Let's talk about the story! SPOILERS INSIDE

[Skater901]

So, I wanted to write down my understanding of the story, and get some help filling in the bits I've missed. :)

Story Summary/Timeline

Eigong is tasked with researching immortality for Solarians.

Eigong discovers that Ji is immortal, and starts researching on Ji. As part of the research, the Tianhao virus is accidentally created. Tianhao starts to spread and infect people, it's discovered, the focus of research changes from immortality to curing Tianhao.

Yi gets badly injured in an explosion when trying to get his Mystic Nymph to work. The Fusang roots heal him and effectively make him immortal, probably thanks to Heng. Later, Yi comes to work for Eigong, and Eigong thinks that Yi could be the key to immortality.

Eigong creates a serum using Ji's DNA. Does this happen before or after the Eternal Cauldron project is pitched? She tests it, and find it seems to work; on 90% of Solarians, it seems to stop the virus, but 10% seem to lose their minds (and suffer mutations?)

Developing a cure for Tianhao is taking a long time, and they realise they can't find a cure before all Solarians die from Tianhao. So Yi proposes the Eternal Cauldron Project; gather up a bunch of Solarians (clearly not all of them) and put them into cryo-sleep inside a facility build on Kunlun Island. However, in order to do that, they need massive amounts of power, and a massive computing network to provide simulations for all the Solarians in cryo-sleep.

Earth is discovered by the Solarians, and Yi's plan is to warp New Kunlun to Earth, kidnap a whole bunch of humans, and use their brains to power the Soulscapes.

Yi asks Heng to come with him on New Kunlun, but she refuses. Yi says he will come and ask her again just before New Kunlun launches.

New Kunlun launches early, and Yi doesn't get a chance to visit Heng again. This is where I'm really confused and need some clarity. Eigong does something to betray Yi (launching New Kunlun early? Yi finds out Eigong's immortality research is responsible for creating the Tianhao virus?), and apparently the rest of the council were in on it. Yi attacks Eigong, but is defeated, and seemingly dies. However, the roots on New Kunlun once again protect Yi and revive him.

Humans are picked up from earth and kept on New Kunlun. I am unsure if this happens before or after Yi is defeated by Eigong.

Yi is kept inside the roots for 500 years. In the meantime, Eigong continues her research. She discovers that the serum she created is ineffectual, and everyone who received it still dies to Tianho, except for those who mutated. Because of this, she comes to the conclusion that the mutation is not something to cure, but rather the next stage in Solarians' evolution. (It's possible that her decision was primarily to protect her ego; instead of admitting she failed, she can delude herself and others into thinking that she's successfully discovered the next stage of evolution, therefore all her work is successful)

Yi is awakened by Shaunshaun, and has to wait two years until the next human harvesting, so that he can break into the rest of New Kunlun and enact his revenge. Again, what exactly he's getting revenge for I really don't know.

Yi fights through all the other Sols, gathering their Sol Seals, in order to do... something. Along the way, he discovers that Eigong has decided that the mutations are the future.

Questions

So the biggest question is, what the heck happened at the start of the game that made Yi turn against Eigong and the council? This is the only part of the story that I really don't understand. I don't know why Yi first turned against the council and why he's trying to get revenge, and I don't know what he wanted to do with all the Sol Seals once he got them.

Other than that, there's a few questions around the timeline, but that could probably be fixed by looking at the various notes and stuff in-game. :)

[Scorpix]

1. Virus existed before Eigong saved Yi
2. Yi is not immortal. He will die in the end from old age.
3. Eigong tries to experiment of Yi
4. Research on Ji ends with creating mutation strain

[Skater901]

Originally posted by Scorpix:

1. Virus existed before Eigong saved Yi

Eigong didn't save Yi, did she? I thought the roots saved Yi (acting on Heng's wishes)

[Scorpix]

Originally posted by Skater901:

Originally posted by Scorpix:

1. Virus existed before Eigong saved Yi

Eigong didn't save Yi, did she? I thought the roots saved Yi (acting on Heng's wishes)

Primordial roots regenerated him, but entire jade mechanism which we can see when Ruyi is fixing in Pavilion was made by Eigong. Because of that Yi believes that Eigong saved him and Fusang role was just a coincidence.

[Skater901]

Originally posted by Scorpix:

Primordial roots regenerated him, but entire jade mechanism which we can see when Ruyi is fixing in Pavilion was made by Eigong. Because of that Yi believes that Eigong saved him and Fusang role was just a coincidence.

Where is that stated in the game? I remember in one of Eigong's logs she mentions Yi being brought before her, but I don't think she said anything about fixing him up.

[Scorpix]

Not sure, if you missed it, but Yi asked her sister to join, but she refused. Angry Yi said then that she does not exist for him and if she wants to change it, she should on her own join him on New Kunlun before it launches.

Mutation was caused by injecting new cure into infected solarians. 10% of them survived, but mutated, while 90% died.

[Scorpix]

Originally posted by Skater901:

Originally posted by Scorpix:

Primordial roots regenerated him, but entire jade mechanism which we can see when Ruyi is fixing in Pavilion was made by Eigong. Because of that Yi believes that Eigong saved him and Fusang role was just a coincidence.

Where is that stated in the game? I remember in one of Eigong's logs she mentions Yi being brought before her, but I don't think she said anything about fixing him up.

Yi mention this at one point. I think it was one of his memories.

[Skater901]

Originally posted by Scorpix:

Not sure, if you missed it, but Yi asked her sister to join, but she refused. Angry Yi said then that she does not exist for him and if she wants to change it, she should on her own join him on New Kunlun before it launches.

Yeah I know, I put that in my summary. :P (Albeit I left out the bit about Yi declaring Heng to be dead to him if she stays behind.)

[Batterkap]

Hmm, I liked how they showed the main character and sister as yin and yang. Yui is an insensitive bastard who decided to turn an entire race into biomass. He would have shredded his own, but brains infected with a virus are somehow not very good, oh, I made a reservation, it’s simply unethical.

And heng is a harmless girl who speaks with roots
Here many questions arise: what are these roots, what do they say, why was Ji immortal, what kind of space is in the roots, what kind of demons did the old man from the tomb who removed the technology talk about?

About the virus - it can infect genes and... roots, solarians without a gene with a virus are just cats, all mutants have global mind. The hint is understood - the roots wanted to destroy the cat people? or they have ascension mechanics - the sister says be one with tao, the old man became one with tao.

As a result, there are two endings without answers, in one all the cat people die, in the other they will most likely die... I didn’t suffer for 3 hours with the final Kung Fu Jedi for this, or am I just stupid and don’t understand anything)

or game about the "futility of existence"

[b̸̑ͅr̵̂͜u̴̝̔h̵̘̓]

i think the reason why yi never came back to heng is because he realized what eigong was doing and got killed before he could come back for her, i don't recall anything about new kunlun launching early

[sylenz]

Originally posted by Skater901:

but I'm not 100% clear on when the Tianhao was created

year 434 Eigong started the research b/c Feng wanted to be immortal, then in 446 Tianhao was created.
In her note the explotion of Yi's experimental happened later after Tianhao expanded (year 452).

Originally posted by Skater901:

Eigong does something to betray Yi

Yi finds out Eigong's immortality research is responsible for creating the Tianhao and that started the fight between him and Eigong. I think some of the concil knew that, like Feng, but some not, like Kuafu. The losing of the fight to Eigong was the reason that Yi cannot pick Heng up, b/c he was close to his end (in Eigong's fight she said she have to kill Yi twice).

Originally posted by Skater901:

I think the mutations were caused by a combination of Tianhao and the supposed cure for it, but again, not clear on this.

Eigong kept her research going on and used Ji's gene to creat serum, the one she tested on Feng's brother cat. After New Kunlun launched she found Tianhao was controled in those who accepted serum but some of them lost their minds. After hundred years of researching she found Tianhao still cannot be cured and decided to bring the new form of living in.

Originally posted by Skater901:

Again, what exactly he's getting revenge for I really don't know.

From my understanding that's, um, for everything. Tianhao took Yi's parents away, and apparently, his beloved little sister, who he lost the very last chance to have a conversation with. Lies about the origin of the virus, deception of the people, and corruption throughout concil may be another reason

[kellorkleft]

It's heavily implied that Eigong was jealous of Yi's achievements, and how they overshadowed her own role in the project. I think, on top of lying to him about the virus's origin, their falling out was due to her wanting to seize control of the Eternal Cauldron project from him.

[Skater901]

Originally posted by Batterkap:

Hmm, I liked how they showed the main character and sister as yin and yang. Yui is an insensitive bastard who decided to turn an entire race into biomass. He would have shredded his own, but brains infected with a virus are somehow not very good, oh, I made a reservation, it’s simply unethical.

I mean that's kind of the point; initial Yi is a heartless bastard, as you said. :P He's so obsessed with science and being right.

Originally posted by Batterkap:

Here many questions arise: what are these roots, what do they say, why was Ji immortal, what kind of space is in the roots, what kind of demons did the old man from the tomb who removed the technology talk about?

So the roots are some kind of giant plant that grows on Penglai. From memory, in some of the data entries, they talk about how early life on Penglai was entirely sustained by the roots; the roots grew fruit for the Solarians to eat.

As for what the roots say... well, that's ambiguous. If Heng is to be believed, the roots are much more than just a plant, but more like a... spiritual repository? The souls of the Solarians go back into the roots when they die, and the roots are like a collective consciousness or something, where all Solarian memories go.

Nobody knows why Ji was immortal, not even Ji himself, I think.

The demons the old man was talking about was an allegory, not a real event that actually happened. I think he was basically making the point that if you become strong enough to defeat monsters, you basically become a monster yourself. It's the same kind of theme that Berserk and numerous other stories have explored.

Originally posted by Batterkap:

About the virus - it can infect genes and... roots, solarians without a gene with a virus are just cats, all mutants have global mind. The hint is understood - the roots wanted to destroy the cat people? or they have ascension mechanics - the sister says be one with tao, the old man became one with tao.

As a result, there are two endings without answers, in one all the cat people die, in the other they will most likely die... I didn’t suffer for 3 hours with the final Kung Fu Jedi for this, or am I just stupid and don’t understand anything)

or game about the "futility of existence"

Solarians with the virus are still going to die. The Tao fruit collected from flowers are the corpses of Solarians. Solarians with the virus, when they die, their body turns into that white flower.

I don't think the roots want to destroy the Solarians at all, but the mutated Tianhao virus does want to.

Regarding the endings, one ending is setting humans free and letting them grow and develop, at the cost of the Solarians, who were gonna die anyway. So I think that's the "good" ending, and it's about not resisting your end when it's time... or maybe about not enslaving another species to prolong your own end.

[Skater901]

Originally posted by b̸̑ͅr̵̂͜u̴̝̔h̵̘̓:

i think the reason why yi never came back to heng is because he realized what eigong was doing and got killed before he could come back for her, i don't recall anything about new kunlun launching early

I'm pretty sure the third council log, right before Eigong, where it shows Eigong and Yi confronting each other, Yi is yelling at Eigong for launching New Kunlun early.

[Skater901]

Originally posted by coyotl:

Yi finds out Eigong's immortality research is responsible for creating the Tianhao and that started the fight between him and Eigong. I think some of the concil knew that, like Feng, but some not, like Kuafu. The losing of the fight to Eigong was the reason that Yi cannot pick Heng up, b/c he was close to his end (in Eigong's fight she said she have to kill Yi twice).

Is that actually stated anywhere, though? Or are you just deducing/guessing? I don't remember anything being stated about Yi discovering that Tianhao was created by Eigong.

Thing is... even then, I still don't understand the plot. Yi being mad at Eigong for creating Tianhao, sure, I get it. But then what's he going to do about it? Fight and kill Eigong? Why? Because he's mad? In the game, he wants to gather all the council seals. Why? What's he going to do? It doesn't matter whether Tianhao arose naturally or was created by Eigong, the situation is still the same: all Solarians are gonna die from it if you can't find a cure.

Originally posted by coyotl:

corruption throughout concil may be another reason

What corruption? The old guy (Quianlo?) was corrupt, sure - he used his authority to store rich people's stuff instead of artifacts - but how were the rest of them corrupt?

[Skater901]

Originally posted by kellorkleft:

It's heavily implied that Eigong was jealous of Yi's achievements, and how they overshadowed her own role in the project. I think, on top of lying to him about the virus's origin, their falling out was due to her wanting to seize control of the Eternal Cauldron project from him.

Do you remember where it mentions that Eigong wants to take over Eternal Cauldron project? I don't remember that.