#BUT if I make it that they changed drastically as a person somewhere between elpis events and the sundering

[fantasmagoriam]

So, apparently the obvious solution to me struggling to develop my Azem was simply to Let Them Get Worse

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

“i had a dream about the Borderlands are Yours trailer last night for like the 7th time so i guess i ought to do the analysis before i have a breakdown”

find the trailer here

~discussion of the cloth map spoilers occurs in here, but nothing else. if you’re worried about those spoilers do not read~

non-spoiler tl;dr: we discuss why rhys’s head implant is yellow instead of blue in this one particular scene and also go thru a bunch of theories as to what tf is up with Zer0. and some other stuff about giant space lasers

so the intro is pretty much the same as the we are mayhem trailer so we’re gonna ignore that since we figured out where sanc-iii was

pretty sure this scene has been shown already too, in the official announce trailer, i remember taking note of the pink shots

another cov camp on pandora (see elpis in the back). ive said it before and ill say it again i adore amara’s as animations

seen this a bajillion times as well

from we are mayhem near the end. also im still lowkey convinced that robot directly to the right of moze is jakobs. i know i’m probably wrong but... i want to believe. it reminds me of a cowboy

The Are. this is directly below Sanc-III (u can see the wall in the background)

eden-6!!! im interested in the signs in the back there

Prison, Reliance, Jakobs Estate, and... amoe kyuri??? wtf does this say?? idek.

This A Way (glad to know Claptrap will haunt us from beyond Sanc-III)

im interested in the Prison. i wonder if that’s any of those concrete structures/buildings we’ve been seeing across eden-6. i was under the assumption those were like testing facilities, but a prison would also make a whole hell of a lot of sense.

actually

given this sign here over the bridge to the left of the above shot

and the fact we see this concrete structure on the far left in this coming shot

that might actually make some lick of sense...

also can i just say i love the aesthetic of this supply line

so there’s a lot of shots here we’ve already seen and gone over multiple times, im not going to do that again. sorry but... eh.

maliwan = cultists confirmed

i mean if the cult-themed t-shirts being maliwan colored didn’t already cue us in on that, this definitely should lol

and speaking of this shot, i wonder if this has anything to do with Rhys’s building? the one his office would be in. it looks like there are multiple levels to the right of this robo

ah maliwan working with the cult why am i not surprised

rhys gets fucking annihilated (TM)

in all honesty... given this quest name

“Space-Laser Tag” and the subsequent quest “Atlas, At Last” makes me honestly think rhys is about to seriously get fucked up

which sucks. i like rhys. we’ll talk more about this in a second, but i don’t think its coincidence the VHs have come up to the asteroid belt to stop the giant space laser and thus are not on Promethea where the laser is going to hit

better look at this shot, that definitely looks like a rampager to me. i get it, i think. gearbox is hyping up this rampager fight to be super awesome, show it in all the promotional material, have a kickass fight with it, then the twins come in and steal the kill from you. they steal the satisfaction from getting to kill this super hyped-up vault monster.

im picking up what you’re putting down, GB. 

did not realize fl4k actually snaps. how the heck do they do that?? gotta be hard with metal caps as their fingers tbh

404 space station not found

we’re back on the asteroid

... why this gun shoot tentacles :|

this is art

wheres his head going

i was so distracted by the razor blade status effect (??? zeroes??) i didn’t notice the giant-ass A on this banner

OwO what’s this for

~A~

also this which... looks like it could be an amara skill. maybe the one that releases elemental projectiles after an enemy is damaged? feel like we would’ve seen that one already tho.

thinking of this one, im pretty sure we should’ve seen this in one of the many, many gameplay videos (im so jealous) already available.

so if it is, baller, if it’s not, im not too surprised.

it does also seem to be targeting the double cause its shield becomes visible after being hit

i thiiink this is eden-6? in which case it may be that facility tina, brick, and mordy are in (the windows). which may, in retrospect, be that prison we’ve been hearing about

cool angle of the HBC. im pretty sure we’ve seen this shot before, too.

before we get to the actual best part of this scene

this looks very Athenas-like. possibly eridian? although the lights are throwing me off. i suppose the order or someone from the order could’ve built these structures... but what for??

heheheh

also this fucker has those rocks growing out of his head, too

the ones from the alien guns

somewhere outside the RC

back at it again in the space station

also this maliwan thing looks so fucking cool

duuuude looks like the cult got their hands on more than just maliwan hoverwheels, check out that dropship on the left!!! looking cool asf

the cars are STUNNING

holy shit this skin is amazing

very siren-esque

we’ve gone over this clip already but given now that we know the maliwan base thing is on the asteroid, it’s fitting to re-address it i think

a look at one of the metal bois (that im still convinced are jakobs lol)

i love the way this thing looks

the portal seems to be giving off the same blue sparkles we’ve seen on pandora

these

[edit] we also see them in the newest new trailer as Sanc-III zooms off into space. which is interesting.

dunno wtf that means, but yeah. they exist

probably some weird eridian/other dimension shit.

more eden-6

goliath looking amazing. not red and is wearing a helmet, so that’s interesting

looks like a part of the space station

biggggg hallway. im honestly loving how huge these maps seem to be

geniviv! i love her boss fight sooo fucking much.

honestly looks like so much fun

more c a r s

this fucker

probably eridian

i mean it seems to be absorbing the pink-ish energy from the moving stones so i assume its got some sort of link going on

also comparing the mask and arm bit to what we’ve seen rhys hand us on promethea

this thing???

but yellow instead of pink

u kno all this

ye

then again it does sorta ruin the eridian tech so maybe... it’s not lol

honestly my other guess is this is part of that ‘experimental forest’ we’ve seen signs for during the eden-6 demo. dunno why it’s destroying the eridian ruins tho. maybe those pink b e a m s are hurting it? entirely possible. some sorta... life succ ability like Tyreen.

but i don’t think it’s coincidence this thing has shown up right on top of some Eridian ruins/buildings/whatever. the leftmost part though looks like it could be human technology, which is weird. maybe some weird sort of mish mash. human tech that trees/plants grew onto and eridian ruins accidentally powered up. iunno man. im tiored.

rhys’s implant is glowing orange/yellow-ish which is very new

this is from the dev trailer (not glowing at all in the darkness)

from the promethea twitter trailer

and honestly that’s pretty wild to me because in tftbl rhys’s implant glows blue 

shown when he’s in the vault next to fiona

in bl3 during the We Are Mayhem trailer while using his ECHO eye

oh also since i just noticed

from the promethea demo

this scene

also from the promethea demo

they’re missing their monomolecular edge!

we’ll get back to zer0 in a secco

anyway you know who else’s head implant glows?

im not saying katagawa is replacing rhys because their implants are on opposite sides of their heads, but i am saying Katagawa WANTS Rhys in Maliwan and... well, Rhys’s forehead implant isn’t glowing yellow in any other shot we see of him

idk gamers i just think its sus

also rhys is holding onto that thing we see him handing to us in the Promethea trailer

this thing?? you know?

the eridian thingie majig

tho these look like two different areas... unless there’s like a very drastic wall change between angles (which there may be- these fans look identical)

which makes sense that Maliwan would want it (for the big laser thing maybe?? since we know they’re going for activating said laser)

... but honestly i get the feeling this is in some way related to... after the laser. especially since we know that that eridian thingie matches up with this one on pandora

in which case... wtf is the laser for? it definitely looks like its destroying stuff on the surface...

rhys also seems to have knowledge about the eden-6 vault key since he projects it during the dev trailer

me thinks someone got h a c k e r o n i e d

alright galaxy brain theory time:

rhys gets hacked by maliwan not only bc they want a merger, but also because he has info on the vaults/giant space laser, forces zer0 to be maliwan branded now since atlas is joining maliwan, zer0 finds out rhys is not willingly joining maliwan and is instead under maliwan control and tries to forcibly take the key away from him, we stop zer0 and save rhys from both the assassin and maliwan control

🤷‍♂️

Alright but in all seriousness there’s only 2 ways this can go

1. that’s actually our zer0

2. that’s actually not our zer0

and there’s a lot of theories running around about that and i guess we ought to address them

so for 1 there’s a few possibilities:

1. zer0 is a robo/cyborg and got hacked by maliwan (i personally don’t like this one bc i don’t want to know what zer0 actually is. it is a ~m y s t e r y~)

2. zer0 got paid more money to eliminate rhys and is doing so

3. zer0 decided killing their boss would be the ultimate challenge and thus decided to try it out... by joining maliwan

4. they’re faking rhys’s death and/or zer0 is infiltrating maliwan

5. zer0 got the brainwashed/their bodysuit got hacked (i would be interested to see if the monomolecular edge tech caused them to get captured or smth. i mean if there’s a tracker on it, then zer0′s decepti0n wouldn’t exactly work cuz they turn invisible... but they’d still be seen)

6. rhys got the brainwashed/hacked and zer0 is attacking him to get the eridian thingie/key/relic/whatever back

personally i’m curious how they’d play off 1-3 given Zer0 and Rhys are both shown on sanc-iii and zer0 even has crew challenges

im saying idk if the crimson raiders would appreciate zer0 attacking/trying to kill an ally without very good reason.

which is why i’d imagine 4-6 are the more reasonable answers?

also given the explosion of Promethea (what we’re assuming is Promethea) is green and also the laser we see maliwan controlling is purple, i wonder if that’s some brainwashing juice instead of... other stuff. cuz like.

this is elpis’s giant space laser. very radiant and like... ribbon-y? and has all that blue stuff and orbs and mm.

THIS is Promethea’s very solid and has circles and just. looks straight up like a death laser.

and yeah again it could be modified by that human-looking (?) tech around it to be like a brainwashing b e a m or something

or just more precise. that too.

and honestly idk if this could destroy a planet like how we see the planet (that we are assuming is promethea bc of the asteroid belt) in the sanc-iii article

it’s a solid ‘yeah that’s more likely than my theory’. might take a lot of time tho. or maybe those energy rings power it up or deal more damage when they hit the planet...

oh also given Tina literally says “WE blowing up this whole mother humpa”

and the reason im questioning the human-looking tech around it is because

typhon and leda 100% noticed something here. i guess if it was altered by humans after typhon and leda found it then that would make sense?

we’ve also got this from the tree guy, so i don’t know for certain.

anyway number 2

(2. that’s actually not our zer0)

i love these ones

1. that’s 0ne (zer0′s assassin’s assassin from the son of crawmerax dlc)

2. maliwan made a/hired a copy of zer0 and it’s easy to copy their voice/way of speech bc of the modulator (that’s just a fake implanted into atlas to steal all their secrets)

and all of these have the idea that the real zer0 shows up to save rhys at the end of this scene (explaining the blue light)

this

i personally disagree on that being zer0′s sword. tbh it looks more like a maliwan weapon or a laser or smth to me. that said it could be a weird effect because they’re in decepti0n or smth.

most of these theories have the idea that the real zer0 is either off with Fiona or Lorelei or just off on their own and only show up later. i wouldn’t even be surprised, given their line at the end of Tales. you know the one where they diss rhys like “i was talking to her” lol

so i don’t really have much to add to these. personally i believe that’s our zer0 up there, but i wouldn’t be shocked if something happened with the monomolecular edge that allowed maliwan to create a copy of zer0. or brainwash/control them. whichever. 

i do like the reintegration of 0ne into the story, that’d be a hilarious call-back, but i worry it’d be too obscure (a side quest in a headhunter dlc) for the majority of players. we’ll see

it’s weird if brainwashing or mind controlling thru the maliwan tech is the case bc the monomolecular edge isn’t present on their maliwan sword. or their future sanc-iii sword (but that part DOES make sense bc why would they keep that).

(alright also so i just took a bunch of nyquil cuz im sick as a dog so if this devolves into incoherent rambling im so sorry)

ah aurelia

i love her to bits but i don’t trust her because i mean... she worked alongside Nisha and Wilhelm and Alistair dislikes her. there’s like a 50-50 shot she’ll become evil

i would not be surprised if this is a boss fight (door looks frozen over on the left there) but also i would not be surprised if she’s helping us fight off waves of enemies given it looks like we’re in the jakobs manor

like i said 50-50

her attack does make the camera wiggle a bit, usually that happens if the attack injures the player viewing it (with the hud off) cuz it will give a stagger effect

so take that with a grain of salt. also we don’t see aurelia on sanc-iii when hammerlock and wainwright are both there in the group shot in the launch trailer

this fucker i already talked about a bunch in my reddit post on the eridium subject so im going to link that here. i might have already spoken about it on here tbh... i can’t remember lol

anyway here’s the copy and paste from there to here

you can see a huge Tink with Eridium growing out of his head and what look to be Eridium horns. And he's being elementally charged from an Eridian floor tile (in one of those temples, probably the Pandoran one but it could be Athenas, I guess). Kind of like how Bloodwing (also bigger) becomes elementally charged by Jack using element-throwers to change her element. i know it's a cultist tink because on his right shoulder (our left) he has those glow-y pink/purple tubes that are on the CoV guns and other cultists (like goliaths). and while i'm not sure if this is solely Eridian stuff (since they're in a temple) or because of the twins, it's definitely something that should be talked about. 

wait no yeah i did talk about this because of the athenas post. i just remembered lol

uhhh whoops. double dipping i guess lol sorry

still not sure if this is Pandora or Athenas. kind leaning towards Pandora atm

i like how this guy is able to make a cryo wall thing

he goes to smash it but we don’t get to see what happens cuz it cuts to another rampager

dishing out corrosive/radiation (??) attacks while someone shoots it with a fire weapon

this bamf which i KNOW i discussed in that athenas post

also something i haven’t noted is that his roar seems to be activating something here, like a spiral light of dooooom. also more blue sparkles. maybe summoning an assist? or a debuff/attack aoe. 

there is also this weird light near its legs that moves with the camera and sorta reminds me of the weird real-life face talky siren thing. you know the one

very curious as to what this is cause i haven’t seen it in any other scene with a rampager in it. maybe some sort of connection to the spiral/whirlwind thing it’s making?

oh wow im tired now lol

well bl3 is fully downloaded on my computer gamers, so we can officially say it’s happening!!!