All right, this is the first Honkai: Star Rail proposal on all Moral Scaling as of now. I want to see how many voters here are familiar with the work.
What Is the Work
Honkai: Star Rail, is an instalment of miHoYo's Honkai series of RPGs which goes for a turn-based approach like Persona/Megami Tensei or Fire Emblem unlike the predecessors. It tells the journey of an artificial human created to contain a Stellaron, a cube of destructive cosmic power that spreads malignantly, the Trailblazer, canonically named Caelus (male) or Stelle (female) (grey-haired Yuji or Mikasa in the Japanese dub respectively) who joins the Nameless aboard the Astral Express (a clear homage to The Galaxy Railways) to travel the path that was once treaded on by the Aeon of the Trailblaze path, Akivilli.
Today, we're covering the first chapter proper in the story, set in Jarilo-VI, a planet that housed a Stellaron which caused the Eternal Freeze which caused the planet’s climate to freeze over thanks to Fragmentum spreading throughout the planet, and the Nameless must go to retrieve and seal the Stellaron before any more harm can be done.
Who Is She
Bronya Rand is a major playable character in Honkai: Star Rail. She is the adopted daughter to Cocolia Rand who was selected by the Architects to be her successor, and would help the nameless in their journey to confront Cocolia after she got corrupted by the Stellaron, who eventually becomes Supreme Guardian in her place.
What Did She Do
In the Jarilo-VI Trailblaze chapters, Bronya is first seen pursuing the Nameless trio along several Silvermane Guards on Cocolia’s order paranoid that they are a threat to her power, but the Nameless manage to escape into the Underworld with the help of the outlaw Sampo Koski.
She and Seele together delivered medical supplies to Natasha to treat the ill, and while doing so, found their old orphanage that they were part of. After the Nameless' confrontation with Clara’s automaton buddy and the Belobog government's former robot guard Svarog to inform him about the Stellaron, Bronya went out of her way to confront Cocolia personally, revealing that she hoped to persuade her to end the discrimination against the Underworld.
On Everwinter Hill, Seele thwarts Cocolia’s attempt to brainwash Bronya with the Stellaron. Bronya tries to convince Cocolia to halt her plans to destroy the city and replace it with her new civilisation, but she refuses and pilots the Engine of Creation to attack the group. Himeko comes to aid by destroying one of the mech’s arms. The Trailblazer is fatally impaled fighting Cocolia, but is subsequently revived with the power of Preservation pledging to preserve Belobog’s future after meeting the Aeon of said path Qilpoth and scouring through Cocolia's memories, allowing them to defeat Cocolia, who disintegrates from the Stellaron’s power afterwards; the Stellaron is taken back to be sealed by Welt.
Bronya and Seele agree to lie to the public that Cocolia died in a heroic sacrifice trying to seal the Stellaron to retain credibility towards the Belobog government. After ascending to Supreme Guardian, Bronya reconnects the Overworld with the Underworld, relaunching transport between both ends of the region now that the Fragmentum is no longer allowed to spread after the Stellaron is removed from the planet.
Later, in the Trailblaze Continuance, Topaz and her Interastral Peace Corporation agents occupied Jarilo-VI to collect the massive amount of debt they owed since Jarilo-VI lost contact with the IPC as they had loans from them to make establishments to protect them from the effects of the Eternal Freeze like the Barrier, while forcing Bronya to hand over power to them in exchange for the IPC handling the situation. Once Himeko warns Bronya that the process of cleaning up the Fragmentum mess that the IPC formulated is not going to be guaranteed, she backs off. Topaz and her associates continue to pester the inhabitants with tomfoolery such as turning the automatons against the people, but Bronya shows her that the Belobogians are uniting to rebuild the Engine of Creation, ready to be independent facing the crisis, convincing Topaz to cease her occupation of the planet.
Admirable Standard
Honkai: Star Rail admirable standards have been really high consistently. Outside the Trailblazer and some Aeons who have set the standards, there are some heroes that might particularly stand out:
- March 7th and Dan Heng that have unique acts out of their high appearance rate with the former playing a role in defeating Hoolay among major threats like Phantylia, the former not shared with the nameless, and the latter attempting to strengthen the Arbor’s seal, confronting a conspirator who helped Hoolay break out of prison, defeating Nikador, Sunday and allowing Jing Yuan and the Nameless to access Phantylia through the Waterscape. However, March has access to her Hunt path and was frozen in the Six-Phased Ice for several years, and Dan Heng with his Imbibitor Lunae powers.
- Feixiao who completely destroys Hoolay’s memory and absorbs the Crimson Moon into herself, saving thousands of foxians from turning into borisins, whilst overcoming Hoolay’s brainwashing of her, but is an Arbiter General with a large army.
- Jiaoqiu who poisoned his own blood at the cost of his eyesight to weaken Hoolay who would drink it as part of a ritual, and playing a big role in his defeat as well as treating Feixiao’s moon rage.
- Yanqing who defeated Hoolay, finishing him off with the same technique Jingliu used to seal him as a finishing blow and aided Feixiao to look out for Hoolay’s foot soldiers on the ground level. He has less resources due to being a sword apprentice with only Yunli and March 7th by his side when defeating Hoolay.
- Jing Yuan who played a part in defeating Phantylia, resolving the seven colours incident and providing support in Penacony, but is a general like Feixiao.
- Himeko who does have some unique acts like weakening Cocolia’s Engine of Creation, and preventing Topaz from enslaving Jarilo-VI, as well as repairing the Astral Express and allowing it to work in the first place which made the Nameless trio able to commit heroics throughout the galaxy, but has higher resources as the manager of the Express.
- Gallagher who invited various parties to Penacony to to try to stop the families' corruption and find a solution to the Stellaron disaster there, which allowed the Nameless to beat Sunday and prevent him from trapping millions in fates worse than death. However, he is a virtual hive mind (highly implied to be a memetic entity) who is intended to dissipate once his objective is achieved.
- Robin whose song is central to the heroes defeating Sunday and freeing everyone from his shared dream, therefore playing a huge role in his redemption. However, she shares her brother’s very high resource tier as a member of the Family, and has Harmony enabled singing as she was shot in the throat in an assassination attempt.
Out of them, Bronya only has an army of guards before ascending to become the Supreme Guardian, but before she became the Supreme Guardian, she had her background of being adopted by the Supreme Guardian lineage, putting her in the high resource tier for human characters in the series. Bronya passes for helping to deliver medical supplies to Natasha's clinic, rescuing a child in the process, donating some to help vagrants near Clara's home, confronting and defeating Cocolia, preventing her from destroying Belobog, liberating the Underworld from her blockade, rebuilding peace between both ends of Jarilo-VI after the Stellaron was contained, and ending Topaz's occupation on Jarilo-VI along with Himeko, preventing thousands from enslavement, overall doing a sufficiently good amount for her resource tier.
Corrupting Factors
Bronya is not shown to have any corrupting factors, and if there were any, it was due to other circumstances like being brainwashed by the Stellaron temporarily, and her initial meeting with the Nameless was only hostile because it is revealed that Cocolia sent her and the Silvermane Guards to try to stop them from nabbing the Stellaron from her, on the claims that they are trying to incite rebellion on Cocolia; she becomes allies the Nameless as they were sharing her purpose in aiming to put an end to the Eternal Freeze and save the Underworld inhabitants, and would go on to confront Cocolia for her decision to close off the Underworld. Also, Bronya only had to lie to the public about Cocolia's death like Ladybug later did about Hawk Moth in season 5 to protect the government’s credibility and prevent any unrest from erupting in the state due to Cocolia's malevolent intentions.
And while she was put in a deal that could potentially enslave the whole of Jarilo-VI, it was because Topaz wanted to collect the overwhelming debt from the IPC, as the Belobog government obtained loans from them to build structures to protect against the Eternal Freeze, whilst believing that cleaning up the planet of Fragmentum using her own means was the way to go as it worked on her home planet; Bronya only backs down on Himeko’s request due to the process being unguaranteed, then forces Topaz to surrender by showing her the Engine of Creation.
Final Verdict
A good yes for her.