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Piltover's new lore destroys everything that we loved about Viktor.

Arcyvilk·11/29/2016, 11:01:28 PM·73 votes·8,572 views

Greetings Boards, Arcyvilk here.

Let me preface this wall of text by saying that I like Viktor. I'll keep it short: I consider him the best, and probably also the deepest character in the game lore-wise (intentionally or not, I don't care) and am a big fan of his gray morality Chaotic/True Neutral character type.

I just read the Camille color story and. Well. Let's say euphemically: I cannot help but feel heavily dissappointed. Viktor isn't even mentioned there but there are so many grim implications to his character coming out from this short story, as well as from the whole Piltover-Zaun lore retconing.

And I am... Well... A little bit mad now.

http://i.imgur.com/lDEPofX.png

To assume everything in one sentence: Whatever I just read now, simply isn't able to coexist with Viktor that we know now, in the same universe. And I am now going to explain why.

#Glorious Evolved and their connection to Viktor's Glorious Evolution.

The so called "Glorious Evolved" mentioned in the lore; name implying ties with Viktor's Glorious Evolution (duh. ._.). Seemingly a relogious cult worshiping the mysterious Grey Lady; full of love

> fervent believers. They do not take kindly to the unaugmented

with some colorful and interesting rituals

> the shrine. There were jars of organs. Single eyeballs floated like pickled eggs. Bundled offerings were wrapped in linen, some of it fine, some of it oily and ragged. A few flies buzzed among the discarded pieces of the congregation

and being very progressive in their approach towards technology, as well as knowleadgable on how science works

> The Glorious Evolved celebrated the old Zaunite tradition of sacrificing something personal for Progress Day in the hopes the next iteration of invention would be better

Now let's assume that their roots indeed lie in the Viktor's Glorious Evolution, what instantly raises a few alarming question:

  • why would Viktor - a scientist, that devoted his entire life to science - become a religious cult leader?

  • why would he worship a random Gray Lady (that seemingly demands some bloody sacrifices, as the organ-filled jars would delicately imply)?

  • why he, a man of science, perfectly aware that the progress comes from education, would ever believe that sacrificing a few items contributes to "inventions magically become better"?

The only possible way I see for both Glorious Evolved and Viktor coexisting in the same universe would be the schism that happened somewhere in the early stages of the real evolution. Viktor going his way, the Glorious Evolved going their way. It would even kind of fit, him being a pioneer in his field, yet alone and misunderstood by countless people; finally finding ones that seem to follow his thought process; but nope!, they just seek a guru and a relogious cult to follow; Viktor leaving misunderstood again, and them happily continuing to remove their vital organs for the joy of esoteric entity called Gray Lady, that maybe is just antropomorfed definition of technology which those poor souls misunderstood and took for an object of cult, under the name of glorious evolution(1). Well. Uhm.

A theory raised by other contributor that I find pretty likely and likable. Arcy's seal of approval

Hold on a second. Did I just mention Viktor being a pioneer in his field? Good because this is the next thing I wanted to point out and that I hate.

#"He saw himself as the patron and pioneer of Valoran's future"

Viktor is awesome because he did something no one even tried before: he augmented his own body with the goal of fully machinising himself; and since it's a rather questionable way of spending one's free time, he instantly got a crapload of enemies that didn't really approve of his shiny steel sixpack(2). In the minds of people, he was "this crazy dude who made himself a robot" because no one really even tried to understand his motives and just assumed he's going to come for them at night, take away their precious humanity and force them to become a Terminator(3).

Now let's jump to Camille's lore. Augmented people run around like it's nothing. And the hero herself removed her bottom limbs and replaced them with deadly blades. Does anyone in her lore looks funny at her? No. Why? Well, maybe swordlegs are completely normal now?

http://66.media.tumblr.com/d1d7663dddf16e426c73f94a37f28758/tumblr_oh0ib0ffyG1ujawqzo1_500.png

WELL SOMETHING IS OBVIOUSLY NOT FAIR EH?

Now there are a few possibilities arising:

  • it all happens 6738684 years after Viktor's lore, he is an ancient being now and his heritage spreads all over the world. "Oooh, your revolution is so... quaint" ~Camille 2016 Well mayyyybe it would make sense... if Jayce didn't exist. Jayce is so closely tied to Viktor's lore that he needs to live in the same timeline, and he is obviously not augmented and definitely wouldn't agree to replace his handsome body for some metal parts, therefore making him unable to live for the said 6738684 years.

http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Viktor+and+jayce+comic+_9d03dc_5265408.jpg (4)

  • Viktor sold his tech. Uhm. No.

  • Viktor spreaded his evolution thing with an open-source licence like Tesla. And as they were eating, he took bread, and when he had blessed, he brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take ye: this is my body. Well, this sounds much more likely, but given how the Glorious Evolved ended up I highly doubt it's the case.

  • it was stolen from him. Again.

  • everyone hated the Evolution because or the person who tried to spread it. Let's say that Viktor is this weird kid that always sits silently in the back of the classroom, and one day he tries to make a joke but no one laughs so he ends up being even more weird than usual. Then one of the cool kids picks up the joke and tells it again. Everyone laughs. The end. You get what I am saying, and the cool kid in this story is Hakim Naderi.

Hakim Naderi. Yeeeeah. To keep it short: this is some Shurimian scientist dude that created an artificial, hextech-y heart for Camille. Hextechy heart sounds weird, sooooo... Let's call it "Hex Core" for short. This sound really fucking familiar for some unknown reason. I have no idea why.

So, yeah. Here goes Viktor and him being a pionieer revolutionizing his field. Yay.

Viktor : Hey professor! This Blitzcrank is the robot I made =^.^= Professor Stanwick Piditiy: Nice robot kid! You won't mind if it's mine now, eh? Viktor : ;-; QQ

(...)

Half-machinized Viktor: Greetings inferior constructs. This is the glorious evolution that I made. Piltovians: hmmmmmm...........

http://i.imgur.com/79qQgcB.png

This is not everything I dislike about the new lore but I have to take a break for now, I have a project due tomorrow and I would like to finish it. It's 12AM so I probably won't. Well crap. I didn't even proofread the thread ;-;

(1) Well, there are some good things about a cult though - for example treating everyone equally no matter if poor or rich, Piltovian or Zaunite; or actually using the augmentations to cure diseases. Those aren't relevant to the point of thread though!

(2) I mean, they are surely jealous. http://i.imgur.com/U7rAM1z.png

(3) we Viktor fans obviously know that it's bullshit and participating in Evolution is voluntary, he never forced anyone to do anything and considers his Evolution as a cure for diseases and excesive emotionality (you know, this kind of excesive emotionality where you throw your TV out of the window because your favourite football team lost a match. Oooor your professor stole the work of your life and you hate him now. Such stuff). But it's a story that needs to be told another time because it's long. Veeeery long.

(4) Viktor & Jayce comic [mirror page]

#TL:DR: new lore might be possibly bad for Viktor. He is a damn scientist, not a techpriest. Also why the hell suddenly everyone are running around augmented like it's nothing?

49 Comments

moogle89011/29/2016, 11:19:29 PM28 votes

I personally believe the Church popped up without Viktor doing anything. If he really did augment people for his Evolution, many people (especially the poor and sick) would see that as a miracle. I believe Viktor unintentionally created this religion. I don't think he really cares about what they do, just so long as he can do his work. If they want to "worship" him, so be it.

333lom11/29/2016, 11:11:48 PM11 votes

Viktor is supposed to be the Nikola Tesla of LoL. His abilities are even named after his proposed inventions.

The Machine Herald should not be a leader of some cult, he is a scientist pioneer whi wants to uplift humanity. This means educating people and not leaving them to sacrifice organs to some bloodthirsty deity, in unsanitary conditions.

Riot, if you are reading this, please. Dare to change this new lore, for us. Us, who play this game only because of Viktor's original lore.

EvilUnicornLord11/29/2016, 11:14:15 PM10 votes

I actually agree here. They need to stop cutting Viktor out to be the bad guy but, then again, he was based off of Nikola Tesla who had tons of work stolen from him and was considered nothing more than a mad scientist. Since Viktor has a real-life equivalent, it actually makes him more human.

Ebonmaw Dragon11/29/2016, 11:42:20 PM9 votes

First Jayce and now this?

WHY RIOT? WHY DO YOU HATE ZAUN AND VIKTOR SO MUCH?

TyrekGoldenspear11/29/2016, 11:26:18 PM6 votes

The title is a little clickbait.

Also, please stop overreacting. He could very well be misunderstood once again and his work being corrupted and used for a purpose he didn't want. Besides, he wanted to revolutionize people and make them half-machine. Nobody said he would rule over them, so its likely that he let these augmented people on their way after upgrading them, and they decided to make a religion. Nothing's getting "destroyed."

A Superb Villain11/30/2016, 12:05:30 AM3 votes

There is little I can add since you have covered all of my problems that the new lore implies, but damn are those funny edits and art.

statelesskiller11/30/2016, 8:23:56 AM3 votes

the thing is. we as human will make ANYTHING holy for the stupidest of reason. a silver cross is holy. why? i dont fucking know. crowns made of thorns. the bible itself which is just words on pages. ALOT OF THEM

but then you look at what viktor is doing. a man is dieing because his heart is failing him. if viktors technology gave this man a mechanical heart to keep him alive how hard would it be for the less intelligent to foresee his technology as a gift from god? and him a messiah?

TheHappyReaperz11/30/2016, 1:48:20 PM2 votes

Why is it that everyone is getting mad that Viktor, isn't mentioned in another champ's backstory? If you look at any of the other champ stories, few have direct champ-champ interaction.

midnight oil2411/30/2016, 12:18:13 AM2 votes

I'm new to the whole lore, so I might be wrong, but I'm fairly certain almost everyone in Zaun has become augmented by this point. Odds are that some radicals saw the religious connotations of this new form of existence and ran with it. Add in the idea of a lady with a hextech heart flying around the city with grappling hooks and a pair of blade legs who assassinates those who are corrupt, and your holy text has more or less written itself. Just my opinion though, and I loved your editing. Plus, you clearly thought your argument out well, so congrats on an excellent post.

Dankstin11/30/2016, 12:25:31 AM2 votes

Viktor is literally a male Elesh Norn. Join him. All your creatures will get +2/+2.

Conversely, I find it hard to choose sides since Camille already comes with HM01. It's quite useful I hear.

CookyPrince11/30/2016, 1:25:50 AM2 votes

Camille doesn't seem like a hero, at least taking from the comic and her in game personality

KoKoboto11/30/2016, 1:06:23 AM1 votes

People don't really like Camille or actually know much about her. She assigned her favourite darling nephew to be the face/boss of the family while she does the dirty work so yeah.

HowPlayGAEM11/30/2016, 12:45:46 AM1 votes

[deleted]

Hige11/30/2016, 2:01:14 AM1 votes

I don't see why augmented people and viktor can't coexist in the same universe... mainly because I don't think they are the same thing? Viktor is not an augmented human O.o, an augmented human, according to the story, is a person who sacrifices one of their limbs for a prosthetic replacement, namely, swords as legs or a mechanical esophagus...

Viktor has all his limbs in place plus one O.o, he isn't trying to become a better human, his ultimate goal is to stirr a machine revolution, one where humans no longer exists, not even augmented ones, he despises humans and what they do to/with machines, he wants to be a machine but not part by part, if he could he would tear his own body apart all at once and program his consciousness onto a robot, that is heaps way different than what Camille and the augmented people from Zaun/Piltover have in mind.

Edit: I went ahead and looked at Viktor's art, he does have augmentations on his body, apparently one of his arms and a leg? this still doesn't necessarily makes him the pioneer on the procedure nor does it connects him to the augmented people even though he could be considered an augmented...

The reason for this is that Viktor doesn't seem to find a limit for his augmentations, as a matter of fact, once again, he wants to be 100% machine, the augmented seem to be quite the elitists but at their core they still want to preserve their humanity, hell, they are incredibly religious, something that Viktor doesn't seem to be and that machines would deem as unnecessary.

Edit 2: ... I just wanted to also mention his skins, one is Viktor when he began with his experiments and the other is Viktor in the future. If you take a closer look on his "Past" skin:

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Viktor_2.jpg

you can see that he is already augmented there! There's a big chance that his one procedure made him obsessed about becoming a machine and fuel the machine revolution. Now take a look at his "future" skin:

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Viktor_1.jpg

As you can see, this is no longer an augmented human, this is a full fledged robot, not a cyborg, a robot, and this is the exact difference that camille's character presents to us against viktor, robots vs cyborgs.

Edit 3: ... I'm gonna edit this until I can't fit anymore characters here XD

One of Camille's lines for Vi is that Vi should take a look at her (Camille) and find her future, this is because Vi isn't augmented but she uses her huge mechanical arms as if she were and the next logical step would be to replace her arms with either techmaturgy or hextechnology. I bring this case up as a mean to show the human/machine spectrum that someone from Piltover/Zaun could fall into, so far, the only one to the robotic extreme is Viktor and none of the stories that has been released has moved him from that position.

Scoroct11/30/2016, 2:43:22 AM1 votes

Hey thanks for making a great post for the Herald! I am personally really confused why EVERYONE seems to have augments these days (not that I don't like that they do , but I really want an explanation why and how Viktor fits in with this). Also great images you made/edited for the post. And lastly good luck with the project!!! wish I could help

ModCaptainMårvelous11/30/2016, 4:48:00 AM1 votes

On one topic: I don't think augmentation is as widespread as you think in a super powerful sense.

Think Deus Ex: Hundreds of millions of people have augments and augmentation, sure, but they're not exactly cutting edge. Some are just robot limbs. Some are just "Microchip in your head to stop getting headaches" and others are just piddly dink. 99% of citizens would have THESE augments. The nothing augments. The augments that are cheap enough.

Alternatively, you can get "stronger" augments, but you're going to disfigure yourself. Chem-brutes, lopsided thugs, basically a walking cavalcade of Urgots. Even then, while powerful, they don't stand up to the top tier.

Finally, you get the Viktor/Camilles. The sleek, refined, top-of-their-class augments that merge power, flexibility and compactness. Only the absolute best or most powerful get these augments. So, likewise, if you're an augmented individual, you strive to have their power but without the cost of....y'know, "humanity". Shooting lasers is a lot less cool when you have an engine in your chest the size of a dishwasher.

Building on this, it also means the absolute most advanced will be the sleekest, most refined. And yes, Viktor is absolutely refined. He might be more man than machine but he's sleek, compact and still packs a smorgusboard of power into a human-sized frame. Same deal with Camille. (I don't feel like it but pretend I'm putting an advertisement for my own character because I'm an egotistical fuck.)

Augmentation is like economics in the world: The rich, powerful and inventive have the best stuff. Military-grade is good but it looks ugly and gets the job done. Civilian gear is passable but not sleek nor powerful.

Mogarl11/30/2016, 5:01:54 AM1 votes

{quoted}

  • everyone hated the Evolution because or the person who tried to spread it. Let's say that Viktor is this weird kid that always sits silently in the back of the classroom, and one day he tries to make a joke but no one laughs so he ends up being even more weird than usual. Then one of the cool kids picks up the joke and tells it again. Everyone laughs. The end. You get what I am saying, and the cool kid in this story is Hakim Naderi.

Hakim Naderi. Yeeeeah. To keep it short: this is some Shurimian scientist dude that created an artificial, hextech-y heart for Camille. Hextechy heart sounds weird, sooooo... Let's call it "Hex Core" for short. This sound really fucking familiar for some unknown reason. I have no idea why.

This is the part that concerns me the most. Viktor was never the inventor of hextech augmentation he just revolutionized it and makes better hextech than the rest in addition to the mental augmentations mentioned in his lore.

The Hexcore on the other hand is his, if Riot takes that away I'm done.

My own thoughts are that the Hexcore is a much better mirror of the Brakern crystals than the knockoffs made by Camille's clan. So Blitzcrank has a primitive Hexcore inside not an arcane crystal, The research piddly stole pertained to the Hexcore (not directly augmentation), and finally Viktor didn't steal the crystal from Jayce to extract power from it but to research to improve the Hexcore.

As a final couple points to look at to maintain optimism.

  • Camille taunts Viktor about his revolution not about his evolution.

  • "Tell me. Hmph; Is it the third arm that makes you extra-glorious?" May suggest that Viktor sees himself as above the Glorious Evoloved.

  • Depending on what exactly Jayce was doing, if it was a threat to her house through profit, Camille may be regarding Viktor's sabotage of Jayce as the usefulness.

  • "Oooh, your revolution is so... quaint..." wouldn't seem quite right if Viktor was the leader/creator of the Glorious Evolved. the word quaint would point to whatever Viktor has going it isn't big enough to have multiple churches.

  • If the Hexcore poses risk to the economic viability of the knock-off arcane crystals then it could explain Camille's hostility towards Viktor, because that would effectively be an attack on her clan.

SolarisCorvus11/30/2016, 5:11:57 AM1 votes

Isnt it that camile is the grey lady because she was the first to be augmented due to her family harvesting skarners people. This means that viktor didnt invent augments but most likely improved it to a graet degree.

Requiemsfire11/30/2016, 5:16:15 AM1 votes

Well it's possible that Viktor has nothing to do with the church itself other than its formation by simply sharing his ideals at one point or another, they mentioned a kind of disaster that occurred in piltover which urged forth a number of augmentations and use Progress day as a day of remembrance/celebration.

XIII Vanitas11/30/2016, 12:45:56 AM1 votes

Where is chapter 2 of the comic? [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

SanKakU11/30/2016, 9:30:52 AM1 votes

Stopped reading when I got to the part where you obviously think that science and religion are exclusive interests.

S H A Y C 011/30/2016, 1:45:03 PM1 votes

This feels suspiciously like a DC Comic reboot... Invisible East Indian Man , Asian Female Thing, Transgender Dr. Fantastic , Flamboyantly Gay and over accessorized Johny Storm confirmed. Ghetto Fabulous 4, 2020

Papa Andrei11/30/2016, 12:51:25 AM1 votes

Okay so This may be my own theory just off what I know and reading the new lore.

So you mentioned a Schism and this new Gray Lady person.. Maybe what happened was the Glorious Evolution got a new member, a lady who made her own improvements on her own body, much the same as early VIktor, but in a completely different style. She knew as much about the whole improvement thing as Viky did, so he and her partnered together. But they had different views on how to go about the Glorious Evolution. Viktor wanted it to be an open thing for everyone to join at their own will, and to be part of society. Meanwhile the Gray Lady wanted to force the Evolution on others, having a distaste for the unaugmented. They split more people followed Gray Lady over him, He left to wander the world and find a place to settle down (Shurima maybe? raw magical resources everywhere.) Whilst Gray Lady took over the "Church" as an enigmatic figure who rarely showed.