes, this is the same place that we met Acheron at the very, very, very beginning of this quest. Misha was the flaw in the dream that helped us realize that we'd been dreaming all along so we were finally able to break free. Robin also managed to wake up because one of her formative memories with her brother had been changed. The Sunday in her mind had lost his pessimistic nature and that's how she knew something was wrong. Firefly also had her part to play here, although it was off-screen. She woke up from Ena's dream first and brought everyone together at the cost of her second death. And since she didn't enter the dream through normal means she can only exit the dream via a true death which probably won't happen until the epilogue. Now, the only way to fix the situation is to break Ena's dream completely and free everyone in Penacony. And to do that, we're gonna need a lot of people with strong wills to wake up first. These powerful free wills are the discord that can shake the foundations of the dream. But like I said, we're gonna need a lot of powerful wills but lucky for us, Boothill has a solution. We're gonna summon the Galaxy Rangers and the only reason Boothill can do that is because of Acheron. So, prior to her arrival in Penacony Acheron had met the ghost of one of the Nameless that we were looking for, Tiernan. During the war, he had had a run-in with the Swarm remnants but he was saved by the Galaxy Rangers and then he joined up with them. And later, he died. His ghost entrusted Acheron with a very special bullet a symbol of his admission into the Galaxy Rangers and he asked her to pass it on to the Galaxy Rangers. The thing is, Galaxy Rangers are incredibly difficult to contact so she decided not to contact them at all and just lure one out instead by posing as one in Penacony. And it worked. Boothill's here. So, this bullet that Tiernan gave her is what summons the Galaxy Rangers, whose strong wills shake Ena's dream. And instantly, we're back to fighting Sunday who tries to force us back into the dream. But Robin leverages the power of the Harmony to stop him and then both fall to the ground like the Charmony Dove from their childhood. Robin wakes up surrounded by nurses but Sunday is nowhere to be found and no one will tell her anything. So, if you fight his boss once after the quest you can also find this journal of his, covered in blood and you can give it back to Robin. Although this evidence suggests that Sunday is dead Robin insists that he's still alive. And if you talk to this one Bloodhound NPC in the Grand Theater you'll learn that he's been apprehended by the Family so he did indeed survive the fall. As for Aventurine well, his little foray into the true dream was successful. And do you remember how Welt wanted to use that transmitter chip to keep in touch with him? Now this recording is one of Aventurine's greatest assets in whatever it is that he and the IPC are planning to do. I'm not even gonna try to speculate on this because your guess is as good as mine. Oh, and I guess one more loose end is that Boothill is also chasing another bounty. The guy's name is Oswaldo Schneider head of the Marketing Development Department of the IPC. So, that'll be a fun little plotline to deal with in the future. And that, my friends, was the story of Penacony thus far. Now, as much as I'd love to stuff this video with lots of speculations of my own at the very end like I tend to do in all my other recap videos this video is already quite long and dense. So, while all my amazingly patient channel members scroll on by I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity to try something a little bit new and showcase some of my favorite theories and observations from other players and creators in the hopes that these little teasers might entice you to check 'em out. First up is my absolute favorite theory: Sunday is going to become a Stellaron Hunter. Now, several people have pitched this idea so I'm just gonna put the ones that I've seen so far on screen for now and obviously, links in the description. I think the most compelling piece of evidence presented from these though is this collectible that you can find in Dreamflux Reef. It's a remix of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" but it matches Sunday's story perfectly, including his ending. And the best part is that the author of the poem is Cecil Simmes which is a reference to a character from "Ghost Trick" who has two forms: a human and a black cat. And most seem to agree that in Star Rail, the black cat is a symbol of Elio as it shows up in many of the Stellaron Hunter artwork and videos as well as on the typewriter used whenever we switch points of view in the game. That last observation was by Valenminne which I'm probably not saying right. I'm sorry. Anyway, I really like this idea, and not just because I like Sunday. But along those same lines there's also speculation of Firefly joining the Nameless. The idea is that her third death is actually that of Sam allowing her to live on as just Firefly. I found a couple of cool ideas about this by DreamyAkemi and I don't know how to pronounce this name here but them as well. And I do think that the idea is compelling especially if Sunday serves as a replacement for Firefly within the Hunters. Elio seems to promise each Hunter the fulfillment of their wish kind of like how Blade wants to die and Kafka wants to feel fear. So, if Sam dies and Firefly gets a chance to live as just herself then that might be a way to show or prove, rather, that Elio can grant those wishes. My lore buddy Sabre also did a deep dive into Sunday's connection with Faust which is really fascinating and I don't think I can do it any kind of justice with a summary. I also found this great mini-analysis by Zep into Robin and how she was inspired by works of Emily Dickinson. I felt kinda dumb reading this because I don't know how I missed the "hope is a thing with feathers" reference. It's kind of hard to get more explicit than that and it just went right over my head. I'm so embarrassed. And obviously, guys, there is a ton more great analysis work and speculations, and theorizing being done out there by all sorts of members of the lore community and these are just some of my favorites. Now I, for one, plan on making more Star Rail content going forward maybe even in the very near future because I have a whole document of stuff that I couldn't really fit in here. But yeah, Penacony has been excellent so far, and I am pumped for the future. So, thank you guys so much for watching. I hope to see you all in the next video so, you know, take care of yourselves till then.