Starfield: Mantis code password for the Secret Hideout’s puzzle floor

As a Bethesda Game Studios title, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Starfield features hundreds of side quests ranging from big to small, with rewards that match. One of the most rewarding you can trigger from early on is the Mantis side quest - but to finish it, you’ll need to discover a password - a code word that allows you to solve a key puzzle in the secret hideout you’ll find yourself storming. 

If you haven’t yet got this quest, we recommend you start it as soon as you can - as it carries a great set of armor, some decent weapons, a good chunk of experience, and a really rather nifty ship that has a shielded cargo bay and thus can be used to help you smuggle and sell Contraband. However, this quest isn’t all about blasting - you’ll also have to solve a little puzzle.

If you haven’t got the Mantis quest yet, be sure to loot the bodies of any Spacers you come across. Spacers will occasionally drop a slate titled ‘Secret Outpost!’ - and this adds the start of this mission to your mission log, beckoning you to visit the Denebola System and the planet Denebola I-B. There, you’ll find the noted secret outpost… which is home to some incredible loot.

The Mantis Code Password for the Secret Hideout Floor Puzzle

As you work your way through the base, you’ll learn the story of the Mantis, her heirs, and the mercenaries trying to break into their hideout to get their hands on the treasure within. But after taking down all of the spacers, you’ll be faced with a puzzling room. 

On one side of the room - the side you need to reach - are turrets. On the floor between you and there are tiles with letters on them. Stepping on the wrong tile, as a cowardly spacer NPC explains, triggers the turrets. Bodies litter the room.

You can spare, kill, or work with the spacer who explains all this to you - but he doesn’t know the solution to the puzzle. But we do. 

To find it naturally, you’ll want to loot all of the spacers and scour the base for various data slates, each of which contains an audio log revealing a little more of the backstory behind the Mantis mission. Alternatively, you can just read the next line:

The password for the Mantis code puzzle floor is TYRANNIS. You’ll need to step on each letter in sequence to get across the floor without triggering the turrets. 

We suggest telling your companion to wait behind at the start of the room. Once you safely cross the room and press the button to deactivate the turrets, you can cross back across and retrieve them. You’ll probably want them with you, as the next stage of this dungeon involves getting past some tough mechs.

The solution to the puzzle is offered up if you carefully listen to the data slates. The Mantis keeps telling her son “Sic Semper Tyrannis” - an old Latin phrase meaning “thus always to tyrants” - or the belief that tyrannical leadership will always be overthrown. It tracks that the password in the lair of the Mantis would reference the bounty hunter’s favored catchphrase.