Ballas/Natah/Margulis ~~~SPOILER ALERT~~~

[Anonn 20 16]

speculations~~
did the new mini quest and ooohh bish... i'm in agony to find out what happens next but i also have some questions. up until now where was Ballas? unless i missed it it's the first time we actualy have confirmation that Ballas is out and about (other than the immortality situation). also could it be possible that they used transference to transfer Margulis's consciousness to Natah's a long time ago and up until now she was lying deep inside her mind? i was under the impression that Margulis was executed by the Orokin. during the cinematic Ballas said "imprisoned, just as she was" but then he outright calls Natah Margulis.

then this comes into play:
"During the Chains of Harrow quest Palladino claims that the Great Sentient Queen created her personality from dreams and memories of Tenno, copying Margulis' image, explaining thus how Lotus is unable to recall anything related to Rell"

so another speculation~~
did Natah become Margulis through her own free will and if yes then only from the Tenno's collected memories? if yes then shouldn't she be avoiding Ballas instead of following him?

i know that it's soon to say but i can't help but speculate!

[Anonn 20 16]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Renkuya:

What's weird is.. why does everybody think this is happening right now? It's weird that Ballas and Lotus ignore the operator and all along the way you're hearing "flashbacks". It's not like it would be the first time Lotus just shut herself off from us. Lotus being Margullis is also a weird concept because Hunhow talked with her, wouldn't he be like, "hold up.. why you some human gurl now?".

If we're really going into it.. what's with the title of this quest "Apostasy Prologue"? Why does creating the personal quarters start this quest? What's with the weird memory trail you follow in order to go into some secret tunnel which forces you into your operator? Why is Lotus just hanging out in some totally unprotected location? I have a hard time believing that this is current unless there is some form of trickery involved. Ballas and Lotus both acting like the operator isn't even there is just weird.

The only thing I can say to explain away a lot of my questions is that DE just didn't really think it through or it was rushed. Again, the start of the quest is really weird. You go through a weird light in your ship that just so happens to lead you through "memories" that just so happen to lead you to a secret hole in the ground that just so happens to be where lotus is that just so happens to be the EXACT moment Ballas decides to show up. I find it too sketchy or poorly written. Either way I don't see Lotus secretly being Margullis this whole time to make much sense unless they just gave up on the story. It may be possible that Lotus/Natah was created with Margullis in mind, a sort of "copy" but I'm not exactly sure how the sentients reproduce (hunow did call her his seed) and it doesn't make much sense that Ballas would leave her there and just suddenly "oh hi, operator there was about to see you so I figured I'd come be creepy and plot important".

well i would never say it's poorly writen. on other quests you see memories so it may be the case here too. it seems like she is talking to the Tenno at the start but once Ballas appears she is conversing with him so they might have been there or the tenno just saw memories

[Renkuya]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von No_Quarter:

not everything explained in cliff hanger prologue - it must be bad design, 10/10 logic

Why did I think this was a place people would be willing to contemplate this whole thing beyond just "wuz lotus margulaz? yus done".

Seriously, there's a difference between saying, "it left things unanswered so it's poorly written" and "why are all these really weird things setup this way?". Seriously, you must not have been playing Warframe long if you think they're 10/10 writers. There are countless things that go on in Warframe that just make you scratch your head and ask, "what?". Like, why is it that there is a glowing orb that takes you RIGHT WHERE YOU NEED TO BE AT THE EXACT TIME YOU NEED TO BE THERE WITH MEMORIES RIGHT BEFORE YOU GET TO THE IMPORTANT THING? Nah, I'm just being overly picky yep.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von anon2017:

well i would never say it's poorly writen. on other quests you see memories so it may be the case here too. it seems like she is talking to the Tenno at the start but once Ballas appears she is conversing with him so they might have been there or the tenno just saw memories

Why would you "never say it's poorly writen"? As above, it's plot hole city and you're led by the hand by a series of events that are entirely "oh isn't this perfect timing". Ordis tells you, "hey we have a room you can use for your stuff buddy" and then BAM there is a special wormhole into a location on Lua. Ok, weird and I guess interesting. Once there there is a magical trail that leads you RIGHT TO some of those cryopod things dropping memories from somebody involved with Margullis/Ballas (doubt they're your memories because.. why would they be?). This magical fairy trail ends in a hole that once you jump into warps you out of your frame and into a magical realm where "SHOCKER" the lotus has been hiding this whole time. Think she was in some super secret base with super computers and a pile of credits? nope.. tied by the face to a chair in some hole in the ground on the moon. Ok ok, maaybe it was just weird luck or something that you got here. Now you say, "hey space mama, nice t'metcha!" but oh wait Ballas, a totally important character that hasn't been even remotely seen yet suddenly pops up to massively plot things and run into the sunset with our space mom. Yeah, these aren't a bunch of events crammed into a small window at all, they totally feel like a natural progression right? 10/10 story I think DE should write novels, forget videogames. (/s)

To get back to topic, I don't know if she was really talking to you. I think it was kind of the point that you're misled into thinking, "oh, you're talking to me" and then bam you're hit with the "nope, I'm talking to the guy behind you that you didn't know about" shtick. What's interesting is, if this is a memory then who's memories are they? I'm not exactly sure why we keep getting memories from other people but it's kind of weird and like I said, may be what's happening here. Maybe we're not seeing the lotus run off with her boyfriend but seeing something that was done in the past and our connection to the lotus was lost somehow so Ordis just fills in. Either way, there is a whole lot of just "accidental" plot and it feels rushed. Everything else we've gotten story wise feels like it's there for a reason, it developes as you go and this just feels like a trailer for a quest to come. I know I know, "It's a prologue you scrub". That doesn't mean it should be some smooshed up "I stumbled into a story thing" series of events that make no sense and I doubt we'll get answers to questions like, "Why was there a portal to Lotus in a room on our ship just waiting for us to accidentally stumble into it?".

[Darrxche]

Let's just wait for apostasy main story(1), main story(2), main story(3) and the epilogue... no point think about it.

[Satsujinki]

Pretty sure it may be connect with Umbra quest. And I thought Orokin were dead because they were being wipe out.

BTW....

Do i need to take my shrine down?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1240015488

[AnonumusSoldier]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Satsujinki:

Pretty sure it may be connect with Umbra quest. And I thought Orokin were dead because they were being wipe out.

BTW....

Do i need to take my shrine down?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1240015488

The orokin COUNCIL was wiped out, during the victory parade at outer terminus (And anyone can escape a massacre if needed for plot purposes) this caused the corrupt empire to fall out of power as the subclasses took over. We already have surviving orokin in the game, Alas V was a lower orokin, and the grineer queens are a higher (?) Orokin.

[Grisillo]

And why would she leave just like that? she can't just leave all the children she loves smh

[Goosetave]

Ok so here's my take on this : Ballas is indeed the man in the wall, he's "in sync" with the void, kind of. He's been there all along, plotting, observing behind the mirror. And now he finally made his move (why now ? to ruin tennobaum, that's why). As for why Lotus just went with him, that i cannot find an explanation, appart from void magic. Also Lotus isn't exactly Margulis, she's more like an almost perfect copy if that makes sense. The real Margulis was completely destroyed, body and mind, by the orokin death ring thing they use for executions. That's what's been on my mind after this prologue. It's also only speculation, so take what you will from that.

[bara_no_soldier]

Reading through the different theories, I dont think that it is a past memory, as you are able to retrieve the Mask and have it in your Orbiter.
Also I dont think that Ballas is the Man in the Wall.
The Man is the Wall has been shown to be more haughty toward and focused on the operator. Not sure if its me but do the hauntings in the orbiter have increased as of late? Maybe a sign that the Man in the Wall is about to "come through", so forcing Ballas to intervene?
I do suspect that Ballas will give us access to the Umbra Warframes to provide us a mean to combat the man in the wall and whatever forces he may bring with him and that he maybe needs the Lotus "assistance" (in whatever way, maybe even as a sacrifice) to craft them or that she is the price for him providing the frames.

[Renkuya]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von bara_no_soldier:

Reading through the different theories, I dont think that it is a past memory, as you are able to retrieve the Mask and have it in your Orbiter.
Also I dont think that Ballas is the Man in the Wall.
The Man is the Wall has been shown to be more haughty toward and focused on the operator. Not sure if its me but do the hauntings in the orbiter have increased as of late? Maybe a sign that the Man in the Wall is about to "come through", so forcing Ballas to intervene?
I do suspect that Ballas will give us access to the Umbra Warframes to provide us a mean to combat the man in the wall and whatever forces he may bring with him and that he maybe needs the Lotus "assistance" (in whatever way, maybe even as a sacrifice) to craft them or that she is the price for him providing the frames.

It could still 100% be memories. You see the memories unfold and then find the helmet. For all we know that helmet could've sat there for 1000 years. It's sort of a thing you see a lot in video games and occasionally in movies. A dream/memory plays out before the hero and then he finds some artifact left there by his ancestors/dream self. I think Assassin's Creed might use this from time to time actually. Anyway, I don't really think it's a memory either just.. doesn't make sense that all these pieces just happen to fall into place at once because we're just really lucky. It's just really odd that we'd "build" our room, find a shiny wormhole, warp onto Lua and follow a trail that happens to lead us to Lotus, who I guess wants to come out instead of just staying down in her VR machine and that's also JUST when Ballas shows up. Again, it's either poorly written or something isn't as it appears to be.

I do agree that it's unlikely that Ballas is the man in the wall. Something tells me Rell probably wasn't spending so much of his time being "haunted" by Ballas from the very start. Plus, again it would be a poor choice on their part to blow two major characters by saying, "nope, both are the same lol". Also why I don't accept Lotus being Margullis, why would they spend so much time developing Lotus as Hunhow's daughter and the sacrifice she had to make and all that just to say, "nope she's just a clone of Margullis, gotcha!".

P.S.
I'm not saying DE can't write a story, I'm just saying they're being so insanely unclear and slapped together feeling that it honestly gives me the vibe of, "lets rush this out there to tease people over the holiday!". Again, too many "oh gee look a things" in order for me to believe that this was a well thought out plan by DE. Your character literally stumbles from plot point to plot point by pure chance. They should've just made it a cutscene when interacting with the glowy ball or left it for later.

[AnonumusSoldier]

I don't get why people keep calling it a memory, it's not logically possible for it to be a memory as lotus has been actively helping us and interacting with our environment these x amount of years. If the thinking is because of the light trail memories, DE has been using that to convey lore forever.

As far as Ballas being the man in the wall, I'm torn. (Maybe man in wall posing as ballas?) To Me, ballas shouldn't be sinister. That dude was sinister asf. (And no I'm not saying that because he took space mom away and I'm pissed off)

And Lotus = Margulis I can see. Natah found fragments of her conciousness, or when watching from afar took her conciousness when Margulis was executed, and combined it as her own.

[Renkuya]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AnonumusSoldier:

I don't get why people keep calling it a memory, it's not logically possible for it to be a memory as lotus has been actively helping us <snip>

It's not that everything up to now is a memory but we experienced a memory and then lost connection with the Lotus. Isn't it a little strange that we show up at the exact same time as Ballas? This is my point with it being a poor story. It can honestly be either at this point. Either it's a memory of Lotus meeting Ballas sometime in the Warframe history or it's happening right now and we're just so stupidly lucky that that we just so happened to get a key to the room, enter that room at the right time and then follow a magical trail that leads you to just the right spot where Lotus is just in time to see Ballas pick up our space mom. It's just too coincidental that things would unfold like that "because..". Hopefully they'll clear ♥♥♥♥ up after the holidays because it's kind of a mess the moment you look at it for longer than a second.

[Scurdy Cat]

Thx for the year-long cliffhanger

[AnonumusSoldier]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Renkuya:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AnonumusSoldier:

I don't get why people keep calling it a memory, it's not logically possible for it to be a memory as lotus has been actively helping us <snip>

It's not that everything up to now is a memory but we experienced a memory and then lost connection with the Lotus. Isn't it a little strange that we show up at the exact same time as Ballas? This is my point with it being a poor story. It can honestly be either at this point. Either it's a memory of Lotus meeting Ballas sometime in the Warframe history or it's happening right now and we're just so stupidly lucky that that we just so happened to get a key to the room, enter that room at the right time and then follow a magical trail that leads you to just the right spot where Lotus is just in time to see Ballas pick up our space mom. It's just too coincidental that things would unfold like that "because..". Hopefully they'll clear ♥♥♥♥ up after the holidays because it's kind of a mess the moment you look at it for longer than a second.

To me, the trail was something lotus left for us to eventually find, to follow to her, because she is hidden. The room/pool seems to be the same where we awoke our operator, so this whole time the lotus was hidden in the void as well. Now that the moon is out of the void, we can find it, and when we found the lotus, it broke the cloak hiding the lotus's location.

I won't dispute the fact however, that this was a bunch of fkery on us leaving a massive cliffhanger with no forseable resolution.

[primobrainlet]

I don't think its Ballas. he should be LONG dead, and his eyes where pure white, something no other true orokin (alad V and margulis) possesed. There is one thing with white eyes though, the void demon. The manifestation had the same affect on Rell, being able to manipulate into anyone/thing and focus them on the man over you. It matches exactly with what the man in the wall does. Weather he is a new type of sentient hellbent on retaking the tenno or a new threat, I think Ballas is dead, and that this is a wolf in your partner's clothing

[فاطمة]

If it was not real, then why do I have a stupid tacky purple helmet taking up space in my "room" now.