My Crazy Theory About The Varelsi Portals in the Operations (Spoilers)

Battleborn Battleborn Campaign Discussion
#1

So I have just completed my 10th playthrough of Phoebe and the Heart of Ekkunar, meaning I am once again completely up to date on all the lore in Battleborn.

While no one has yet been able to decode the apparent morse code messages that are emitting from the anomalies found in each operation (@MentalMars is on it though), I have been thinking up a crazy theory about them that is unrelated to the fact they are supposed to contain BL3 Easter Eggs.

I want to think that these anomalies were created by Empress Lenore from the void. I’ve even thought up a timeline that attempts to make sense of the randomness of where they show up in each mission.

Attikus and the Thrall Rebellion
Jennar was darkened 19954.100 C.R. along with Empress Lenore into the void. The first Thrall Rebellion also took place in that same year along with the second rebellion in 19957 and the third rebellion in 19958. My belief is that Lenore immediately began trying to figure out how return from the void and made her first successful connection with the Battleborn Universe at some point during one of the Thrall Rebellions. Unfortunately she could not properly control where the anomaly would show up, hence why it is was in an odd place in the Tempest Slums. This is also around the same time when Deande somehow manages to “cross the veil” and speak with Lenore (19955.200 C.R.), so its possible that Deande picked up the signal and investigated it personally.

Toby’s Friendship Raid
Dissatisfied with her partial success, she decides to refine her device by directing it towards the Detritus Ring where a lot of portal blooms had popped up during the Varelsi invasion (as was mentioned in the Battleplan Lore that dropped with Montana and the Demon Bear). It just so happened there was a fleet of almost identical ships in the area, which is perhaps why there was a portal in the engine room (it could have been how Lenore was fine tuning it by opening an anomaly on ships travelling really fast). This one is a bit of a stretch.

Oscar Mike vs The Battle School
Maybe Lenore was in need of an assistant/soldier? The Mike could have also been a test subject to see what affects passing through the portal would have on a living body. I would personally love for the Empress to make her debut with a Mike on hand whom she has tolerated because he was the only other person around.

Montana and the Demon Bear
A book full of Jennerit knowledge getting sent to the void? This is the one that made me think it actually might be Lenore doing this. “Oh I need a book to figure out this problem.” Creates a portal into a library and fetches the book.

Phoebe and the Heart of Ekkunar

By this point, she has learnt of Rendain’s plan to escape the void and attempts to warn the Battleborn (or more specifically, Rath who was present on Ekkunar). However because no one is good at morse code, the message just falls on deaf ears.

So yeah, totally out there theory, which I thought I would share. :sunglasses:

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#2

Well, if you’re correct, this is setting up for a hell of a story. More Ops, perhaps?

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#3

Where is this Morse signal everyone is referring too?
Or is that the mystery in and of itself?
If it is than it may be a visual representation of the code

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#4

There’s an anomaly in each operation that mainly serve as side objectives which each have their own unique signal coming out of them. I went through the effort of tracking down the raw audio files for each one and created a Youtube playlist for reference.

Played back as you would hear it in-game (without any other background noise or the portal sfx itself)

Played in reverse. @Jythri has strongly hinted these are reversed morse code (hence the reversed audio) however it appears to have been done in a way where you can’t just chuck it into an online decoder and get plain text.

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#5

good job isolating them
or do you have the actual audio files? If you have the actual files I can get some people at my work to look it over

#6

I posted a link in the Easter Egg thread and the Discord. These are the clean audio clips.

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#7

So I just talked to some people and the WPM seems to be about 40 but dealing with the echo is more than they’re willing
Told the best way about this will be to slow down the audio and to decipher it by ear.

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Easter eggs(spoilers) and discussions about them
#8

I have never seen that Anomaly in the Attikus OP how do you find it. I habe played that Story operation 40 times and that Varelsi Anomaly has never appeared in my game

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#9

You have to have < 20-30 Ops before the first side objective starts, which is near impossible to do after a few runs cos the reset station is at the top of hill. :confused:

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#10

Season Pass Year 2: Lenore, Rendain, Deep Dive, Nova in Mech Suit, the four legged puking guy all playable characters

I like your theory. Mine ties in Borderlands, Jack awoke all Vault weapons.

The Azanti found horrors in the veil. The Varelsi had found horrors before them, they can sense on a parellel Universe a cataclysmic event was started with Jack releasing the warrior – the dragons on Azanti ruins, the skeletons everywhere – and the Varelsi are attempting to build a bastion against what’s happening by bringing all the stars into their instance of the Universe.

Somebody or someone has to scrawl Promethea onto the wall. This was before the events of Battleborn.

I’ve always thought of Battleborn in terms of Dune, shards as spice, the warring factions, all these colossal forces of time, machine, and people all somehow focused in a place and time in one specific spot.

In that way I think the events of Heliophage are many millenias post Borderlands. The Varelsi are an off shoot of Seraphs on a much bigger mission.

Figure distant future because like White noise, that’s the birth of the Universe near 14 billion years ago. Sound waves are coming through Varelsi blooms, and if we can get the age of the Universe from White noise, I’m sure we can figure the Easter egg from the specific noise in Varelsi blooms.

Let’s take it one step further because I think we’re hung up.on the Morse code, a guy in the Navy said the signal was SOS. No clue here, but let’s assume he’s right. Now, we already know Lenore’s alive, “walks the void”, that’s bigger. She was in prison, ostensibly now free - so, who would send the SOS?

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#11

The thought had crossed my mind that they might be trying to link the two universes together. However I recall them going on record that the only way you’d see a crossover would be through skins, taunts and easter eggs. The games are also different in terms of style and tone, and they’d have to do things like having segments where characters from one universe are drawn in the style of the other and vise versa or perhaps finding a middle ground art style that does both.

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