First of all: I would like to inform you that this thread isn't visible on the 'Discussion threads involving Honkai: Star Rail' button - I think it's missing a colon in the tags.
Second of all: I think the OP has holes but I agree with the premise.
It's necessary to define precisely what an Emanator actually is before I get into this.
An Emanator can draw power directly from their Aeon. It's a broad level of power with levels to it, just like the original post suggests in reason 2. The powers they gain from their Aeons are also different.
We don't see Herta throwing hands like Acheron, do we? Her strongest feats and threats are always tech based such as the Imaginary Implosion Pulse. I truly doubt she could manage something like tearing apart the dreamscape, especially since Acheron's Nihility Emanator status grants her resistances to other paths. Herta notably does not have this. Their skillsets and powers are unique.
It is ridiculous that this needs to be established. We shouldn't be chainscaling any Emanator to any Emanator of any other path because their skillsets simply are not the same. I do think Emanators of the same path should be comparable, unless it's a case like scaling to Zephyro and especially Irontomb. It's been made clear that these two stand vastly above the other Destruction Emanators.
Trailblazer Vs Skaracabaz clone.
Conclusion: Terrible example to use. Skaracabaz doesn't even have the level of power of an Emanator.
If we look at the definition above the Skaracabaz clone doesn't hold up. Ruan Mei even calls Skaracabaz inferior to the Emanator. It's a replica of the Emanator, not an Emanator itself.
Also if you scale the Trailblazer during this arc, they were struggling against a Doomsday beast, obviously very inferior to an Emanator. The surrounding context doesn't support Skaracabaz being an Emanator.
I'm not even sure why we think the clone is an Emanator. I will be repeating this various other times for other characters.
Yanqing, Yunli and March vs Feixiao
Conclusion: Complicated.
I'm not sure why we think Feixiao (or Jing Yuan) is an Emanator (x2) - It's not directly confirmed or stated anywhere. The best we have is that The Flying Aureus is blessed by Lan and its equivalent, Jing Yuan's Lightning Lord specifically, holds comparable power to Phantylia. I say specifically because we see Phantylia overpower Jing Yuan in the cutscene where she's defeated.
Furthermore, Jing Yuan states Lightning Lord is only temporarily under his command. Jing Yuan and Feixiao are not Emanators, they merely wield spirits that ARE Emanators. Both Jing Yuan and Feixiao are not Emanators as they can't draw power directly from Lan.
(It doesn't help that nothing cited in Jing Yuan and Feixiao's profiles directly call them Emanators, unless it's in the Chinese which I can't read. Nothing there is particularly convincing.)
So the question is does Feixiao use The Flying Aureus against March, Yunli and Yanqing? No. Obviously not. So obviously these three shouldn't scale to an Emanator.
Express + Robin Vs Sunday
Conclusion: I agree.
This is the first actual fight where someone scales to an Emanator as Sunday is using the harmonious choir. It's verbatim stated that the Choir has the power of an Emanator. I think the Trailblazer and Astral Express, at this point, should scale to an Emanator of Harmony... but Sunday has no feats anyway so it doesn't even matter lol.
TB and Hysilens Vs Lygus
Conclusion: They don't even scale to Lygus.
Lygus is a smaller fraction of Zandar who IS (was) the Emanator of Erudition. I believe this makes him more like Aventurine, with a fraction of an Emanator's power. Regardless of all that Trailblazer and Hysilens couldn't beat Lygus regardless and required Cyrene's help to overload Lygus' and cause him to literally forfeit. Even if he was an Emanator Hysilens and TB don't scale to that level.
We see Lygus' finishing attack overpower both TB and Hysilens.
March, TB, Dan Heng and Cyrene vs Irontomb.
Conclusion: They're amped by Cyrene.
Initially they're losing against Irontomb as shown in the cutscene and even the fight during Irontomb's infinite HP segment. March even states she can't hear clearly, they're being effected by Irontomb and so is the TB. Cyrene is legitimately the only one able to hold out against Irontomb's universe destroying attack, as shown in the cutscene, not that I want to debate the AP of that attack right now.
Without Cyrene's Amp they don't scale.
It should be really clear by now that I believe the chainscaling is ridiculous and doesn't hold up but that I believe reason one of the OP and the general scaling of the verse has a ton of flaws to it.
Characters like Lygus shouldn't scale to Irontomb or Cyrene. Especially when going off of the profile's reasoning which is:
He was OVERPOWERED by Trailblazer and Hysilens (something I blatantly disagree with).
Trailblazer was then blatantly defeated by Irontomb until the Cyrene amp.
I'm leaning towards agreeing with the argument against chainscaling but disagree with some of the arguments made, mainly surrounding which characters are Emanator level.
Lygus scaling to a character who overpowered the character who 'overpowered' him just because 'Emanators should be comparable' is ridiculous. Several of the profiles have evident massive issues and need to be re-evaluated, especially theorised Emanator status for a few select people.
Anyway Sparkle slander cannot be tolerated she must scale to Vita via that one non-canon animated short lmao.
I'm gonna leave this here, I've been writing this for 20 minutes and I can no longer be arsed with this message, there's probably holes somewhere but I believe the arguments are pretty solid.
