(Spoilers) Who is this Thrax guy, anyways?

[(PSN)BlacksmithUSA]

Massive spoilers. I have conflicting thoughts about the identity of Dominus Thrax after completing the story of the Duviri Paradox. Even after thinking things over for a couple months, reading codex snippets, tablets, fragments, etc. 

Things we know:

- The name and appearance of Dominus Thrax are lifted whole-cloth from Tales of Duviri, a mythology-inspired storybook created by Euleria Entrati (Now Mother/Gomeitru) as a means of equipping the Zariman colonists with a cultural defense against unchecked emotions. Since the void is literally made of mind, strong emotions expressed in the void disturb it, leading to runaway effects where people can manifest their negative emotions into very real dangers which cause them to elicit stronger and stronger emotional responses (if they're not killed outright), until they drive themselves mad. 

- The denizens of Duviri are artifical beings. They are made of void-stuff, with blue-metallic skin that apes the imagery of Orokin elite. They are real beings in the sense that they exist in the void, but their existence is completely controlled by the void around them, which is in turn largely controlled by Dominus Thrax. 

- Dominus does not appear to be an artificial being. He has visible human skin, and he seems to wear a mask and have replaced one of his arms with a prosthetic, so that he can look more like the blue-gray Orokin perfection depicted in the original storybook. He doesn't seem to be actually made of void-stuff like the other denizens of his realm. 

- It's also shown that Dominus was aboard the Zariman with the drifter, and that he felt isolated or excluded, and he clings to his Tales of Duviri stories and toy as a means of coping with the extreme trauma of the Zariman incident, which resulted in him emotionally manifesting a void-stuff recreation of Duviri into reality, which has mostly protected him since. 

- Duviri is largely isolated from the rest of the void, the influence of the 'Great Indifference' / 'The Man in the Wall' seems to be repulsed by the power Dominus has over his corner of the void. However, Dominus' influence has slowly waned over the untold cycles of his stories that have played out, leading to most of the islands of Duviri already having been swallowed again by the void or cast off voluntarily by Dominus after they were changed by outside influences. In the dark corners and outer reaches of Duviru (e.g. undercroft), the realm is actively corrupting and melting away. 

- Dominus is stated to be a Tenno by Teshin. Considering that the Drifter is able to gain similar or even equivalent power over Duviri as time goes on, this appears to be true. 

- The Drifter is the Operator from a timeline where he wasn't "saved" from the Zariman. It's heavily implied that the 'deal' the young Tenno made with the Man in the Wall saved everyone but himself (source: tablet on Duviri). This would mean that in the Drifter's timeline, he shook the devil's hand, stayed marooned in the void, without gaining void abilities, while the other children became linked to the void, escaped the zariman, and eventually became the Tenno of his timeline. In the Operator's timeline, he refused the devil's offer, and some other deal was struck, probably with a different child, that resulted in the Operator being saved from the Zariman and gaining void abilities. 

- Dominus says that he created Duviri "for" the Drifter. They obviously have some sort of special connection. It could be as simple as Dominis keeping Drifter in the story loop as a means of shielding him from whims of the void. 

I know that's a huge wall of text, but I have a point to make. Most people seem to believe that Dominus is the Drifter. I have a couple problems with that idea. 

1: Warframe has a multiverse problem. If Dominus is the Drifter, it begs the question, from what point in his life, and from what timeline is he from? We have seen the Operator and the Drifter exist in the void simultaneously, but it's made pretty clear that only one of them can exist in normal space at a time, and that they have some kind of special connection created by the point of departure between their timelines, so they're not swapping places with infinite versions of themselves, there's only the Operator we know, and the Drifter we know, and all they can do is trade places. If the Dominus is some third iteration of the same character, that seems to break this dynamic, and implies that yet more void #*!%ery could cause Dominus to also become connected to our game's reality, and swap places with the Operator. If it's not decided _exactly_ how externalism works and if those rules are not followed _to the letter_, Warframe's story could jump the shark entirely and become yet another multiverse narrative where there are no rules, and thus undercuts all messages of the story and eliminates the meaning of anything that happens. Therefore, I think Dominus being the Drifter would be problematic for the game's narrative, and discussing his identity is actually very important. We shouldn't just say "ehhh void magic" and wave our hands, because void magic is actually a load-bearing plot structure here, and it needs to be internally consistent to keep the plot from collapsing on itself. 

2: Döppelgangers. How do they work. We've obviously seen Wally imitate our form (and Albrecht Entrati's form), and other void- entities like the Holdfasts on the Zariman can appear and act very human. Therefore, it's not impossible that Dominus is not the Drifter, but is a reflection of him, particularly his childhood trauma,  manifested by the void but seemingly possessing separate agency from the both the Drifter and the rest of the void. This would explain why he appears to be human, but the Drifter is A-ok with leaving him in the void playing his role, rather than trying to wake him up to the reality of the Zariman and convince him to change in some way. If he's a void entity, even one fashioned in the likeness of us, it would be perfectly reasonably to leave him be in the void. 

3: It is possible that Dominus is an entirely different child from the Zariman, who has rejected or avoided the possibility of rescue and either stayed with or returned to the marooned Drifter. This would also explain why he created Duviri to "protect" the Drifter, and why the Drifter doesn't seem to have a strong memory or understanding of Tales of Duviri despite Dominus' obsessive recreation of it. The only problem with this theory is that the Drifter is content with leaving Dominus adrift in the void, clawing to maintain control over his dying realm. If he were another survivor of the Zariman, you would expect that the Drifter would want to help him escape this prison of his own making. One way to test this would be to see if changing the Drifter/Operator skin tones changes the color of Dominus' exposed skin. If the devs thought to include that, would be an epic reveal. 

 

If you managed to read through this novel of an OP, what do you think? Personally, I think Dominus Thrax makes the most sense as a void-entity derived from the Drifter's experience surviving the Zariman incident, as opposed to actually being the Drifter from another point in his timeline or another timeline altogether, or as opposed to being someone else who also survived his Zariman incident. 

Do you agree with my assessment? Do you see any intriguing possible identities for him besides the ones I've mentioned?

Edited September 12, 2023 by (PSN)BlacksmithUSA

[--F--NerevarCM]

Isn't Drifter the creator of Duviri? Due to being alone in the Zariman? He created Duviri, Thrax was his toy and everyone else was created based on the book.

Or atleast he created Thrax and then Thrax created Duviri

[(PSN)BlacksmithUSA]

This is possible, but the Drifter himself doesn't seem to have a strong personal attachment to the stories, or even really a working memory of them. It seems strange that he created Duviri, grew totally apathetic to the stories, yet Duviri remained. Wouldn't that mean that the reason Duviri is falling apart is because the Drifter no longer remembers or cares about the Tales of Duviri, and that by escaping Duviri, he's dooming the realm to be destroyed?

[Pakaku]

Dominus Thrax isn't a third Tenno, he's definitely based on the Drifter. The plot-twist of the quest was finding out that this guy is actually "you", or at least was your Drifter persona the entire time.

Everything in Duviri is based in some form on the Drifter or things that are familiar to him (ex. he was probably a farmboy, hence the Tamm minigames), his emotions are anthropomorphised (compartmentalising emotions being one potential way he's coping with the Void), and Dominus himself is probably the aspect of him trying so hard to keep control over everything, which is why he's shown as a king watching over everything with an iron fist. Plus there's those lines that Dominus will say about getting sleepier, after each Orowyrm fight.

6 minutes ago, (PSN)BlacksmithUSA said:

This is possible, but the Drifter himself doesn't seem to have a strong personal attachment to the stories, or even really a working memory of them. It seems strange that he created Duviri, grew totally apathetic to the stories, yet Duviri remained. Wouldn't that mean that the reason Duviri is falling apart is because the Drifter no longer remembers or cares about the Tales of Duviri, and that by escaping Duviri, he's dooming the realm to be destroyed?

It's either that they're familiar to the Drifter, or they were the only nearby sources of "inspiration" that the Void had to work with during the deal. It always seemed to me like the Void has no real creative thought process of its own, hence why dopplegangers always seem to be a common theme with the Void

[(PSN)Unstar]

IMO the story quest doesn't seem to leave much room for Thrax being anything besides a toy made into a living being by Drifter void stuff.  Teshin positing that Thrax is from the Zariman is correct, he's just off in suggesting that means Thrax is a Tenno*.

...presuming that we don't want to extend the definition of Tenno to toys that became boys with void powers.

Edited September 12, 2023 by (PSN)Unstar

[(PSN)MYKK678]

I think a big story point that was misinterpreted and is leading to your confusion is about the kid on the Zariman.

Dominus is not shown to be on the Zariman at any stage. All of the "flashbacks" are of the Drifters experience on the Zariman. Dominus, like everyone else in Duviri (bar Kullervo) is a creation of the Drifter through accidental Conceptual Embodiment, but Dominus is a more solidified version given how he's basically a dark reflection of the Drifter themselves. The closest thing to Dominus being shown on the Zariman is the Toy version of him that the Drifter or one of the other kids owned.

Duviri itself is basically Trauma Manifested into reality. With the Orowyrms representing the emotions the Drifter had blocked out, and Dominus ultimately being the memory the Drifter had tried to block out.

Edited September 12, 2023 by (PSN)MYKK678
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[Duality52]

2 hours ago, --F--NerevarCM said:

Isn't Drifter the creator of Duviri? Due to being alone in the Zariman? He created Duviri, Thrax was his toy and everyone else was created based on the book.

1 hour ago, (PSN)MYKK678 said:

Dominus is not shown to be on the Zariman at any stage. All of the "flashbacks" are of the Drifters experience on the Zariman. Dominus, like everyone else in Duviri (bar Kullervo) is a creation of the Drifter through accidental Conceptual Embodiment,

Yep, all of this is correct. As per a particular Zariman Tablet, the Tales of Duviri was authored by Euleria Entrati (Mother's original name) and it was designed as an emotional regulation tool in case of exposure to the Void. Funny how me and others mistook its purpose as some sort of fairytale for entainment.

Thrax and the five Courtiers are all characters within Duviri, where Thrax represent the reader (Drifter) lacking the ability to regulate their emotions. The latter is explained by another Zariman Tablet at the top of the King's Palace, and each emotion the Couriers embody have a lesson tied to them. This is once again explained by the Zariman Tablets.

Another example would be Kullervo somehow making his way into Duviri, but his guilt manifesting into Kullervo's Hold and the Warden. The latter resembling Ballas heavily due to how Kullervo's greatest guilt comes from failing to assassinate Ballas, as explained by his seventh and final crime.

2 hours ago, (PSN)BlacksmithUSA said:

This is possible, but the Drifter himself doesn't seem to have a strong personal attachment to the stories, or even really a working memory of them

The opposite in fact, as the Drifter's emotions and attachment became so extreme the Void humored them into making Duviri real.

2 hours ago, (PSN)BlacksmithUSA said:

It seems strange that he created Duviri, grew totally apathetic to the stories, yet Duviri remained

As stated by the Drifter themselves, dying in a time loop over and over again led them into being apathetic. Drained of hope and life.

2 hours ago, (PSN)BlacksmithUSA said:

Wouldn't that mean that the reason Duviri is falling apart is because the Drifter no longer remembers or cares about the Tales of Duviri, and that by escaping Duviri, he's dooming the realm to be destroyed?

Acrithus in her Lost Islands Fragment have a more sinister answer to that, and it's not the Drifter's fault:

Spoiler

The Man In the Wall is attempting to gain a foothold into Duviri. Thrax is terrified of it and banish/destroy any islands compromised by the Man In the Wall.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Duality52

[TARINunit9]

9 hours ago, (PSN)BlacksmithUSA said:

- It's also shown that Dominus was aboard the Zariman with the drifter, and that he felt isolated or excluded, and he clings to his Tales of Duviri stories and toy as a means of coping with the extreme trauma of the Zariman incident, which resulted in him emotionally manifesting a void-stuff recreation of Duviri into reality, which has mostly protected him since. 

This threw me off at first too, and for a few days I thought Dominus Thrax was another Zariman Child who pulled your Drifter into Duviri

But the official stance is that Thrax is just a "conceptual embodiment" (Void demon made of memories) instead of a separate character. So there's your answer: if the Void is Hell (which it is) and Duviri is just one neighborhood in Hell, then Thrax is one of your inner demons made into a literal demon once you got pulled into Hell.

^{A lot of the other posters here are going to try and pretend it's not just a 1-to-1 transplant of Warhammer 40k's stuff (the Warp works exactly the same way) but I see it walking like a duck and quacking like a duck, and DE hired one of 40k's artists to work on stuff a few years back, so...}

Edited September 13, 2023 by TARINunit9

[Raarsi]

So I'm gonna go on a limb and describe Thrax as Toby Jones in that one episode of Doctor Who.

[(PSN)BlacksmithUSA]

I'm still having trouble with this. Dominus is presented in a totally different way from the other Duviri denizens. He appears to have a human body, with visible human skin. 

All of the other duviri characters have skin made of metallic void-stuff, and often have impossible physiologies, sometimes with parts missing, as if they really are action figures brought to life, missing pieces and all. Dominus is clearly different. 

There's also the matter of the Duviri denizens calling us "King". It seems pretty clear that they see Dominus as different from them, and call us king because we appear to be different in the same way. If Dominus and the Drifter are the only 'humans' commonly seen in Duviri, then this makes sense. 

Then there's the doll. If Dominus is just a conceptual embodiment of the storybook character, how could he have memories of the doll that inspired him? How could he have a personal, emotional connection to a toy from the Zariman if he doesn't have memories of the Zariman himself? If you showed Lodun a Lodun action figure from the Zariman, it wouldn't have any effect on him. He would just think it's a toy, possibly a mocking image of him. 

Lastly, there's the fact that Dominus has power over his domain. The only other being seen with this power is the Drifter. To me it makes no sense for a conceptual embodiment to have total emotional authority over the void around them, since they are something _created_ by the thoughts and feelings of the void, not the other way around. This is another way in which he's completely different from the other characters in Duviri. 

To me, it seems clear that the developers were trying to communicate that Dominus is not just a conceptual embodiment like the other Duviri denizens. Because of that, in my mind I have to conclude that he either literally is a child from some version of the Zariman, or that he is a döppelganger of one. The most likely option to me still seems that Dominus is a döppelganger of the Drifter. Not literally the Drifter, or the Drifter from a different reality or point in time, but a creation of the void in the Drifter's image similar to the forms that the Man in the Wall takes when visiting us / Albrecht Entrati, or perhaps similar to the Holdfasts aboard our Zariman. 

[AtsiaZ]

On 2023-09-15 at 12:51 PM, (PSN)BlacksmithUSA said:

Then there's the doll. If Dominus is just a conceptual embodiment of the storybook character, how could he have memories of the doll that inspired him?

Those aren't his memories, they're Drifters memories. And even then, once it was created Duviri became a full existence separate from the story. It can have any kind of change possible, like all the characters being aware of the Zariman, or entirely new characters like the Warden.

On 2023-09-15 at 12:51 PM, (PSN)BlacksmithUSA said:

Lastly, there's the fact that Dominus has power over his domain. The only other being seen with this power is the Drifter. To me it makes no sense for a conceptual embodiment to have total emotional authority over the void around them, since they are something _created_ by the thoughts and feelings of the void, not the other way around. This is another way in which he's completely different from the other characters in Duviri. 

Thrax only has that power because Drifter allows them to.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Atsia

[SilentMobius]

On 2023-09-15 at 5:51 PM, (PSN)BlacksmithUSA said:

There's also the matter of the Duviri denizens calling us "King". It seems pretty clear that they see Dominus as different from them, and call us king because we appear to be different in the same way. If Dominus and the Drifter are the only 'humans' commonly seen in Duviri, then this makes sense. 

It seems to me, that they call us "King" because Dominus and the Drifter are functionally the same thing. The same reason the Dax call us "impostor" and the suchlike. Dominus is an extension of the Drifter cast through the lens of a favoured toy the Drifter had forgot about. I'd bet that the earlier spirals of Duviri were simply the heroic Drifter fighting again the comically bad ruler Thrax as a kind of child's wonderland Hero story.

On 2023-09-15 at 5:51 PM, (PSN)BlacksmithUSA said:

Then there's the doll. If Dominus is just a conceptual embodiment of the storybook character, how could he have memories of the doll that inspired him? How could he have a personal, emotional connection to a toy from the Zariman if he doesn't have memories of the Zariman himself? If you showed Lodun a Lodun action figure from the Zariman, it wouldn't have any effect on him. He would just think it's a toy, possibly a mocking image of him. 

As I said, from what we are shown Dominus is essentially the Drifter as a child, Or what the Drifter as a child needed the doll to be, Dominus covets and remember the doll because it represents the emotions that the Drifter has forgotten that now rest in him.

On 2023-09-15 at 5:51 PM, (PSN)BlacksmithUSA said:

To me, it seems clear that the developers were trying to communicate that Dominus is not just a conceptual embodiment like the other Duviri denizens. Because of that, in my mind I have to conclude that he either literally is a child from some version of the Zariman, or that he is a döppelganger of one. The most likely option to me still seems that Dominus is a döppelganger of the Drifter. Not literally the Drifter, or the Drifter from a different reality or point in time, but a creation of the void in the Drifter's image similar to the forms that the Man in the Wall takes when visiting us / Albrecht Entrati, or perhaps similar to the Holdfasts aboard our Zariman. 

I believe they are trying to show is that Dominus is the counterpart to the Drifter not "just" conceptual embodiment but a part of the Drifter, like a favourite "bad-guy" doll, always the antagonist but still in the hands of the child. "conceptual embodiment" is, I think, more of a spectrum than simply "X is real Y is conceptual embodiment" In the same way that one could argue that the fact that sapient beings can exist at all in the void is a function of conceptual embodiment, they remain themselves because they expect to, until something else wears that away (Like the Angels of the Zariman)

Edited September 21, 2023 by SilentMobius

[SneakyErvin]

On 2023-09-12 at 11:55 PM, (PSN)BlacksmithUSA said:

If you managed to read through this novel of an OP, what do you think? Personally, I think Dominus Thrax makes the most sense as a void-entity derived from the Drifter's experience surviving the Zariman incident, as opposed to actually being the Drifter from another point in his timeline or another timeline altogether, or as opposed to being someone else who also survived his Zariman incident. 

He is 100% a void manifestation/conceptual embodyment made by the Drifter. While it is questionable during the Duviri quest and could be interpreted as another survivor, there is one of the questionaire tablets that confirm that it isnt the case. Through that tablet Wally tells the Drifter that he lived up to his promise and saved them all while also pointing out he never promised to save the Drifter/Tenno.

So since everyone but Drifter were saved, everything living in Duviri must be made by the Drifter.

However Thrax can have potential traits of the Drifter aswell, since it is possible that the Drifter had strong emotional bonds to the character in the book that is Thrax. To a point where Drifter pretended to be Thrax, just like kids love to run around and pretend they are a Transformer or G.I Joe and their arm is a cannon and so on. Which could very well result in things getting perverted by the void, just as how practically nothing in the Tales of Duviri resulted in anything safe or positive inside the void, even though it was the purpose of the book.