The Threat of War
Published on HivePostify by @inotia-king · Sun Aug 09 2026
Hi guys I am Inotia King a [youtuber](https://t.ly/we8Tl "This link will take you away from hive.blog"), [redditor](https://t.ly/pVfdM "This link will take you away from hive.blog") 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](https://t.ly/oe-Fc "This link will take you away from hive.blog") and [Star Rail](https://t.ly/s6pb "This link will take you away from hive.blog") 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.](https://t.ly/hQVT "This link will take you away from hive.blog") I hope some of you guys are game theorists too. Let's try to figure out these great games together!
Question: What was up with the Fatui back in Luna I? Weren't they there on assignment to reassert Snezhnayan rule over Nod-Krai? We got a little sidetracked from that and never got back to it, what with Arlecchino saying their operations are nearly finished and then it was with zero fanfare. Sandrone even made up with Lauma. So what about that?
Second Question: Why did Peruere have to bring up the Tsaritsa's inaction? And while we're at it, she suggested the inaction would be a result of her directive that no Harbinger can harm another. Um-
I think that qualifies too, wouldn't you?
So let's look at it a different way. In my older topic, I proposed that if Arlecchino needed to defy the Tsaritsa's order, Snezhnaya may just declare war against Nod-Krai once Columbina is established as their new Moon Goddess and technically a member of the.... Eight. What if that had been the plan all along? We heard in Act VI that Columbina had absolutely zero role in the Fatui. She became a Harbinger just because the Tsaritsa had some kind of use for her but never mentioned it at all. And now while Dottore was called back to Snezhnaya and didn't actually follow those orders, Arlecchino's suddenly bringing up the possibility of the Tsaritsa's inaction despite Dottore's experiment potentially making him more powerful than any Archon. Why wouldn't she declare him in violation of all of the directives? Unless of course he had still been acting under her orders.
Until new dev lore suggested that the Gnoses were constructed out of the body of the Third Descender, I proposed that the Tsaritsa was collecting them in order to unite the authorities into the ultimate element, an element she likely believed could make her stronger then Phanes. This would have allowed her to achieve the vengeance she desired against it since the Cataclysm. Well right now, kuuvahki and the Moon Goddess power is also this exact thing, full authority over Teyvat itself and true authority compared to the Heavenly Principles at that. Therefore, what Dottore could have been doing was field testing this idea. He was utilizing the united power that was previously kept separate in three beings for safety and that power was enough to stop time on Teyvat with just a snap of his fingers. I don't think there's any reason not to believe that this power is the same level of power that the Gnoses would have gotten her and right now it's the best bet she has to achieve this power since she's still missing the Pyro Gnosis from her Plan A.
Now of course, [she's still totally dead](https://hive.blog/hive-157640/@inotia-king/could-this-be-how-the-tsaritsa-falls). I theorized a long time ago that she would be wrong. So very wrong. And if this Moon Goddess power is her Plan B, we can very easily see that she's wrong. When Dottore stopped time, what didn't he stop? The Traveler. What is the Traveler? A Descender. Phanes too is a Descender. Columbina herself also wasn't stopped meaning it can't even affect a Moon Goddess. What this means is that even the divine authority of Teyvat bestowed upon the sovereigns, the moon sisters that presided over them and likely provided by the king who made them, only affects Teyvat. Descenders like Phanes and the Four Shining Shades are not from Teyvat so not a single one of them would actually be impacted by either the authority of the Moon Goddess or the combined authority of the Gnoses. If the Tsaritsa tries to take her revenge by using this power, she will be defeated.
The Nod-Krai Fatui operation could have been a smokescreen for Dottore to acquire the power of the Moon Goddesses. He was either setting Rerir up but in the end the point is that this was still the Tsaritsa's plan, a back-up since she still hasn't been able to acquire the Pyro Gnosis. Both the Moon Goddess Tri-Lune Authority and the authority of all Seven Gnoses do the same thing, bestow upon the bearer the true authority of Teyvat. This is a power she and Dottore believe to be above the Heavenly Principles but as it could not even affect the Traveler, it's clear this is an error in logic. As a result and in order to reclaim this power after Dottore was defeated, the Tsaritsa could have used Columbina's accession to Nod-Krai's goddess as an excuse for war where her goal will be to attain the power herself in order to confront the principles on equal ground.
There's actually another side to this. This topic was about how Nod-Krai was meant to delay the Snezhnaya Archon Quest. To cover for the time in between, we received the Song of the Welkin Moon filler arc. What if there's another reason for the filler arc though? If Genshin Russia had declared war.... there's a little too much current events going on with that isn't there? Now in terms of the facts, there's nothing to really compare. Genshin's Russia is declaring war belligerently the way Tsarist Russia was stupid enough to go to war against Japan and Germany when its economy was in the ground, its military wasn't up to date and its military strategy was being decided by an idiot. These wars were great for bringing down a tired old feudal regime and to usher Russia into the modern age. Today's Russia is engaged in an existential threat against its own survival. This conflict started over 20 years ago and Russia's done admirably, saving the Crimeans in 2014 and now saving the Russo-Ukrainians in Danbas. There is no way to compare a Snezhnayan campaign against Nod-Krai with Russia's defense against the faction running Ukraine for the last decade.
The problem though is China. China absolutely sucks at PR and this lack of skill in that area extends to miHoYo. Remember back when Inazuma released that Japan was apparently upset at how Inazumans were portrayed? They even had to change the Archon Quest from the real world history of the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Tenno's return to power in the Meiji Restoration into some weird all is forgiven storyline where the Shogunate that started a civil war and was corrupt enough to be entirely undermined by the Fatui was allowed to remain in power even after the resistance won. Imagine Washington allowing King George to continue ruling America after the revolution. Sumeru released to a bunch of people thinking Persians were all black and calling miHoYo racist and white-washing (they realize miHoYo is Asian right?) as a result. (this in spite of the fact that Alhaitham's English VA is in fact a very light skinned Middle Eastern American, not to mention how many pictures of light skinned Middle Easterners you can find with a simple Google) Point is, with such bad PR maybe miHoYo didn't want to take the risk of having their Russia also engaged in war while there's so much propaganda going around against Russia.
There is a weakness to this idea though. Russia's current engagement started in 2022 so miHoYo's had 3 years to figure out what they wanted to do about it. Genshin even released in late 2020 so they could have built a much more sympathetic Snezhnaya in that time if they really wanted to avoid this.
But I suppose we'll see what was really going on soon enough.
Topic originally created on December 28th, 2025.
Tags: #hive-157640#genshin#mihoyo#hoyoverse#gaming#hivegc#writing#potential