I write something here tomorow

But I believe its more simple than one would think.

The core is basically jingling keys in front of him and telling him to look at them.

Firstly, why is the sky hallucination sus? could it just be his own mind?

Her guiding him to her book and later showing up next to the shimmer addict could be explained as just his conscious.

However, he also woke up to her screams and it was her voice that guided him to the addicts, both things go beyond what could manifest only from his own perception of things.

Not only that, this is the exact place where he later cocoons himself again. So it's no accident he ended up here.

It's also good to note how Viktors saw her differently then how she was, he sees him as a more idolised version of herself, which is als a good indication that she is not real.

But then in act 2 she appeals completely harmless, she doesn't push him into anything, and it looks like she offers some sense of emotional support.

And that's the point, it's feeding into viktors weaknesses as a person, all it needs to do, is give him the illusion of company, and keep him in his head.

Viktor was always a loner, but he also seeked out second opinions and he was in fact very lonely and wished for company.

This is exactly what the core is giving him the illusion of. A second opinion and company.

By herself “sky” does not offer any new information to viktor, she is either stathing things he is already aware of, things viktor thinks she would say, or reassures him.

“She liked me, she would be concerned about me!”

“I remember telling her that once!”

“She was caring, she would be upset at someone's death!”

In fact, it might even try to distract him from the important things, we don't see a lot of it, but the moment Viktor starts to wonder what's up with Jayce, she attempts to move his thoughts elsewhere from thinking about what is wrong with him.

Viktors perception of the world is fundamentally changed, this is already pretty isolating but now he has a mind buddy! He's Not alone anymore, there's someone who talks to him, who cares about him, who he can share ideas with,

someone who loves him.

I'm going to concede, I do think their relationship has a romantic undertone, if for nothing else it's because viktors perception of sky is pretty heavily defined by her love letters to him.

Regardless of your reading (how much do you think he reciprocates that), it is giving him the company he wished for.

Why is that bad?

It's because it keeps him docile, and so far up his own 4ss that he doesn't realise how messed up what he is actually doing is. He is stuck with his own regurgitated thoughts.

The only thing he ever gets is reassurance that what he is doing is in fact good, he doesn't have an outside perspective on what's happening with him or around him.

He doesn't have the head space to self reflect cuz something always chimes in, always keeps him thinking, solving problems, solving puzzles.

We never once saw him actively trying to talk to any of his followers, the only people who he does are not affected by him, and come to him directly, he didn't even bother seeking out Jayce himself.

The only way he communicates with them is when he wants to do his creepy puppet thing and if the only thing left in his followers head is gratitude towards him and he never examines what it did to them as people, no wonder he doesn't notice a thing.

He just unquestionably spreads the core's influence.

No wonder the first awful idea anyone gave him in who knows how long that isn't his own stuck with him.

He always had a tendency to get sucked into his work and dont bother with people (ironically that is one of the reasons sky got dusted) and don't bother with anything else, and now the conditions are orchestrated for this to basically keep him in his own head.

He doesn't really care about his followers either, he watched one of them get smashed and didn't give a damn.

He doesn't care for them as people, they are more akin to problems he can solve and move on. He was barely even bothered about Jayce's condition, probably assuming he will come to him and he can fix him right away.

We can see this in his visions of how he conceptualizes himself, he looks very human, and yet he got these unsettling yellow eyes. He is blind to the ways he changed, just look at how he acts in them.

At first glance he appears a lot more emotive and it also tells us that he is fairly enjoying himself and his new perception of the world but also the main thing we see of him is his endless curiosity about things, not his empathy towards them.

He is well meaning of course, but he doesn't/cant reflect enough to see what he is really doing. Namely taking away the things he saw in these people, their dreams.

And he constantly has problems to solve, we saw how many people went to him, he always has something to think about, and he always has someone to talk to about it without needing to waste precious time on seeking out a second opinion.

In s1 he barely reacted to the beginning of a civil war going around him, now people depend on him and in the middle of a civil war he doesn't have any way of protecting these people.

He barely gives a damn about him slowly deteriorating. He doesn't live in reality anymore. He cannot see the forest for the trees. (though he might have had some plans we don't know of, since Salo was gathering materials for him.)

And his guilt just amplifies this.

From s1 one of his strongest traits was how much he believed if he gets the right tools, and the opportunity, he can help people.

“Do you think my life ambition is to be an assistant?”

“If you are going to change the world don't ask for permission.”

“All I did was believe in myself.”

This is what skys death puts into question.

This is why he almost jumped afterwards, this fundamental belief in himself was put into question. He got the chance to do what he wanted and someone died.

This is where his guilt comes into play, he isn't making his own dream a reality, we saw that what he really wanted is to give people tools that they can use to create, but that's not what he is doing.

He is doing what he believes Skye's dream was.

It doesn't even look like he invents things anymore, he just mostly uses his powers and studies botanics. (tho we saw Salo steal some stuff for him so he might have some plans that we don't know yet?)

This is even the context he brought her up to jayce: she had such dreams.

From her notes we can assume she hoped to help make a zaun that is cleaner and more connected to nature.

This is the reason why he is so receptive to skyes positive affirmation, its because in his head he is correcting his wrong, her affirmation and forgiveness gave him back the belief that he can still do good.

Now he has the right tools and the opportunity to do it, so he won't fail again.

He is literally wearing her symbol on his clothes.

He is doing this out of some kind of repentance for his sins.

So the way he sees it: he is helping these people, who on they own free will just happen to stay here cuz its nice and he conveniently can puppet them if needed, he doesn't question that cuz he never bothers to talk to them and skys happy and she talks to him so why bother when no one sees the world like he does.

What he doesn't realise is that he is pretty much meant to die there.

There's a reason why his palace was builded here, he literally got told to build it there. It was there so he could die and cocoon himself again.

When he first saw jayce and encountered the singularity, he was literally describing himself.

“self annihilating and replicating” That's him, this entity is connected to him, he is meant to die and be reborn over and over again. He might not completely embody it yet, but he is a product of it. (and he will probably gonna try to harness it, that's what the beginning of ep 6 set up.)

I don't think he expected jayce to shoot him, when he saw what he was going to do he looked pretty shocked, but he was intentionally kept docile by the core basically guaranteeing that even actually he will die out.

And then he had the audacity to conclude it must have happened cuz people just suck.

He tried nothing to prevent this and he is already out of options.

To his defense he was probably really lost in the sauce at this point.

This is also why he was making his following, he was supposed to draw power from them after he dies so he can be reborn again.

This also means that singed and ambessa are probably interfering with this process.

It would explain why he looks so wrong in the poster.

In conclusion, the core keeps Viktor in a mind state where he is docile enough not to question what's happening around him using his already existing flaws against him in order to spread itself.

We know that the same infection that is present in the hex core, or at least what it spreads somehow got into zauns systems. Jayce even brings attention to this.

The oblivious problem with that the hex core was made with viktors blood, he fundamentally connected to it.

To answer this conundrum we need to go back to the beginning and examine how it was first conceived. The first time Viktor was affected by it.

The first time he hallucinated he was inside hex gates after he caught some blood into it, it even got emphasized in a shot, and later in s2 ep3 we can see a red stain at the bottom on the gates, so it clearly had significance.

Immediately after that he gets the idea to make the hex core wich later allows him to change into the form we see in s2. Not only that, but the first time his health really begins to deteriorate he also hallucinates, before coaching up blood that the hex core absorbs.

When it comes to Viktors illness Jayce describes it as caused by pollution, which is certainly a factor in why his health is not great in general, but that is just Jayces theory and never gets confirmed.

And isn't it odd that Viktor had divine inspiration (literally described as a vision), before making the hex core, and right after making it his health began to deteriorate wich forced him into transforming his body?

But what actually is the core then, how could it affect viktor before it was even built. Why is a single hex gem so powerful?

Which brings us to the main thesis of this theory, the real core was never this weird purple ball, the real hex core is a hive mind, a better name for it is perhaps the will of the arcane.

Its an ancient entity that resides or is the arcane, functions like a virus when it comes in contact with the material one, and it needs a host to interact with the material world.

Sounds outlandish, but let's take a look at how Viktors relationship to it began.

This is where the blood he spilled in the hex gates becomes important, it was at a place where the line between realms was artificially thinned.

When viktor accidentally spilled his blood into it, this entity got attuned to him. This is why immediately after he comes in contact with it, he gets divine instructions on how to create the tool that can prepare his body to properly spread it.

This is why everything else he tried it on died, the problem wasn't just that they were not perceptible to change, it's that they were not viktor, the hex core was not attuned to them.

In jayces journal he even alludes to the idia that crystals attune to a sole user.

And the more he changed himself and the more organic material the core absorbed the closer it got viktor to begin his transformation whole heartedly, and gaining the ability to chanel the hexcores power by himself.

Jayce even noted it's like  the core was connected to viktor.

This is where we get to the carrot and stick way the core treats viktor.

He didn't started dying out of nowhere because of bad luck, the core was actively eroding him to give him an incentive to fuse with it.

Especially when he was away from it or harmed it in some way. 

When viktor was in contact with or around it, he looks energized, he wasn't coughing as much, he is more active.

When he was away for too long, he was more sickly, weaker, no wonder he got obsessed with the thing.

This is why we didn't see anyone else with symptoms this bad that came from zaun, what's killing him was the core. He even heard voices before collapsing.

And this is what Heimerdinger noticed when he said something has changed in viktor. He got attuned to the core.

As to why it waited until viktor almost died when after it absorbed Sky, Viktors body and the core was ready, if its functions as a virus its possible it waited until Viktor was literally unable to resist it, it would have probably deteriorated him until he got into that state.

This means by itself it never could have forced viktor into transforming.

But why does it need viktor to spread if it seems to be perfectly capable by itself?

It looks like after it has chosen its host, through the thinned layer between realities that the hex gate causes (hextech radiation if u will), it successfully polluted the material world.

Its exactly because in itself just kills whatever organic material it comes in contact with. If a virus is too effective in killing, that's detrimental to it.

what makes me think this thing is ancient? or that it was present from the beginning?

Its how Heimerdinger describes it.

He mentioned he saw something like this and it always came with destruction, he later explains that the destructive tendencies of magic and mages might be in their nature.

(Not to mention even back in s1 jayce notes mentioned that they hexgems emitted some spider web like formation.)

Which would make sense, if it's a virus that spreads by being in contact with organic material and through the thinned planes, that means when mages overuse their power or a power source, it even actually infects them, and tries to persuades them to use their powers more.

In conclusion the way this entity works is that its always present in the arcane, maybe its itself the arcane, when people draw power from it, the line between the material realm and arcane temporarily thins, and even actually it will come into contact with something that can function as its host.

After it attuned itself to a compatible host, it can begans to mold them into a form where they can carry out its spreading, and it starts to infect and spread through parts of the world where the line between realms is thin.

However, it needs the host to mold biological beings into a form that can survive it, otherwise it just even actually deteriorates them. And it wants a host that actively spreads it because the contact it can have with the material world is limited.

Viktor is very likely the first non mage this happened to, mages most likely got infected by over using they magic or magic items (like world runes), however in Viktors case, it was because hextech thinned the line between realms.

Its ultimate goals are unknow.

It is most likely in order to stop the spreading, the host needs to be destroyed.

Thematically speaking: pollution poisoned Viktors blood, and now Viktor poisoned the world with his blood.