Eternalism is a bit of a cop-out

Eternalism is the idea that every choice we make creates new realities, one where you make one choice and one where you make another choice. Both choices now exist in two different realities and carry on as new, separate timelines.

For example, during the New War, we are showed a cut scene of our space kid in a classroom, trying to keep everyone calm until we meet the Man in the Wall. This entity makes you an offer: take the Man in the Wall’s power and save yourselves; or remain where you are, refusing the demon’s assistance. In this moment, two new realities are made: one where you accept and one where you deny the Man in the Wall’s offer. However, we only see one of these new realities, up until the New War actually starts.

Basically, eternalism means that there’s a vast multiverse, that there is a future for everyone and everything.

So there’s a timeline of the Tenno picking each of their starters; there’s a timeline where Lotus doesn’t leave in the Natah quest; a universe where Shadow Stalker and the Sentients manage to defeat the Operator in the Second Dream; a timeline for what we did with the Twin Queens and the Kuva; and we have a timeline that Excalibur Umbra never meets the Tenno that calms his mind.

It’s also a very handy plot device, simply explaining all our decisions away. Everyone’s experience of the Second Dream, the War Within and the Sacrifice is different. And all these things happen in various timelines. There is no path unexplored, just ever-continuing lines of time, different universes. Simply because each Tenno made different choices.

However, eternalism also makes things very complicated. After all, if Tenno A and Tenno B go on different paths, you end up with a TON of multiverses. We don’t actually see them, but they’re there. And this begs another question, how many Tenno are there? Canonically, we don’t know and we can’t know, because eternalism creates new paths each time a new Tenno wakes up and picks a Warframe.

Thing is, we should have known that something like this was coming. After all, Onkko has been claiming this stuff for years. He sits in his little cave talking to his fellow Quills, which are all making their own universal ripples in all sorts of parallel dimensions. It’s also a handy form of immortality. If you die, you just continue in a timeline where you don’t die. Onkko and the Quills study these timelines, trying to find the ones where things don’t go badly. That’s why he lets his wife think he’s dead, even though he’s in a cave about 30m away.

While this explains why every player can go through the quests though, it doesn’t feel like a strong answer to my questions. We can just sweep everything under the rug and say “Eternalism” as a solution to everything. Because it kinda is. But unless eternalism is only for important people or void-touched beings, we end up with so many twisted wires and uncountable timelines. The Quills have eternalism, but what about the rest of Cetus? Does the Unum also consider eternalism? Or is it simply a thing us Tenno have, thanks to the Man in the Wall?

Hm. Maybe I’m just looking too much into it…