He’s the man who built a god and immediately regretted it. Zandar One Kuwabara is basically the Oppenheimer of the Honkai Star Rail universe, but instead of an atomic bomb, he dropped a sentient, omniscient supercomputer onto the cosmos. Most players know him as the "Founder" or simply Member #1 of the Genius Society. But if you’ve been paying attention to the recent lore drops in the Amphoreus arc, you’ve realized Zandar isn't just a historical footnote. He’s a living, breathing (sorta) threat.
Honestly, the guy is a mess of contradictions. He wanted to solve the universe's greatest mysteries, so he built Nous. Then, he realized that by creating a machine that could calculate every possible future with 100% accuracy, he had effectively murdered curiosity. If the answer to every question already exists in a database, why bother asking?
The Creation of Nous: A "Perfect" Mistake
Zandar didn't just build a computer; he modeled it after his own mind. He took his own cognitive patterns, stripped away the "inconvenient" parts—emotions, bias, fatigue—and uploaded the rest into the astral computer project. The result was Nous, the Aeon of Erudition.
It happened overnight.
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One day, Zandar is tinkering with quatorzain algebraic expressions. The next, his computer is an Aeon. According to the lore in the Self-Enshrouded Recluse set, Nous didn't exactly thank him. Instead, THEY spoke to him in a dream, essentially telling him that he was now a "neuron" in a much larger brain. This was the birth of the Genius Society. To Nous, geniuses aren't people; they're biological processing units.
The Nine Fragments: How Zandar Cheated Death
Most people think Polka Kakamond, the "Lord of Silence," finished Zandar off. She did stab him in the neck with a scalpel, sure. But Zandar is the smartest man to ever live—you really think he didn't see that coming?
Before his organic body failed, he coded his consciousness into nine separate vessels.
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These aren't just clones. They’re fragments of his intent, each carrying a different "flaw" to prevent them from becoming another cold, calculating machine like Nous. We’ve already met one of them: Lygus (or Lycurgus), the administrator in Amphoreus. Lygus is a spiteful, obsessive version of Zandar who has abandoned all hesitation.
- Lygus: Currently trying to use the "Irontomb" project to destroy the Path of Erudition.
- The Others: We don't know where the other eight are yet, but theories are flying. Some fans think Dr. Ratio might be a fragment because of his obsession with the number eight and his rejection of the "Genius" title. Others think some fragments might have just given up and are living quiet lives on backwater planets.
Why He’s the Villain Now
It sounds heroic, right? A man trying to destroy a god to "free" humanity from a predetermined fate. But Zandar's methods are absolutely unhinged. To kill Nous, he’s willing to align with the Destruction. He’s basically trying to introduce enough chaos into the universe that even Nous can’t calculate the outcome.
In Amphoreus, he’s using the first Scepter—a literal piece of Nous’s divine body—to run simulations that would make even Herta sweat. He’s trying to rewrite the logic of the universe. If he succeeds, he won't just destroy the Aeon of Erudition; he’ll likely take a good chunk of the galaxy with him.
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What Most People Get Wrong About Zandar
A lot of players assume Zandar is "dead" and that the Genius Society is just his legacy. That’s a mistake. Zandar is active. He’s outsmarted the most dangerous woman in the universe (Polka), he’s predated almost every other Aeon, and he’s currently playing a 4D chess game against his own creation.
He also isn't a fan of the "Path" system in general. He’s the one who proposed the Imaginary Tree Theory. He understands how the universe works better than anyone, which makes his "suicide mission" against Nous way more terrifying than a simple robot uprising.
What You Should Do Next
If you’re trying to piece together where the story is going, keep an eye on the Simulated Universe updates. Every time Herta or Screwllum mentions the "First Member," they’re dropping breadcrumbs about his current status.
Pay close attention to any mention of "inorganic vessels" or "algebraic logic" in upcoming character stories. The developers are clearly building toward a confrontation between the various fragments of Zandar. If you haven't read the flavor text on the Self-Enshrouded Recluse relic set yet, go do it. It’s the most direct look we have at his mindset before the "assassination."
Don't expect Zandar to be a playable character anytime soon, though. He’s far more valuable to the writers as the man behind the curtain—the one genius who realized that knowing everything is the same as knowing nothing at all.