Apex's Newest Legend, Conduit, Has Heavy Ties To Titanfall Lore

Season 18 of Apex Legends will soon come to a close, and Respawn has given players a taste of what to expect in Season 19, including a Titan-powered new legend, via a new episode of the Stories From The Outlands series titled "For Us, Utang na Loob."

The animated short gives players their first look at Conduit--a character who was first revealed over a year ago via a massive March 2022 content leak that unveiled the next nine legends who would be joining the squad. Based on the character's in-game portrait at the time of the leak--which depicted Conduit as a faceless Firing Range D.U.M.M.I.E.--some players thought Conduit might be some sort of robot, or event a sentient member of the Firing Range's artificial AI target. But the release of "For Us, Utang na Loob" has revealed that nothing could be further from the truth.

Though most episodes of Stories From The Outlands reveal an upcoming legend's real name, the latest episode does the exact opposite, referring to the new hero simply by her Apex moniker, Conduit. The episode depicts the horrors of the Frontier War, with a young Conduit peeking out from behind a curtain as massive Titans crash to the ground and begin destroying her peaceful settlement--and those who inhabit it. But when all seems lost, salvation descends from above: A Monarch-class Titan.

The enormous mech (and its unseen pilot) save the settlement, but it comes at a cost: their lives. Outnumbered and injured, the Monarch lures the enemy Titans away from the civilian areas of Conduit's unnamed settlement. Once a safe distance has been reached, the pilot appears to either detonate or overload their Titan's reactor core, which results in a massive explosion that takes out all of the enemy Titans--including the savior Monarch and its pilot. This saves the settlement, and the site of the explosion is fenced off to keep any would-be trespassers away from the dangerous radiation.

Inspired by this noble sacrifice, Conduit's interest in the Apex Games grows as she ages, and she can be seen effectively LARPing as a legend with some of the other youngsters in her settlement. But everything changes when her sister arrives home from some sort of expedition, clearly injured. Conduit helps her sister into their home, and though her wounds aren't fatal, they're clearly painful. Conduit and her sister often speak in their native language (but subtitles that translate the dialogue can be found on the episode's YouTube page). This language appears to be Filipino, which would make Conduit the first Filipino character to join the legend roster.

"I can't do this," Conduit's sister says as she sits at a desk covered in what appear to be overdue bills, with her head in her hands.

Later that night, Conduit slips away to the fenced-off site of the Monarch explosion. Easily slipping through a hole in the fence, Conduit reaches the remains of the fallen Titan, reaching out to touch the radioactive remains of its body. As she does, the radiation appears to enter her body, but for reasons unknown, this doesn't give her radiation poisoning--it gives her superpowers.

The exact nature of these powers is currently unclear, but the presence of the Monarch itself may suggest a surprising plot twist. Monarch-class Titans were created by the IMC, and their invention was the result of a failed attempt to reverse-engineer and recreate a Vanguard-class Titan. Vanguard Titans were an original creation designed by the Militia--the loosely-organized group of resistance soldiers that fought against the IMC in the Frontier War. Though the Militia are framed as "the good guys" in Titanfall 2, they certainly make some rather questionable moves in Titanfall 2, including nuking the entire planet of Typhon, Wraith's homeworld.

This isn't the first time we've seen a Titan in an episode of Stories From The Outlands--they appeared in both Bangalore's episode and Valkyrie's episode--but this is certainly the first time we've seen them featured so heavily in an episode. Interestingly, Conduit's Titan-heavy episode comes just a few weeks after Titanfall 2 received a massive update that made it playable for the first time in years, after DDoS attacks and poor server maintenance left the game in shambles.

The fact that an IMC-made Monarch Titan rescued Conduit's settlement suggests one of three things:

1. Unbeknownst to the IMC, the Militia reverse-engineered a Monarch Titan and created some of their own. This makes little sense, as the Monarch's design is the result of the IMC's failure to recreate the Vanguard-class Titan invented by the Militia.
2. The Titans attacking Conduit's settlement weren't IMC Titans--they were Militia Titans. As awful as the implications are, the events of the Titanfall series reveal that, despite being "the good guys," the Militia wasn't above using underhanded or unethical tactics to defeat the IMC. Massacring civilians doesn't seem like something they'd do, but Death Star-ing a whole planet also seemed out of character for the Militia, yet here the legends are, living in a universe where the Typhon was nuked from orbit.
3. The battle depicted was not a battle from the Frontier War. There have been other wars in the world of Apex/Titanfall, including Solace's civil war, which erupted after the Frontier War ended and resulted in all three of Mirage's brothers going missing. This would make the most sense, as by the time the IMC was defeated, it wouldn't have been nearly as hard for a military group to get their hands on a Monarch-class Titan.

Of course, there could be other explanations--and we'll likely get some of them when the launch trailer for Apex Legends Season 19: Ignite debuts next Monday, October 23 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. But qith the new season just a few weeks away, players may also want to prioritize finishing their Resurrection battle pass and obtaining all the free loot included in the Doppelgangers Collection Event before it ends.