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The Son of the Lotus

章 1: Prologue 1: Tenno’s Origin

Prologue 1: Tenno's Origin

(AN: Contains an infodump of Warframe lore with a few headcanons and alterations to fill plot holes and explain game mechanics. In this AU, Natah, Lotus, and Margullis are just 3 names for different forms of the same being. Natah was captured early and was made into Margullis, adapting herself to have a Sentient/human genome, who became the Lotus after her "execution" by the Seven. Also, the Prime frames were the original ones and the normal ones were attempts to make new frames using the 1000 year old blueprints. Warframes existed before the Tenno, but were unable to be controlled, like Excalibur Umbra and Chroma Prime)

Eitri was trying not to have an existential crisis as he refitted the mods on his Limbo Prime while Excalibur Umbra watched in what looked like impatience. The living warframe had been quite insistent on being taken along after hearing that he would be going after Ballas due to his grudge against Ballas for turning him into a warframe and forcing him to kill his own son after he tried to stop Ballas from rebelling against the other Orokin. Not that Eitri could blame Umbra, considering the way he felt about that bastard of an Orokin.

Then there were the warframes. The Tenno were always been told that they were synthetically created battle suits made for the Tenno to pilot. The ability to fabricate them in parts like a weapon only reinforced that. Eitri knew better, though. While the other Tenno might have forgotten their past, he remembered quite clearly.

~~~~~ Flashback to about 1050 years prior~~~~~

Most warframes (or at least their original iterations, the Primes) were the result of Ballas injecting a variation of the Helminth Virus into humans, low-ranking Orokin, or synthetics in order to create a perfect army to fight against the Sentients, a race of adaptive bio-synthetics the Orokin sent to terraform the Tau system, who rebelled upon return. Each frame gained abilities based on the knowledge and experiences of the host. Excalibur Umbra was the first to be changed.

Apparently, Ballas couldn't control the initial warframes and a few escaped before he could catch them, so he started working on a new techno-organic virus, one that caused the victim to lose all intelligence and become part of an artificial hivemind. This virus, now known as the Infestation, would later spread, infecting entire fleets of ships and the entirety of Deimos, one of the moons of Mars.

At the same time, a sentient was killed by one of the Grineer, a race of clones with superhuman strength and cybernetic implants. Originally made solely for manual labor, they rarely have an IQ over 70. When asked how he killed the sentient, the grineer was said to have told them "with lots and lots of dakka." This clone was then used as a template for an "elite" army of clone super soldiers.

Which, after the fall of the Orokin, started acting like locusts, conquering half of the system and killing everything not Grineer to harvest Kuva, the "blood of the Orokin" and an "elixir of immortality" for their Queens. Of course, all of the titles of Kuva were wrong. Didn't stop the Grineer or the Orokin from harvesting it to live a little longer.

While "kuva" is the Orokin word for their blood, the early Orokin were high-ranking humans who genetically modified themselves using lobsters as a template around the year 2022, giving themselves genetic immortality at the cost of turning their skin blue and making them much larger than the average human. The new chromosomes were then isolated in a way that allowed for human/orokin crossbreeding, with the race of the child being that of the mother's.

Of course, crossbreeding soon became taboo, and children created from such a union were labeled as "abominations" and the Orokin parent a "blood traitor." If the parent refused to kill the child, they were exiled.

Eitri was one such abomination. His father was a low-ranking Orokin quantum physicist and mathematician who studied alternate dimensions, creating the algorithm now known as "the Limbo Theorem" along with his three sisters. His mother, Margulis, held the rank of Archimedean, one of the highest ranks a human could get, although she still would have to obey the lowest ranking Orokin.

Eitri grew far bigger than his peers and had some "birthmarks" that glowed a silvery blue and ran up his back in an intricate, symmetrical pattern and in a lotus shape across his chest. He had black hair and vibrant teal-green eyes. Both of his parents repeatedly told him to hide his birthmarks growing up, or else something bad would happen.

Eitri had a relatively normal life growing up, learning about the greatness of the Orokin from his classes and advanced quantum mechanics and dimensional theories from his father and aunts at home. He was happy, with a loving, albeit strict father and a loving mother. That all changed a few days after his 15th birthday.

Ballas found out about Eitri's family. Eitri's father refused to kill Eitri and as punishment for his father's "crime, instead of exile, Eitri and his mother were forced to watch as Ballas injected something into his father and watch in horror as he turned into a warframe that looked similar to a magician. Ballas ordered Eitri's father-turned-warframe, now known as Limbo Prime, to kill his sisters. Instead, Eitri's father used the last bit of control he had to open a tear into another dimension and jump into it.

Enraged, Ballas injected the substance into Eitri's aunts, transforming them into the warframes known as Protea Prime, Nova Prime, and Wisp Prime.

Ballas then took Eitri away. He sent Eitri onto the Zariman Ten-Zero, a colony ship funded by Ballas that they were told was supposed to go to the Tau System for colonization. What they weren't told was that it was really a test to see how prolonged exposure to the Void affects humans and Orokin, with a sample size of over 10000, including around 500 children like Eitri. The last "normal" thing Eitri remembered was the ship cephalon teaching his class about the differences between the two theories of time: Presentism and Eternalism, as the ship was prepped for Void Jump. Then everything went wrong.

(AN: these are actual theories and involve wibbly wobbly timey Timey stuff and relativity. Warframe added to Eternalism so that branching timelines where 'what would the world be like if this event did(n't) happen' exist)

Eitri could still remember the screams as the adults slowly got corrupted and went insane by the siren song of the Void. They started attacking their own children. The siege lasted what felt like over a month, and while Eitri was trying to comfort the other people in the classroom they were stuck in, Eitri saw someone new… someone who looked exactly like him but with reflective gray eyes and an honestly disturbing smile. The doppelgänger said that he could get them out of the Zariman if Eitri took his hand. While Eitri was suspicious, he didn't see any other option, so he shook his doppelgänger's hand.

The rest of the time on the Zariman was kind of a blur. He could vaguely remember the other children and himself manifesting the power of the Void and fighting back. They then spent what felt like an eternity trying to survive on the ship.

The Void had changed them. Not just mentally, since it caused some changes in their physiology too. Shepard felt that if he wanted to, he could completely change his appearance, voice, or even gender. He didn't feel like it though, and just turned his hair a vibrant green. The only thing he couldn't change was his birthmarks and his glowing green eyes.

(AN: while his shapeshifting powers won't come up much, but it is something he has to explain the Warframe character creation mechanic)

When they were finally rescued, after what was apparently 20 years (which was weird because the survivors only appeared one year older), by a ship led by Margulis. Margulis was assigned the duty to raise the orphans, and both Eitri and Margulis were surprised and overjoyed to see each other. Though he noticed his mother also didn't age in the two decades they were apart, he just assumed it was for a similar reason to himself and the other survivors. In hindsight, he should have known something was off.

In time, Margulis taught the survivors, now called the Tenno, a word that translates to "Emperor" in one of the dead languages of the old Earth nations, and paid tribute to their origins, the Zariman Ten-Zero. Orders came from the Seven, the highest power in the Orokin government, to train the Tenno to use their powers to fight the Sentients. Margulis discovered Transference, an ability of the Tenno to transfer their consciousness to Warframe and control it, while simultaneously acting as a conduit to power the warframe's abilities, remaining safe in a stasis pod until they wake up.

The Tenno were also basically immortal, as they were expected to live over 100 times their previous lifespan, and apparently could only be killed by other Tenno or by a Sentient. They were also natural Sentient slayers, as their Void energy attacks removed any recent adaptations and resistances a Sentient gained.

Margulis pleaded to let the Tenno live in peace, but the Seven were adamant. The Tenno will go to war with the Sentients. The Seven assigned Ballas to work with Margulis to make the Tenno into Sentient killers. Eitri often saw Ballas, who apparently forgot about what he did to Eitri's father, trying to flirt with his mother. Eitri could almost hear her trying to stop herself from punching him, likely because a human like Margulis attacking a high-level Orokin like Ballas would end with both her and Eitri glassed and turned into cephalons, AI's created using the mind of a person, usually as a punishment for a criminal or to preserve the minds of important people, and hard coded to follow the orders.

Each Tenno was given a personal cephalon to aid them in communication, fabrication of items, and as field aids in the forms of sentinels. Eitri's cephalon, Ordis, was a famous historian who volunteered for the procedure when he was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

During a mission, Eitri ended up in the same station he grew up in with Margulis and his father. He decided to search his father's old lab, where he found a hidden tablet with the completed Limbo Theorem. When Eitri touched it, a rift opened up nearby. Inside was Limbo Prime lying on the ground with a note in his hand:

"Dear Eitri,

If you're reading this, then you've found me. I set up a biometric reader into the tablet and it would open the rift if it was you or your mother, Margulis. Otherwise, the data would be fragmented and sent to various sites.

My consciousness is degrading as time passes, so I don't know how long I'll last, but either way, my work is done. I completed the theorem using the insight given by my new form, and cracked the code for traveling across dimensions. With enough practice, you'll be able to cross the Void with no problem. You might even be able to cross the universal border itself!

I also witnessed what you went through on the Zariman. I tried to guide your mother to you so you'd be rescued.

As I write this, my memory starts to fade. I don't even remember my own name. Just yours. Our little Eitri.

I've also provided blueprints to replicate this body, as I know you'd feel bad using mine. But if there is anyone I'd want piloting this body, this Limbo, it would be you.

Love,

Your father,

Limbo Prime"

Eitri brought his father's body back to his mother and they buried him in the same place as his mother's protégé, the Silver Grove. Eitri decided to honor his father's wishes and rebuild Limbo Prime, this time without using a person as a template. The Limbo Prime that he still uses today.

A month after that, the Sentients destroyed the lab on Deimos that Ballas used to create the Infestation, and the techno-organic virus sealed inside started corrupting everything around it. It infected the ground itself, turning it into a spore-ridden wasteland with cancerous growths that then changed the wildlife into monstrosities that attacked everything that moved.

Soon after that, a faction led by Parvos Granum, called the Corpus, was a giant corporation that worshipped money and capitalism. The Seven hated the Corpus, since they believed that capitalism was poison to the caste system that they carefully cultivated, because it allowed people to forcefully raise their caste or forced others to move to a lower one. The Seven couldn't do anything about it though, as the Corpus had hijacked a large portion of the system's economy.

A few years of war later, the Tenno and the Grineer had just about won the war against the Sentients, although many Tenno were killed in the process, until only 100 remained. The Seven and several other powerful Orokin decided that the Tenno were too dangerous to be kept alive. Margulis defied the Seven, smuggling the Tenno to Lua, also known as Earth's Moon. As a result, she was sentenced to be executed via the Jade Light, a powerful weapon that disintegrates everything in its path.

Soon after the Tenno reached Lua, the masked woman that would be known as the Lotus appeared in front of them. She gave her condolences and told the Tenno the proclaimed fate of their foster mother (or in Joey's case, real mother).

At that moment, all hell seemed to break loose. Many Tenno panicked and Eitri had a hard time trying not to break down as one of his last anchors to reality crumbled. Then the Lotus hugged him, comforting him. Eitri knew now why that hug was so familiar, but at that time, he was mourning the loss of his mother. The rest of the Tenno stopped to watch, as they knew that Margulis was Eitri's mother and he had become somewhat of a leader to the rest of them during the events of the Zariman.

Then came the rage. The Orokin just tried to kill them. The Orokin they fought and died to protect. The Orokin who made them the way they were. AnD THey KILLED HIS MOTHER FOR PROTECTING THEM!

"Alright," Eitri growled, startling several Tenno who came closer to help comfort him, "They decided that we were devils, that we would be the death of them. Then we will become what they feared. What they killed our mother for. We will bring an end to this war. By destroying the Orokin. DEATH TO THE OROKIN!"

The other Tenno started cheering, as they never liked the Orokin. The Orokin were the reason they were forced to kill their own parents on the Zariman and were forced to fight in a war and the execution of Margulis was the straw that broke the kubrou's back.

The Orokin population had never been large, having never gone higher than 200 due to them not wanting to share their "gifts." Eitri's father and aunts were among the few that willingly interacted with normal humans, as others found them primitive. Killing a group who had only lived in luxury since birth would be simple, especially with the powers of the Void. They also were planning a feast to celebrate winning the war. Nearly every Orokin would be there, excluding the elusive Entrati family and a few stragglers overlooking the human slave camps. Eitri met the Entrati before, and they were quite friendly to non-Orokin outsiders, as they had repeatedly feuded with the Seven. Eitri decided to spare them as they didn't act like the standard Orokin.

It was decided that other than a few Tenno who would get rid of the stragglers, the rest would attack the party with Eitri and the Lotus as the leaders. The Lotus team would attack the party while Eitri's team would attack the Seven directly.

The teams struck with precision. It took 5 minutes for the alarms to sound, and by then over half of the Orokin were dead. As Eitri snuck towards the council room in his Limbo Prime, he noticed Ballas trying to sneak off. Eitri sprinted over and grabbed Ballas by the neck, lifting him up in a chokehold.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't rip you limb from limb for what you did to my father and mother" Joey whispered menacingly at Ballas.

"W- *cough* what do you mean? I never hurt anyone!" Ballas stuttered.

"So you weren't the one who killed my father by turning him into the original version of this warframe, and didn't have anything to do with my mother, Margulis' execution" Joey growled, transferring out of his frame, Ballas still in its hand.

" Wait wait wait! You're Margulis' kid? Her decision makes a lot more sense now. She refused to have you Tenno killed, so she was sentenced to be executed. But I made a clone of her to take her place. I gave her a disguise *and hypnotized her* so she could pass as a new person, the Lotus. She should have arrived on Lua to meet you."

"What was that last part"

"Nothing! I just gave her a new identity"

" So let me get this straight. You cloned my mother, and when she was going to be executed, switched her out for the clone, and made her into the Lotus? Why did you have a clone of her?"

"See it wasn't really a clone but a body double due to… reasons and I can't really tell you anything about it. I have proof of it in my pocket. A camera caught me switching them out and I went to destroy the data."

Joey reached into Ballas' pocket and had Ordis play the video, showing Ballas switching Margulis with a clone and turning Margulis into the Lotus.

"What are the reasons you talked about? Talk, and I may just spare your life."

"Around 100 years ago, I decided to overthrow the Seven. I helped create the Sentients under the guise of them being terraformers and sent them to Tau. I made it so that they would become sterile a few years after they reached Tau, and would have to come back either for revenge or for a cure. When they returned 45 years ago, I was approached by the Sentient Queen Natah so she could infiltrate the Orokin to research their sterility. She used her abilities to transform into Archimedean Margulis, the human researcher."

"Wait, so you're saying my mother is a Sentient? And the Sentient Queen at that?! I think I would have known if my mother was a Sentient!"

"If you were truly Margulis or Natah's son, you would have markings that glowed on your body. That was the one thing she couldn't change, especially the mark of a lotus on her chest. I made sure of it. Though I don't know how she could have had you, since she was supposed to be sterile and last I checked, still was."

Joey's eyes widened as he suddenly remembered the birthmarks he had been hiding due to his parents' insistence.

"What is the cure for their sterility? The Orokin are dead, and we can end this war if we could solve the reason they are fighting."

"There isn't one. I designed them to become sterile when they came in contact with the Void. So… you'll let me go now?" asked Ballas hopefully.

"Operator, I suggest we- TEAR HIM TO SHREDS- put him out of his misery." Ordis said.

"No… you may have earned your life, but you haven't earned your freedom. I would have turned you into a warframe like you did my father, but since I don't have that virus, I'll have to make do with what happened after that…" says Eitri as he opens a rift. "Don't worry, you won't starve or die of thirst, I did promise you your life, after all. You have been sentenced to live in this dimension, seeing what happens around you but never being able to interact with anything. For all intents and purposes, you will be a ghost haunting this place."

"I think I would have preferred deaaaaaa-" screamed Ballas as Eitri threw him into the rift.

"Don't worry, I'll release you.. eventually" muttered Eitri, closing the rift.

By the time he finished interrogating Ballas, the rest of his team made short work of the Seven and returned. He would have preferred to do it himself, but to him, Ballas took precedence.

They returned to the landing pad to find the Lotus team in front of a humanoid Sentient.

"So you finished what you came here for, Natah. All you need to do is get rid of the last remnants of the Orokin, the Tenno." said the Sentient.

"I can't, Erra. They are my family, my children." said the Lotus.

"Look at how the Orokin changed you, sister. Forced you to care for the creations of the Orokin. They are not your family, they are weapons used against our kind. You've become the Queen of Aphids, not the Queen of Sentients"

"Erra, right? I think you're mistaken. Natah, or Margulis, or Lotus, or whatever you want to call her, has raised and cared for us when the Orokin wanted us to be weapons. Both you and I, the Sentients and the Tenno, are products of a single Orokin's convoluted machinations to kill the other Orokin. The Orokin named Ballas. The creator of the Sentients and the founder of the Zariman project." Eitri said loudly, transferring out of his frame. "And for your information, I am her actual son."

There were several gasps from the other Tenno, both at the revelation that the Lotus was a Sentient and also Margulis, and that Ballas was behind everything bad that ever happened to them.

"How could you possibly be Natah's child? All Sentients became sterile when we reached Tau, including her."

"It is true, brother. Eitri is my son by birth, a gift from the Void. I had tried again many times after his birth with his father, but have not been able to bear any more children." Said the Lotus

"You must have been dreaming. There's no way you could have had children with one of them-" Ballas stopped as Eitri ripped open the front of his shirt to reveal the lotus birthmark. Eitri could have sworn Erra's "eyes" popped out of his head for a split second.

"Is this enough proof? Ordis, play my interrogation of Ballas."

"Yes, Operator. Playing the recording of the interrogation of -THE OROKIN SLIMEBALL- Ballas" replied Ordis, creating a projection for all present to see, showing the recording of Joey's interrogation of Ballas.

By the end of the recording, everyone on the landing bay looked furious, Erra most of all.

"Serves him right. Let him rot in isolation for eternity." Growled Erra. "I acknowledge the Tenno, though that doesn't mean I forgive what you have done under the Orokin."

"That's fine. I just want to stop a cycle of hatred from forming. Both our people have gone through enough at the hands of the Orokin." said Eitri.

"Agreed. We will retreat. We have sensed several Grineer and Corpus on their way to find what's happened"

"And I will take the Tenno to someplace hidden. They will be hunted by both factions for what happened to the Orokin." said the Lotus.

Thus, they parted ways, with Erra's Sentients retreating past the system's rim and the Lotus with her Tenno back to Lua. The Tenno went into stasis in their transference pods and the Lotus hid Lua in the Void.

(AN: in the process of revising. A lot of people said the MC's name doesn't fit and/or out of place, so I renamed him Eitri after one of the dwarven smiths that forged Mjolnir)