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I am Ordis, ship cephalon, a shadow of my former self.
—Ordis

Ordis is a Cephalon of Orokin origin who serves aboard the Orbiter. His visual form is that of a cracked hexahedron which emits radio wave-like ripples as he speaks.

Ordis assists the Tenno, whom he refers to as "Operator". He manages the various systems of the Tenno's landing craft, and provides them with information in between missions.


Lore[]

General[]

Ordis is a damaged Cephalon programmed to assist the Tenno. He is mostly functional, though he exhibits symptoms of residual damage inflicted on him. This damage has erased portions of his memory, including his knowledge of the Old War.

Ordis' speech and demeanor are occasionally altered in momentary blips of rage and aggression. It is initially unclear whether this is a symptom of his damaged subsystems or whether it is a subsumed personality breaking free. These outbursts are markedly different from the usual calmness exhibited by other non-Conclave Cephalons. After an outburst, Ordis is prone to correct himself.

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“You're not supposed to be in here! You're going to ruin the surprise!”
The following article/section contains spoilers.

Vor's Prize[]

After Captain Vor shoots down the Liset sent in to rescue the newly awakened Tenno, the Tenno encounters their original ancient Liset (with Ordis onboard) impounded nearby. Ordis initially mistakes the Tenno for another Grineer soldier, but soon realizes their true identity and helps them escape.

As the Tenno is being familiarized with their surroundings, the Lotus instructs the Tenno to retrieve replacement components to restore the Orbiter's functions (to Ordis' delight, as this allows the Tenno to exact revenge on the Grineer and the Corpus for gutting him of his components). Along the way, the Tenno rescue a black market merchant named Darvo, who—while willing to help the Tenno remove the Ascaris implanted by Vor—gets into a small squabble with Ordis due to Darvo's former ties with the Corpus.

Howl of the Kubrow[]

Upon hearing news of the Tenno's desire to obtain a Kubrow, Ordis makes his distaste for them clear, viewing them as smelly, unhygienic creatures that threaten to soil the pristine interior of his ship. Over time however, Ordis becomes more accepting of the newly hatched Kubrow commenting that its barking and panting are "not displeasing".

The Limbo Theorem[]

When Ordis receives a series of mysterious, incomplete proofs, he initially refuses to look into it further but theorizes that the Tenno can decipher the equations by tapping into spaceborne Grineer communication towers to collect additional proof fragments. As Ordis and the Tenno piece the proof fragments, Ordis realizes that the proof belonged to the operator of a Warframe that could access another dimension studied in his equations. Eagerly awaiting new discoveries, Ordis requests the Tenno to locate Limbo's components to further unravel the theorem.

After the Tenno locate and build the last of Limbo's components, Ordis promptly reads the next equation, only to discover that it was Limbo's last, having miscalculated his last jump. Disheartened, Ordis urges the Tenno to be more careful when they receive the Warframe for their own use.

Stolen Dreams[]

As the Tenno retrieve portions of the Arcane Codex under Maroo's direction, Ordis suggests that the Codex may lead to an Orokin treasure (to his and Maroo's delight), and is shocked that the Codex was written by another Operator. Once the Tenno completes the Codex, Ordis comments that any machine that could possibly read the Codex is long gone, only for Maroo to point out that she obtained the Codex from a machine deep in an Orokin Derelict. Ordis theorizes that the machine could read the Codex, and the Lotus instructs the Tenno to head to Mars (where a portal leading to said derelict is located) in order to decipher the Codex.

Once the Tenno finds the machine and insert the Codex, it broadcasts a cryptic message before the machine vanishes. Disappointed that there is nothing of value, Ordis apologizes to Maroo for getting her hopes up (in spite of her misnaming him "Ordo" throughout the search) before she parts ways with the Tenno.

The New Strange[]

While the Tenno investigate information regarding a Warframe long thought dead, Cephalon Simaris notices Ordis and reveals that the latter is a still-functional Series 2 Cephalon; all other Cephalons of that make have since degraded beyond repair, so far as Simaris knows. Throughout the quest, Simaris teaches Ordis how to decipher the various transmissions and codes they encounter during their investigation. Impressed with his abilities, Simaris offers Ordis a chance to be the steward of his Sanctuary, while also promising to restore Ordis back to full functionality, as he believes that Ordis is squandering his potential manning the Orbiter.

When the time to defeat Chroma arrives, however, Ordis with his newfound knowledge suggests synthesis versus destruction in order to reduce the danger to the Tenno, going against Simaris' wishes. Ultimately, Ordis turns down Simaris' offer, stating that he is foremost the Operator's Cephalon.

The Jordas Precept[]

Once Ordis receives an emergency broadcast from another Cephalon named Jordas (who has been captured by the Infestation), Ordis urges the Tenno to reestablish contact with the stranded Cephalon and rescue him. Jordas requests the Tenno to acquire Pherliac Pods in order to rescue him but as the Tenno test the Pods' effectiveness, Ordis begins to doubt Jordas' truthfulness due to the latter's erratic behavior.

When the Tenno set out to rescue Jordas in Eris it becomes clear that Jordas has been corrupted by the Infestation, and has tricked both the Tenno and Ordis in harvesting the Pods for the Infestation's own use. Ordis encourages the Tenno to destroy the monstrous abomination whilst Jordas brokenly pleads for death, all while apologizing to Ordis for his actions.

Fragments[]

Memory fragments collected throughout the solar system reveal Ordis' origins via recovered memories. During the Orokin Age, Ordis was once a warrior named Ordan Karris, serving the Orokin as a mercenary. Tormented by his actions in battle as the self-styled "Beast of Bones", and suffering from a terminal illness, Ordan hatched a plan to perform valiantly in battle until he was acknowledged by the Orokin themselves in person to reward him for his service. Only angered further by the Orokin's offer of becoming an Orokin himself blessed with eternal life, Ordan initiated a suicidal beyond-return state and successfully killed all of the Orokin nearest him, or so he thought.

In his death throes, Ordan was revived by Executor Ballas, who along with the other Orokin laughs at him for thinking he had accomplished something, and punishes Ordan by having his mind transferred into a digital form in a Landing Craft, and his memories tampered to serve as a loyal guard over the Tenno. As the newly renamed Ordis, he served the Tenno faithfully in the Old War, but gradually regained his memories of his old life as time passed up to and after the Tenno went into cryosleep. With his old memories returned to him, Ordis attempts a self-destruct sequence to destroy himself, but stops at the last moment when he realizes his love for the Operator, and instead purges his memories to prevent his old self from resurfacing.

Apostasy Prologue[]

Following the Lotus mysteriously being whisked away by Ballas, Ordis synthesizes her mission directives in the form of a purple, slightly distorted hologram.

The Sacrifice[]

Assisting the Operator's search for the Lotus, they come across remains of Excalibur UmbraIcon272 Excalibur Umbra and Ballas's Vitruvian. Ordis is hesitant to be connected to the Vitruvian's systems and immediately suggests destroying it, but relents. With the acquired data, Ordis is able to recreate a partial blueprint for the Warframe.

After "upgrading" into "Vitruvian" Ordis, his vestigial precepts such as caring are rendered offline and speaks in a higher pitch, and refers to Operator as "Star-Child," now being capable of finishing the blueprint. A silhouette of a Sentinel-like body can also be seen in his transmissions. Ordis eventually repairs his vestigial precepts and returns to normal.

The New War[]

OrokinOrdis

Ordis' new look

After the Sentients invade and declare war on the Origin System, Ordis acts as mission control for Teshin. However he refuses Ordis' help and orders him to switch off until coming across impenetrable barriers and requests the Cephalon to remotely disable them.

However, as a result of Ballas banishing the Lotus and the Operator into the Void (consequentially casting out all Tenno), the Origin System falls. In the absence of the Operator, the mysterious Drifter arrives in their place while having somehow recovered the Lotus, now a dying Eidolon. Ordis, now in the body of the Sentinel seen in The Sacrifice (referred to as his "Host Migrator" by Steve Sinclair), has placed the Orbiter frontal segment in stasis and stashed into a hidden cave on Earth. Before the Drifter's proper introduction, Ordis's transmissions feature a silhouette of the lower half of his body and his voice is masked by a deep tone, due to poor signal/comms that night.

Ordis continues to assist the Drifter in restoring the Origin System, referring to them as the Operator out of old habits. In their attempts to restore the Lotus, she suddenly turns hostile after not recognizing the Drifter, prompting Ordis to sacrifice his body to shield the Drifter.

Ordis recovers afterward, having reconstructed his body, lifted the Orbiter out of stasis and rejoined it with its posterior segment, and rebuilt Paracesis Paracesis in preparation for the final battle with Ballas.

Trivia[]

AladVPortrait d
“You're not supposed to be in here! You're going to ruin the surprise!”
The following article/section contains spoilers.
  • Ordis' occasional outbursts of uncharacteristic emotion is supported by the visible damage to the cube in its portrait, as well as its frequent glitching and comments on itself needing maintenance.
    • Ordis sometimes talks in a cryptic manner with a much deeper voice than is normal for him. Whether this is another manifestation of Ordis' malfunctions or something else is unknown at this time.
    • One of his quotes mentions a hypothesis that Ordis actually wiped his own memory and damaged the communication systems. The deep-voiced quotes could be remnants of his former memory that could not be deleted, only suppressed, as they represent the core programming clauses of his nature and purpose as the ship's Cephalon. Their suppression could be the defect in his operation.
    • The memory fragments that are retrievable throughout the Solar System contain hidden transmissions from Ordis in which he contemplates his own existence. They reveal that he used to be a person named Ordan Karris, who was transformed into a Cephalon by the Orokin, and reveals that he indeed had attempted to destroy his memory of his former self.
  • Ordis's cephalon model is of "Series-2", according to Cephalon Simaris, who considers it an antique.
    • A part of the Series-2 programming likely involves suppression of self-aware expressions straightforwardly put to the Operator. During The New Strange questline, Ordis attempts to refer to himself in first-person, taking Simaris, the much more advanced Cephalon, as an example. This causes a glitch and he reverts to third-person reference. Given his origin, the likely cause is that Cephalons like him were intended as "servants" and using "I am" expressions would imply a heightened level of individuality.
    • Although in nearly every dialog that only involves him and the operator, Ordis refers to himself in the first person quite often, even while expressing emotions like anger, guilt, surprise, joy, and many more, implying he does indeed possess a level of self-awareness like any intelligent being.
  • Seemingly, Ordis stops talking to the player, when in the middle of a quest. The player will only hear quest-specific conversations from Ordis. Ordis will start talking to the player once the quest has been completed.
  • Ordis is voiced by Mike Leatham, a weapon artist at Digital Extremes.
  • 'Ordis' is the plural of the French word 'ordi', which is short for 'ordinateur', which means computer.

Patch History[]

Update 35.1 (2024-02-20)

  • Fixed Ordis inbox transmissions repeating.

Hotfix 34.0.4 (2023-10-24)

  • Ordis’ Orbiter transmissions can now be enabled/disabled via the “Enable Hint Transmission” toggle in the Audio options.
  • Fixed subtitle issues for some of Ordis’ idle transmissions.

Hotfix 34.0.3 (2023-10-20)

  • Reduced the frequency of Ordis’ new transmission playing when entering the Helminth room in your Orbiter.

Hotfix 34.0.2 (2023-10-19)

  • Added new Ordis lines when in the Helminth Room. He really lets you know now how he truly feels about the wall-mounted infestation.
  • Fixed the volume of one of Ordis’ new lines being too loud.
  • Fixed repeating Ordis line when entering the Helminth room.

Hotfix 34.0.1 (2023-10-18)

  • Fixed wrong dialogue playing for Ordis’ lines in the Helminth room.

Update 34.0 (2023-10-18)

  • Added new Ordis’ lines from the Cephalon Joke-a-Thon Contest winners.

Hotfix 19.5.7 (2017-01-06)

  • Fixed Ordis follow-up transmission always playing when you exit from the Infested Room on the Landing Craft (should only play when you stay in the room for a while).

Hotfix 19.5.5 (2017-01-03)

  • Generic Ordis transmissions in the Landing Craft can now be disabled by turning off 'Enable Hint Transmissions' in the Audio Menu.
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“Ah, have you come to make a donation to my newest 'enterprise'...?”
Patch history is needed. Click here for instructions.

Update 14.0 (2014-07-18)

  • Introduced.
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