the new war actually totally endearing me to the drifter but NOT in the intended way, I think. to me the drifter rocks because everyone else, including the operator, is out here living that warhammer 40k "in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war" type existence. meanwhile drifter comes from a fairytale land where they lived an edenic existence and were feted as king, until they got trapped in the torment nexus. then seeming divine intervention broke them OUT of the torment nexus and a mysterious mentor assured them that they alone can help save the origin system. then they get out and THAT'S ACTUALLY TRUE. they become a renowned fucking folk hero praised on pirate radio. they develop magic powers at a climactic moment. nora night calls the drifter a dragonslayer and suggests they're a hero from a fairy tale, which again they literally are. imagine the ego boost lmao.
if you pick them for the end of the new war...my god. their child self from the lowest point in their life is like "it has to be you" to save the solar system. they crossed realities to save a woman they never met, and go from stroking her cheek as she lays in her hospital bed (hey drifter that's not YOUR mom) to condescending to her in a paternalistic manner in the final mission (drifter tells her that ballas "put hooks in you that go deep. And you are not back to your fighting weight, lady," which is CRAZY for someone who literally admitted like fifteen minutes ago they do not know ballas's name. and that second sentence, yowza). they help her kill her abusive ex then princess carry her back to safety. And then they just kind of...smoothly step into the operator's life, if you let them.
they're tonally completely incorrect for all this and at its best, the writing kind of gets that! it starts with their extremely 21st century expressions, phrases like "stay cool" and "don't sweat it" which kind of read like action movie hero dialogue (appropriate for someone whose development was seriously derailed at a young age, and unlike the operator their past wasn't actively concealed from them and more of it seems to have stuck with them), and which ordis acknowledges as weird and unfamiliar. but the best exchange is in the orokin tower, when ordis is like "oh yeah the locals say this tower is inhabited by a spirit they call the unum," and the drifter very confidently goes "haunted, huh? nice trick to ward off would-be thieves" and it's so funny because they're SO wrong like fuck dude, you're so far out of your depth here even after whatever unclear time you've spent in the origin system, you don't even know that not only is unum real, cetus actually IS in the middle of a bunch of "haunted" plains because of fucking eidolons! but of course this ignorance costs them nothing, and unum even bails them out.
as far as the drifter is concerned they're the protagonist of reality, and by volume they're kind of correct because for the vast majority of their life, the Duviri years, that was actually literally true, and now they're a video game protagonist so it's true on a meta level. I'm so excited to lean into the wrongness of their whole deal. Making them a dating sim protagonist is almost too delicious; now THERE'S a role that's recognized in gaming as unfairly privileged on a narrative level. excited to make them treat other people as means to an end rather than ends in themselves. my drifter will NOT be growing they will ONLY be learning how to manipulate better.
I think an interesting detail about Roathe's character is how he claims that warframes were seen as a tool of propaganda while refusing to say the same about the orokin art and condemning Albrecht (who clearly has a thing for poetry btw) for his disinterest in it. He believes that there was true passion behind the Empire's art while all we've seen so far was either architecture serving the purpose of "celebrating the superiority of tiered society", formal portraits, statues of the executioners and soviet-style Zariman monuments. Those are very classicist, imperialistic pieces made to glorify the Empire and even if its creators were passionate about it, in its core this art is empty and dull and exists not as a mean of creating discourse or expressing one's self, but to support the Empire's leading narratives about its supremacy. Roathe's belief in its cultural value while he criticizes the Empire's system and political decisions paints a very vivid picture of an elitist who refuses to reflect on his values on a more fundamental level (of course he does, what do you mean you will kill The Seven and rule the empire by yourself?)
So to say, he would probably have a stroke if he sees Duchamp's "Fontaine" or Kulik's perfomance
It’s also telling that he completely sidesteps how the Orokin suppressed knowledge of Pre-Orokin Civilizations, with people such as both Albrecht and Dante preserving and valuing it’s art and culture in spite of Orokin norms
^ Dante is tbh, especially fascinating; as both a Sentient Warframe who gained Socio-political relevance and as an archeologist who delved into a Highly Taboo topic
Albrecht’s countercultural acts at least had the cushions of making himself indispensable to the Empire and being Nobility, and even then he ended up getting mocked, criticized and was assigned a Wife specifically to make him ‘more normal’ and to use his genetic material and prestige.
Dante (unless he was under the patronage of an Orokin House like the Entrati, which would explain his Library in Albrecht’s Labs) had no fallbacks or protection.
I think an interesting detail about Roathe's character is how he claims that warframes were seen as a tool of propaganda while refusing to say the same about the orokin art and condemning Albrecht (who clearly has a thing for poetry btw) for his disinterest in it. He believes that there was true passion behind the Empire's art while all we've seen so far was either architecture serving the purpose of "celebrating the superiority of tiered society", formal portraits, statues of the executioners and soviet-style Zariman monuments. Those are very classicist, imperialistic pieces made to glorify the Empire and even if its creators were passionate about it, in its core this art is empty and dull and exists not as a mean of creating discourse or expressing one's self, but to support the Empire's leading narratives about its supremacy. Roathe's belief in its cultural value while he criticizes the Empire's system and political decisions paints a very vivid picture of an elitist who refuses to reflect on his values on a more fundamental level (of course he does, what do you mean you will kill The Seven and rule the empire by yourself?)
So to say, he would probably have a stroke if he sees Duchamp's "Fountain" or one of the Kulik's perfomances
finished art for Warframe 13th Anniversary Collage contest
My idea behind this was The Wheel of Samsara and continuous cycle of our tenno's suffering. 🧡
would you kiss me on new years eve as we both know a nuke will explode at midnight but it's okay because I can keep us and all our friends stuck in a timeloop that repeats the whole year
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)
the last one is INSANE. I assume these are from the game's files and I haven't seen anyone ever seeing or mentioning this card so maybe it's scrapped content, correct me if I'm wrong, but what is interesting to me is that the person on it kiiiiinda looks like younger Entrati with longer hair which also goes well with the word "reflection" written on it - I mean dude does have complicated relationship with his own.
AND there's also a cat (I guess)
which possibly supports @meonlyred 's theory of him creating the religion!
lowkey wonder if stalker ever told his kids 'so there's also this demon kid involved in your birth. no not a third mysterious parent more like a. very immersive midwife. we don't talk to them because I've been in a blood feud with them. yes, literal child. no, they're never growing up. child forever.'
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.
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