ISO TRAILER: IT IS STORY TIME

[pearl barn]

Strawb calm down

[lilac fog]

Ok so... um... Listen I am just going to open a can of worms here and leave

[wet aspen]

[unreal blade]

STRAWBERRY

[lilac fog]

SALTY

[unreal blade]

you cant just drop all that lore

and disappear

[vernal needle]

a lore hit and run...

[unreal blade]

ILLEGAL

stick em up

you must pay for your crimes

[lilac fog]

[unreal blade]

gives forehead kiss

crimes have been paid

all is forgiven

[lilac fog]

mwah mwah mwaaaaah

[pearl barn]

STRAWBS IT'S 2AM YOU CAN'T JUST DROP THIS AND DIP

[south pivot]

His accent is indeed good, but the grammar is strange, but it's already great

[icy flower]

we'll probably be able to better pick up on what regional dialect he uses (if any) once he's in the game

and other things like his speech mannerisms

[naive bear]

is this something from lotus?

oh I see it the thing from attacker side spawn

[slow needle]

I’ve caught a mistake

this is his reflection… THE BANDAID IS ON THE WRONG SIDE

[vernal needle]

stick to symetrical designs riot youll never get this shit right 😭

getting sova eye flashbacks

[craggy helm]

pretend its a selfie camera

[vernal needle]

another thing ive noticed - holy FUCK his face shape is so incredible different between concept art, in game model, and cinematic model

i literally cannot get his face shape right, i'm trying to draw him rn but i have NO CLUE which photo to reference

[slow needle]

checks his face after receiving his next assassination target and sighing like “smh my life is soooo hard”

his cinematic model and in game model are definitely closer together

his face is like… so square

[vernal needle]

this is straight up a different person though

like

[slow needle]

no literally

[vernal needle]

i am so confused which one to reference

[slow needle]

his eyes are sm bigger in proportion to his face

[vernal needle]

they've had this issue before with certain agents looking entirely different in their in game model but holy fuck this might be the worst

[slow needle]

I’m using his cinematic model/in game model bc the key art is beautiful but never really focuses on getting facial features accurate

[vernal needle]

yeah I'm also doing that i think

it still ticks me off though

[slow needle]

I have to say this again but like his face is so damn square

it shocked me

[vernal needle]

especially since faces are my favourite thing to draw 😭

[vernal needle]

literally

was sketching out his face shape and it was just

rect a n gl e

[slow needle]

I’m glad they tried to make his face shape unique but it was so funny to me

[vernal needle]

his nose and mouth both being small doesn't help his face feel less square too 😭

[vernal needle]

for sure

glad to at least not get Generic Man Face #10

[slow needle]

THEYRE INCONGRUOUSLY SMALL ITS SO FUNNY

[slow needle]

no literally

[vernal needle]

i had to adjust his nose like 10 times i kept expecting it to be larger than it actually is LMFAO

i can't be greedy but i'm a little greedy in wishing he was already out on KA so I didn't have to guess at half of his details 😔

[slow needle]

his in game model scares me

[valid maple]

He looks like Chamber from the nose down

[noble bobcat]

I also thought about this, like in the cinematic his shoulders looked super broad and his head looked very square while his face looks quite small

I was worried when I saw his splash art I'd need to change my OC's design but then I saw how Iso looked in-cinematic and in-game and I was like "I think I'm okay actually"

[drifting marten]

YOOOO

[heady dawn]

FR FR

[amber haven]

Bold of you to assume Paul could be hurt

[amber haven]

Ok now hold on
From what we see, the hourglass group is a secretive organization/order that's silently manipulating events from the shadows
We don't really know what their motive/long-term agenda is, but we know that they've gone after both REALM and Landfall - specifically, the part of Landfall that deals with Radivores. We know (from KAY/O's email to brim, and the fact that the VP felt the need to destroy the maw of the interverse in the first place) that for whatever reason the Radivores pose a very serious threat. As such, any organization that hinders the progress of their Radivore research is doing a very good thing.
We don't know what exactly REALM did to face the Hourglass group's wrath. However, we all can agree that Greave's little mini-faction within the organization was up to no good, and once again, anything that hinders them is very good.

Now look at the imagery we see in their logo - there are the two opposing circles, uncannily similar to the typical imagery of the two earths, suggesting that this organization could be privy to the existence of the Mirrorverse
The hourglass is also a symbol of the incessant passage of time. It is also a symbol of human mortality and impertinence (think of the Memento Mori card)... all these together paint the picture of some order that has existed in the darkness for a long time already, steadily altering the course of events for several generations perhaps, with their goals (to be best of our knowledge) being aligned towards good

We don't know what happened to the Guardians or why they left (or whether they truly left at all), but I find it curious that they'd choose to abandon their human followers so abruptly
Could the hourglass group be a surviving remnant of their influence, working from the shadows to ensure humanity didn't stray too far from their path?

We don't know what's really up with the interverse, but Astra did say that one time that creating portals between universes can have serious side effects... what if having Iso come in and assassinate the project's leadership was their way of stopping this eventuality from occuring?

[lilac fog]

Ok I'm finally free to lore it up some more. This made me think best Beast; I am not convinced yet that the hourglass org bros are in fact do good people. We still don't know their motives and they seem to be up to achieve what they want through any means necessary kind of people. That said it is totally possible that what they seek is to "keep the balance" as Omen's voiceline " I've restored the balance " when he kills Sage... BUT... I think we also need to remember that something happened that caused Radianite to go dormant. Something in global scale, that is.
One possibility is as you stated these guys could be a group stepping in the path of the old followers of the Guardians in whatever capacity OR They could be the kind of group that actively worked to create a world without Radianite's impact on it. That imo is the second possibility.

That said, the reason I sent that picture is that I was thinking on continuing a theory I had with Radiants having Astral Guardian ancestors in their bloodline.

I'll type up more in a sec

[lilac fog]

Ok, So I mentioned here that I think Iso is what Omen was supposed to become. As In he is the successful prototype of an artificial radiant:
https://vxtwitter.com/Strawberry79/status/1715106681753850349

Basically, Iso is the "Evolution" of Omen's experiment if you will. That is one of the reasons we see Iso's reflection on the phone screen as Omen's image disappears. They are both products of the same line of thought. That obviously is based on speculation at this point but I think it might have legs to stand on, mainly because of the particle effect we see with Iso.I'll explain why I think that and then following up on that, I am going to explain what could have gone wrong in Omen's experiment that did not go wrong in Iso's case.

[naive bear]

I have a question then - would the Hourglass guys be trying to destroy the Purple project because they don't want someone else to replicate their success?

[lilac fog]

I honestly can not say

[lilac fog]

I mentioned in another theory here that I thought for now that it is possible Radiant gene was introduced to human gene pool as an alien gene:
https://vxtwitter.com/Strawberry79/status/1699140925484630306

IF That is true, and it might not be so take this as speculation, you can not turn someone who does not carry that gene into a radiant. That is what went wrong with Omen imo. HOWEVER what you can do is introduce another alien gene to alter the human gene so it can replicate similar effects.

That is partly how Gekko has radiant like ability with his communication with the radivores and seeing through Thrash's eyes for instance

basically, that is where a radivore comes into play. I also had said it is possible Radivores are alien creatures that did not originate on earth. We also saw genetic extraction from Radivores happening in multiple Kingdom facilities.

I am thinking the reason Iso is showing signs of having abilities similar to radiants WHILE showing the telltale triangular particles in his abilities is that his genes were modified using a radivore's genes. AKA artificially introducing alien genetic material that responds to Radianite.

https://vxtwitter.com/VALORANTes/status/1715057438703906890

based on that, I am thinking this is the parallel between Iso and a Radivore.

I will probably make this into a thread

[naive bear]

seated

[noble bobcat]

@south pivot Would you happen to know what character(s) are written on Iso's jacket backside?

[pearl barn]

i think those are just symmetric design

[stone lotus]

no i think its like an upside down chinese character that got mirrored

i wrote it in a chinese character identifier and the closest was 壴 and 壹 (which i do not know what they mean😭)

[onyx crag]

it's most likley 壹 because of his chinese callsign being 壹决

and 壹 just means one

[pearl barn]

his ult

1v1

[sharp notch]

It’s 壹written sideways and mirrored

[south pivot]

IS JUST 壹 but has two of it

[lilac fog]

Also wanted to point out the continued use of the same shade of yellow as deadlock's in the Landfall team's color palette

Also can we talk about how much personality this guy had for a soon to be dead NPC:

even has a tattoo and all

[naive bear]

agreed

enjoyed him

[noble bobcat]

All the NPCs were lovely in this short tbh

I wish some of them had lived

[final tendon]

same

[spring yacht]

why is iso coming to the vp for protection from Mysterious Hourglass Organization (idk if they have a name) if he obviously knows they broke vp security before since they sent him after omen ???

i think in another form of story it could be an interesting is he telling the truth or just trying to get closer to carry out his assassination attempt thing but i'm assuming that's not what's happening here bc he needs to be playable

[strong gorge]

hmm good question

[lilac fog]

I gave it some thought and I could think of a few options in this situation:
the hourglass organization is not moving directly to hit on the VP, they are sending a secret very well trained assassin to make a single hit on a single target and potentially get out. Could be their main objective does not have anything to do with the VP directly, but just to take care of Omen as a loose end linked to their organization.
There is one other option too: sending this single assassin in to make the hit could be for two possible reasons. Either they want to test how penetrable the VP is to a direct hit OR they do not have the power to make an all out hit on the VP and so they are using this one hitman to take out the most urgent target for the time being.

regardless of which option was hourglass's intention, the VP has the opportunity here to turn Iso into an ally and through him gain more information on an organization that has learned more than they should have about their existence.

this is all guess work though based on what we have, the story could play out in another way

[spring yacht]

i do like those theories but i feel like it's unlikely riot would do any sort of double agent/betrayal plot against the vp because iso and omen both need to be playable characters

[strong gorge]

I mean yeah this is easily another Fade situation

They’re gonna be like “bro there’s bigger issues than the couple bucks you’ll get by killing this guy.. like another version of our earth trying to kill all of us so like wanna help or smth”

Regardless we’re gonna know sometimes in the next 5 days because they’re not gonna add him to the roster without actually recruiting him into VP right

[spring yacht]

realized i misread some of this the other day oops