space shenaniganery depot

1) The roles Margulis played on Tau

After you've read Mist's excellent essay… Using information solely presented in The Old Peace, here's what we think happened for the World-Seeder/Tau Bloom Extinction sequence to play out as it did:

Itzam.

Margulis and Itzam were colleagues, not close ones, but colleagues nonetheless. During the very beginning stages of The Old Peace, in Tauron Academy, Margulis is seen just slightly out of view, before the doors close behind her. And she says:

"I trust Itzam more than the Orokin. Have him report to me daily."

This was intentionally a brief moment, but it's paramount to Margulis' motivations here. She spells it out plainly: she's on the Sentients' side. She is a woman keenly aware of the sins of Orokin society, and she's trying to salvage some measure of control over her position in Tauron Academy.

But Itzam's fatal mistake was, in fact, Not Reporting To Margulis, and instead trusting b*llas with the plan Margulis came up with. Let's think about the scene more, where Itzam meets with b*llas to update him on the losing war between the Sentients and Anarchs.

"I have spoken to my fellow Archimedean. Your... consort? It appears the world-seeders have a weakness." "Close the door."

Margulis worked with Itzam briefly enough to tell him the plan to defuse the Anarchs. Itzam trusted her plan, BUT, he did something that Margulis may not have known he would: telling a goddamn Executor about it.

B*llas, who has been impassively watching events unfold up to this point, suddenly leans forward and demands for the doors to be locked. This time, we see b*llas blindsided. And of course, this motherfucker hates not being the overseer-master-manipulator of literally everything in the world, so learning of this undeniably pisses him off.

While the doors have locked, he has plenty of time to scheme — with Itzam so pliable next to him, giving him information on what Margulis has been doing behind his back. Learning that Margulis wants to save the Sentients, learning that she has empathy for the living machines… This knowledge is what spurred him to sabotage Margulis' codes.

This fits in with what we previously knew about b*llas: that he was idiotically jealous of Margulis' love for her children, that he resents her sense of compassion when it's given to anyone but him. And in his envy, he brings everyone into the crossfire exactly like a manchild throwing a tantrum. Finding out about Margulis siding with Itzam and the Sentients was very much an eyebrow twitch moment for him... Especially when we consider how Margulis was keeping appearances as his lover even in the Mission recording in her Ayatan sculpture. His precious Margulis was… Lying to him behind his back!!! GASP!!!!! Scandalous!!!!

You know what doesn't fit in with what we previously knew? The idea that Margulis would be okay with restarting a goddamn war.

Fast forward to after the Operator's rampage… Maybe this is why Margulis sounded resigned when she said "You already know the truth." The Orokin did what the Orokin did best. They usurped control. They took advantage of an impressionable Sentient, keen on integrating into their society, eager to keep his head bowed low, and twisted his hope against not just him, but his people.

Margulis would understandably be strained and stressed after everything went wrong. She did not sound like someone who was desperately coming to terms with making the choice to kill the Sentients, "At least I saved my Children though!!"-style. She sounded like someone exhausted and resigned: stretched thin after all the appearances she had to keep up under both Orokin society, the leering eye of her possessive "lover", while trying to do the best for both her children and the Sentients.

"OK but she sedated the Tenno and forced them to sleep and forget right before taking them back to Lua."

I implore you to read @torrona's post covering sleepiness and The Man in The Wall's influence: https://www.tumblr.com/torrona/803075538907529216/so-i-completely-forgot-that-this-moment-in-the (I don't know you but I thank you earnestly for this excellent write-up about TMITW's possession)

Margulis has been intensively studying the Void's influence on the Tenno, even asking Itzam to check on the Tenno in her stead. She anticipated the Tenno's sleepiness and acted. She was sick of being used, and she knew her child was sick of the same, too. In the end, trust your Operator's words when they say: "Think, Adis! Margulis couldn't have done this!"

2) The "Chosen of Margulis" Honoria

This brings us to the point of Operator and Margulis' relationship, how they could've both ended up on Tau.

Unlike the idiots and gaping assholes of this godforsaken fandom, we understand that Margulis' erasure of Tenno memories was not only a desperate measure, but the clear lesser evil over the Orokin demand to leave them for death.

Our interpretation of the "Chosen of Margulis" Honoria is for our Tenno — The Chosen Operator — to be the only awakened Tenno on Tau: Chosen by Margulis to pioneer different ways of coping with their unstable Void powers. @SeaQueenMaria has a wonderful take on this:

The Operator and her relationship with Margulis is so bittersweet. They trust each other so much in a world where Executors and society hates that they do.

These interpretations are infinitely more charitable to Margulis AND more compelling a dynamic of her and her Tenno than "ooooo she actually secretly loved the Executor who had a crazy power imbalance with her actually so she was willing to use the children she adopted to please him" or whatever garbage this fandom is spewing. So this is what I'm adopting as my own stance, too. It adds up significantly to my following point regarding Margulis' personality.

3) Linking TOP to Apostasy Prologue

Before TOP, we were under the assumption that Margulis was executed for opposing the Orokin decision to turn the Tenno into child soldiers. With TOP, now we know that Margulis has overseen our Operator's involvement in Orokin wars.

This breaks a lot of our headcanons for her, mostly regarding her personality. We had written her to be a naive person who couldn't stand the idea of sending her traumatized children to war. We thought this was why she lashed out and denounced the Orokin, because she dared to reject the Orokin Quest for Conquest and speak up for the children.

"So shame on you, you Orokin! So perfect on the outside, but you're rotted, through and through!"

We had thought that this iconic line — her Apostasy — was an outraged, uncontrolled outburst. We thought that she found out that the Orokin were using her Transference Therapy to turn her children into soldiers, and she was livid. The Old Peace debunks this. Now, her Apostasy has an extra layer:

"I will not have them accuse you of treason. They will have to get through me."

She knew the Tenno were child soldiers — together with Silvana, it's still likely that they were both tricked into building Warframes — but that wasn't why she lashed out at the Orokin. Margulis committed a loud, unignorable, intentional Apostasy not because she was acting out of naive emotion; she committed Apostasy because she was diverting attention away from the Tenno.

"If Ballas did this, he'll kill you."

She knew he would. Of course she knew. She's lived under his oppressive thumb for so long, and she's sick of it. Call her Jesus the way she died for their sins. She was pulling strings. She was plotting. She was playing 5D chess just like the Orokin do, only difference being that she was on the winning team's side.

Margulis' Apostasy, is why our Tenno, after uncovering the truth, got up from the Dark Refractory and apologized to the Lotus — in extension, to the Margulis within her. Our Tenno believed that they were responsible for Margulis' death. She sacrificed herself to cover up the Operator's crimes — their rampage that was goaded on by grief and the Indifference's taunts. And because Margulis' death was the inciting incident spurring b*llas to kidnap and reprogram Natah into the Lotus, the Operator's apology can easily be read as being directed towards all three of their Mothers.

Margulis, Natah, and the Lotus are all three sides of the same coin, after all. Their lives and histories are so intrinsically linked, so intimately woven together by the same Tenno they all have sworn to watch over, by the same figures of their abuse.

But neither of the three women feel the need to accept the Operator's apology. Lotus rejects the idea that the ruined Peace Treaty was the fault of the Operator or Margulis, and therefore discourages apologizing for something they didn't do. Natah reminds them that the heads of their oppressors have long rolled and gone — by both her and her Tenno's hands, at that. Margulis looks to the future, wanting to tend to the scars that the past left behind. There's no need to be sorry for the circumstances that led to this point.

Margulis is represented by the Moon/Lua/black-coloured choices during quests like TNW. A key Moon choice I want to point out would be in The Sacrifice: guiding Umbra to forget his traumatic memories, and how it was a valid response in how he navigates his grief.

"We leave this memory to the Void, and find peace in our emptiness."

Margulis views forgetting trauma as a mercy. Even if naive, I don't fault her for that. In real life, how many victims of abuse, disaster, war — unspeakable tragedies — wish they could forget the injustices wrought upon them and just continue living their lives? One must do anything in their power to survive, even if it means losing a part of yourself.

For the Tenno children who have been through living nightmares, who are plagued with the Indifference's voice in their ears… Forgetting was undeniably a cure. It was painful, dubious, and it took away a significant, groundbreaking part of their personhood, but ultimately necessary. She was willing to make difficult decisions for her children because she wanted them to continue living. This wasn't her just fucking around in a lab and playing god. It was a matter of letting these traumatized children live, irrevocably changed as they are, or casting them to die by the already bloodied hands of a corrupt Empire.

I believe TOP rounded Margulis' personality very nicely. Now, she is less so a saintly figure who is naive about her ideals, and moreso a pragmatic, decisive woman. She has morals, but she's crafty enough to pull the strings. She is intelligent and cunning in a society that taught her to be, forced her to be.

Thinking back to The New War, this adds another layer to b*llas' vehement ranting about "what Margulis did". He must have figured out that she was tricking him to save the Tenno, and it drove him mad. Her lies and manipulation were just too much.

But lying and manipulation is foundational to Orokin society — and especially B*llas' whole deal. What a classic case of "men can do it all the time but the moment a woman does it she's cooked". Him twisting the Lotus' mind and spinning her into a lying conniving scheming woman is already a blatantly misogynistic motive behind his actions, but knowing that Margulis tricked him? That she got her last laugh in her death? Oof. That must've crushed the jackass to shreds.

With TOP, Margulis' Apostasy is made even more incredible than it already is. Killing herself was part of her plan. She was auramaxxing right there in the Jade Light. What a good fucking character.

4) "Lotus' Margulis" vs "OG Margulis"

"Is Lotus' Margulis and the OG Margulis the same entity?" has been a question on our minds for years. With The Old Peace, we think that this question remains unanswered.

We have seen some speculation that Lotus' Margulis is an Idealized Margulis rather than the Original Margulis, and while we don't have a problem with that view, we think it is still too early to make an absolute call on the Space Moms' present identities.

You can call this copium, it's fine, but when the source material has given us things like Aya, Conceptual Embodiment, Void Possession, Continuity, mind transferrals, trauma allegories, bodily displacement, time travel and hiveminds… This question is very difficult to answer.

But… you know… Margulis has met Sentients before her execution… Natah was mentored by Amar who ran back to "Warn the others"… Margulis says that "we have a long trip back to Lua"… Could it be possible that she met a certain crab-clawed Sentient Mimic Queen? 👀

Anyway. I have high expectations for the upcoming Tau 2026 arc. Now if you'll excuse us, we'll be manifesting a sensual Natah x Margulis Sentient-Human body fusion scene for the following Warframe updates.

Nobody questions her about why she's tampering with the evidence. She's still an Executor's consort until he repudiates her (which she knows he won't as long as he still thinks she'll choose him in the end.)

When they arrive on Lua, Nitokh's waiting and immediately starts beefing with Ballas over how his consort tried to pin the blame on her for the peace treaty that his consort broke.

Margulis just slips past the bickering executors, sleeping Tenno in tow.

Nobody arrests her yet or stops her on the way to the Reservoir. Everyone knows she's a dead woman walking - she can hear it, even if she can't see the looks of scorn. But until Ballas repudiates her, no one wants to be the one to haul her off to a prison cell. (Which he will, eventually, thinking that he can convince her better if she has no other choice between death and giving up her child.)

Eventually, they do come to arrest her.

And when they do, they find her at the Resevoir.

It's a huge cavern, filled with hundreds - thousands - of lotus flowers made of golden cradles. Each flower holds six sleeping Tenno. Her children. Each Tenno represents the only hope the Orokin have of winning the war that she/her child/Nitokh/Ballas/(or whoever history blames) just restarted. They can't afford to lose their child soldiers now.

So when they demand she hand over the Tenno who broke the Treaty...