Lore Talk: The Moral Conundrum of Umbra and the New Theory of Warframe Genesis (spoilers)

[Knowmad762]

So this has been in the back of my mind since The Sacrifice quest was released, and I'm interested what the community thinks. Obviously, massive spoilers ahead.

The question of what a Warframe actually is has always been something of a mystery, and the answer seems to have changed as the game has grown and evolved. Without getting too bogged down in back story, prior to The Sacrifice, a Warframe is essentially a highly weaponized drone, piloted remotely by the Tenno while their own physical body is far away from the actual combat. In this context, the Warframe itself is removed from morality completely, as it is just an unthinking tool. The moral implications of using that tool for good or evil acts rests solely on the Tenno, as it should be. A hammer can be used to build a house to shelter a family, or smash into a house to commit a crime; the moral implications of that action rest with the user of the hammer, not the hammer itself.

This concept gets muddled with The Sacrifice's implication that Warframes were once human beings. With the further implication that the original human's sentient mind can persist after being converted to a Warframe, it gets downright uncomfortable. Excalibur Umbra is sentient. If the free mind and will of the original unnamed soldier remain intact, do the Tenno have the right to completely usurp control of their body to act out their will, whether the original mind agrees or not? One day the Tenno wishes to use Umbra for a mission, in which Umbra's own hand will be used to kill hundreds of sentient Grineer humanoids. What happens if Umbra's sentient mind disagrees with the mission for whatever reason, and he would rather spend the day on the orbiter composing haiku about the awesome nature of Clem? Is the Tenno justified in using Umbra's body anyway, regarding him as nothing but a tool, and using transference to completely override the unnamed soldier's sentient mind to avoid any discussion? Justified or not, this is pretty much the situation in game right now. And what actually happens to the unnamed soldier's sentient mind when the Tenno assumes control of Umbra? Do they remain conscious and lucid, watching their body commit acts they may or may not agree with, while being completely powerless to affect it? Or do they black out completely, waking up after the fact, knowing that time has passed but not knowing what their body did during that time? I'm not sure which of these is less bad. This was all so much simpler back when Excalibur was just a highly weaponized unthinking hammer.

TL,DR: If the Warframes are now sentient beings, and the Tenno can use transference to force those sentient beings to commit acts that they may or may not agree with, does this constitute some form of space slavery? And with the possibility of more sentient Warframes in the future, does this idea bother people?

[Phatose]

Do not confuse "Some warframes were once human" with "All warframes were once human" or even "Many warframes were once human", which does not seem to be the case.

[Nitro747]

first, this post doesnt belong on the feedback forums.

 

Second, it was made preeeeety clear, and stated multiple times, that Umbra was a different case. So far he is the only Warframe we own who once was a person.

[Knowmad762]

6 minutes ago, Phatose said:

Do not confuse "Some warframes were once human" with "All warframes were once human" or even "Many warframes were once human", which does not seem to be the case.

Admittedly, there is not a lot of raw information at current, but Ballas' speech during The Sacrifice heavily insinuates that all Warframes produced at the start of the project were made from human subjects. That would imply Excaliber Umbra, as well as all of the prime versions. The vanilla versions produced later may not have been made the same way, but I have found nothing to conform nor deny this.

Regardless, Excalibur Umbra exists. He is confirmed to be both a converted human, and sentient, so ignoring even ignoring every other frame, he still presents an issue.

[Knowmad762]

2 minutes ago, Nitro747 said:

first, this post doesnt belong on the feedback forums.

I felt that this discussion provides player feedback on decisions made in regards to the game's lore. If the mods feel differently, I apologize and please move it where you will.

[Knowmad762]

10 minutes ago, Nitro747 said:

Second, it was made preeeeety clear, and stated multiple times, that Umbra was a different case. So far he is the only Warframe we own who once was a person.

I disagree. Umbra is a special case, but only in that he is the first Warframe that has retained sentience. That does not mean that there won't be other Umbra frames at a later time, both lore wise and from a real world content development sense.

Ballas speech from The Sacrifice: We cultured the Infestation, conceiving of a hybrid. Transformed, but only just. The 'Helminth' was created, born to yield these new warriors, worthy of battle against you. The great and terrible Hunhow. We took our greatest, volunteers or not, and polluted them with these cultured reagents. They transformed. They became Infested... but only just. Their skin blossomed into sword-steel. Their organs, interlinked with untold resilience. Yet their minds were free of the Infested madness. Or so we thought. We set them upon the battlefield, bio-drones under our command.

It seems pretty clear that he is referring to multiple Warframes, not just one.

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

1 hour ago, Knowmad762 said:

I disagree. Umbra is a special case, but only in that he is the first Warframe that has retained sentience. 

But was he? Because there was a time when we were saved from the some other sentients and the Stalker. I assumed at the time that either we were still linked in a primal way, or perhaps someone else had usurped control to save me. 

I stopped thinking that after Umbra's storyline. 

 

To me, that act is a clear indication that something remains, and that it approves of the actions we have been taking.  I carry no kuva scepter to command obedience and loyalty, and yet there was this warrior, protecting me from certain doom.

We are helping each other. Without my help he can't fulfil his purpose, without his I cannot fulfil mine. Together we become greater than the sum of our broken parts. 

 

(There's also a bit of a glitch that I've encountered on POE during eidolon hunts with my Rhino where sometimes he starts to do a running animation after an attack washed over him. Honestly, when I realised that it was my Rhino, I just stopped for a moment to watch him, and totally ignored the eidolon. Because eidolons are a dime a dozen, but my Rhino showing even a glimmer of his own initiative again is worth pausing whatever I was doing. Rhino is the one who saved me, in case you didn't realise it.) 

 

 

[Knowmad762]

8 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

But was he? Because there was a time when we were saved from the some other sentients and the Stalker. I assumed at the time that either we were still linked in a primal way, or perhaps someone else had usurped control to save me. 

This is a very fair point; there have been times in the past when the Warframes did things that would appear to show sentience. But these were left pretty vague, and could be explained in ways that are not true sentience. The Warframe acting independently in the second dream is pretty obvious, but prior to Umbra, there is no reason that this behavior couldn't be explained as some form of residual advanced AI sensing that the pilot was in grave danger and activating emergency fail safe procedures to extricate them. If the Warframe is truly sentient at that point, why did they move so uncharacteristically slowly? When Umbra is left to act on his own, he has the full combat capacities of a piloted frame, which could indicate that something else was going on.

 

42 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

We are helping each other. Without my help he can't fulfil his purpose, without his I cannot fulfil mine. Together we become greater than the sum of our broken parts. 

But this is the problem with sentience: how do you know Umbra's purpose, and that you are fulfilling it? Even if the sentient Warframe approves of your actions right now, what happens when they don't? Look at it this way: let's say that the sentient Umbra does not agree with ideals of the New Loka syndicate (this actually seems very likely, as New Loka probably abhors him as a horrible perversion of "pure" humanity). There is nothing stopping you in game from slapping a giant New Loka sigil on Umbra's chest and taking him on missions that directly help New Loka. Umbra has no say in this; is that fair to him? Again, if Excalibur were still just an unthinking tool, this is not an issue at all.

[rastaban75]

To the moral question of whether or not the sentient being in Umbra agrees or not with the actions of the Operator, the evidence we have in-game point in favor of it: whenever the Operator severs the transference link and goes into battle directly, the Umbra still fights by the side of the Operator, in effect "agreeing" with whatever choice the Operator makes (e.g. killing Grineer or Corpus, protecting a target etc.). Of course this is just a rhetoric question because we wouldn't expect the Umbra to rebel against those choices because that would ruin Umbra gameplay from a practical perspective alone.

I do think the situation is weird for the sentient being (or whatever remains of it) within the Umbra, being controlled and everything, but I also think that there is a certain conditioning at work here i.e. the Umbra truly thinks of themselves as a weapon serving a purpose.

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

8 hours ago, Knowmad762 said:

The Warframe acting independently in the second dream is pretty obvious, but prior to Umbra, there is no reason that this behavior couldn't be explained as some form of residual advanced AI sensing that the pilot was in grave danger and activating emergency fail safe procedures to extricate them. 

I am reminded of Clarke's third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

If the AI is sufficiently advanced is it still artificial? Are your reflex actions indicative that you aren't intelligent? Does the existence of your knee-jerk reflex negate the possibility that you may intend to raise your leg in the first place? 

 

8 hours ago, Knowmad762 said:

If the Warframe is truly sentient at that point, why did they move so uncharacteristically slowly?

I cannot be absolutely certain, but I suggest 2 possibilities, abundance of care, and difficulties in overcoming the directives given to him. 

My Rhino's foot can move fast and hard enough to break time. He is armoured with a skin of sword steel. He can repeatedly dash forward at incredible speeds slamming into targets hard enough for the impact to become lethal to anything in the game if he's in the swing of things and has done his dash several times before. His full speed could easily be lethal to a weakened child. 

Teshin made it abundantly clear that Dax were trained in utmost obedience whether or not they agreed with the commands given. Umbra's quest confirmed the sheer lengths that these Dax would go to if commanded to do something. Umbra has apparently made a habit of resisting his conditioning. A Dax, in the absence of other orders may not take the initiative to act on their own. It seems that at different times, each of the factions we are in conflict with were once allies of the Orokin. The Grineer, Corpus, are obvious, the Infested and Sentients less so until Ballas tells us so. Attacking the master's allies at first sight would be a bad thing. Waiting for a command to act isn't uncommon for soldiers. In real life Onoda Hirō, continued to follow orders he had been given for around 30 years and was prepared to continue to do so until relieved of duty. Do you expect a Dax to be different? In light of this any action that contravenes the directive to wait for orders would be a monumental task. Walking, attacking another Warframe (which also displays sentience?) would be monumental tasks. 

8 hours ago, Knowmad762 said:

But this is the problem with sentience: how do you know Umbra's purpose, and that you are fulfilling it?

They are Dax, the ultimate soldiers. Some were "willing volunteers" into the programme according to Ballas. I believe that they used to act on their own, but we're not up to the task of fending off the Sentient invasion on their own (void energy is needed for that). When we came along we were used as pilots. Perhaps the Dax conditioning preventing them from taking the initiative is why they weren't as successful as hoped. Perhaps that's why Umbra was created from one who showed more initiative. 

 

8 hours ago, Knowmad762 said:

Umbra has no say in this; is that fair to him?

You forget that Umbra is able to reject our link. He did it repeatedly. We didn't beat him into submission; we formed an alliance, which he accepted. Why do you think that he lost his agency after that, when every time you transfer out he shows that he has retained it? 

 

3 hours ago, rastaban75 said:

I do think the situation is weird for the sentient being (or whatever remains of it) within the Umbra, being controlled and everything, but I also think that there is a certain conditioning at work here i.e. the Umbra truly thinks of themselves as a weapon serving a purpose.

That's the basis of being a Dax, isn't it? Obedience, following their orders, being the living weapons they were crafted to be, now made immortal(?) and far more powerful (gilded?). They get their orders now via transference bolts, and their "officers" are equally immortal(?) teenagers who harness insanely destructive powers of their own, but they remain Dax. 

[Kainosh]

I thought Umbra agreed to be your "pickachu" once you beat all that wild sht out of him?

To me its that simple.   He is like BT from Titanfall. Or KITT from "Knight rider".   Your friend and ally that you can pilot. 

Nothing new really. We have this sht everywhere.

[Amhiel]

In

[Amhiel]

In the sacrifice quest Ballas states clearly in his communications to Hunhow that they enlisted the best soldiers in the empire, volunteer or not, to be turned into warframes and that they had some level of free will, enough to turn against them. That to me makes very clear that at least the first warframes were real people. Probably the non prime production models are just inferior clones of them but they are living things nonetheless which easily explains their behavior in the second dream. They maybe aren't as sentient as umbra but they retain at least some animalistic intelligence. 

[Knowmad762]

8 hours ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

I am reminded of Clarke's third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

If the AI is sufficiently advanced is it still artificial? Are your reflex actions indicative that you aren't intelligent? Does the existence of your knee-jerk reflex negate the possibility that you may intend to raise your leg in the first place? 

I suppose I should have said the Warframe had a Virtual Intelligence, rather than a Artificial Intelligence, but it doesn't change much. Science fiction has always drawn a pretty clear line between even the most advanced AIs and full sentience. With The Sacrifice, Warframe has stepped over this line, arguably for the first time.

The Warframe's actions in the second dream reminded me of the T-800 from Terminator 2: Judment Day. The T-800 is not remote controlled, and appears to act intelligently and independently, but it's "intelligence" is just the manifestation of it following it's programming. It goes great lengths to protect John Connor, but it is not sentient at all: it is not self aware, it does not act on it's own will, and it cannot feel or even understand complex emotions.

If the unpiloted Warframes were similar to the T-800, things are much simpler. Giving the Warframes not only sentience, but a fully developed human mind creates weirdness.

8 hours ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

They are Dax, the ultimate soldiers. Some were "willing volunteers" into the programme according to Ballas. I believe that they used to act on their own, but we're not up to the task of fending off the Sentient invasion on their own (void energy is needed for that). When we came along we were used as pilots. Perhaps the Dax conditioning preventing them from taking the initiative is why they weren't as successful as hoped. Perhaps that's why Umbra was created from one who showed more initiative.

I disagree, purely lore based. The first Warframes were just as combat capable as they are now, but at the time the Orokin had no way to control them at all, as the Tenno powers had not been discovered yet. I am picturing an Orokin officer on a battlefield yelling at an early unpiloted Ember Prime to go kill that Grinner heavy gunner over there. I then picture the Ember setting fire to the Orokin officer. And the Grineer heavy gunner. And three nearby bystanders. And the mess tent. And herself.

Once the Tenno power of remote piloting was discovered and harnessed, those same Warframes were reintroduced to become the effective killing machines we know today. It is confimed that Excalibur Umbra was made from the unknown Dax soldier only after the Tenno power was discovered.

Ballas to the unnamed soldier: A lovingly cultured Infestation swarms within your blood. Your transformation has begun, reshaping you into a sacred surrogate of the unholy Tenno

8 hours ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

You forget that Umbra is able to reject our link. He did it repeatedly. We didn't beat him into submission; we formed an alliance, which he accepted. Why do you think that he lost his agency after that, when every time you transfer out he shows that he has retained it?  

That's an interesting point. Umbra was able to reject us initially, but once full transference control is attained, is he able to reject us again if he chooses? I pictured it more like a locked door: initially you can't access it, but once you find the correct key, the lock is powerless to stop you again. It would be interesting if he could reject us again, but that remains to be seen, as there is currently no evidence if he can or cannot.

 

[Knowmad762]

9 hours ago, Kainosh said:

I thought Umbra agreed to be your "pickachu" once you beat all that wild sht out of him?

To me its that simple.   He is like BT from Titanfall. Or KITT from "Knight rider".   Your friend and ally that you can pilot. 

Nothing new really. We have this sht everywhere.

So you are really fine with your character treating an independent person the same as an animal; beating them until they submit to what could be called slavery? The Orokin clearly would have no problem with this, but if the Tenno does it, how are they any better than the Orokin that they hate so much?

BT  from Titanfall and KITT from Knight Rider are both AIs, built from day one for the sole purpose of assisting and augmenting a human pilot. Excalibur Umbra is a person. People are not made to be piloted by other people, and the very idea is pretty morally questionable.

[Knowmad762]

8 hours ago, Amhiel said:

In the sacrifice quest Ballas states clearly in his communications to Hunhow that they enlisted the best soldiers in the empire, volunteer or not, to be turned into warframes and that they had some level of free will, enough to turn against them. That to me makes very clear that at least the first warframes were real people. Probably the non prime production models are just inferior clones of them but they are living things nonetheless which easily explains their behavior in the second dream. They maybe aren't as sentient as umbra but they retain at least some animalistic intelligence. 

That pretty much my point. I was fine when the Warframes were just neutral, blank slate, manufactured weapons platforms. Whether I use that platform to help or to harm is up to the pilot, the weapon platform literally does not care.

Knowing that the weapon that I am using was once a person is kind of creepy, and I'm not sure it's what I signed up for. This is made worse knowing that some of the conversion subjects were forced into the program against their will. It is made worse still by the idea that something of their human consciousness might remain after the conversion process.

[LupoDWolf]

8 hours ago, Amhiel said:

In the sacrifice quest Ballas states clearly in his communications to Hunhow that they enlisted the best soldiers in the empire, volunteer or not, to be turned into warframes and that they had some level of free will, enough to turn against them. That to me makes very clear that at least the first warframes were real people. Probably the non prime production models are just inferior clones of them but they are living things nonetheless which easily explains their behavior in the second dream. They maybe aren't as sentient as umbra but they retain at least some animalistic intelligence. 

even the ones we produce with less advanced orokin tec have their original memories, it was made somewhat clear  with Umbra 
I know that so far in story Umbra is unique, but what about other frames, will be one day see other of thenselves?

[Tyreaus]

One quick bit to add on:

The Sacrifice establishes that the Infestation makes Warframes spectacularly violent to the point of uncontrollability prior to Tenno intervention. For a Warframe to disagree with a particularly violent act would be for them to go against this violent tendency, and that may simply be a psychological impossibility in the first place. So asking "what if they disagree with murdering enemies" might just be answered by "they won't and can't". You have to remember: just because they were human doesn't mean they carry the same psychological capabilities you do.

Couple that with the fact that Tenno calm Umbra down from a mindlessly violent state just adds credence to the idea that, if we are exerting any kind of control over their will, it's control only insofar as to direct their rage. Beyond that, it's unsupported to say we're forcing our wills on them at all. For all we know, we're just asking them nicely for things they agree to, be it over Transference as a whole or which Grineer head to liberate from its body and by what method.

Mind that it's in that direction of rage that Tenno carry responsibility. They may be working with gunpowder in the form of Warframes, something that just wants to explode, but it still makes a difference whether that gunpowder is used to murder civilians with lead or amaze them with fireworks.

[Knowmad762]

22 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

The Sacrifice establishes that the Infestation makes Warframes spectacularly violent to the point of uncontrollability prior to Tenno intervention. For a Warframe to disagree with a particularly violent act would be for them to go against this violent tendency, and that may simply be a psychological impossibility in the first place. So asking "what if they disagree with murdering enemies" might just be answered by "they won't and can't". You have to remember: just because they were human doesn't mean they carry the same psychological capabilities you do. 

Couple that with the fact that Tenno calm Umbra down from a mindlessly violent state just adds credence to the idea that, if we are exerting any kind of control over their will, it's control only insofar as to direct their rage. Beyond that, it's unsupported to say we're forcing our wills on them at all. For all we know, we're just asking them nicely for things they agree to, be it over Transference as a whole or which Grineer head to liberate from its body and by what method.

Mind that it's in that direction of rage that Tenno carry responsibility. They may be working with gunpowder in the form of Warframes, something that just wants to explode, but it still makes a difference whether that gunpowder is used to murder civilians with lead or amaze them with fireworks. 

You make a fair point, but I think you are really stretching. I have found nothing in The Sacrifice to confirm that the unpiloted early frames were spectacularly violent. Ballas simply states that "They turned on us, just as you did". This revolution could have been quite logical and restrained. Fact: if you take Excalibur Umbra to Cetus, exit transference to leave him under under his own sentient mind, he does not explode into a mindless rage monster, attacking everything in sight. He very calmly follows you about. Obviously, this could just be that it is easier to program him as a benign follower, but it still counters your theory that he is actually gunpowder waiting to explode if left on his own. You have to remember: just because they are now weapons of war doesn't mean that they lost the same psychological capabilities you have.

Yes, during The Sacrifice quest Umbra was indeed very angry and violent, but that does not mean that he completely lost the ability to reason. Imagine his mind at that moment: being converted to a Warframe must have been very hard for his intact human mind to cope with, and he is pretty obsessed with the memory of his son's death. It could be argued that he is dealing with a pretty intense case of space PTSD, and using that condition as an excuse to hijack control of his mind doesn't really make it any less morally questionable.

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

2 hours ago, Knowmad762 said:

The Warframe's actions in the second dream reminded me of the T-800 from Terminator 2: Judment Day. The T-800 is not remote controlled, and appears to act intelligently and independently, but it's "intelligence" is just the manifestation of it following it's programming. It goes great lengths to protect John Connor, but it is not sentient at all: it is not self aware, it does not act on it's own will, and it cannot feel or even understand complex emotions.

If the unpiloted Warframes were similar to the T-800, things are much simpler. Giving the Warframes not only sentience, but a fully developed human mind creates weirdness.

Then it's simply "not sufficiently advanced".

 

At the end of the day how do I know that you aren't just a chat-bot? How far do we take the Chinese room argument? Do you understand me? Or do you just use a biological system to follow rules that produce a response that I interpret as the product of consciousness? How do I know that you experience emotions? Could a system not be created which responds as though it experienced emotion appropriate to the situation? What about Rell, who couldn't interpret emotion accurately, would he consider you to be responding appropriately? Is Ordis self aware? Are the more advanced cephalons? Was Jordas? 

3 hours ago, Knowmad762 said:

I disagree, purely lore based. The first Warframes were just as combat capable as they are now, but at the time the Orokin had no way to control them at all, as the Tenno powers had not been discovered yet. I am picturing an Orokin officer on a battlefield yelling at an early unpiloted Ember Prime to go kill that Grinner heavy gunner over there. I then picture the Ember setting fire to the Orokin officer. And the Grineer heavy gunner. And three nearby bystanders. And the mess tent. And herself.

Once the Tenno power of remote piloting was discovered and harnessed, those same Warframes were reintroduced to become the effective killing machines we know today. It is confimed that Excalibur Umbra was made from the unknown Dax soldier only after the Tenno power was discovered.

Ballas to the unnamed soldier: A lovingly cultured Infestation swarms within your blood. Your transformation has begun, reshaping you into a sacred surrogate of the unholy Tenno. 

I disagree based on the same lore. Ballas was able to control Umbra even without our assistance. Perhaps it was the modified transference bolt. We don't know if that was done as a response to the need for enhanced control when the infestation started affecting their minds. But it's incontrovertible that Ballas had control over Umbra despite all that had been done, and barring our ultimate intervention probably would have been unable to act against Ballas. 

3 hours ago, Knowmad762 said:

That's an interesting point. Umbra was able to reject us initially, but once full transference control is attained, is he able to reject us again if he chooses? I pictured it more like a locked door: initially you can't access it, but once you find the correct key, the lock is powerless to stop you again. It would be interesting if he could reject us again, but that remains to be seen, as there is currently no evidence if he can or cannot.

To find that out he would need to choose not to be allied to us. He has not yet chosen to try and escape me, or attack me while I am out of the frame while displaying full initiative to dispatch enemies far more efficiently than I have been able to muster! 

[Amhiel]

hace 1 hora, Knowmad762 dijo:

You make a fair point, but I think you are really stretching. I have found nothing in The Sacrifice to confirm that the unpiloted early frames were spectacularly violent. Ballas simply states that "They turned on us, just as you did". This revolution could have been quite logical and restrained. Fact: if you take Excalibur Umbra to Cetus, exit transference to leave him under under his own sentient mind, he does not explode into a mindless rage monster, attacking everything in sight. He very calmly follows you about. Obviously, this could just be that it is easier to program him as a benign follower, but it still counters your theory that he is actually gunpowder waiting to explode if left on his own. You have to remember: just because they are now weapons of war doesn't mean that they lost the same psychological capabilities you have.

Yes, during The Sacrifice quest Umbra was indeed very angry and violent, but that does not mean that he completely lost the ability to reason. Imagine his mind at that moment: being converted to a Warframe must have been very hard for his intact human mind to cope with, and he is pretty obsessed with the memory of his son's death. It could be argued that he is dealing with a pretty intense case of space PTSD, and using that condition as an excuse to hijack control of his mind doesn't really make it any less morally questionable.

The Rhino Prime codex entry describes how he behave before the Tenno entered the picture. He breaks free and goes into a murdering cannibalistic rampage. After all they are infested and as they say in the sacrifice, their relationship to the tenno is kind of symbiotic, the tenno take away their pain. I think the warframes could actually reject the tenno, they just don't because of that. Also, the morality of turning a person into a warframe is pretty clear, it's disgusting, yet we didn't do that, Ballas did. The morality of continue using them for war, well that needs a lot more thought. 

 

To be honest, most of the actions we do in this game are questionable at the best... For starters we use chemical and biological weapons constantly, send children and infested people to war, kill absurd amounts of enemies... If we were judged by today's standards we'd all be war criminals. The future of the solar system is pretty grim and the years of the orokin empire have sent the morals out the window. However, it's all just fiction, this is a game after all so maybe there's no need to feel bad. 

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, Knowmad762 said:

You make a fair point, but I think you are really stretching. I have found nothing in The Sacrifice to confirm that the unpiloted early frames were spectacularly violent. Ballas simply states that "They turned on us, just as you did". This revolution could have been quite logical and restrained.

...

You have to remember: just because they are now weapons of war doesn't mean that they lost the same psychological capabilities you have.

This flies in the face of Umbra murdering his own son, and reams of soldiers and proxies, and attacking you (even as an operator, outside of combat), as well as the violent behaviours brought about by Infestation in general, see the Infested faction. That's a non-null amount of evidence to act contrary to the assertion that Warframes carry the same level of psychological capability as uninfected humans.

1 hour ago, Knowmad762 said:

Fact: if you take Excalibur Umbra to Cetus, exit transference to leave him under under his own sentient mind, he does not explode into a mindless rage monster, attacking everything in sight. He very calmly follows you about. Obviously, this could just be that it is easier to program him as a benign follower, but it still counters your theory that he is actually gunpowder waiting to explode if left on his own.

If you snip the lit fuse off a stick of dynamite, it does not explode, even if you leave it alone after that point. See next paragraph.

1 hour ago, Knowmad762 said:

Yes, during The Sacrifice quest Umbra was indeed very angry and violent, but that does not mean that he completely lost the ability to reason. Imagine his mind at that moment: being converted to a Warframe must have been very hard for his intact human mind to cope with, and he is pretty obsessed with the memory of his son's death. It could be argued that he is dealing with a pretty intense case of space PTSD, and using that condition as an excuse to hijack control of his mind doesn't really make it any less morally questionable.

I didn't make any claim resembling your first sentence. The rest seems to lie on a false dichotomy of "either you enslave a Warframe or you let them be entirely free with no intervention". Even assuming complete and total equality of reason (see first paragraph), there are options of mutual symbiosis or basic "A asks B to do C", neither of which entail "hijacking control" to any degree.

[Knowmad762]

1 hour ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

At the end of the day how do I know that you aren't just a chat-bot? How far do we take the Chinese room argument? Do you understand me? Or do you just use a biological system to follow rules that produce a response that I interpret as the product of consciousness? How do I know that you experience emotions? Could a system not be created which responds as though it experienced emotion appropriate to the situation? What about Rell, who couldn't interpret emotion accurately, would he consider you to be responding appropriately? Is Ordis self aware? Are the more advanced cephalons? Was Jordas?  

Alright, I am sufficiently puzzled. How does this battery of questions apply to the original discussion of whether giving Warframes sentience creates a moral grey area, versus leaving them as unthinking tools?

 

1 hour ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

I disagree based on the same lore. Ballas was able to control Umbra even without our assistance. Perhaps it was the modified transference bolt. We don't know if that was done as a response to the need for enhanced control when the infestation started affecting their minds. But it's incontrovertible that Ballas had control over Umbra despite all that had been done, and barring our ultimate intervention probably would have been unable to act against Ballas. 

Kindly point me to where you get this information. Let's recap:

• Umbra is created, assumed to be unpiloted and acting on his own
• Isaah dies? This is so incredibly vague, that it is unknown who kills him, or honestly if he even truly dies at all
• Umbra tracks and attacks Ballas on Lua, gets exploded by Sentients, is dead
• Umbra is remade by us, attacks us and escapes
• Umbra tracks and attacks Ballas on Lua, again

If Ballas has control of Umbra, does that mean that Ballas simply allows Umbra to find and attack him on two separate occasions instead of having him do literally anything more productive? The only control that Ballas has over Umbra is that he seems to be unable to physically wound Ballas in any way. The modified transference bolt does two things, neither giving Ballas control of Umbra: it allows Ballas to communicate with the unnamed soldier quasi telepathically so that Isaah does not hear these words, and it seems to play a role in why Umbra retained his sentience and memories through the conversion.

1 hour ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

To find that out he would need to choose not to be allied to us. He has not yet chosen to try and escape me, or attack me while I am out of the frame while displaying full initiative to dispatch enemies far more efficiently than I have been able to muster! 

Umbra is very new to the lore, and I would be very impressed if the writers ever gave him the ability to use his sentience to disagree with the Tenno. That would be incredibly difficult from a technical programming perspective, but I suppose we shall see.

[Knowmad762]

25 minutes ago, Amhiel said:

The Rhino Prime codex entry describes how he behave before the Tenno entered the picture. He breaks free and goes into a murdering cannibalistic rampage. After all they are infested and as they say in the sacrifice, their relationship to the tenno is kind of symbiotic, the tenno take away their pain. I think the warframes could actually reject the tenno, they just don't because of that. Also, the morality of turning a person into a warframe is pretty clear, it's disgusting, yet we didn't do that, Ballas did. The morality of continue using them for war, well that needs a lot more thought. 

I will admit, I'm not sure how the Rhino Prime codex entry fits overall. It is very bizarre, if not only because Warframes are never know to eat anything, or even have a mouth at all.

In theory, my Tenno is turning a person into a Warframe right now; Chroma Prime is currently building in my foundry.

31 minutes ago, Amhiel said:

To be honest, most of the actions we do in this game are questionable at the best... For starters we use chemical and biological weapons constantly, send children and infested people to war, kill absurd amounts of enemies... If we were judged by today's standards we'd all be war criminals. The future of the solar system is pretty grim and the years of the orokin empire have sent the morals out the window. However, it's all just fiction, this is a game after all so maybe there's no need to feel bad.  

I completely agree, but most of the morally grey things that we do are left as a decision to the player, as it should be. Using chemical/biological weapons not required and is totally up to the player. Sending children to war is tough one, but I don't agree with the child operator system for a few reasons, but that is a whole other discussion. And killing absurd amount of enemies is often a player choice, as many missions can be passed without killing a single thing. I like when the player has some control of their own moral compass, and the human converted Warframes kind of force that grey area on the player.

[Knowmad762]

56 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

This flies in the face of Umbra murdering his own son, and reams of soldiers and proxies, and attacking you (even as an operator, outside of combat), as well as the violent behaviours brought about by Infestation in general, see the Infested faction. That's a non-null amount of evidence to act contrary to the assertion that Warframes carry the same level of psychological capability as uninfected humans.

While he sure thinks that he did, we don't actually see Umbra kill Isaah, this is kind of an off camera assumption. Killing reams of soldiers and proxies says absolutely nothing, as the Tenno does this before breakfast on a regular day. Umbra attacking the operator is kind of the definition of the fight or (in this case and) flight response pretty much any animal would have in a stressful situation, like suddenly waking up in a strange ship with a stranger trying to get into your mind. None of these really indicate spectacular violence. And whether the Infested's violent behavior carries over to the frames is certainly debatable.

 

1 hour ago, Tyreaus said:

I didn't make any claim resembling your first sentence. The rest seems to lie on a false dichotomy of "either you enslave a Warframe or you let them be entirely free with no intervention". Even assuming complete and total equality of reason (see first paragraph), there are options of mutual symbiosis or basic "A asks B to do C", neither of which entail "hijacking control" to any degree.

You said that the "Tenno calm Umbra down from a mindlessly violent state", which is pretty much the same as angry and violent beyond reason. But that is exactly my point, the player does not ask Umbra to do anything. Either he is entirely free with no intervention, or you press 5 and take direct control of his body, with no discussion involved. Taking direct control of a vehicle, without the express permission of other people on said vehicle, could be called a hijacking.