For now, I'm pretty content letting this just be a goofy mystery - I normally despise fan speculation, but I don't mind runaway fan theories in this case, probably because it hasn't been central to...anything, really. At least not so far.
True, it's when the mystery comes to bear on a current story that we'll see how it stacks up. As long as there's a payoff eventually, it'll at least be better than "Empire of death".