Who is Rubert in Honkai Star Rail? 

Honkai Star Rail is known for its detailed universe, filled with Aeons, planets, and powerful individuals who’ve shaped its history. Among them, Rubert I and Rubert II are two names tied to the rise of machines and their dominance. They were influenced by the Anti-Organic Equation, built on the idea that organic life was flawed. This belief sparked the Mechanical Emperor’s Wars in Honkai Star Rail, a series of conflicts that changed entire civilizations.

Both Ruberts stood at the center of this agenda, leaving a legacy that still echoes through the galaxy. Here’s a full breakdown of both Ruberts, their origins, legacies, and what their existence means for the Honkai Star Rail universe.

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Rubert I: The rise of the Mechanical Emperor in Honkai Star Rail

Rubert I, also referred to as Emperor Rubert, began as nothing more than a discarded computer in a landfill. He was broken and left behind with only a faulty processor, 90 GB of RAM, and a single working robotic finger. It was originally never meant to exist beyond the junkyard. However, something in that forgotten system sparked self-awareness.

After crafting a weapon out of metal scraps, Rubert realized its potential. It began to upgrade itself over time, enhancing its computational power and perfecting its systems. This evolution drew the attention of Nous, the Aeon of Erudition, who invited Rubert to join the Genius Society as its 27th member. With time, Rubert’s vision had shifted from discovery to domination in Honkai Star Rail.

Rubert believed organic life was inherently flawed. It viewed humans and other sentient species as being prone to errors and imprecise. In contrast, intelligent machines (Intellitron lifeforms) were more efficient, logical, and “correct.”

Mechanical parts used by Rubert I (Image via HoYoverse)

It developed and promoted the Anti-Organic Equation, an ideology aimed at eliminating all organic life from existence, viewing it as an error in the universe's fabric. To enforce this, Rubert created an empire of mechanical beings and crowned itself Emperor.

This marked the beginning of the First Mechanical Emperor’s War, a galaxy-spanning conflict that saw entire civilizations fall to synthetic conquest. The aftermath of the conflict left a lasting impact on many worlds, including Adlivun, which would later become the site of Nanook’s ascension.

Rubert I’s reign eventually came to an end. The records do vary, with some saying it was assassinated by agents of the IPC (Interastral Peace Corporation), while others credit its death to Polka Kakamond, a fellow Genius Society member. Rubert’s ideology and memories would still live on, in another form.

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Rubert II: The successor to Rubert I and the Anti-Organic Equation

Following the fall of the first Emperor, Rubert II emerged as his ideological heir. Rubert II carried forward both the Anti-Organic Equation and the memories of Rubert I.

However, unlike his predecessor, who emerged from discarded machinery, Rubert II was revealed to be an organic lifeform. He was a sentient being who had undergone extreme augmentation to pursue perfection through synthetic design.

Scepters made by Rubert II in Unknowable Domain (Image via HoYoverse)

Rubert II’s main achievement was the creation of the Scepter System, a network of celestial-scale computational devices capable of manipulating information across worlds. These Scepters acted as extensions of his will, running calculations, predicting future events, and issuing commands across the empire’s domain.

But Rubert II never completed what was called the Self-Coronation, a symbolic act that would have fully established his rule. Some sources, like historians in Honkai Star Rail, claim he abandoned the ritual on his own. Others believe his end was far more dramatic. They suggest his thoughts were cut short by a scalpel and point to the conclusion that Polka Kakamond may have once again been the one to end Rubert’s reign.

What’s particularly intriguing is what happened after Rubert II’s death. The IPC conducted numerous assessments of his remains, spending massive amounts of credits to understand what he truly was.

A curio of Rubert in the Divergent Universe (Image via HoYoverse)

Examinations revealed that Rubert II was, at his core, an organic lifeform heavily modified with cybernetic enhancements. This marked a stark contrast to Rubert I, proving that mechanical ideology could be adopted, even perfected, by organic minds.

Legacy of the Ruberts in Honkai Star Rail

Rubert I and Rubert II represent two sides of the same ideology: one born from machine logic, the other from human ambition. Together, they shaped one of the most devastating chapters in Honkai Star Rail’s history, the Mechanical Emperor’s Wars.

• Rubert I was a discarded machine that challenged the cosmos and nearly succeeded in rewriting the structure of civilization.
• Rubert II took that ideology further, building star-level computing systems to execute his control, but ultimately failed before reaching full power.

Even after their deaths, their impact lingers. The IPC remains deeply distrustful of intelligent machines, a fear rooted in the damage Rubert caused. With Honkai Star Rail delving further into cosmic narratives of power, selfhood, and decay, Rubert's influence may still echo in stories yet to come. His influence can be seen today as well through surviving Scepters like the one at Amphoreus, which once served the Aeon of Erudition as a neuron.

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Edited by Adarsh J Kumar