Lore questions Spoilers maybe i dont know?

[Ruwr]

Hi, why do Nyx and Excalibur have this icon on their shoulders but no other frame.

Also why was this in the game at some point? https://imgur.com/80Ah53e
Why does it spell void somewhat, and kind of look similar to the icons on the shoulder.. like its some language?


And why can't i shake the feeling actual lotus is stuck somewhere in the void and were slowly but surely fulfilling the man in the walls plans?

Edited January 22 by Ruwr

[AndouRaiton]

that icon is actually writing in the Orokin language, you can check the wiki here for how it works and other words written in it: https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Orokin_Language
There are no spoilers on that page
The symbol says "Evolution"

[Aruquae]

4 hours ago, Ruwr said:

Hi, why do Nyx and Excalibur have this icon on their shoulders but no other frame.

Yay lore drop. Basically, DE put symbols in an orokin language on older frames. They stopped doing it with the newer frames because they became too busy to put a sneaky orokin symbol on them. It’s not just Nyx and Excalibur, I believe Rhino also has one. Garuda has a symbol on her forehead. 

 

4 hours ago, Ruwr said:

And why can't i shake the feeling actual lotus is stuck somewhere in the void and were slowly but surely fulfilling the man in the walls plans?

…Aight so I don’t want to spoil anything just in case, but may I ask, how far in the quest are you? 
 

Spoiler

The Lotus is the actual Lotus (unless we get a plot twist, doubt though cause eternalism) I completely agree whatever plan Wally has is being fulfilled somehow, judging from how he followed Albrecht to 1999.

 

[Ruwr]

2 hours ago, Aruquae said:

Yay lore drop. Basically, DE put symbols in an orokin language on older frames. They stopped doing it with the newer frames because they became too busy to put a sneaky orokin symbol on them. It’s not just Nyx and Excalibur, I believe Rhino also has one. Garuda has a symbol on her forehead. 

 

…Aight so I don’t want to spoil anything just in case, but may I ask, how far in the quest are you? 
 

  Reveal hidden contents

The Lotus is the actual Lotus (unless we get a plot twist, doubt though cause eternalism) I completely agree whatever plan Wally has is being fulfilled somehow, judging from how he followed Albrecht to 1999.

 

Hilarious i went to bed, woke up logged in and looked at both Nyx and Excal.

Nyx is the bad guy to excal isnt he with his 'nemesis skin' and mindcontroll ability.

inb4 Nyx is excaliburs 'man in the wall' 2.0 or something

2 hours ago, Aruquae said:

Yay lore drop. Basically, DE put symbols in an orokin language on older frames. They stopped doing it with the newer frames because they became too busy to put a sneaky orokin symbol on them. It’s not just Nyx and Excalibur, I believe Rhino also has one. Garuda has a symbol on her forehead. 

 

…Aight so I don’t want to spoil anything just in case, but may I ask, how far in the quest are you? 
 

  Hide contents

The Lotus is the actual Lotus (unless we get a plot twist, doubt though cause eternalism) I completely agree whatever plan Wally has is being fulfilled somehow, judging from how he followed Albrecht to 1999.

 

Are they the same symbol that say 'Hayden Tenno' ?
I feel like they are going to capitalise on this with the man in the wall, its just too juicy to not have nyx be part of that eternalism/dualism concept.

And feel free to openly discuss anything in this thread, spoilers or hypothesis, im caught up.

Edited January 22 by Ruwr

[Aruquae]

10 minutes ago, Ruwr said:

Hilarious i went to bed, woke up logged in and looked at both Nyx and Excal.

Nyx is the bad guy to excal isnt he with his 'nemesis skin' and mindcontroll ability.

inb4 Nyx is excaliburs 'man in the wall' 2.0 or something

Are they the same symbol that say 'Hayden Tenno' ?
I feel like they are going to capitalise on this with the man in the wall, its just too juicy to not have nyx be part of that eternalism/dualism concept.

And feel free to openly discuss anything in this thread, spoilers or hypothesis, im caught up.

Well if we’re talking lore drop and theories, we saw Excalibur’s human form (correction I believe he is Excalibur’s human form) we also heard an unnamed female’s voice, and before she cut off you could hear Mag’s abilities. So multiple Warframes in human form is possible. 
In regards to the symbol, I don’t remember. The answer should be on the wiki. It should stand for a single word, considering Rhino’s symbol means “Danger”

[SneakyErvin]

31 minutes ago, Aruquae said:

Well if we’re talking lore drop and theories, we saw Excalibur’s human form (correction I believe he is Excalibur’s human form) we also heard an unnamed female’s voice, and before she cut off you could hear Mag’s abilities. So multiple Warframes in human form is possible. 
In regards to the symbol, I don’t remember. The answer should be on the wiki. It should stand for a single word, considering Rhino’s symbol means “Danger”

I just wanna say that Excalibur's human form is problably not real real, nor is anything else in that part of the game/story. All of it is probably just a void scape and the vessels are simply what allows us to access it. Albrecht likely went in there and manifested the "frames" in order to help him. And they turned out the way they did because he had a vivid idea that has even taken form in print/wall clutter within his labs. So it's probably all similar to the creation of Duviri but more controlled. Wouldnt surprise me if Albrecht got the idea for it after having visited Duviri.

And since this is seen in what is supposedly the year 1999, it being the actual Excalibur while still human is next to impossible. Since according to the history of the game the frames are created far far far into the future, after several nuclear wars and so on happening prior to the orokin ever becoming a thing, long before the system is even explored. The first frames are also created after Earth goes down the crapper (still very much alive and happy in 1999 it seems). Since in Titania's lore, her maker is in the process of revitalizing Earth, gets drafted to Margulis and not until after that point, the Warframe project starts by reallocating the research from Margulis' current work over to the WFs while locking up all the kids.

[GrayArchon]

14 hours ago, Ruwr said:

Also why was this in the game at some point? https://imgur.com/80Ah53e

That is still there; you can run into it on occasion.

14 hours ago, Ruwr said:

Hi, why do Nyx and Excalibur have this icon on their shoulders but no other frame.

There are quite a few warframes and Tenno/Prime weapons with Orokin text. DE uses text assets for environmental storytelling. For example, everything we know about the Corpus Merchant Guilds is based on their logos and text stamped all over the place; no one ever mentions them in dialogue.

7 hours ago, Ruwr said:

Are they the same symbol that say 'Hayden Tenno' ?

The Hayden Tenno thing was a callback on the first few warframes to DE's game Dark Sector. In the years since then, they have distanced themselves from Dark Sector and stated that the canon is different. Thus the text is currently meaningless, although you can come up with a number of reasons to explain it in-universe.

14 hours ago, Ruwr said:

And why can't i shake the feeling actual lotus is stuck somewhere in the void and were slowly but surely fulfilling the man in the walls plans?

I suppose this is inside the realm of possibility, but it doesn't seem likely to me. Everything since the New War has been to push back against the Man in the Wall (stopping the Void Angels on the Zariman, fighting against the Indifference on Deimos). Is there anything that points you in this direction?

7 hours ago, Ruwr said:

Nyx is the bad guy to excal isnt he with his 'nemesis skin' and mindcontroll ability.

inb4 Nyx is excaliburs 'man in the wall' 2.0 or something

7 hours ago, Ruwr said:

I feel like they are going to capitalise on this with the man in the wall, its just too juicy to not have nyx be part of that eternalism/dualism concept.

Nyx's base skin is mostly just Excalibur's body, yes. I believe this stems from an early attempt to make female versions of all male frames. This was scrapped, and female Excalibur was turned into Nyx. The "Nemesis" skin is another callback to Dark Sector, and has little to no canonical significance. I don't really see a tie to Eternalism or Dualism. Nyx and Excalibur date back to the beginning of the game. I highly doubt there are any ties to concepts that were likely developed years, possibly more than a decade later.

7 hours ago, Aruquae said:

Well if we’re talking lore drop and theories, we saw Excalibur’s human form (correction I believe he is Excalibur’s human form) we also heard an unnamed female’s voice, and before she cut off you could hear Mag’s abilities. So multiple Warframes in human form is possible.

These "1999 warframes" are likely different, with a completely separate origin than the warframes we know. Albrecht Entrati travelled to 1999 after Ballas had already created the first warframes, including Excalibur (who is stated to be the first warframe in his Codex entry). So Albrecht's ministrations turned Arthur into a warframe resembling Excalibur, but that's not the origin of the Excalibur from our time, even if Arthur eventually turns into something identical. Aoi (the female voice) is likely in a similar situation with Mag, according to Albrecht's sketches on the inside of the Netracells.

6 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

I just wanna say that Excalibur's human form is problably not real real, nor is anything else in that part of the game/story. All of it is probably just a void scape and the vessels are simply what allows us to access it. Albrecht likely went in there and manifested the "frames" in order to help him. And they turned out the way they did because he had a vivid idea that has even taken form in print/wall clutter within his labs. So it's probably all similar to the creation of Duviri but more controlled. Wouldnt surprise me if Albrecht got the idea for it after having visited Duviri.

Have you listened to Albrecht's Notes? All the dialogue and lore we have regarding 1999 treats it as actual time travel, not conceptual embodiment. And Albrecht and Loid are familiar with CE, so they would likely have clarified if it were taking place. It's theoretically possible that it's not the real 1999, but none of the characters seem to think so.

Loid: "Perhaps, between us, we may change history."

[Ruwr]

15 minutes ago, GrayArchon said:

  14 hours ago, Ruwr said:

And why can't i shake the feeling actual lotus is stuck somewhere in the void and were slowly but surely fulfilling the man in the walls plans?

I suppose this is inside the realm of possibility, but it doesn't seem likely to me. Everything since the New War has been to push back against the Man in the Wall (stopping the Void Angels on the Zariman, fighting against the Indifference on Deimos). Is there anything that points you in this direction?

The little smirk when we deal with that void portal and i believe Ballas.
The fact that she has this entire storyline within the void, that she knows stuff about the man in the wall.
I believe her true form is the queen of sentients

And well, we could be doing everything against the man in the wall, but considering his power and influence over those who entered the void its just as assumable its a big plot to make us willingly hand over, or do something.

We already broke that one deal with some page? When did we exactly do that, was that when lotusmommyversion was in trouble? im not entirely sure.
so he could've made an acceptable reality for us.

this can go all the ways.

But im very much a believer shes just a pawn and were yet to face the huge plot twist.

Edited January 22 by Ruwr

[Aruquae]

21 minutes ago, GrayArchon said:

These "1999 warframes" are likely different, with a completely separate origin than the warframes we know. Albrecht Entrati travelled to 1999 after Ballas had already created the first warframes, including Excalibur (who is stated to be the first warframe in his Codex entry). So Albrecht's ministrations turned Arthur into a warframe resembling Excalibur, but that's not the origin of the Excalibur from our time, even if Arthur eventually turns into something identical. Aoi (the female voice) is likely in a similar situation with Mag, according to Albrecht's sketches on the inside of the Netracells.

But of course, I believe we're going into the "multiverse" phase of Warframe

Am I thrilled? Well if it's good lore and not lazy writing then of course!

[GrayArchon]

10 minutes ago, Ruwr said:

The little smirk when we deal with that void portal and i believe Ballas.

Hm. I didn't see it as a smirk, just a satisfied smile that the struggle was over (Ballas was killed and the Void portal shut).

10 minutes ago, Ruwr said:

The fact that she has this entire storyline within the void

What storyline within the Void? She was maybe on Lua while it was in the Void, but other than that she hasn't spent significant time within the Void as far as we know.

12 minutes ago, Ruwr said:

that she knows stuff about the man in the wall

She didn't even believe he existed during Chains of Harrow.

Lotus: "Don't give into these delusions of Void exposure. There is no Man in the Wall."

Although she comes to realise his existence later (Natah: "I have seen the wall's other face, too. I have heard the Voice."), she doesn't know anything we don't know. At least not as far as we've seen. Most of her knowledge comes from the Orokin, and they didn't know about him (Albrecht Entrati: "I never spoke of him, that man, trapped in the wall. And while there have been countless souls who have followed me through […] not a single one ever saw him.").

15 minutes ago, Ruwr said:

I believe her true form is the queen of sentients

Well, she is. Or was. Her "true" form is whatever she chose at the end of The New War, whether that be Natah, Margulis, or Lotus. But her being a Sentient queen has nothing to do with the Man in the Wall; in fact, the Void is poison to Sentients, so any interaction would be inimical to them.

17 minutes ago, Ruwr said:

We already broke that one deal with some page? When did we exactly do that, was that when lotusmommyversion was in trouble?

The Man in the Wall offered a deal. We saw this during The New War. The terms were incredibly vague, both what we would give and what we would receive. It appears that our end of the deal is "do whatever the Man in the Wall asks us to do", which we are obviously not doing. During Whispers of the Walls, he asks for the grimoire page, and we say no. So in a sense we have "welched" on the deal, quite recently.

20 minutes ago, Ruwr said:

But im very much a believer shes just a pawn and were yet to face the huge plot twist.

It's fair to speculate. I just don't think there's much in that particular direction.

[AtsiaZ]

20 minutes ago, Ruwr said:

that she knows stuff about the man in the wall.

She doesn't though. The only suggestion of that is during the Ropalolyst fight and that's during her full brainwashed stage with Ballas. She didn't even know who he was until Chains of Harrow.

[TARINunit9]

17 hours ago, Ruwr said:

And why can't i shake the feeling actual lotus is stuck somewhere in the void

She is not, that would kill her

17 hours ago, Ruwr said:

and were slowly but surely fulfilling the man in the walls plans?

We totally are

[Loza03]

4 hours ago, Ruwr said:

The little smirk when we deal with that void portal and i believe Ballas.
The fact that she has this entire storyline within the void, that she knows stuff about the man in the wall.
I believe her true form is the queen of sentients

And well, we could be doing everything against the man in the wall, but considering his power and influence over those who entered the void its just as assumable its a big plot to make us willingly hand over, or do something.

We already broke that one deal with some page? When did we exactly do that, was that when lotusmommyversion was in trouble? im not entirely sure.
so he could've made an acceptable reality for us.

this can go all the ways.

But im very much a believer shes just a pawn and were yet to face the huge plot twist.

I mean, Lotus making some form of deal or something is probable, willingly/intentionally or not. Her hand does smoke after the cutscene.

But her being kidnapped or not really having come back after the New War? It's unlikely just due to pure narrative structure. Lotus has already had two 'true self reveals' and a kidnapping arc which culminates in both her and the Tenno thoroughly understanding who they are. Doing it all again is redundant.

 

Also, I highly doubt the Sentients have much organisation, given that literally every single sentient mind we have in the story has betrayed at least one other. Natah: Goes rogue, joins the Tenno. Erra: Betrays Hunhow to join Ballas. Hunhow: Abandons the Old War to save his daughter. The Archons: Betrays Erra turning him into Pazuul. Even the Eidolon was acting against Hunhow's orders since it arrived in the system after the Tenno betrayal even though the signal to attack was never sent. The only exception is Praghasa, and she's dead! Note: the lesser Sentients are referred to as 'fragments', so as far as we can tell they're either non-sapient or outright extensions of a Sentient mind's will.

So there being any kind of organisation let alone a Monarchy is unlikely. If Lotus does become a Sentient Queen, it'll likely be a response to a future plot beat, not a reveal.

[Packetdancer]

4 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

The Hayden Tenno thing was a callback on the first few warframes to DE's game Dark Sector. In the years since then, they have distanced themselves from Dark Sector and stated that the canon is different. Thus the text is currently meaningless, although you can come up with a number of reasons to explain it in-universe.

My personal headcanon to resolve that is to assume that "Hayden" was the name of the first Tenno who served as a test subject for Transference. :P

[Ruwr]

8 hours ago, Loza03 said:

I mean, Lotus making some form of deal or something is probable, willingly/intentionally or not. Her hand does smoke after the cutscene.

But her being kidnapped or not really having come back after the New War? It's unlikely just due to pure narrative structure. Lotus has already had two 'true self reveals' and a kidnapping arc which culminates in both her and the Tenno thoroughly understanding who they are. Doing it all again is redundant.

 

Also, I highly doubt the Sentients have much organisation, given that literally every single sentient mind we have in the story has betrayed at least one other. Natah: Goes rogue, joins the Tenno. Erra: Betrays Hunhow to join Ballas. Hunhow: Abandons the Old War to save his daughter. The Archons: Betrays Erra turning him into Pazuul. Even the Eidolon was acting against Hunhow's orders since it arrived in the system after the Tenno betrayal even though the signal to attack was never sent. The only exception is Praghasa, and she's dead! Note: the lesser Sentients are referred to as 'fragments', so as far as we can tell they're either non-sapient or outright extensions of a Sentient mind's will.

So there being any kind of organisation let alone a Monarchy is unlikely. If Lotus does become a Sentient Queen, it'll likely be a response to a future plot beat, not a reveal.

Ive had a nap

In the void you can travel planes of existance / Time right?
But what if we are too free willed in all our forms for him to manipulate, same as Lotus.

And after that handshake lotus is now tasked to make us go there, and make us do the bidding with another mindset.

Edited January 23 by Ruwr

[SneakyErvin]

14 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

Have you listened to Albrecht's Notes? All the dialogue and lore we have regarding 1999 treats it as actual time travel, not conceptual embodiment. And Albrecht and Loid are familiar with CE, so they would likely have clarified if it were taking place. It's theoretically possible that it's not the real 1999, but none of the characters seem to think so.

Loid: "Perhaps, between us, we may change history."

Parts of the notes just dont make sense if it is the actual past. Up to the point where the "frames" are created in the past by him it adds up. Fine, Albrecht can possibly have solved time travel thanks to the timeless nature of the void and took orokin tech with him to a time in need. But when the vessel along with the quest comes into the picture it no longer does. Since at that point we are suddenly controlling Arthur by controlling the vessel, both being seperate entities according to the notes. Where the vessel is the thing he needs us to control. While Arthur according to Albrecht's notes seem to be a fully functioning individual in whatever time he belongs to.

I'm more of the idea that it is the past in the same sense as the circuit is the past, present and future mirrored within the void. Teshin does imply we can change things there aswell, but it isnt reality in itself we visit in there.

[Loza03]

2 hours ago, Ruwr said:

Ive had a nap

In the void you can travel planes of existance / Time right?
But what if we are too free willed in all our forms for him to manipulate, same as Lotus.

And after that handshake lotus is now tasked to make us go there, and make us do the bidding with another mindset.

Again, narratively weird to have the Lotus seemingly betray us after being mind controlled/manipulated again after a four year long arc (nearly to the day!) centered entirely around that premise.

And Wally can already mess with time, but the nature of his deal seems to have partially decoupled the Tenno from the timestream - hence why the Tenno is split into the Drifter and the Operator, how the Tenno could be 'trapped in their own past', and generally messes with the Unum, and can even undergo transference that ignores the gulf of space and with proper equipment, (and given how this song has already gone, probably eventually not even that) the gulfs of time as well to transmit their consciousness self and occasionally, physical form. So, either going back and trying to change the Tenno's mind retroactively is impossible, or he'd not need an agent to do it.

[TARINunit9]

14 hours ago, Loza03 said:

So there being any kind of organisation let alone a Monarchy is unlikely. If Lotus does become a Sentient Queen, it'll likely be a response to a future plot beat, not a reveal.

It's implied the Sentients in the Tau system have some unspecified form of governance and, through that, a military hierarchy. Hunhow was a farmer promoted to fleet admiral (for some reason; the guy's a nutcase) by whatever governing body voted to attack the Orokin

You are correct there's no reason to believe Natah was at all in position to claim the title of "queen."

[Packetdancer]

2 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

Hunhow was a farmer promoted to fleet admiral (for some reason; the guy's a nutcase) by whatever governing body voted to attack the Orokin

I admit, I always took "my father was a farmer, my mother a carpenter" to be metaphor, not that Hunhow was literally just some random farmer.

More like "Hunhow was meant to be responsible for overseeing the terraforming portion of settling Tau, while Praghasa was meant to be responsible for leading the building of infrastructure."

If they were in fact leading those two halves of the project... while not actually a monarchy, you could consider them the leaders of the Sentients and refer to them metaphorically with similar titles. After all, even in modern day society we use royal titles metaphorically; someone socially and financially powerful being the "prince of <city>" or a particularly skilled athlete being "the king of <sport>" or whatever.

So while I agree there isn't really any grounds to think she's literally got a claim to some actual title of queen—or that the Sentients are governed by an actual hereditary monarchy of any sort—Lotus doesn't have to be a literal queen to be metaphorically referred to as such in dialogue. Especially when someone is speaking dramatically or with heavy use of metaphor.

And I think some folks end up taking those things—like Palladino calling her "the great Sentient queen" or Erra calling her "Queen of the aphids" (it's us, we're the aphids!)—a little too literally, hence some draw the conclusion of her being actual "rightful Queen" of the Sentients in some way.

[TARINunit9]

50 minutes ago, Packetdancer said:

I admit, I always took "my father was a farmer, my mother a carpenter" to be metaphor, not that Hunhow was literally just some random farmer.

More like "Hunhow was meant to be responsible for overseeing the terraforming portion of settling Tau, while Praghasa was meant to be responsible for leading the building of infrastructure."

Here's the thing: I believe Natah was translating, but much more faithfully than a vague metaphor.

What do I mean by that? Well, the word "farmer" has implications. Literally out in the fields with a hoe and plow? Not necessarily. Lower-class humble origins? That's what I think she was translating for us

Doubly so since she uses the word "carpenter" for her mother, a word which has religious history in English. And wouldn't you know it, Hunhow's dialogue is also laced with religious references 

[Packetdancer]

3 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

Here's the thing: I believe Natah was translating, but much more faithfully than a vague metaphor.

What do I mean by that? Well, the word "farmer" has implications. Literally out in the fields with a hoe and plow? Not necessarily. Lower-class humble origins? That's what I think she was translating for us

Doubly so since she uses the word "carpenter" for her mother, a word which has religious history in English. And wouldn't you know it, Hunhow's dialogue is also laced with religious references 

Perhaps, but I feel like there's a solid argument to be made that all the Sentients were "lower-class/humble origins;" they were literally built as a disposable caste to be sent to Tau and set it up for their "golden masters," and then... possibly just shut down, entirely, when done? At any rate, none of the ones sent by the Orokin were built to be a military armada... or at least I can't think of any explicit indication of such in the game offhand. (I grant I may be overlooking one; I am neither infallible nor, at present, at my best/most-focused.)

Meanwhile, if you want religious references/tones, Pazuul's dialogue is ripe with them and about as subtle about it as a Wolf Sledge to the face -- and Natah's comments about the archons suggest that the religious mindset being brought to Narmer isn't entirely new. So I absolutely would buy the religious angle you suggest, yes.

[GrayArchon]

On 2024-01-22 at 7:41 PM, Loza03 said:

Natah: Goes rogue, joins the Tenno.

This was due to reprogramming by Ballas.

On 2024-01-22 at 7:41 PM, Loza03 said:

Erra: Betrays Hunhow to join Ballas.

It's not clear that Erra even knows Hunhow is still alive until Hunhow shows up in The New War. I think it's also likely that Ballas has some form of leverage or control over Erra, rebuilding or resurrecting him after Lotus killed him in the Old War.

On 2024-01-22 at 7:41 PM, Loza03 said:

Hunhow: Abandons the Old War to save his daughter.

There are a few ways to look at this. On one hand, the Orokin are dead, and the last surviving Orokin leader is the person Hunhow seeks to frustrate during The New War.

On 2024-01-22 at 7:41 PM, Loza03 said:

The Archons: Betrays Erra turning him into Pazuul.

Not confirmed how Erra became Pazuul. Although Nira is sort of implied to be involved, I'm not sure how she did that after being killed by the Drifter in The New War.

On 2024-01-22 at 7:41 PM, Loza03 said:

So there being any kind of organisation let alone a Monarchy is unlikely. If Lotus does become a Sentient Queen, it'll likely be a response to a future plot beat, not a reveal.

Erra does call her a "Queen" (as does Palladino, but that's irrelevant), so it does seem implied that she's intended to be part of their monarchy or leadership.

[Loza03]

12 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

This was due to reprogramming by Ballas.

The only evidence we have of this is that Lotus says this in the Ropalolyst fight... which occurs when she's already under Erra/Ballas's mind control.  Even Chimera Prologue (which granted, is also highly suspect in authenticity) contradicts this because Ballas claims Lotus tricked him.

Everything else - namely, the Lotus's word, the fact that she's perfectly happy to go back to being the Tenno's boss/mum once Mind Control is cleared, and Ballas's Vitruvian entries suggests that Ballas contacted Hunhow and gave away the secrets, leading to Hunhow producing a Sentient mind with mimicry powers that took the form of Margulis, which Ballas either knew would happen or requested to happen so he'd get a Margulis he could control. Ballas figured out how to mind control Lotus later, possibly with Erra's help, which he then did in the events of Apostasy Prologue. He then constructed a false narrative that the Orokin forced the Lotus into their control, but she manipulated him into releasing her, at which point he got enslaved. He would then chop and change this narrative as it suited him, whenever those he sought to control using it got too close to the truth or when aspects no longer benefited him - the big one being that he drops his supposed status as 'victim' once that part no longer served to control the Lotus.

Ballas is a master of lies and manipulation, and pretty much everything that he says or characters under his influence say should be treated with maximum suspicion. 

13 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

It's not clear that Erra even knows Hunhow is still alive until Hunhow shows up in The New War. I think it's also likely that Ballas has some form of leverage or control over Erra, rebuilding or resurrecting him after Lotus killed him in the Old War.

Quite possible (and it'd explain the big 'how did Erra survive' question), but if that's the case, Erra betrays Ballas. Granted that's not a betrayal against another Sentient, but it's still not exactly painting them as a very loyal bunch, it just kind of removes the fun fact angle. The point of Sentients being fiercely independent to the point that they seem to struggle to sustain organisation and are frequently betraying people still remains.

13 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

There are a few ways to look at this. On one hand, the Orokin are dead, and the last surviving Orokin leader is the person Hunhow seeks to frustrate during The New War.

Indeed! It's so perfectly in-character I actually predicted the flip years in advance (which I am still proud of). 

That being said, cool motive, still betrayal.

13 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

Not confirmed how Erra became Pazuul. Although Nira is sort of implied to be involved, I'm not sure how she did that after being killed by the Drifter in The New War.

Yeah the Archon resurrection is weird. That being said, it's made very clear that Pazuul is some form of separate entity, and that he and the Archons are manipulating Erra in several Lotus quotes.  Erra was their boss, now he's their slave. That's pretty cut-and-dry betrayal.

13 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

Erra does call her a "Queen" (as does Palladino, but that's irrelevant), so it does seem implied that she's intended to be part of their monarchy or leadership.

This would line up with Lotus seeming to be able to take control of the fragments of other Sentient minds - and seemingly even dead sentient minds, given that this seems to be part of how Ballas and Erra get Praghasa's body moving again. That being said, other beings are also to be able to do this since Sentient fragments are active long past the point where the Lotus is removed from power.

Also relevant is that the lines where he refers to her are in respects to the idea of her being the Queen of a hive of insects (the insects being the Tenno). It's not 100% clear for the first line though, and it could be interpreted either way.

[AtsiaZ]

17 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

Not confirmed how Erra became Pazuul.

Didn't DE or Steve say at some point that Pazuul got put on Erra by some automatic process by Praghasa?

 

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

The only evidence we have of this is that Lotus says this in the Ropalolyst fight

Lotus directly says she was during the Ballas fight. "I remember... my old self... dissolving... beneath your fingers. Shaping me. Directing me. Lua".

 

 

[Loza03]

4 minutes ago, Atsia said:

Lotus directly says she was during the Ballas fight. "I remember... my old self... dissolving... beneath your fingers. Shaping me. Directing me. Lua".

Well then.

 

I appear to owe an apology.