#The Zariman Ten Zero

[flamingphoenixfox]

Hello again, Tenno! Let's talk Easter Eggs! Specifically, Warframe DE Logo Easter Eggs! I just recently found the DE logo hidden in Duviri (quite by accident as I've done with all but the one hidden in the Zariman), and wanted to share screenshots of my findings!

But then it occurred to me, "gosh wouldn't it be cool and helpful if I compiled images to help people find all of the hidden DE logos?"

AND SO BELOW THE CUT ARE DIRECTIONS AND SCREENSHOTS TO DO JUST THAT!

Just to warn you: this is a long post since it's essentially a step-by-step for finding all the logos in all five areas!

Enjoy!

Welcome to Cetus! You're Landing Craft has just dropped you off onto the platform by the shore! See that cliff face off to your right? If you want to find the DE logo you need to go climb on top of that!

Yeah, in fact you need to go this far inland (to the rock I'm standing on)!

It's right here on the edge of this rock!

Next area!

Welcome to Fortuna (my favorite hub ♥)! Bask in the wonderful bisexual lighting!

When you are done basking jump on up here to this little balcony! It's the second balcony up (the third floor if you count the ground floor as the first one)!

The DE logo is hidden on side facing inward!

And onward we go!

Welcome to the Necralisk! It's a bit pustule-y and gooey but there is still some old Orokin architecture sticking out of the infested flesh-scape here and there! Like this pillar! Here - I'll throw my Xoris for you so you can see what I'm looking at!

Climb on up and - TADA! There it is! A nice and simple find! That can't really be said about the next one though.

Oh boy here we are...

The DE logo hidden in the Zariman - the one I struggled the most to find, I thought I had rubbed by face against every wall and structure, but apparently I had missed a spot. This is the only one I needed to look up to find. This is the elevator that leads out to the rest of the Zariman - where we do the Zariman missions.

I thought I had checked this area thoroughly enough but I think that disconnected wall panel always caused my angle coming out from the elevator to just miss it. See where I'm standing? Notice how it seems a little darker there? I certainly didn't.

There's an opening to - what would you call this - a maintenance port? Regardless, let's head in past the overgrown vines.

It leads into an elbow passage and into a little room.

Looks like another area one or more of the Zariman children used to hide. Of course, no area in the Zariman is complete without the ominous graffiti!

And right on the side of the box here is the logo! Even though I couldn't find this one without help I really enjoy the concept of them being a bit more hidden.

Like the last one!

I stumbled across this one by accident when I was in Captura gathering references of the mirror and portal frames for a Duviri-inspired piece I'm working on.

I happened to notice what looks like a window in the Kaithe's stable and totally expected the overgrowth to be a solid object when I jumped at it.

It wasn't. Queue shock and confusion. At first, I thought it was just a hole leading over to the plant area - a silly short cut. I walked in a little further.

No, this is an enclosed cave. A secret! A nice little den to hide in!

Wait that's-! WOAH I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THEY WOULD HAVE A HIDDEN LOGO FOR THIS AREA! That's so cool and fun! I love this hiding spot for it! The perfect amount of context clues to make you suspicious and intrigued by the area if you are looking! This one was by far my favorite to find!

Anyways,

That's all of the DE logos (that I'm aware of)! I'm looking forward to the interesting places they will think to hide the next ones! Hope you enjoyed my guide (and the silly retelling of how I found the one in Teshin's Cave)!

Thanks for reading!

[dryococelas01]

Just finally going through warframes narrative proper, and I have to say: considering what happened to the adults on the zariman, the turn of Natah must be extra traumatic to the poor operators.

Not the first time they have felt the adults in their life turn against them.

Not sure if I have the best understanding of the lore yet (chimera prologue done) but still.

[countwytchula]

“We shall not fear to take the leap, across the gulf to fare.

Though all betwixt is dark and deep, a home awaits us there.”

Little Zariman Ten-Zero void jump accident piece because delicious, delicious angst.

[captain-fanattic]

i stopped mid-quest to do this as fast as i could. and it's only funny to me. i do not care

[tomc4t]

“Ever get that feeling you're stuck? Spinning inside your little wheel. Only to find... you're right back where you started. And so it goes. Day by day, year by year, until you're dead... inside. You feel nothing. You're just a prisoner trapped in the spiral of someone else's dream...”

Drifter

[cambriancrew]

Listened to a fan song on repeat so long that my brain decided it would be preferable to just have the character from the song in my brain.

Bonus points for it having a repeating refrain telling the character to wake up. Character woke up alright.

Why do we all have to argue over system origin shit when we could be making jokes about the origins of our headmates and/or our systems as a whole. I visualized picking up and putting down a blorbo like a cat and my brain decided that was good enough reason to grant said blorbo consciousness. How is that not just fucking hilarious

[arisartsthings]

Drifter Andrea Reference Sheet

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY YA'LL c:

Finally got around to finishing this! Had to make sure I was absolutely happy with the colors.. and I am! Yippie~ 🎉

Here's a little bit about her.. nothing definite, but what I've thought of/seen her background to be so far~ very rough and I don't usually write these things out so go easy on me..

Andrea gives off a bit of a menacing aura, but once you get to know her she's a softie! Centuries in Duviri certainly made her seem a bit cold on the outside.. those close to her usually call her "Drea" or even "Kavat" if they're out on the field, as she's usually always using her Valkyr frame.

She's often hanging around her girlfriend/boyfriend (Valerie & Amir), opting to silently cuddle up to them while listening to her music, or just dote on them endlessly to the point where it may get a bit overbearing..

Andrea and Valerie have always been together, both born on the Zariman Ten-Zero and unable to be separated even by the seemingly endless years of Duviri. (I'll be making a reference sheet for her as well!)

Amir was a very special case for Andrea.. She'd often catch herself hanging around him, his endless supply of energy making her feel right at home around him.

She'd be there to comfort him when he needed it most, helping him slow down that constantly spinning mind of his.

Eventually she'd work up the courage (with the help of Eleanor) to ask Amir out, being treated to the sight of him absolutely losing it and running circles around her while chanting "yesyesyesyesyes!" before squeezing her in the tightest hug she'd ever received.. Her love for this man is beyond anything she'd felt before and she continues to be that comfort and reassurance he needs most~

[hpheisler]

i have been once again playing too much warframe so i wanted to share the fansong i wrote earlier this year again about my favorite warframe: gyre!

well, more about the zariman ten zero in general. but gyre was there.

[elfhunk]

i'm just saying if you love WARFRAME and CRYING you should listen to my vocaloid fansong about the zariman ten zero.

[spacemagictea]

Does kaylessa have any lore to her? Like a backstory aboard the zariman ten zero and such?

Yes, I’ve got some details of her backstory/lore sort of figured out.

She was born on Venus to a family of scholars. Her father was a renowned at the time botanist while her mother was a zoologist. Kaylessa has vague memories of being taken on field research trips together with her sister. She sadly doesn’t remember their names.

She had a 6 years older sister, Aurelia, an academic prodigy who planned to become a geneticist. Aurelia was a fairly ambitious person, aiming to reach as high as possible into scholarly echelons, hoping to perhaps even become and Archimedian, but at the same time she was also fiercely protective of her younger sister. And she made sure Kay isn’t pressured by their parents into doing things she might not want.

Kay was more reserved and grounded but fostered a deep curiosity about the wonders of nature which she carried ever since childhood. Reading books about plants and animals and other things has been something she’s loved doing as a kid and she loves doing now. And now she also is a green thumb in her spare time.

Other kids considered her weird, not helped by the fact she’s neurodivergent and while she was quite introverted, not having any connections with her peers did sting. They weren’t cruel to her, but she never made any friends.

When Kay was 10 years old, her parents received summons to the Zariman. During the journey to Tau, they would take care of plants and livestock and after reaching Tau they would be among the first describing the species of this alien system. Little did they know that this would never happen.

With the gathering of the colonists finished and all residents having been acclimated, 3 years later the failed jump was attempted. The result was a well-known disaster.

(Further parts under read more, warning for sibling death)

Her parents didn’t immediately turn insane. Her sister went missing in the chaos and unbeknownst to them, was unfortunately among the first to turn. As Kay went looking for Aurelia, she ended up cornered in one of the classrooms… by her sister. It was like watching a beast wearing her body and pleas fell on ears which could not process them. And as her older sister lunged forward, ready to strike, to kill, survival instincts kicked in and Kay struck her down (she doesn’t remember what she grabbed in the blur but she remembers it being very heavy), something that has haunted her ever since.

This also resulted in her being unable to kill her parents once they too have been turned. She locked them up and when she lost hope they could come to their senses, ran away. she doesn’t know whether they died or for example turned into Void Angels. And she’s not sure if she shouldn’t have given them the mercy of death, but there was no right choice, only wrong ones - and after Aurelia’s death, she just couldn’t kill them, whether due to foolish hope or the guilt eating at her too much.

Hiding with some other kids, she struck the bargain with the Man in the Wall. And there, two time pathways have diverged:

-one where Kaylessa was saved alongside the rest, becoming Operator Kaylessa, pushing away all memories of the past, fully embracing loneliness and becoming the master of stealth and helping from the backline. In current days, she wields Ivara and Wisp the most and enjoys animal conservation. She’s content to be the mentor to her older self.

-one where Kaylessa was left behind, becoming Drifter Kaylessa. She embraces her past and found a new family in the Hex. Reckless and defiant, since she got out of Duviri she’s taken a more active role between the two. She enjoys supporting others but takes a more frontline approach, preferring frames that are active and can control the battlefield. She’s very protective of others, even at the cost of herself.

Details about the time in Duviri and TNW might come sometime.

[adriftinstars]

I’ve come to ask about your volt and operator!

Do they have any lore of any kind? Or like any headcanons? And your operator as well, would they have any lore and stuff like that? ✨ would both of them have their own story or lore?

Dude omg you asked this like legit a few days after I fleshed out my Operator more :O Apologies for any weird formatting lol, I'm basically ripping this directly from my google doc of headcanons and lore teehee :P also gonna put it all under a cut cuz it's,,,, long lmao

Operator doesn’t really use a name, Alyx is Alyx but he’s not them enough to use their name. 

He sees himself as a distinct person, despite them technically being the same in some way.

Maybe he’ll pick one himself one day, he’s too busy being mega traumatised for that rn

Wasn’t generally a good or bad student, but tried his damned best to keep everyone safe and alive when Shit Hit The Fan™

Had a couple of good friends on the Zariman Ten Zero, but he mostly kept to himself

Didn’t have a lot of respect for the Cephalon teachers, assumed it meant the adults were too lazy to teach them

Surely not everyone had to be piloting the ship << he has no idea how much work goes into flying a colony ship

Doesn’t really understand the whole Drifter situation, Eternalism never really made a whole lot of sense to him so it’s very confusing

Alyx tried to explain it a bunch of times but Operator just gets stuck on Alyx both being him and not being him at the same time

He does understand that they have had fundamentally different experiences past the Ten Zero though, and does see himself as distinctly not Alyx

He’s a bit jealous of Alyx’s escapades in 1999, but also has too much shit to do in the Origin System for it to bother him too much

Also he would never tell Alyx this

Hasn’t met any of the Hex, because he…. can’t, but he loves Quincy for the clothes and Aoi sounds like a riot. 

Alyx has been remarkably… quiet about Amir though.

Has so much sympathy for Rell. He deserved none of the treatment he got on the Zariman and all Operator wishes is that he could go back in time and stop Margulis and the other Tenno from ostracizing Rell as much as they did.

Barely remembers time before the Ten-Zero void jump incident, and wishes he could trade his memories of the attack with ones from before, especially of his parents.

He has the photo of them, but even with that he can barely remember what they looked like, let alone what they were like as people.

Tries to sit as Normal as possible because despite how comfy it can be, sitting weird reminds him of The Man In The Wall which is Fucked Up and Not Cool

my Volt has a lot less lore so far, I'm still kinda getting into Sentient Warframes as a whole concept so I'm still working out his personality and stuff :P mostly he's just there for the vibes though, he's taken a lot of Amir's traits and is super playful in general

[oscargender]

I’m crying I don’t understand warframe lore at all. Not even a little bit. Like at first I thought all Orokin were giant and blue and had one long arm (see Ballas and the Deimos Entrati)(I just assumed the Deimos Entrati were blue before getting infected) but then Albrecht shows up and he’s normal sized and symmetrical and only kind of gray??? Huh?? Well it turns out high-ranking Orokin just liked being big and blue with long right arms. Nothing inherent to being Orokin. So suddenly I’m doubting everything I thought I knew and I’m reading every characters’ lore pages because maybe they’re Orokin when I assumed they were human. And so I eventually end up on the lore page of the Zariman Ten Zero and I was like huh. Why would the Orokin fill a colony ship with humans? Weird. Like REALLY weird. REALLY SUPER WEIRD. WHY HASN’T THIS OCCURRED TO ME BEFORE. SO IN A PANIC I GOOGLE “IS THE OPERATOR HUMAN” (something I took for granted for many many years. nothing is safe) AND IT TURNS OUT THE OROKIN ARE HUMAN!!! THEY JUST HAVE A CASTE SYSTEM! AND THE PEOPLE AT THE TOP ARE CALLED OROKIN!!!!!!! BECAUSE IT’S THE OROKIN EMPIRE! what the fuck

[ritens]

[wf] Nothing Is As It Was 5. Spoonful of Sugar Makes The Poison Go Down

[previous] - 2.8k words

It’s been three weeks since Kyn and Lane’s stint through the resurfaced smelly shores of Earth, since the time drifter was last seen outside a warframe. He hasn’t been able to figure it out and whatever Kyn had suggested Lane try, has bore no fruit. The operator even attempted to push the drifter out of the frame with force but instead ended up controlling Lane as though he were an unoccupied warframe. Just like Kyn had already suspected. At this point they’re certain it’s not transference.

Though Lane has managed to break doors, vases, cups, chairs and even bulletproof glass, he appears to be an otherwise useless warframe with no abilities. He looks like a Limbo Prime but lacks the wit of one. It’s no surprise. He’s a stranger to the rift and the best he can do is use the improvised sword fighting techniques that he’s picked up in his foggy life. Luke has taken it upon himself to teach the drifter at least something regarding the potential that riftwalkers normally possess despite the drifter’s lack of mathematical understanding. In the end he seems to be best at wielding melee weapons. So Kyn and Luke made sure to provide him with a pair of Kronens and the Nepenthe Ogris for some ranged action.

Because of this Kyn had to bring Lane to an acquaintance’s Helminth to have the drifter slash warframe patched up. They had to take care of the hopefully temporary vessel no matter how inconvenient it may be. The injuries mattered.

It was a nightmare to get Lane to sit still in the chair. Confused, scared and unaware of his own strength he caused a lot of damage. All for nothing too, because the fix was so quick he didn’t even notice it.

—

“There should be a registry of some kind. A list of all the classes and pupils. We could start by asking Melica.” Luke narrates the course of action as they get out of their landing craft and onto the floating corpse of the Zariman Ten Zero.

One evening after Lane has gone to bed, Luke pulls Kyn out in the camp before their orbiter to put forward a previously untested idea - they should try and search for answers regarding the story of operator Lane on the Zariman. It could give them an idea on how to help the drifter with his current predicament, and perhaps, eventually reverse the change. Of course Kyn isn’t a big fan of this. Luke’s reasoning is sound, it makes sense. It’s just outside Kyn’s comfort zone.

The last time they wandered through the abandoned halls and classrooms of the Zariman they cleared up Kyn’s own questions. He was finally able to put the memory of his own parents to rest.

They had sent him on the ship alone on purpose and stayed behind themselves. And the whole time he thought they were around, just didn’t want to see him. He grew up resentful. Back then he didn’t understand why. He still doesn’t. What kind of monster sends their child alone to Tau? That failed and afterwards they still didn’t put in the effort to check if he’s even alive. No matter how he looks at the past, his parents still end up being pieces of shit in his eyes. Truth hurts.

Luke chuckles at that. “It’s not like we have anything else to do.”

Kyn follows his warframe, with hesitation in each step.

“This would take forever. There are so many tenno out there. So many classrooms.” he sighs, “Lane doesn’t exactly look unique either. He’s pale and has almost white hair. Many kids looked like him.”

Both of them walk up to the first cephalon console they see. Melica lights up when they come close enough. The cephalon immediately addresses Kyn and tells him to stay out of trouble. She lives in the past and still sees him as a pupil despite him being all grown up. This means that she’ll likely avoid giving him any background information on other ‘schoolmates’.

The Limbo Prime waits for his operator to walk next to him, then takes the other’s hand in his own. “I miss having a purpose. Try to think of this as a 1500 piece jigsaw puzzle. There’s a pretty picture to be revealed.”

“How do you know it’s pretty?” Kyn looks into Luke’s glossy blue orb. He sees his own reflection staring back at him and pulls his hand out of Luke’s grasp. “How do you know none of the pieces are missing?”

“I don’t. But we’ll find that out. We don’t necessarily need the whole picture, just enough to understand what’s going on.” Luke blinks his imitation of an eye and Kyn turns away to hide a hint of a smile. Luke has always been good at convincing him.

Luke pats him on the shoulder and speaks up. “Cephalon. How many students by the name of Lane are aboard the ship?”

“Greetings, director of advanced biomechanics development unit 3. There are 57 Lanes on the Zariman.” Melica responds.

“Oh that’s less than I expecte- DIRECTOR?” Kyn stares at Luke in disbelief. “I thought you were a mere volunteer with a slight background in biology??”

Operator and his warframe exchange looks at that. Both of them are thinking the same thing. Lane is not their guest’s original name.

“Hush.” Luke waves Kyn away and continues interrogating the cephalon. “Do you have full body scans? How many of them have heterochromia and three moles on their left cheek?”

Melica’s light dims for a moment as she runs through her data. “There are no Lanes whose appearance would match your inquiry.”

“That makes things a bit more complicated.” Kyn crosses his arms thoughtfully. “Maybe try asking how many students share physical details with him. I hadn’t thought of the moles myself.”

Luke nods. “He has a couple scars on his upper body from what I saw during our first meeting but those are unreliable and likely timeline specific.”

“Cephalon. Same details but black hair.” Luke makes another order. Kyn raises his fake eyebrows at that. Smart. The warframe variant of Lane has a black ponytail. Maybe there’s more to that.

The warframe turns back to the cephalon. “How many students have blue and green heterochromia, three moles on their left cheek, one on their right, white to grey hair.”

“Apologies, director. There are no matches.” Melica responds quicker than anticipated this time.

Melica runs through data once more and then lights up with a promising response. “There are two students whose appearance matches your inquiry.”

“Names.” Luke’s tone remains commanding.

“Leander Coeth and Elna Warren.” Melica states as well as provides a helpful hologram of the two students. Kyn feels like a rock has been shoved down his throat upon hearing the name of one of the two pupils.

“Cephalon, coordinates to Leander Coeth’s dormizone.” Luke intends to inquire Kyn about what went down between the two tenno later. 

“How could I miss this. The eyes and the strange curls of hair. Leander is Lane. We were classmates.” Kyn frowns.

Luke turns to Kyn. His operator sports an aura of discomfort. “One of the kids you bullied?”

Kyn nods. “The one I singled out. It’s complicated.”

—

The dormizone is a ransacked mess and provides no meaningful information for the two investigators to collect.

“I remember Lane lived together with his cousin and her parents. He had no family of his own.” Kyn ponders out loud while rummaging through some trash in a desk drawer. He briefly stops to look at a couple half-decent drawings of kavats and other creatures. He and Lane shared similar hobbies it seems. Art has always been a passion of Kyn’s.

“What’s the cousin’s name? Maybe we can find her and learn more about the fate of operator Lane that way?” Luke suggests. He’s not particularly interested in going through the junk in the dormizone and instead has opted to stand guard by leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.

“Yeah. And they were probably teenagers. Unless they weren’t put into stasis for whatever reason.” Kyn furrows his brows in barely contained disgust. He closes the drawer he was going through and presses his hands onto the surface of the desk.

“About that… I realised something about the locket I picked up from the cave under the truck where we found warframe Lane’s body.” Kyn turns to face the slacking warframe. “It has an old picture of the cousin in it. Kadden Ria in her Zariman getup.”

Luke blinks. “Oh… Nurse Ria of the Temerarious clan. That’s… less than ideal. So both of them were turned into warframes. And both died in the same war.”

Both go quiet for a moment. Then suddenly they get up and straighten themselves out as if their minds got linked. Both have the same question in mind.

“Are there records of the tenno who slept on Lua?”

—

There are. And they found no mention of Ria nor Lane in them. So the two were either taken in as volunteers in the warframe infestation manipulation project shortly before the time the tenno were placed in their pods. Or maybe turning Lane and Ria was some kind of a last ditch effort during or after the fact. If only Luke was able to remember his life before he was turned. They may be investigating Lane right now but taking his chances with Melica brought forth information confirming that he had a hand in what he himself has become. Director… How many souls has he tormented?

Struck by another dead end Kyn and Luke are now contemplating making leaflets of the warframe Lane to ask around if anyone knows him. They’re sitting in the camp outside the orbiter when Lane catches them in the act and tells them to quit it. After all, his body is not his mind and no matter what contacts he may or may not have had in the timeline of the body he now possesses is of no consequence to his being as a whole.

“It’s fine. I will… figure it out. But if there is no way back, then I’m ready to live with this steel flesh.” Lane sits down by the fire between Kyn and Luke. The two put away their unfinished leaflets.

“Do you have any plans of your own yet?” Luke asks.

“I don’t know how to make plans.'' The drifter mumbles in response as he picks up a stick and begins drawing spirals in the ashy sand before the fire pit. “With survival necessities like food out of the way. I suppose I could work on things I’ve always wanted. I would still like to have a home of my own. Maybe join a crafts club or something. But that doesn’t exist in this timeline anymore. Who even has the time to knit when you have enemies to fight off all the damn time?”

The taller Limbo Prime observes the shorter one with renewed interest. Was he meant to stay this small or did he really not get the chance to grow up? The human body of the drifter was equally short, but it’s not known how the other timeline worked with all the looping going on.

“We received a dormizone from the Holdfasts who take care of the Zariman Ten Zero. We’re not utilising it, so if you’d like a place away from us, we could give it to you.” Luke proposes.

The operator immediately butts in. “That’s not a great idea… But.. ugh, if anything, know that you have a place here. Since you’ve already cleared out our dusty storage room and made it liveable.”

Drifter remains quiet. It may be haunted but it’s a different Zariman, right? Nothing of his past is there. At least that’s what he’d like to believe. He is undeniably curious though and could use more time away from this haywire couple. One moment they’re bickering, the other they’re scheming, and the third their hands are suddenly all over each other. Yeah, Zariman sounds fine. It’d be an adventure to explore and shape the dormizone into a cosy little place.

“You’re going to have to drop me off though.” Lane’s response is short and straight to the point.

—

The warm shower has got to be the new best thing Lane has ever experienced. To think he said the same thing about chilly river water just 5 weeks ago when he fell from the sky. Of course, Kyn and Luke’s place also had its perks, but he had to let the two guys know when he needed the bath so it could be prepared in advance. And that caused some level of discomfort and lack of personal autonomy.

Lane spends the next night on the Zariman. He wakes up hungry, with hair in his eyes, and a major need to have a leak. He’s back in his human body without a clue as to how that may have happened.

He flushes water down the toilet and looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. He looks the same as he did before the merge. The seaweed smell on his clothes is still ripe. So this body went into some kind of stasis while he was a warframe.

Speaking of personal autonomy.

While cooking up a meal for himself Lane thinks about how convenient the warframe body was regarding basic human inconveniences. No hunger or thirst, no sweat, no getting numb cheeks from sitting too long in a dumb pose.

Quickly he looks down at his legs to make sure he’s still in his shorts. All is as it should be. It’s just the arms that have shifted. “Huh…”

“Fuck!” he shouts as he steps away from the stove with oil bubbling in the pan. Some of the hot oil has landed on his exposed hands. Immediately he thinks about how this would be inconsequential if he had warframe hands.

The drifter snatches a towel to wipe the oil off. When he puts the cloth back he notices his arms have changed to steel flesh out of nowhere.

Instead of panicking Lane decides to make use of the situation by cracking a condroc egg and tossing the contents of it on the pan without any fear of receiving more oil burns. He does the thinking about the hows and whys while scrambling his egg on the pan with a fork. The change can’t be random so now Lane is backtracking his thoughts that might have triggered the event.

With a sigh of disappointment he tosses some salt onto his lazy scrambled egg, stirs it some more and then plops it onto a clean dish. The drifter brings his breakfast to the table and sits down. He picks up the fork but now his hands feel inconvenient to eat with.

“I wish I had the hat.” he attempts to summon the hat that his alternate body has. Nothing happens.

“Hat, please.” Still nothing. Lane even touches the top of his head to make sure, just in case the hat ends up being somehow weightless.

“It’d be useful to have the human hands now…” Lane thinks to himself as he shoves a piece of egg into his mouth. Just then his arms briefly lose feeling, and visibly shift to a human form. The fork falls to the ground with a clatter. 

The drifter swallows his food and gets up from his seat. “I got it! I think I got it?”

The fork will now do its part in being a willing test subject. Lane looks down at the metal utensil and steps on it. In his mind he is focusing on the requirement of protection and as a result the fork ends up being flattened by a metal sole rather than a fleshy pink foot.

Suffice to say drifter Lane hardly gets anything done this day as he spends most of it by coming up with reasons to shapeshift. It’s a useful skill he feels he should hone to perfection.

The drifter shouts an enthusiastic “WHOO!!”

“It’s not about what I want. It’s about what I need.” he comments and bends down to touch his metal knees, as well as to pick up the poor fork. When he gets back up, his legs then quickly shapeshift back into human ones. In his mind he justifies it as needing comfort.

Other than that he manages to get rid of all the dust in the dormizone and unpack some belongings that Kyn and Luke have so kindly provided him with, including the locket with Ria’s portrait. He’s not sure how or why Kyn thought it’d mean something to him but he’s thankful nonetheless. His mother’s shawl and now the locket are all that’s left of his family.

He may be alone now, but he feels like things aren’t impossible to wrangle into place anymore. And that’s worth something.

[previous]

[zestysthoughts]

Zariman Ten-Zero was an inside job. #neverforget

[noizybreadstick]

Ever since Warframe 1999 dropped I have been chronic. I wanna crossover Warframe and Baldur’s Gate 3, my two favourite things atm, but I need to catch up on my Warframe lore. For now here’s me spitballing.

Gale being an Orokin scholar and fascinated by The Void. Being one of the first attempting to see if The Void has any potential to aid the Orokin. Mysta as his benefactor and lover. She was of much higher standing. Of course it all ends with a bang and Gale ends up with a piece of Void in his chest.

Astarion being at the behest of an Orokin Cazador. As The Old War continued it was unsafe until a new opportunity presented itself. Cazador needed a weapon and an unwavering slave and attempted to turn Astarion into a Warframe. Astarion managed to escape.

Wyll being one of the children to survive the tragic fate of the Zariman Ten-Zero. Having to survive where everyday is life or death then returning to a world that hates and fears you. After the discovery of Transference and the Warframes Wyll became a great warrior and hero.

Halsin is a Grineer defector. Rebelling against the Queens and the Grineer’s brutal expansion across the Origin System. His main focus is on Earth where he tries to push back against the Grineer overtaking the nature that blooms there.

All I got for now <3

[unic0rncrazy]

Meet my Warframe crew: the Operator

Name: Luason

Pronouns: He/Him, sometimes it/its

On first meeting, Luason appears perfectly put together, professional, and when appropriate cheery. He helps the people that need helping, and stops the people that need stopping. He appears unshakable and fearless, always friendly to the innocent and an unstoppable fearless opponent to the cruel.

Of course, those few who are close to him know this image of a perfect, idealised hero is little more than a facade. Luason cares, and he wants to do what's right, and that's about where the connection ends. He is, after all, a young teen. A child. Traumatised and scared and with the weight of the Origin System on his shoulders, disassociating half the time to try to cope.

Backstory under the cut! I accidentally a wholeass short story instead of the notes I was gonna put so, buckle in I guess?

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Before the accident, the experiments, the rebellion, the being in stasis on Lua for generations, Luason was a pretty active child. Constantly in trouble for running, for climbing on everything in sight, for playing rough and tumble too much with the Dax boys. He didn't see why he had to be prim and proper, why he had to dress the way he was told. Dresses were stupid, they got in the way and snagged on things, and the hell did "ladylike" and "manners befitting of an Orokin girl" mean anyway?

He was five the first time he tried to tell them he wasn't a girl.

He was nine when they finally listened. When they finally accepted the name he chose.

He still wasn't allowed to play with the Dax boys, some stupid rules about caste and rank, but at least he was allowed to play with the other Orokin boys. They were snooty, but they weren't any stronger than him. After all, they hadn't been running off to wrestle with boys who were training to be warriors.

That final year before the Zariman... That was the only truly happy year of childhood he was going to get.

He was excited to explore a new world. He focused on the lessons he was getting on this ship, excited to experience a voidjump for himself. Excited for all the new things he'd experience and learn. Then... everything went wrong.

He tried his best to stay strong for the other children, to help them, someone had to as the adults went insane...

To this day, he still has nightmares about the Zariman Ten Zero. About the copy of him with black eyes and a wrong smile and the hand that offered their salvation. About the screams the other side of the barricade as the adults tore eachother apart in their madness...

He tried to stay strong still for the others as they were experimented on, turned into warriors and tools for the Orokin who now saw them as Other. After all the Orokin taught him, taunted him, hurt him... After all the lives they threw away fighting a foe of their own creation... It wasn't hard to turn his warframe's blade on them in turn.

And then... all was black.

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It awoke in a daze. Stumbling forward, metal skin feeling warm sunlight for the first time in how long?

The handle of a blade, a bow, a set of throwing knives... They fit smoothly in its palm.

The voice guiding it... Something seemed familiar about her. She called it child. Was she its mother? That felt right.

Things ran at it... attacked it. It fought back, combat as easy as breathing. Mother told it well done. Told it to run when there were too many. It found a ship. The ship Cephalon activated, called it Operator.

Operator... That felt familiar. And this body of metal skin and swift movement felt right too... But the body was not its, was it? It was something else... but what? It didn't know. All it knew was it was the Operator of this "warframe", that its ship Cephalon was called Ordis and had waited a long time for its return, and that the Lotus was its mother.

Over time it found it could flow between Warframes. It tried a few, they all fought different but they felt the same. Empty. Until one that Ordis called Banshee.

It recoiled in shock when the frame greeted it, nearly loosing control altogether. Then, tentatively, it answered back. Ordis told it this was unusual, but it disregarded the warning and continued to talk to this unusual Banshee. Quickly, it became friends with this Banshee. As It made friends with her, their abilities improved. There was an edge with this frame that replied, it felt Alive and things flowed that much better. It quickly decided it vastly preferred this to the empty frames.

One day, answering a Tenno distress signal, the pair found a Trinity frame abandoned. When Operator tried to shift into her to see if she was still operational, it was greeted with two words, weak and desperate. "help... me...". It immediately promised to help, moved back to Banshee, picked up this Living Trinity, and took her home to repair.

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In time, Trinity returned the favour. The Lotus directed it to retrieve something important from Lua, and it took Trinity for the job. She could keep herself alive against enemy fire, and she held it in her mind in a way that made it feel safe. Something told it that it was going to need a guardian on this mission.

Together they fought their way through to a strange device. They triggered it as they approached. Their vision flicked with static and then... everything went black.

It fell on the ground. Weak... so weak... It couldn't stand, it could barely raise its body on its arms. Something was wrong, it was alone in this body yet the mind it inhabited didn't feel empty. It looked down and didn't see metal skin, instead seeing a skinsuit, strangely familiar, over an oddly small body. It looked up and saw Trinity standing there, seemingly in shock. It crawled towards her, reaching out, trying to connect, and she tiled her head looking at it. She pointed to it, then to her head, then signed a question. "Operator?" It nodded, and she stepped forward to pick it up. As she lifted it it put an arm around her to stabilise itself in her arms, and as it put a hand to her spine it found itself able to connect to her again.

Trinity carried it home, in this strange, weak, body. When the Stalker tried to attack it she saved it. She put it in the chair. She stood guard whilst the Lotus came to speak to it. She stood guard still as its... his... his? His. As his memory returned.

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His memories only took a few days to return, as his brain slowly awoke from the long dream. His strength, however... That took a lot longer, and a lot of work. To his day, he's still not as strong as he used to be, and he still gets tired more quickly than he used to.

Some days he feels like himself, Luason. Other days... Other days it's still just the Operator, and its own body feels strange, too small, too weak, too fleshy. Sometimes he starts out feeling like Luason, and then something will be too scary or upsetting or stressful or overwhelming or... just generally too much to deal with, and it's the Operator again. It can cope with everything more easily when it's the Operator, everything feels more distant then. Less bad. The more he has things under control the more comfortable he is as Luason.

He's trying to be Luason more, he knows the disassociation isn't healthy. But some days it's the only thing between him and breaking, and with the fate of the Origin System on his shoulders... He can't afford to break.