By: Sammy Wang

Firefly is a character from the game Honkai Star Rail. She controls a set of mechanized armor known as “SAM” to help her fight. She is part of a group called the Stellaron Hunters, a group that hunts down the “cancer of all worlds”. Members of that group joined for personal reasons.

Firefly’s reason? To find the meaning of life.

Firefly was born to fight against a catastrophe called The Swarm, which is the spread of multiple large dangerous insects with the ability to reproduce quickly and efficiently. These insects were able to take over multiple worlds in the span of mere days.

Genetically engineered to be a weapon, Firefly, otherwise known as AR-26710 during this time, along with an army of other genetically engineered soldiers, were sent to the frontlines of the battle in multiple planets to fight The Swarm.

In “Presently, Beneath a Shared Sky of Stars”, Firefly is seen with three other soldiers in a distant planet killing off stray remains of The Swarm. It is during this time that the group has a conversation about identity and their hopes for the future if the war ends.

It is also implied that Firefly has lived longer than her companions with the length of her hair, revealing the fact that most soldiers don’t survive as long as her to be able to grow out their own hair.

The next major point in Firefly’s life is the battle that destroys her home planet, Glamoth. In “The Embers of Glamoth”, a soldier was able to plant a bomb in the main source of the Swarm, the Mother Swarm. This, while effective in eliminating The Swarm, left Galmoth a scorched planet, filled with piles of dead bodies. Dead bodies that look just like Firefly.

As the skies slowly clear, Firefly comes to the conclusion that she still wants to live, despite not knowing what she wants to live for. Her original purpose was to fight for Glamoth, but being the only sole survivor of her planet, she is given the will to live for something else.

This is where she joins the Stellaron Hunters where she is promised that she will be given the answer she is seeking. From here until Firefly meets the main cast, she is given room to find her own personal interest. From eating desserts to buying little accessories for her enjoyment, she is able to experience being a normal girl despite her given fate.

That fate being the death, caused by Entropy Loss Syndrome, something that was inflicted to her and all the other soldiers due to the fear of their strength and will.

Although there is no solution for the illness, Firefly is determined to live for herself, not to be known and remembered as a Stellaron hunter. Instead, she strives to be a normal human girl fighting to find her own purpose in life and live.

“ I still have the right to choose, even if I’m like a firefly to a flame and life begets death! In the future, I will be a firefly and live for myself. Until I die, and burn to ashes.” – Firefly, Embers in a Shell.

Sources:
https://honkai-star-rail.fandom.com/wiki/Stellaron_Hunters
https://honkai-star-rail.fandom.com/wiki/Glamoth
https://honkai-star-rail.fandom.com/wiki/Firefly
https://youtu.be/qsBBZRNoP8s?si=TPr4EfPd2f3oooV8
https://youtu.be/pdiwGOicQVs?si=_W_JjZ-GfjzoccB4
https://youtu.be/eFXQqY3ia6k?si=C-GgZmazb0BJsmzd