WHO? WHAT? WHY? SAMPO KOSKI
This is a summary/theories/rambles made by me, someone who has way too much brain rot for this character right now, hope you enjoy.
(fyi this is increadibly long)
First Black Swans companion quest, Im very much basing this entire thing on the theory that her quest plays before Belobogs main story.
First the quest plays while Sampo is no longer a mask fool in addition it's also implied that he was on Penacony for at least a while. Not only did he have a VIP pass for the Pepeshi club but the Pepeshi people also trust him. Which leads me to think that he properly got that pass at least somewhat legitimately.
Granted we know this from the interaction between Sparkle, Firefly and the Trailblazer but I still think that this is also applicable in the situation within Black Swans quest.
(also very importantly Black Swans quest is told via a Memory Bubble so knowing exactly when it happened is already nebulous at best)
If the companion quest happened after the main events of Jarilo VI. Then what happened to Sampo, that in the span of, if we’re generous, a few months leads him to leave the mask fools? Sampo seems to have very strict rules/lines/boundaries for himself so to assume that something happened in the span of a few months which leads him to lay down his mask and go to Penacony but then a new catastrophe befalls Belobog and he immediately goes back to the fools, just feels a bit flimsy to me.
Him also calling himself an old timer with the fools is important. Basically this man has seen some shit so him going back, surprising even Sparkle makes me think that he was out of the Mask fools for a while.
Also quick side note, that out of all places Giovanni could have chosen to host his event, he went with Belobog. The place he knew he could meet Sampo at. Or he at least knew that if he went there the chance of meeting him was quite high. Potentially because he could have seen the end broadcast of Sampos after the main story of Belobog or because Sampo told Sparkle at the end of Black Swans quest to “tell Giovanni I said hi”. I just find it interesting that the writers put that line here.
Anyway, the Next bit is my personal understanding/theory of Sampos timeline.
Sampo was a member of the fools for a very long time, something happened that went so against his boundaries that he left the fools. He either then immediately went to Penaconey or traveled around for a bit before going there, possibly wanting to settle down.
Sparkle arrives in Penacony for her own reasons. Finds out that Black Swans here too and wants to fuck with her a bit. So she enlists the help of her “friend” Sampo.
They make a deal that he helps her and she then gives his mask back to him. (important side note the deal with the masks isn't just that they are a sign that you follow the elation but it's literally your entry ticket to the fools and the tavern.)
The reason why she has the mask or at least knows where it is properly is because Sampo was the one who gave it to her. He initially doesn't tell her exactly why he wants the mask back. that's properly the reason why she mockingly asks if it's about Jarilo VI.
(I acknowledge that Sparkle referencing Jarilo VI makes more sense if Black Swans quest happened after Belobog but hear me out. Sampo clearly has not just knowledge of Belebog but also a huge interest and care for the planet. Maybe the other fools knew of this interest of his. Also I'm gonna talk about his knowledge of Jarilo VI and Belebog later.)
Back to the timeline, Sparkle and Sampo agree on the deal and Black Swans quest starts. Afterwards, Sampo goes to the tavern and gets his mask back. Now he is an active member again, ergo he could potentially get extra help from the fools (for example the potential care package you can find in Lynx’s companion quest that has Sampos name on it.) He arrives on the planet, if he goes first to the overworld or the underworld is anyone's guess.
But anyway, he meets Natasha and helps her and in extension Wildfire. Then he continues like Sparkle inspired him to.
Too late to take the stage? no matter, it's a wonder what you can accomplish if you're just a side character.
The Nameless arrive on Jarilo VI a few years later
(if im not wrong around two years later)
And the main quest starts.
After that he meets Giovanni at the Aetherium wars event. They have a chat and Giovanni tells him that Sparkle is on Penacony, to which Sampo replies that he doesn't want to see her.
Why? I'm not 100% sure. Sampo is an opportunist, him meeting Sparkle helped them both but they still fundamentally disagree on a few things especially their idea of Elation.
This is my reading of his potential timeline for now.
(also another side note hes definitely keeping taps on the Nameless. Simply because of the bomb you can find on the Xianzhou.)
Sampo is strange and his knowledge confuses the hell out of me
He knows a lot about Belobog but the interesting/confusing part is that as an outsider he seems to know things that most if not all locals don't know about.
For example the tunnels that he uses to travel freely between the over and underworld. Just how the hell does he know about those?
Svarog, a Robot built around 700 years ago, didn't know about them, that or he forgot they exist which seems unlikely.
If Svarog knew about them he would have sealed them off, but he didn't.
We can assume that the tunnels are not just incredibly well hidden but also safe, because Sampo carried four unconscious people through them to the underworld.
Potentially those tunnels could have been here before the war and miraculously survived both the Antimatter Legion and the Eternal Freeze. This could explain why neither Svarog knew about them, being there before his time, and for the people of Belobog being also way before there's.
We as the Players never get to see the tunnels but we can assume that they are potentially located in the layers between the over and underworld.
Then Sampo has the knowledge to repair ancient artifacts from a planet that was isolated and forgotten for multiple hundreds of years. Granted there are people especially from the underworld but also from the overworld that know how to repair them but those include Serval, a gifted mechanic who also was an Architect at one point, so someone who was constantly surrounded by those artifacts and had still surviving documents of how to work with them. Clara, also a gifted prodigy of a mechanic whose dad is Svarog, who could absolutely help her if she has questions about some of those artifacts.
Sampo is an outsider though so how did he learn how to work with or just straight up repair ancient technology?
If we now go away from his connection to Jarilo VI for a second there's just a lot of other stuff that are really interesting/confusing about him.
We can guess that Sampo is actually quite knowledgeable especially when it comes to making things.
He made his smoke bombs meaning that he not only has the technical understanding of making the inner workings of a bomb but also knows how to make knockout gas that also doesn't seem to affect him.
Same with his knives. I have my theory that either he made them himself or someone made them for him. The blades are just too tailor made for his fighting style to simply be a thing he stole from somewhere.
The next few points I'm gonna get into were absolutely pointed out many times before by others but still I want to mention them too.
Also this is already incredible long so fuck it.
First, the foot prints, him not leaving any in the snow is already strange. Granted you could argue that he uses the wind ability that his path grands him to erase them the moment his feet touch the snow but it's not just snow, in Penaconey there are fountains that you can walk over and Sampo is the only one the does not create any splashes, only little ripples on the water's surface.
Second, Brughel Poisson, first I love that his entire character story is about a heist/scam he plans and acts out while playing a different character. It's a wonderful and creative way of showing us a bit more about him and it characterizes him very well.
But also I have my doubts this was just him simply putting on an incredibly good disguise and showing off how good he is at crossdressing. One scene that always stuck out to me in the character story was how incredibly sure and confident Sampo was that the guard would not see through Poisson. Even showing off her hair as in saying, look at this, this is obviously my real hair, no wig at all.
I have my theory that he could have shape shifted similar to what Sparkle does with the only difference that he did it not in a dream but in reality.
Him having extra magical abilities would not surprise me, as I said before the smoke of his bombs do not seem to have any effect on him. He is potentially able to teleport or he's just incredibly fast. If he carried Bronya, the Trailblazer, Dan Heng and March 7th all at once to Natasha then he also is a bit stronger then what I think a normal human would be able to do. And the incredibly low temperatures outside of Belobog don't seem to affect him that hard or at all.
Out of all the playable paths they could have given him they went with Nihility, the most similar path to Elation simply because Aha and XI agree on one thing and that is that the world and all its life is meaningless.
It would be fascinating if Sampo first was on the path of Elation and then later switched to Nhility or that he always was on the path of Nihility because of something he went through in his backstory and then found kinship with the fools.
There's so much potential for his story and his character and I really hope the writers of HSR have a plan for where they want to take him.
If you read all of this thank you so much
izzy806
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