Speculation (and spoilers, so beware) about Alad V...

[EmberStar]

After having seen what little story there is in the new update, I'm kind of wondering about the Sentient Arm Cannon concept that was shown ages ago.  Assuming it's still on the way, I'm thinking maybe we'll end up getting the tech from Alad V.  (To me it's not a sure thing that the Arm Cannons are still going to happen.  We got Archwing weapons as a heavy weapon option, so the Sentient Arm Cannon may actually be redundant as a game mechanic.)

I kind of assume that if Lotus is Space Mom, and Teshin is Space Dad, then Alad V is the weird uncle that no one likes but also that no one can figure out how to get rid of at the family reunions.  As for why we'd get Sentient Arm Weapons from him, my thinking is as follows.

Alad V is weirdly entangled in the storyline.  He pops up more often than anyone except maybe the Lotus.  And since Lotus is usually just an advisor and mission planner, we've actually had more direct interaction / encounters with Alad V than any of the other named characters.  (At least if you count all the past story related events.)  He also seems to have taken a personal interest in "The Player Character" in the singleplayer storyline.

Alad V is at least somewhat familiar with more different kinds of technology than any other named character.  He has reverse engineered or experimented with the tech of every other faction, including the Tenno:

One:  He reverse engineered the Warframes at least well enough to dismantle Valkyr, and use her components as the basis of the design for his Zanuka project.  He was apparently also able to take partial control over a stolen Warframe in one story arc.  And to partially infect another with Infestation, which is supposedly something that even the Infestation can't do on its own.  (The Infested Mesa miniboss.)  Which brings me to the next point.

Two:  He understands the Infestation well enough to create new forms, including infested versions of purely mechanical mobile forms.  Previous to his Mutalist strains, I'm pretty sure the lore was that the Infestation couldn't assimilate robotic forms.  Only destroy them and absorb the raw materials, the way it does with Infested starships.  He also designed a way to allow himself to join the Infestation without being immediately consumed, and even exert a measure of control over the generally aimless plague swarm that makes up the buik of the Infested mobile forms.

Three:  He was able to reverse engineer a cure for his own Infestation using Grineer research taken from Tyl Rygor, so he has at least a fair grasp of Grineer technology.  Such as it is.

Four:  Now he has access to Sentient specimens to study, and has succeeded in combining the living machine Sentients with Corpus robotics and Corpus "volunteers."  As a result, he is probably the only living being in the solar system who can create more Sentients of any type.  According to Hunhow and other lore snippets, the Sentients in the solar system are sterile and unable to produce new Fragments.  They knowingly poisoned themselves by traveling through the Void to return to the Origin System in their attempt to destroy the Orokin before the Orokin could reach Tau and strip its resources as they were doing to the Origin system.

As for motivation, or "Why would Alad V help the Tenno?"  For the same reason he helped out in The Second Dream, and whispers hints during the the fight with the Birb-alyst.  Alad V is looking out for himself.  He already seems to be having second thoughts about his "alliance" with the Sentient (or Sentients) hiding in the clouds near his mining and research facility.  The arrival of a new Sentient fleet, one that hasn't been poisoned by using the Void to travel faster than light, would put him in a very dangerous position.  Currently, his Sentient ally needs him because only he has the ability to create anything like new Sentient forms.  If the Sentients regain the ability to replicate on their own, he's back to being "close enough to Orokin" that the Sentients might just wipe him out with everyone else.

In short, Alad V might help the Tenno because doing so would be the best way to help himself to not get vaporized by a new Sentient fleet.  And he's possibly the only person in the Origin system with enough working knowledge of all the weird magic-tech (Warframe, Infestation, and Sentient) that would be involved in finding a way to combine a Warframe with recycled Sentient weapons.  He could hope that his Sentient backer would honor their agreement, but that would also leave him as their perpetual servant.  Or pet.  But if it looks like he might become disposable, it would be so much better to play the Tenno and Sentient forces against each other, leaving him in a position to profit while they destroy each other.

Edited May 28, 2019 by EmberStar
It's is not its

[Renegade343]

20 minutes ago, EmberStar said:

As for motivation, or "Why would Alad V help the Tenno?"  For the same reason he helped out in The Second Dream, and whispers hints during the the fight with the Birb-alyst.  Alad V is looking out for himself.  He already seems to be having second thoughts about his "alliance" with the Sentient (or Sentients) hiding in the clouds near his mining and research facility. 

He only has second thoughts about the "alliance" because he got tricked into it in the first place. In fact, I wouldn't exactly consider him having second thoughts, but more 'Crap, I messed up real bad and need to get the hell out'.

[nslay]

17 minutes ago, Renegade343 said:

He only has second thoughts about the "alliance" because he got tricked into it in the first place. In fact, I wouldn't exactly consider him having second thoughts, but more 'Crap, I messed up real bad and need to get the hell out'.

Why would the Sentients ally with an Orokin like Alad V (we learn he's Orokin from Hunhow)? Or rather, why would an Orokin ally with Sentients, especially when this particular Orokin refers to Hunhow as the boogeyman? Makes not a lot of sense no matter how you look at it...

[Renegade343]

3 minutes ago, nslay said:

Why would the Sentients ally with an Orokin like Alad V (we learn he's Orokin from Hunhow)? Or rather, why would an Orokin ally with Sentients, especially when this particular Orokin refers to Hunhow as the boogeyman? Makes not a lot of sense no matter how you look at it...

If you read the fragments, Alad V thought it was his old friend when he signed the contract, and only found out it was actually a Sentient pretending to be said old friend after the contract was signed. Alad tried to back out, but then got threatened by the Ropalolyst to stay and make Amalgams for the Sentients. So yeah, Alad V got himself into some trouble. Again.

[Kerberos-3]

4 minutes ago, nslay said:

Why would the Sentients ally with an Orokin like Alad V (we learn he's Orokin from Hunhow)? Or rather, why would an Orokin ally with Sentients, especially when this particular Orokin refers to Hunhow as the boogeyman? Makes not a lot of sense no matter how you look at it...

Yeah, thing is, Alad isn't an Orokin. That little dialogue from Hunhow was just a case of mistaken identity, primarily due to Hunhow's consciousness being locked in a tomb on Uranus for god knows how long.

[nslay]

4 minutes ago, Renegade343 said:

If you read the fragments, Alad V thought it was his old friend when he signed the contract, and only found out it was actually a Sentient pretending to be said old friend after the contract was signed. Alad tried to back out, but then got threatened by the Ropalolyst to stay and make Amalgams for the Sentients. So yeah, Alad V got himself into some trouble. Again.

What's the purpose of the contract? Does Alad V feel compelled to keep the contract? Because, I am not really sure if Corpus society would enforce the terms of the contract from sentients... no less, ones that lied about their identity! And it's not like Alad V ever followed rules anyway...

I'll read the fragments!

EDIT:

And to add to this... the sentients can just force Alad V to do their bidding regardless of a contract. What's he going to do to stop them? Sounds more like he's a hostage or slave.

Edited May 28, 2019 by nslay

[Kerberos-3]

1 minute ago, nslay said:

What's the purpose of the contract? Does Alad V feel compelled to keep the contract? Because, I am not really sure if Corpus society would enforce the terms of the contract from sentients... no less, ones that lied about their identity! And it's not like Alad V ever followed rules anyway...

I'll read the fragments!

The contract was for Alad V to acquire Sentient tech and the use it to build Amalgams.

[Renegade343]

3 minutes ago, nslay said:

 What's the purpose of the contract? Does Alad V feel compelled to keep the contract? Because, I am not really sure if Corpus society would enforce the terms of the contract from sentients... no less, ones that lied about their identity! And it's not like Alad V ever followed rules anyway...

I'll read the fragments!

He couldn't escape the contract now, because there's the small problem of the Ropalolyst pretty much massacring his team and also killing him if he doesn't aid the Sentients. Also the Corpus likely going to send a squad to kill him too.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Renegade343

[nslay]

3 minutes ago, Kerberos-3 said:

Yeah, thing is, Alad isn't an Orokin. That little dialogue from Hunhow was just a case of mistaken identity, primarily due to Hunhow's consciousness being locked in a tomb on Uranus for god knows how long.

I think he could be an Orokin when we know about Continuity.

 

Just now, Kerberos-3 said:

The contract was for Alad V to acquire Sentient tech and the use it to build Amalgams.

Or, they can just force Alad V to do that without a contract that nobody will enforce anyway!

[Ephemiel]

9 minutes ago, nslay said:

I think he could be an Orokin when we know about Continuity.

 

Or, they can just force Alad V to do that without a contract that nobody will enforce anyway!

Yeah, nobody will enforce it.....except the Ropalolyst who we KNOW is enforcing it or else Alad will be killed.

Please don't use your headcanon to ignore actual lore.

[nslay]

34 minutes ago, Ephemiel said:

Yeah, nobody will enforce it.....except the Ropalolyst who we KNOW is enforcing it or else Alad will be killed.

Please don't use your headcanon to ignore actual lore.

I'm not trying to ignore the lore... I am only confused why the sentients would need to trick Alad V to sign a contract when they can (and do!) just force him to do it. Hence my original question: What's the purpose of the contract?

[Kerberos-3]

30 minutes ago, nslay said:

I'm not trying to ignore the lore... I am only confused why the sentients would need to trick Alad V to sign a contract when they can (and do!) just force him to do it. Hence my original question: What's the purpose of the contract?

To lure him in. It's why they had one of their own mimic an old friend of his.

[Ephemiel]

2 hours ago, nslay said:

I'm not trying to ignore the lore... I am only confused why the sentients would need to trick Alad V to sign a contract when they can (and do!) just force him to do it. Hence my original question: What's the purpose of the contract?

They don't force him to do it, they threaten him to continue doing it after he already signed the contract to do it.

[OvisCaedo]

Unless the sentients have some kind of bizarre hard-programmed contract protocols or something, I'd have to agree that I can't understand why they would bother tricking someone into signing a contract. If you're just showing up with an army to strongarm enforce the contract yourself, you didn't ever need it; you could have just shown up with said army and said "You're doing what we tell you or we kill you". You don't need them to sign something first.

Edited May 28, 2019 by OvisCaedo

[lnfine]

4 часа назад, nslay сказал:

What's the purpose of the contract? Does Alad V feel compelled to keep the contract? Because, I am not really sure if Corpus society would enforce the terms of the contract from sentients... no less, ones that lied about their identity! And it's not like Alad V ever followed rules anyway...

Because if Hunhow personally approached Salad politely asking to make him a sandwich, Salad would run away screaming "SENTIENTS ARE COMING!!!1!11!" all over the system.

Sentients threw a bait to Salad via "old acquitance, some fancy old war era tech", so he would even accept to work on it in the first place none the wiser and not blow all the whistles in the Origin system.

When he noticed it's not just some old war tech, but looks more like sentient stuff that humans aren't supposed to get a hold of, he got suspicious and started sniffing around. And he sniffed out it was Lotus all along in all her sentient glory.

Too bad he's already conveniently confined on a floating platform doing forbidden research for sentients, so rope-a-loli will slice and dice him if he tries to break free, and he can't ask for help, because (1) "partners" are listening and (2) anyone who finds about the situation will call an exterminatus on the planet with all it's inhabitants.

Basically using the contract sentients made him willingly and happily build himself an inescapable prison and confine himself in it. At which point contract doesn't matter anymore. It's not an invasion and enslavement. It's more of an infiltration that still goes unnoticed by the rest of the system, because the only person who knows can't tell anyone.

Edited May 28, 2019 by lnfine

[EmberStar]

I didn't have the lore fragments.  Those do seem to change the balance a little bit.  It seems to make Alad V's current weirdly "frenemy" relationship to the Tenno even stronger.  He's not happy we're showing up and breaking his stuff, but he's also not trying all that hard to stop us.  And it seems to make an even better case that he could eventually be where Tenno might gain the ability to rip a chunk off of a Sentient and assimilate it into a Warframe.  Alad V is still mostly on his own side, but despite all the "Betrayers" comments, it still feels like he wants to try to convince the Tenno to be on his side as well.  (As compared to some of the Grineer bosses or Tyl Rygor who quite obviously just want us to die and stop breaking their stuff.