4 (Updated) Answers...Finally!! (A lecture by Professor Ordis)

A/N: This entire chapter is an info dump. Trust me. I wouldn't do this to you unless it was absolutely necessary. If, like me, you enjoy info dumps then you're in for a treat.

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As soon as Vor died, all of his remaining Grineer Cronies (Gronies) scattered to the void. I had walked, over to where Vor had been moments earlier, picked up his weapons and made a b-line to the extraction point. I'm now sitting inside the Orbiter, ready to finally get some answers to all these questions that have been piling up.

I address, Ordis. "Well, that's one massive burden, off of my shoulders! Now, I think it's time for a little Q&A. First order of business, Ordis, take us out of orbit and set us adrift. I'd rather not have any unexpected interruptions. I then want you to tell me everything you know, about void energy."

"Of course, Operator. The ship will be adrift, momentarily. In regards to void energy, I know, as much as most cephalons, but it is a curious thing and much is still unknown about it. To start with, it has three known primary manifestations and one known secondary manifestation. The three primary manifestations are: dark energy, psionic energy, and bio-energy. The secondary manifestation is known as endogenous energy, or 'endo' for short. The Operator can think of dark energy as ice, psionic energy as water vapor, and bio-energy as water. All three are void energy, simply in different states. The void itself, void traces, and void relics all come about via dark energy. It should be noted, Operator, that the name "dark energy " is not a reference to the energy's color but the lack of color within the environment in which it is most abundant. Furthermore, psionic energy and bio-energy are both found within living creatures. Psionic energy resides within the brain and nervous system, while bio-energy resides within the entirety of the body. Void energy changes its nature, depending upon the surrounding environment. Darker 'void like' environments like space manifest dark energy, even though dark energy can be found most anywhere. The bodies of living organisms, with their organized structures and DNA, manifest bio-energy. The electrical signals, brain waves, and all of the information encoded within these and DNA both, provide the necessary environment for psionic energy to manifest. Dark energy gives rise to void traces, which when refined into void relics can assist in opening void fissures. Bio-energy energizes all of the cells, in the body to increase defenses and assist in near instant regeneration. Once this energy is depleted, its former receptacle can be killed just as easily as a common person. Psionic energy can be manipulated, by a sufficiently attuned receptacle, into shields and various defensive and offensive abilities. Very few beings can claim, to have any respectable level of attunement to void energy, as the requirements for attaining said attunement are not widely known. Enemies that may be encountered, who make use of these energies, do so via various external technologies, implants, and augmentations. In order to utilize void energy effectively, requires not only psionic and bio-energy but also a sufficient level of attunement. That is to say, even if you have loads of both energies inside you, you may not ever even notice it much less be able to control it. Of course, to the Operator, being a Tenno who is capable of controlling warframes, none of this should be a bother. The Tenno, have an impressively high attunement, to void energy, and an equally impressive control over dark energy. Operator's warframe is a fully biological weapon whose very DNA is constructed with void attunement and psionic and bio-energy control in mind. While the Operator is controlling his warframe, a trifecta of near perfect control over all three states of void energy is created." Ordis finally concluded.

"Wow, that's a lot to take in but I'm more than happy to. This is exactly the information I've been waiting for. I need to know as much as I can, about these abilities of mine. Speaking of which, didn't you say something about a secondary manifestation? 'Endo' I believe it was."

"Ah yes Operator, the secondary manifestation is endogenous energy otherwise known as 'endo.' This energy is only found naturally, unlike dark energy, within the void. The only exception to this would be, when void fissures allow the Corrupted to venture forth, from their derelicts. The Corrupted are Grineer, Corpus, and Infested who have been implanted with control devices, allowing them to be controlled by the 'Neural Sentry,' of the Orokin Towers. The Corrupted are found only on Orokin Derelicts, in the Void. These pitiable existences locked away, within the void, are in a unique environment saturated with dark energy. The dark energy seeps into their bodies and eventually 'melts,' into bio-energy, the bio-energy seeps into their nervous system and 'evaporates,' into psionic energy. After prolonged exposure to saturated levels of dark energy their bodies become filled to the brim with all three energies. Their bodies, however, are not attuned to the void and all of that energy cannot serve any purpose while within them. These energies have no choice but to continue accumulating until the three can no longer coexist as separate entities while contained as such. Thus they condense and merge together, into a unified energy, 'endo.' Whenever psionic or bio-energy is released from its receptacle, one of three things will happen. A sufficiently dense energy, will form into a sphere of the respective energy and fall to the ground, maintaining its nature while slowly dissipating. An insufficiently dense energy will disperse from the body and immediately lose its nature while retaining its informational integrity. It will eventually find its way back to the darkness, and 'freeze' into dark energy, thus erasing any retained information. That same insufficiently dense energy could also, after dispersing into the air, manage to find a highly attuned receptacle where its information and potential can be retained and consolidated, with other such dispersed energies, into an upgrade of the receptacle's baseline capabilities. In the case of endo, once released from its receptacle, it will cling to portions of the Corrupted's golden framing a.k.a. ducalidium, before forming a multi-colored sphere with the a ring of ducalidium wrapped around its middle connected to a circle on one side. Even though the endo doesn't disperse, like other energies, it's still harder to come by than psionic or bio-energy orbs. The amount of time it takes, for this energy to form, means fewer of the Corrupted will actually possess this energy." Ordis expertly details.

"I'm not gonna lie, my head actually hurts a bit after all that but still there are gaps in my knowledge and I want to get this over with so I can make more informed decisions in the future. Ordis, do you know what this ducalidium stuff is made of?" I continue my inquiry.

"Ducalidium is an alloy consisting of gold, orichalcum, and rubedo. It is created, by infusing these three with densely encoded psionic energy during the forging process."

"Hmmm...interesting. You mentioned dispersed energies having the potential to be consolidated for upgrades, tell me more about that. Does that mean I can absorb these energies, from my foes, and use it to upgrade my warframe? If so, why has mine not upgraded despite the huge number of enemies I've slain?"

"This analysis is correct. The reason your frame has not been upgraded is two fold. Firstly, is the, only recently destroyed, Ascaris. You probably noticed, that once its interference was gone, you felt much stronger than before it was placed on you. This is the effect of dispersed energy. If you focus, you'll notice that you cannot use this energy in the same manner as the others, it's just a feeling. Secondly, the upgrading of your frame using dispersed energy is not an automatic process. You must meditate and Will the appropriate amount of energy to complete the task."

"Huh...so I can upgrade my frame right now?"

"Operator, most likely, can upgrade his frame several times at this point."

'Damn! I really wanna do that right now but this information is too important.' I regret. "Ordis, can weapons be upgraded and what about the functionality and acquisition of mods? Why haven't I seen any, yet?"

"Operator, can upgrade his weapons in the same manner as his frame. However, only those weapons constructed in the Operator's Foundry can absorb dispersed energy. A highly attuned genetic signature is required, to be integrated into weapons, allowing them to siphon off and contain dispersed energy intended for the Operator. As for mods, the Operator will need to deconstruct and analyze weapons, armors, and other technologies within the Foundry Segment to acquire their respective blueprints. During deconstruction, if intact mods are found they will be analyzed, removed, and placed within the inventory. Mod blueprints will be obtained, from mod analyses, and several thousand general and specialized mods are sold by relay vendors. If the Operator wishes to see a mod, he should start deconstructing various weapons or visit a relay. Moding is also a creative process and once the Operator has a sufficiently deep understanding of his frame's operation he will be able to create his own mods. Keep in mind, that the construction of warframe mods requires both an armor or technology mod blueprint and plenty of endo. The Operator can place ordinary mods into his frame but it will not last long and will most likely break during its first use. Finally, mods of any sort start off at a base level, acquire dispersed energy via an appropriately constructed weapon, and then become more potent upon reaching a certain level of dispersed energy."

"Ah, I see, that makes sense! Now how about that explanation of 'stepping on resources equals them magically being stored in my invisible inventory' that I was promised?"

"Certainly, Operator. Every warframe has a space inside its feet constructed from psionic energy. By stepping on resources, an automatic process is activated and carried out, by Cephalids within the feet. Cephalids, in case you are unaware, are small fragments of encoded psionic energy possessing the same structure as a Cephalon. These Cephalids do not have any conciousness or critical thinking capabilities. They are only capable of processing/storing information and assisting in the execution of small tasks. The Cephalids assist, the frames natural psionic energy, in compressing the resources into the tiniest and densest form they can take with out being damaged. The condensed resource is then teleported into a segmented compartment within the feet. If viewed while inside the compartment, numerous compressed pieces of a particular resource would look like a single individual resource, due to being packed tightly together."

'Nice! I guess that would mean that my inventory isn't infinite, though. But then, that's a pretty tall order, so I shouldn't have expected it. Also, these Cephalids sound like what would be a single processing chip, while the Cephalon is like a CPU.' I think to myself. "Ordis, what was that about Cephalids being made out of psionic energy? Elaborate, please?"

"Cephalons and Cephalids are both constructed from psionic energy that has been meticulously encoded with information regarding the task/tasks to be accomplished. The PE used, in this process, losses any ability to accomplish tasks other than storing and processing information and is referred to as 'True Data.' The more True Data is compiled and compressed into a single Cephalid the more capable at processing and storing information it becomes. Once a certain threshold has been met, this mass of True Data will gain a conciousness and become a Cephalon. Cephalons are the perfect receptacles for PE to manifest. While Cephalons by themselves cannot utilize PE, if equipped with a network of Cephalids, they can easily accomplish tasks like maintaining and piloting spacecrafts. To clarify, all PE is encoded to some degree. Further encoding PE past a certain threshold will turn it into a Cephalid. Information, essentially, negates the potential of PE to cause an effect. Transforming all of the potential within PE into information is the moment True Data is created. True Data creates superior Cephalids and eventually Cephalons. True Data is no longer considered to be PE, because it can manifest PE."

"...Well, I guess I shouldn't complain. I did ask for it, after all?"

"Operator?"

"It's nothing, just a slight headache. Anyways, back to this ducalidium stuff. What can it be used for and why does it wrap around endo orbs?"

"Ducalidium is wrapped around endo orbs, because ducalidium is a psuedo-Cephalid. Some of the ducalidium on a Corrupted's armor will undoubtedly be designed to manipulate the receptacle's PE in some manner. It is this particular bit of ducalidium that, containing the only remaining informational vestiges of its former receptacle, finds itself being latched onto by the endo orb. As for ducalidium's functions, it is used by most Tenno to provide a permanent boost to their weapons and frames overall performance. This is accomplished by applying sufficient amounts of ducalidium to the desired target, embedding it with a Cephalid, and then activating it with PE. Gear, that has been modified with ducalidium, is often referred to as 'Prime.' Ducalidium, being forged with PE that is very close to being a Cephalid, is an excellent medium in which to embed a true Cephalid. Also, the alloy itself is very receptive to PE as well as other void energies. Once installed, the Cephalid will connect with the target and using the frame's PE will construct a series of micro-arrays throughout the target that boost the overall performance of said target. That being said, a creative Tenno can find any number of uses for ducalidium."

"Alright, one more question. What the hell was that hologram interface that showed up when I was hacking?"

"Ah, yes, the hacking interface. That one is quite simple, Operator. There are Cephalids embedded into your frame's palms that, when in close proximity to a mechanical or holographic interface, begin analyzing all of the data contained within. Some of the Cephalids sort and categorize the information, while one Cephalid translates that information into an interface that the Operator can manipulate to acquire a successful breach of the targets security. The grey squares represent irrelevant data that can be moved around to accommodate a successful breach. The blue squares represent security protocols, traps, and alarms that must not be interfered with. The yellow squares represent possible methods of exploiting the security protocols. The outside blue squares represent external data created by the Cephalids to mimic the information required by the security protocols in order to gain access. The yellow squares, turning green, represents the data being successfully incorporated into the system. The green squares, being connected, represents all of the neccessary data having been compiled in the correct configuration and is ready to be presented to the security protocols in order to bypass it."

"Well, Ordis, I certainly have endured our talk but I think that's about all the information I can handle for now. You've given me quite a bit to think about and for that I thank you. For now though, I'm going to go upgrade my frame, meditate for a while, and then go get some well deserved...shut eye? Wait...do I even need to sleep? Whelp, doesn't matter I'm going to anyway. Ordis, set everything in my Arsenal, to be deconstructed and analyzed and keep the noise to a minimum. Good nigh...uh...space, Ordis."

"Good space, Operator."