nobody needs to know your real name or your hometown or where you work or your home country or your race or ethnicity or skin color or phone number or the name of your first pet or the model of your first car or your mother’s maiden name or how many siblings you have or what school you go to or your credit card number
First Warframe was Mag: it reminded me of Biotics from Mass Effect when I first started playing.
First Warframe was Saryn: friends had a lot of vaulted relics and helped me get her because they knew I would like playing her.
Main is Nyx: because you can't kill me in anyway that matters.
Second Main is Voruna: because I love eating men.
Best weapon Warframe is Nyx: red damage numbers go brrrrr.
Best caster Warframe is Protea: because I cast dispenser, rift, turret, turret, turret, grenade, grenade, grenade, grenade, teehee, repeat, fuck you.
Most underrated is Nyx: she keeps being listed as low tier Warframe but the Chaos Star build I am running on her can't die and clears rooms.
Most overrated: I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!! I just don't know how to play Volt well!!!
Critically needs rework is Ivara: I know its popular to beg for a Ember rework and that is fair but Ivara is ONLY used on spy missions. She is way too niche!!
Wish they were better is Koumei: She is HILARIOUS in Duviri Circuit and really comes online in long missions but that long ramp up means I only use her for certain missions similar to Ivara.
Best kit is Protea: its been said she has a perfect kit and yeah, that is probably right. She doesn't have a single ability I would helminth over or think could be better.
Most fun to play is Voruna: because omg its so much fun ripping and tearing and running on all fours.
Best design is Saryn: Those tits, that snatched waist, the heels. Thank god for women.
Best fashion is Xaku: I love skeleton. Plus I love dressing them up all void like.
Favorite protoframe Arthur: because I am a clown and a sucker for a depressed wet cat of a man who fumbled a baddie and shows up for the first time to NIN. It was either him or Eleanor because I am apparently Nightingale sexual.
For those who have missed it, a tourist in Hawaii decided it would be fun to chuck a rock (a BIG rock) at a monk seal. He missed, but he was captured on video, and when told it was illegal to interfere with them, said "I'm rich, I can pay the fine."
Is the best part that he got doxxed? No.
Is the best part that he got tracked down by a local and beaten? No.
Arrested on state at federal charges, looking at up to 5 years and 50K? Nope.
The best part is the local city council's reaction.
And the best part of that is the look on the attorney's face.
The card that looks like Loid holding what looks like Entrati's Grimoire has 'First sun/son' written on it , and the card that looks like Arthur on a horse says 'Second sun/son'. It could be EITHER sun/son because *waves hands* phonetics.
This one also has writing, except all but the last vowel are VERY hard to tell what they are. It goes: R(?)phl(eh?)kshuhn VERY possibly says 'Reflection' which would track with the lower part of the card (which is cut off) looking like the image is mirrored upside down.
...this really.. uh.. HUH.. wait how the fuck does this go along with the themes of my fic so well about reflection?? All the Soleron siblings relate & main Warframes that have some power to reflect to some degree.. Frost (ice), Gara (glass) & Citrine (crystal)
I have a terrible theory that I think I know what Albrecht is doing. Roathe's conversations is really watering that seed I have been wondering for a while.
I have been wanting to write all this out for a while but its a long thread to follow because I am a lunatic and can't stop thinking about Warframe lore. This is very long... kind of thought it might be easier to just make a video will me talking about it. But whatever, get your tin foil hat!
Note: I DID NOT INTENT FOR THIS TO BE THIS LONG! In this over 2000 word essay I will write.... I think I honestly think I should have just made a video.
Firstly, I think with all the faith and gods stuff going on with the Devil's Triad. I keep thinking of the Coldfire Trilogy. (I ended up hating that series, not a recommend from me but it had some cool ideas.) The tldr, is that in that book series humans landed on an alien planet that reacted to the thoughts of anyone or anything living on it, regardless of if it's what you want or not. For example, you're afraid of the dark and keep thinking something will jump out and attack you, the planet will create a creature to jump out and attack you, because that is what you wanted, right? When the leadership realized that, they forced everyone to follow an extremely strict religious faith so that everyone will think the same way in hopes it will better manage what this planet manifested. Which created more suffering but hey they could better expect what the planet threw at them.
Lyon and Marie talk about Albrecht coming to their time and posing as a Cardinal to minister to the people of that era. Then there is this that Arthur says:
Then there is the whole thing that Warframe is any alter history of our world. Sure some of it could be to avoid copy right: Marty Mcflea, MF Calamity, Mos Prob, Prof Dre, Bruno Bros, etc. (The way I screamed at some of these names, chef's kiss.) But then they also renamed whole countries. Eleanor, Arthur, and Quincy being from "Britannic" not Britain. Which in this timeline is a Principality not a Kingdom. And Lettie being from Tenochtitlan, which Hello?!?! That is the Aztec name for what we now call Mexico City!!! But then Lettie makes reference to Tláloc and Xipe Totec and Minerva mentions "Ancient Kemet" but says god names of Bastet, Osiris, Ra, and Thoth. Then Eleanor mentions stories about King Arthur but says Young Loxley instead of Robin Hood. Some countries have old names Jipangu, Tenochtitlan, Kemet, Britannic, and Rus. Then newer counties like the USA and Canada are Libertatia and Canata.
So why Young Loxley and not Robin Hood but there is still a King Arthur? (Besides needing a King Arthur to reference for Arthur Nightingale in the world.) Lettie also says that "Arthur swishes around like Alexander the Great," Alexander was also not renamed or gender switched. Old mythology is mentioned but there is no Christianity. The stand in if for it is the worship of Sol and Lua (the sun and moon personified.) Lyon, Marie, Lettie, Arthur, and Eleanor all are various degrees of pious to Sol and Lua worship.
Not to go completely tin foil hat; but it sounds like something changed around the 1300s/1400s?????
ANYWAYS, my point about bringing up Coldfire Trilogy and Warframe history lore is I think Albrecht is intentionally changing the timeline to create a new faith. IF Roathe is right about the Indifference being an intentional creation of Albrecht's, created when he entered the Void. (He went looking for a god and the Void gave him one.) I think Albrecht might be landing the groundwork to have another "god" to fight the Indifference by creating 1000s of years of human thought. Or at very least having a common faith among humanity.
Thanks to The Shadowgrapher, I have even more evidence of this!! I know its partially game play giving you a hint on how to unlock The Guilty game mode. But this wouldn't be the first time game play and story are blended so well in game.
This is literal in game scripture! I think Albrecht is trying to Missionaria Protectiva a Lisan al-Gaib and making a god to fight the Indifference!! Eleanor even mentions how when their history were paralleling our own and missionaries started going to convert people they were arrive only to find that these lands already had their own version of Luminaries.
For the record I don't think Roathe is completely correct about the Indifference not being a God. I think it's a "lower case G" god. Not completely Blind Idiot God Azathoth, but something close to it. I MEAN, there is precedence that the Indifference was at least given form from Albrecht's experiences. I think the entity existed before Albrecht went to the Void but was formless. Albrecht gave it form.
Also if you haven't got all of Albrecht's notes you NEED to listen to them. But for the purposes here I want to point out these two: Duviri, The Vessels, and We End As We Began.
In his notes about Duviri he talks about going to Duviri to warn Dominus Thrax but finding Duviri was created from the bedtime he told his daughter when she was young. She made Tales of Duviri into a children's book and it was given the Zariman kids to help them in the passage through the Void. I had been wondering for a while if Albrecht knew one of the Zariman kids was stuck there. With Isleweaver and the Devil's Triad updates make it pretty clear that Albrecht knew Drifter was there and left them. It is unclear if this was before or after Drifter started growing up and began their self destructive apathy spiral. This is also where Albrecht first starts to get the idea that comradery, fellowship, and love are the best weapons against the Indifference. Which, hold on to that thought, I will be coming back to this.
And if you do the Netracell mission with Tagfer you see inside Albrecht's vault things taken from different places and timelines showing that Albrecht has been to Duviri, 1999, the Zariman Ten-Zero, etc. In the vault you find Arthur's sword still with Christopher's banana wrapped around it, Archimedean Yonta's crown, the book Tales of Duviri, an AX-52 gun, a 1999 era phone, a shawzin (Drifter's favorite instrument to play), and so on. As well as diagrams of Arthur and Aoi's protoframe schematics? Anatomical body diagram???
Next in The Vessel notes:
Albrecht talks about the first of many times he went to 1999. About him meeting the Hex, prepping them with the first of the doses of the Helminth strain to make them into Warframes. See the comic of when they got their final dose becoming the Protoframes.
The Vessels being made from the samples he took from the Hex explains why when Operator/Drifter first tried to use transference on one of the Vessels they were diverted to Arthur in 1999. Because the Vessels in Sanctum Anatomica are- DNA speaking- literally the Hex with the Grey Strain. Which running around the Sanctum seeing all the half constructed Vessels.... ha ha what the fuck... Warframe has a completely normal amount of things made from people. And I am not even going to go down the rabbit hole that I think there is a time paradox going on with the creation of the Protoframes. That Albrecht used Ballas' research to make the Hex, Roundtable, Devil's Triad, and whoever becomes the next batch of Protoframe, and Ballas probably used Albrecht's research about the Protoframes to make Warframes. Making the Protoframes LITERALLY the Proto Warframes. Lyon's conversations about his visions about Harrow really make me think I am on the right track.
Finally We End As We Began
Okay so this brings me to my second point. In this manifesto Albrecht declares: "The deal is done, the die is cast. I end as I began." We hear several times the Indifference mentioning to the Operator and Drifter about their deal. The "deal" with Operator/Drifter is they said to Indifference "Hey, lose your light? Here, you can take mine." It seems that this deal was very much a "fae deal" where the words have been twisted to mean something that Operator/Drifter did not mean to give away when they are a child. It seems that Albrecht may have also made a deal with the Indifference. Likely accidentally like Operator/Drifter did.
And yes like everyone else I noted that Adis gives Operator his light. Ha ha, yeah.
That last phrase, "I end as I began" is used a second time in game at the end of Whispers in the Walls, when Indifference-Albrecht says to Indifference-Operator "We end as we began."
We all know the Indifference likes to appear at random times, "Hey, kiddo." It pops up randomly after missions or during certain plot points. We all get jump scared, laugh, fuck off Wally. But here is my tin foil hat theory: that isn't Wally/the Man in the Wall/the Indifference.
I think this and this:
Are actually the Operator and Albrecht from a failed timeline where they have fully accepted the Indifference's deal. Similar to how Rusalka is now a host for the Indifference. These aren't manifestations of the Indifference in the disguise of Operator and Albrecht but actually the bad ending of both of these characters. (Though I fully am aware the Indifference can and does shape shift to torment us.) My evidence for this is the above screen shot of Wally-Albrecht and Wally-Operator talking to each other. In the cutscene Wally-Operator tilts their head like they didn't expect Wally-Albrecht to approach. Also why are they both even there? There is not Operator/Drifter or Albrecht to taunt. The information this scene gives is a reminder that Operator/Drifter ran from their deal with the Indifference and to deliver the "We end as we began" line referenced from Albrecht's notes. My other evidence is some of the cryptic shit that Wally-Rusalka says to Drifter in Isleweaver:
At first I thought this simply meant that the Indifference's herald was human. But now I am beginning to think that it meant it literally. Then of course the moment Operator say the famous "rap tap tap!" I think its Operator but also a little bit the Indifference taking over.
Another interesting thing Wally-Rusalka says is "Two identical souls raised in such different environments. Haven't you figured it out yet?" Admittedly, Rusalka is an interesting case because in Isleweaver we don't know how much it is actually Rusalka talking, Rusalka doing the spy shit her parents taught her and pretending in front of the Indifference, or actually the Indifference talking directly to Drifter.
Let me bring this back to Albrecht's plan. As I said before Albrecht learned from Duviri that love and connection halt the Indifference. We know that Albrecht will do anything to stop the Indifference. "I shall take no heed of the dust that may fall upon them on either side, the dust of petty lives." He is willing to use and abuse his family, Loid, the Cavia, Drifter, the Hex, the Roundtable, the Devil's Triad, and who knows who else to stop the Indifference. I think he has been jumping around history to set everyone up into the roles he needs them to play.
I believe he 100% he taught and then left Drifter in Duviri because he needed to stow them away until the right time. I also think he might be the reason why Drifter didn't get rescued from the Zariman unlike the Operator did. I think he intentionally created another timeline/strand of Khra to make sure that Drifter ended up in this timeline overlapping with the Operator. He needs two of them for his plan to work. That the "promised operator" isn't just any Tenno but specifically Drifter/Operator. I would go as far to say that the promise operator is specifically Drifter.
I think that either Albrecht knows he isn't capable of expressing the love and compassion that it will take to stop the Indifference but you know who does?
The void child the Orokin called devil.
This brings me to my last point. Blah blah we know about unreliable narrators, we know characters can lie and mislead each other. But everything said is usually in service to the story telling. Whether it's the overall plot or to understand and develop characters. So why does Roathe bring up this:
Why is the seed about Drifter vs the Lotus and the Operator even getting brought up? That Roathe is constantly thinking about how he has always had to be prepared to fight those close to him and therefore Drifter needs to think that too? Sure. But I think there will come a point when the Operator is about give into Indifference. To become its herald. The pain of what happened on the Zariman, of Old War, of losing Adis, of losing Margulis becomes too much. And Albrecht has set it up so that Drifter will be there to pull themself back.
Operator never got to be a child. Their family were basically serfs to the Orokin. They were forced to be colonists to prepare a new world for their rulers. They had to comfort and protect their fellow kids when the Zariman parents went mad and tried to kill and eat them. They were tricked into a deal by an eldritch god. They were going to be executed by the Orokin but then were forced to be child soldiers for them instead. They were "married" off to better cement a treaty with a people they were recently at war with. Only to have to fight that same person, who then dies healing them. Used, abused, and betrayed all while being an early to mid teenager.
Drifter has been to that edge, they forgot their birthday, the forgotten details of their life, they probably don't even know their real name. They were all but devoured by apathy but managed to crawl their way out. They found a whole group of friends and a lover (or two depending if you went the polyamorous route.) They have helped others climb out of similar pits of despair. Drifter is primed to be there to hug their younger self and tell them it's okay to share their burden and to not give into the anger, envy, sorrow, fear, and misplaced joy that tries to cover up everything terrible with a grin.
OOOK WAITWAITWAIT. I seriously think OP is on to something here!!
This SORT OF goes along with what I translated from the open book that sits next to Roathe a few months back!! The text I translated ended up looking like fragmented portions of a creation myth
(I realized the 'story' was spaced apart & sentences were cut in different spots to make it look more like real writing, and less like the same few paragraphs were repeating. I matched up sentences & put it all back together in the linked post above & below here)
Something that was pointed out in the comments, on Lyon's robes there are 3 saint prayer cards. Hooded feminine looking figure, probably Lua. Makes sense, Lyon is very devoted to Lua.
But what @lairofsentinel pointed out is this: That huh.... looks... a lot like.... Arthur??? I am sure in their history its supposed to be the "Good old Arthur. The original," as Eleanor mentions. But HUMM why does he look a lot like Arthur Nightingale?!?!?! I don't know how to translate Orokin so I have no idea what that says.
Showing this to @hellishhurricane who is as insane about this game as I am, "Sol looks like Loid." And HUH yeah he does!! He is even holding the grimoire! I'm going to kill Albrecht.
(This might not be supposed to be depicting Sol but maybe another saint or religious figure.)
Albrecht what the fuck!?! You can't be out here making your boyfriend holy.
I have a terrible theory that I think I know what Albrecht is doing. Roathe's conversations is really watering that seed I have been wondering for a while.
I have been wanting to write all this out for a while but its a long thread to follow because I am a lunatic and can't stop thinking about Warframe lore. This is very long... kind of thought it might be easier to just make a video will me talking about it. But whatever, get your tin foil hat!
Note: I DID NOT INTENT FOR THIS TO BE THIS LONG! In this over 2000 word essay I will write.... I think I honestly think I should have just made a video.
Firstly, I think with all the faith and gods stuff going on with the Devil's Triad. I keep thinking of the Coldfire Trilogy. (I ended up hating that series, not a recommend from me but it had some cool ideas.) The tldr, is that in that book series humans landed on an alien planet that reacted to the thoughts of anyone or anything living on it, regardless of if it's what you want or not. For example, you're afraid of the dark and keep thinking something will jump out and attack you, the planet will create a creature to jump out and attack you, because that is what you wanted, right? When the leadership realized that, they forced everyone to follow an extremely strict religious faith so that everyone will think the same way in hopes it will better manage what this planet manifested. Which created more suffering but hey they could better expect what the planet threw at them.
Lyon and Marie talk about Albrecht coming to their time and posing as a Cardinal to minister to the people of that era. Then there is this that Arthur says:
Then there is the whole thing that Warframe is any alter history of our world. Sure some of it could be to avoid copy right: Marty Mcflea, MF Calamity, Mos Prob, Prof Dre, Bruno Bros, etc. (The way I screamed at some of these names, chef's kiss.) But then they also renamed whole countries. Eleanor, Arthur, and Quincy being from "Britannic" not Britain. Which in this timeline is a Principality not a Kingdom. And Lettie being from Tenochtitlan, which Hello?!?! That is the Aztec name for what we now call Mexico City!!! But then Lettie makes reference to Tláloc and Xipe Totec and Minerva mentions "Ancient Kemet" but says god names of Bastet, Osiris, Ra, and Thoth. Then Eleanor mentions stories about King Arthur but says Young Loxley instead of Robin Hood. Some countries have old names Jipangu, Tenochtitlan, Kemet, Britannic, and Rus. Then newer counties like the USA and Canada are Libertatia and Canata.
So why Young Loxley and not Robin Hood but there is still a King Arthur? (Besides needing a King Arthur to reference for Arthur Nightingale in the world.) Lettie also says that "Arthur swishes around like Alexander the Great," Alexander was also not renamed or gender switched. Old mythology is mentioned but there is no Christianity. The stand in if for it is the worship of Sol and Lua (the sun and moon personified.) Lyon, Marie, Lettie, Arthur, and Eleanor all are various degrees of pious to Sol and Lua worship.
Not to go completely tin foil hat; but it sounds like something changed around the 1300s/1400s?????
ANYWAYS, my point about bringing up Coldfire Trilogy and Warframe history lore is I think Albrecht is intentionally changing the timeline to create a new faith. IF Roathe is right about the Indifference being an intentional creation of Albrecht's, created when he entered the Void. (He went looking for a god and the Void gave him one.) I think Albrecht might be landing the groundwork to have another "god" to fight the Indifference by creating 1000s of years of human thought. Or at very least having a common faith among humanity.
Thanks to The Shadowgrapher, I have even more evidence of this!! I know its partially game play giving you a hint on how to unlock The Guilty game mode. But this wouldn't be the first time game play and story are blended so well in game.
This is literal in game scripture! I think Albrecht is trying to Missionaria Protectiva a Lisan al-Gaib and making a god to fight the Indifference!! Eleanor even mentions how when their history were paralleling our own and missionaries started going to convert people they were arrive only to find that these lands already had their own version of Luminaries.
For the record I don't think Roathe is completely correct about the Indifference not being a God. I think it's a "lower case G" god. Not completely Blind Idiot God Azathoth, but something close to it. I MEAN, there is precedence that the Indifference was at least given form from Albrecht's experiences. I think the entity existed before Albrecht went to the Void but was formless. Albrecht gave it form.
Also if you haven't got all of Albrecht's notes you NEED to listen to them. But for the purposes here I want to point out these two: Duviri, The Vessels, and We End As We Began.
In his notes about Duviri he talks about going to Duviri to warn Dominus Thrax but finding Duviri was created from the bedtime he told his daughter when she was young. She made Tales of Duviri into a children's book and it was given the Zariman kids to help them in the passage through the Void. I had been wondering for a while if Albrecht knew one of the Zariman kids was stuck there. With Isleweaver and the Devil's Triad updates make it pretty clear that Albrecht knew Drifter was there and left them. It is unclear if this was before or after Drifter started growing up and began their self destructive apathy spiral. This is also where Albrecht first starts to get the idea that comradery, fellowship, and love are the best weapons against the Indifference. Which, hold on to that thought, I will be coming back to this.
And if you do the Netracell mission with Tagfer you see inside Albrecht's vault things taken from different places and timelines showing that Albrecht has been to Duviri, 1999, the Zariman Ten-Zero, etc. In the vault you find Arthur's sword still with Christopher's banana wrapped around it, Archimedean Yonta's crown, the book Tales of Duviri, an AX-52 gun, a 1999 era phone, a shawzin (Drifter's favorite instrument to play), and so on. As well as diagrams of Arthur and Aoi's protoframe schematics? Anatomical body diagram???
Next in The Vessel notes:
Albrecht talks about the first of many times he went to 1999. About him meeting the Hex, prepping them with the first of the doses of the Helminth strain to make them into Warframes. See the comic of when they got their final dose becoming the Protoframes.
The Vessels being made from the samples he took from the Hex explains why when Operator/Drifter first tried to use transference on one of the Vessels they were diverted to Arthur in 1999. Because the Vessels in Sanctum Anatomica are- DNA speaking- literally the Hex with the Grey Strain. Which running around the Sanctum seeing all the half constructed Vessels.... ha ha what the fuck... Warframe has a completely normal amount of things made from people. And I am not even going to go down the rabbit hole that I think there is a time paradox going on with the creation of the Protoframes. That Albrecht used Ballas' research to make the Hex, Roundtable, Devil's Triad, and whoever becomes the next batch of Protoframe, and Ballas probably used Albrecht's research about the Protoframes to make Warframes. Making the Protoframes LITERALLY the Proto Warframes. Lyon's conversations about his visions about Harrow really make me think I am on the right track.
Finally We End As We Began
Okay so this brings me to my second point. In this manifesto Albrecht declares: "The deal is done, the die is cast. I end as I began." We hear several times the Indifference mentioning to the Operator and Drifter about their deal. The "deal" with Operator/Drifter is they said to Indifference "Hey, lose your light? Here, you can take mine." It seems that this deal was very much a "fae deal" where the words have been twisted to mean something that Operator/Drifter did not mean to give away when they are a child. It seems that Albrecht may have also made a deal with the Indifference. Likely accidentally like Operator/Drifter did.
And yes like everyone else I noted that Adis gives Operator his light. Ha ha, yeah.
That last phrase, "I end as I began" is used a second time in game at the end of Whispers in the Walls, when Indifference-Albrecht says to Indifference-Operator "We end as we began."
We all know the Indifference likes to appear at random times, "Hey, kiddo." It pops up randomly after missions or during certain plot points. We all get jump scared, laugh, fuck off Wally. But here is my tin foil hat theory: that isn't Wally/the Man in the Wall/the Indifference.
I think this and this:
Are actually the Operator and Albrecht from a failed timeline where they have fully accepted the Indifference's deal. Similar to how Rusalka is now a host for the Indifference. These aren't manifestations of the Indifference in the disguise of Operator and Albrecht but actually the bad ending of both of these characters. (Though I fully am aware the Indifference can and does shape shift to torment us.) My evidence for this is the above screen shot of Wally-Albrecht and Wally-Operator talking to each other. In the cutscene Wally-Operator tilts their head like they didn't expect Wally-Albrecht to approach. Also why are they both even there? There is not Operator/Drifter or Albrecht to taunt. The information this scene gives is a reminder that Operator/Drifter ran from their deal with the Indifference and to deliver the "We end as we began" line referenced from Albrecht's notes. My other evidence is some of the cryptic shit that Wally-Rusalka says to Drifter in Isleweaver:
At first I thought this simply meant that the Indifference's herald was human. But now I am beginning to think that it meant it literally. Then of course the moment Operator say the famous "rap tap tap!" I think its Operator but also a little bit the Indifference taking over.
Another interesting thing Wally-Rusalka says is "Two identical souls raised in such different environments. Haven't you figured it out yet?" Admittedly, Rusalka is an interesting case because in Isleweaver we don't know how much it is actually Rusalka talking, Rusalka doing the spy shit her parents taught her and pretending in front of the Indifference, or actually the Indifference talking directly to Drifter.
Let me bring this back to Albrecht's plan. As I said before Albrecht learned from Duviri that love and connection halt the Indifference. We know that Albrecht will do anything to stop the Indifference. "I shall take no heed of the dust that may fall upon them on either side, the dust of petty lives." He is willing to use and abuse his family, Loid, the Cavia, Drifter, the Hex, the Roundtable, the Devil's Triad, and who knows who else to stop the Indifference. I think he has been jumping around history to set everyone up into the roles he needs them to play.
I believe he 100% he taught and then left Drifter in Duviri because he needed to stow them away until the right time. I also think he might be the reason why Drifter didn't get rescued from the Zariman unlike the Operator did. I think he intentionally created another timeline/strand of Khra to make sure that Drifter ended up in this timeline overlapping with the Operator. He needs two of them for his plan to work. That the "promised operator" isn't just any Tenno but specifically Drifter/Operator. I would go as far to say that the promise operator is specifically Drifter.
I think that either Albrecht knows he isn't capable of expressing the love and compassion that it will take to stop the Indifference but you know who does?
The void child the Orokin called devil.
This brings me to my last point. Blah blah we know about unreliable narrators, we know characters can lie and mislead each other. But everything said is usually in service to the story telling. Whether it's the overall plot or to understand and develop characters. So why does Roathe bring up this:
Why is the seed about Drifter vs the Lotus and the Operator even getting brought up? That Roathe is constantly thinking about how he has always had to be prepared to fight those close to him and therefore Drifter needs to think that too? Sure. But I think there will come a point when the Operator is about give into Indifference. To become its herald. The pain of what happened on the Zariman, of Old War, of losing Adis, of losing Margulis becomes too much. And Albrecht has set it up so that Drifter will be there to pull themself back.
Operator never got to be a child. Their family were basically serfs to the Orokin. They were forced to be colonists to prepare a new world for their rulers. They had to comfort and protect their fellow kids when the Zariman parents went mad and tried to kill and eat them. They were tricked into a deal by an eldritch god. They were going to be executed by the Orokin but then were forced to be child soldiers for them instead. They were "married" off to better cement a treaty with a people they were recently at war with. Only to have to fight that same person, who then dies healing them. Used, abused, and betrayed all while being an early to mid teenager.
Drifter has been to that edge, they forgot their birthday, the forgotten details of their life, they probably don't even know their real name. They were all but devoured by apathy but managed to crawl their way out. They found a whole group of friends and a lover (or two depending if you went the polyamorous route.) They have helped others climb out of similar pits of despair. Drifter is primed to be there to hug their younger self and tell them it's okay to share their burden and to not give into the anger, envy, sorrow, fear, and misplaced joy that tries to cover up everything terrible with a grin.
