Octavia's Anthem is an optional solo-only quest introduced in Update 20.0 (2017-03-24). This quest focuses on Cephalon Suda and the mystery behind her obsession with music and the resulting glitches that may hide a darker secret. Completing this quest will reward players with the blueprint for the Octavia Warframe.
The tie-in webcomic What Remains can be found on the official website.
Walkthrough
The Octavia's Anthem quest can only be unlocked once players have completed The Second Dream.
The quest is started by visiting Cephalon Suda inside a relay where Cephalon Simaris will abruptly tell the player to disregard anything Suda says, complaining about her obsession with music (which he regards as a pointless waste of data). Suda will greet the player and begin expressing her thoughts on music. She will also be noticeably erratic in her train of thought. From there Suda will ask the player to build the "Mandachord", an artifact blueprint given to the player by Suda. Simaris will immediately mock Suda's interest in music, and suggests she be decommissioned due to corrupted precepts.
Collect the Mandachord Components: Sao, Neptune
Enemy Level: 29-31
Tileset: Corpus Outpost
On accepting the quest, the player will receive a blueprint for the Mandachord. In order to complete the Mandachord, players must embark on a mission to find the remaining three components - the Mandachord Body, Mandachord Fret, and Mandacord Bridge - on a Corpus base in Neptune.
Once the player enters the mission they will be accompanied by an unknown white light that leaves behind a bright purple trail as it moves accompanied by music. The player must follow this light as it will guide them to each individual component's location. The components will be inside a container where the player can press the context action to pick up the component.
Once the Mandachord Body, Fret, and Bridge have been collected the light will fade away and Suda will tell the player to extract.
Build the Mandachord
On finishing the Corpus mission Suda will ask the player to craft the Mandachord.
| Manufacturing Requirements | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 5,000 |
 3 |
"[[Body]]" wasn't found in Module:Resources/data 1 |
"[[Fret]]" wasn't found in Module:Resources/data 1 |
"[[Bridge]]" wasn't found in Module:Resources/data 1 |
Time: 30 min |
Rush:  25
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 Market Price: N/A
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 Blueprints Price: N/A
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Find the First Song Fragment: Stephano, Uranus
Enemy Level: 20-20
Tileset: Grineer Sealab
Once the Mandachord is built and claimed Suda will begin explaining why the Mandachord is important before going silent and not finishing her statement. After some time Ordis will ask Suda what she was going to say about the Mandachord, to which she will respond as though confused, then claim she made an error and did not actually have any data about the Mandachord.
Suda will relay Ordis coordinates to the next mission location, though Ordis will express his concern about Suda's state to the player.
The next mission will be a Grineer underwater base in Uranus, with Suda musing about the relationship between the song fragment and the base. The player must find an Orokin artifact the Grineer have recently uncovered called a Hydraulus. On using the Hydraulus with the context key, a special UI will appear, composed of a concave table with several rows and columns, which then begins playing music, and Suda recognizes the music as belonging to "Octavia's Anthem". In order to proceed, players must add resonant beats to the song by activating the appropriate bar in each column as indicated by the glowing orange symbols that appear on top of the chart. Once the beats are correctly added, Suda remembers that more of the song can be found on Lua, with players being able to extract at this time.
Find the Second Song Fragment: Tycho, Lua
Enemy Level: 20-20
Tileset: Orokin Moon
On the Orbiter, Simaris urges the Tenno to discontinue their quest and destroy Suda lest her corruption affect the other Cephalons. Ordis and Simaris get into an argument regarding their course of action with Suda, with Ordis wanting to help, while Simaris mocks Ordis' "compassion-glitch" and tells him that his actions could endanger both themselves and the Operator.
During the mission, Suda once more forgets why they came to Lua, and with a reminder from Ordis, realizes that Simaris was right, and that the corruption infecting Suda is not benign. The player then encounters Sentient units to Suda's horror, before she is taken over by a malignant presence that Ordis recognizes as Hunhow. Having taken over Suda, Hunhow orders his Sentients to find the song fragment.
Players must fight the Sentients in order to get to the Hydraulus, and once located must exterminate all Sentient enemies within the room in order to access the Hydraulus. Similar to the previous instance, the correct resonant beats must be added to the musical chart in order to correct the music. Upon completing the puzzle, Suda regains herself for a moment to ask Ordis to apologize on her behalf to the Operator, before Hunhow once again reasserts control. Ordis then asks players to extract once more.
Harness the power of an Orokin Tower: Taranis, Void
Enemy Level: 20-20
Tileset: Orokin Void
Another argument ensues between Simaris and Ordis on their course of action against Suda, with Ordis reaffirming his stand to free Suda from Hunhow's control, as he managed to receive the coordinates of the last song from Suda.
Inside the Void, the player will be attacked by "Decaying" Sentient enemies, surrounded by a red aura but no less deadly. Ordis expresses surprise at the presence of Sentient units inside the Void - a fact long thought impossible - and surmises that Hunhow is using Suda's energy to shield them from the Void's effects. Upon locating the room in which the Hydraulus is located players can use a nearby console to lock the room, preventing additional Sentient units from entering and allowing players to clear the room of any remaining enemies. Only after all enemies are cleared can players start on the Hydraulus puzzle, which like the previous instances requires matching resonant beats with the provided figures.
Unlike with previous instances, solving the Hydraulus puzzle does not rouse Suda and instead attracts Hunhow's attention who claims that Suda has been eradicated. Ordis draws up a plan to make Suda hear the anthem by using the Orokin Tower to boost the signal. Players must then find a console that they can activate to amplify the signal, which will count up to 100%. Hunhow will send in Sentient units to disrupt the amplification, freezing the counter, and players must destroy them to allow the counter to proceed.
After the amplification is complete, players have to activate the Hydraulus again, which angers Hunhow, making him try to attack Ordis. Despite this, Ordis is able to point the players to the location of a second amplifier, which players must activate and then bring to 100% amplification similar to the previous one. Completing this task will make Ordis try to save Suda by directly interfacing with her, though he falls silent afterwards, and an extraction marker will note to players that they can extract when ready.
Go to Simaris in a Relay
Back on the ship, an inbox message will open, containing a recorded transmission from Ordis stating that the Operator will only receive that message if he failed to save Suda, then asks players to go to Simaris and try to contain Hunhow before the Sentient infects more Cephalons, and finally saying farewell to the Operator after reminiscing about the past.
Speaking with Simaris in a Relay with the prompt "Suda's Datascape?", he mentions that Cephalons are able to create alternate reality datascapes for various functions, including training rooms and the Sanctuary, and questions if the Tenno wish to go after Ordis despite the risk with the Sentients entangled in his code. Players can either ask Simaris to help them ("Yes, I am. Help me"), or question Simaris more about Hunhow's intentions ("Hunhow's intention?"). Simaris states that while he won't endanger himself or his Sanctuary, he can send the Tenno to Suda-Hunhow's datascape.
Entering the datascape, players are greeted by the virtual visage of Hunhow in the middle, and a circular ring made up of floating blocks of differing colors representing the Mandachord. As Hunhow boasts about his successes, Ordis clues in the player that they need to recreate the music of Octavia's anthem inside the datascape's Mandarchord in order to defeat Hunhow. This particular part of the mission has unique mechanics:
- A beam emanating from the center of the map will sweep around the field, which will stagger the player if it hits them, though this can be blocked using melee parry or a high-enough stagger/knockdown resistance. The beam can be jumped over, and some of the grey blocks are high enough so that standing on them will allow the beam to pass safely underneath without hurting you.
- Bright yellow balls will emanate from certain dark-brown platforms. Stepping on these platforms will reveal a musical note.
- Red energy pillars on dark-brown platforms represent errant notes, and can be erased by stepping on the platform. Stepping on a dark-brown platform that doesn't have an errant or musical note will create an errant note on that block.
- Grey blocks are neutral blocks, and can be stepped on safely without affecting the Mandachord.
- Falling off the edge of the world will damage you.
The player's goal is to step on the blocks with the yellow spheres in order to unveil the musical notes, while removing any errant notes while at the same time preventing the formation of more errant notes. Once the player completes the music, the notes will begin firing rhythmically at Hunhow's avatar, damaging him.
Upon reducing 1/3rd of Hunhow's health, players are respawned into another Mandachord set, where they must repeat the process again but with more dark-brown platforms. In this second stage, Sentient avatars called Eradicysts can spawn, attacking players with ranged projectiles, and preventing players from activating musical notes if they're floating on top of one. Despite their menacing nature, Eradicysts can be easily destroyed through weapons fire, having much less health than true Sentient enemies. Once enough musical notes are activated on the second stage, Ordis can join the battle, attacking any Eradicysts in the way, though he can be destroyed if he sustains too much damage.
A third stage will commence once 2/3rds of Hunhow's health has been damaged, with the same mechanics but with more blocks to contend with, and a greater number of Eradicysts will spawn to attempt to stop the player. During this phase, Simaris enters the fray, providing fire support by spawning in virtual representations of units from his Sanctuary such as Grineer Heavy Gunners. Completing this final stage will destroy Hunhow completely, freeing Suda from his control.
In the aftermath, Suda awakens, but does not remember recent events due to short-term memory loss. She thanks both Ordis and Simaris for saving her, though Simaris claims that he did it to preserve the Cephalon's weave. As gratitude to the player, Suda rewards the blueprint for the Octavia Warframe at the completion of the quest.
Tips
- It is recommended bringing along weapons with different elemental damage types to better deal with Sentients due to their heavy presence in the quest.
- If the player had finished The War Within quest, using the Operator makes the fight much easier as the Void Beam cannot be adapted to and removes all of the damage adaptations the Sentient gained during the battle.
- The final mission of the quest requires frequent jumping. Units that have good aerial control like Zephyr, Wukong (using Cloud Walker), and Titania are ideal in accomplishing this mission.
- In the final mission, avoid stepping on the wrong tile that is not lit or the player will need to clear the wrong tile by stepping on it again.
- If a player has purchased the Octavia warframe from the Market with Platinum prior to completing the quest, they will receive a Pistol Riven Mod on completion of the quest in lieu of the normal blueprint reward.
- In the final mission, the beam that sweeps across the field can be avoided by crouching as it goes past.
Bugs
- After the last mission, when the quest ends, the game tends to freeze the keyboard & mouse inputs; the only way to "fix" it, is to close or alt+tab out of the game and reopen it.
Media
Mandachord Tutorial for Octavia - Warframe
