Unsettling Scale of certain "Structures"

[mosaickle]

I'm not sure why I wanted to share this but I personally feel compelled to.

Recently I got back to Warframe after a big break from it and decided to give Orb Vallis a more chill and thorough exploration with the only two frames you can really use to explore open world areas without much interruption: Ivara and Titania. I came across a massive Orokin broken pillar structure just behind the "Orokin Dig Site" and after viewing it from various different angles, whether by climbing it or flying around it, I couldn't help but feel a very real unsettling feeling about the massive structure.

I must massively commend DE for making Warframe such an immersive experience. I may not have an extreme fear of heights but standing up high even through a screen and falling down still gets my gut uncomfortable; even if it is for a few seconds. However, just seeing such massive structures made my mind wander.

Now, I am in no way invested in Warframe's story/lore outside the obvious so I don't really know about Orokin technology or culture so forgive me if this, 'structure' already has some background/history, but seeing the structure gave me a thought. What if these structures were massive Orokin mechanisms or even more insane, parts of massive Orokin beings? What if those structures were the arms or legs of massive ancient Orokin giants that roamed the lands? I know Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire didn't really do too well but for those who have seen it, imagine those stone giants but in Orokin form and that by somehow triggering some kind of technology certain Orokin "structures" come to life out from the ice and snow? Perhaps the mechanism was some kind of old ancient weapon of mass destruction on a scale that could rival Halo. 

Perhaps I like to immerse myself into game environments heavily but I genuinely had that sense of sheer panic at the thought of such a gigantic, colossal being or mechanism coming back to life. We faced bosses that were our size, we faced bosses that were larger than us and only just with the release of the Plains of Eidolon, we faced bosses that towered over us. But this one's different. This one, if it were to come to life, would seriously shake the grounds and could genuinely be a planetary threat; and that us, whether in our orbiter or our Warframes in Orb Vallis, no matter how powerful; hell, no matter how well modded, doesn't even come close to what may be such a massive being. And again, when these structures are supposedly "left in the ice", we all just assume such things are dead or long broken and lie in ruins permanently. 

 

Again, this is just my own imagination running wild but honestly, just the thought of it gave me the chills. Now in retrospect it could easily be some kind of Orokin building or "spaceship" but at least for me, picturing it as perhaps part of some ancient enigmatic mechanism or being seemingly lying there broken and frozen in the cold of Venus is far more intriguing.

 

Man, it's nearly 24 hours since I last slept. I should probably sleep. Sorry if this was a weird read.

[0_The_F00l]

My good sir have you not seen the jordas golem or even the lephantis? 

Also all the towers are actually alive, not very mobile, but alive I shudder to think what would happen if one of the derelicts decides to wander. 

[Renegade343]

Just now, 0_The_F00l said:

Also all the towers are actually alive, not very mobile, but alive I shudder to think what would happen if one of the derelicts decides to wander. 

We just make a test to see how many explosives it takes to destroy a derelict entirely.

[0_The_F00l]

3 minutes ago, Renegade343 said:

We just make a test to see how many explosives it takes to destroy a derelict entirely.

I would love to have missions in which the derelict talks to us like jordas or phorid.

[Kerberos-3]

1 hour ago, 0_The_F00l said:

I would love to have missions in which the derelict talks to us like jordas or phorid.

Well, I have doubts as to whether or not the Derelict is alive anymore. All the stuff that makes up the environment of the Derelicts has fossilized, so the chances of the derelict as a whole being alive is pretty slim.

[0_The_F00l]

1 hour ago, Kerberos-3 said:

Well, I have doubts as to whether or not the Derelict is alive anymore. All the stuff that makes up the environment of the Derelicts has fossilized, so the chances of the derelict as a whole being alive is pretty slim.

When we get the corrupted mods for vault runs there is the whole "dormant sentry" thing so I have hope. 

[Kerberos-3]

40 minutes ago, 0_The_F00l said:

When we get the corrupted mods for vault runs there is the whole "dormant sentry" thing so I have hope. 

Yes, but thats an Orokin-era AI in a sealed environment.I was referring to the grander infested derelict itself. I have little doubt that the ship was once "alive" in a similar way to the ones around Eris, but not any more.

[0_The_F00l]

2 minutes ago, Kerberos-3 said:

Yes, but thats an Orokin-era AI in a sealed environment.I was referring to the grander infested derelict itself. I have little doubt that the ship was once "alive" in a similar way to the ones around Eris, but not any more.

It is probable that the derelict is dead, but the doors opening and closing, the lights being on and the life support still allowing our frames to stay, hints at something more. 

Also the infestation has a tendency to absorb and assimilate things, and then spread. (reference jordas) 

But that discussion is for after we actually talk to the last remaining sane tower on earth so we can understand the life cycle of towers. *hint hunt nudge nudge *

[-QUILL_PETER-]

It's an Orokin orbital space station if it's the structure I think it is.

[ExcaliburUmbra]

Something that does interest me is the supposed purpose of all those Orokin coolant towers. There are huge bundles of tubing that seem to decend into the depths of Venus. In my opinion, the terraforming of Venus is actually the side effect of a more sinister Orokin project frozen underneath Orb Vallis. Perhaps Nef Anyo’s meddling will result in more then just thermal fractures, but perhaps I’m just reading too much into what is probably just an extensive terraforming network.

I will say that one aspect that sort of disappoints me are the large ominous-looking craters that dot Orb Vallis. If concept art/descriptions are to be believed, the gold orbs at the focal point of said craters are used to create floating “coolant glaciers” that then crash onto the Venusian surface. The coolant from these glaciers is then sucked up by the coolant towers to help regulate the surface temperature. Kinda lame since the craters themselves look quite spooky in my opinion, especially Harindi Crater.

There’s also the large smoking/sparking Sentient wreckage that can be seen off the coast of the Plains of Eidolon. Perhaps it could be the remains of the original Sentient that terrorized Cetus? Or is it simply one of the many scars left by the Old War? Regardless, the fact that it showcases constant activity much unlike the other Sentient corpses we have encountered, and the sheer scale of the wreckage itself greatly intrigues me. 

Sorry if any of this fuels your anxiety OP.

[mosaickle]

On 2019-04-28 at 2:13 PM, 0_The_F00l said:

My good sir have you not seen the jordas golem or even the lephantis? 

If you take that specific Orokin pillar circular structure thing behind the Orokin Dig Site as just a component of a potential "being/AI/robot/thing", Lephantis and even the Jordas Golem would be dwarfed easily. I'm talking about a scale more similar to let's say, the Great Spirit Robot from Bionicle (ok maybe a bit smaller). 

Here's an example as to what kind of size I'm referring to. 

Edited April 29, 2019 by mosaickle

[mosaickle]

22 hours ago, OmegaZero said:

Something that does interest me is the supposed purpose of all those Orokin coolant towers. There are huge bundles of tubing that seem to decend into the depths of Venus. In my opinion, the terraforming of Venus is actually the side effect of a more sinister Orokin project frozen underneath Orb Vallis. Perhaps Nef Anyo’s meddling will result in more then just thermal fractures, but perhaps I’m just reading too much into what is probably just an extensive terraforming network.

I will say that one aspect that sort of disappoints me are the large ominous-looking craters that dot Orb Vallis. If concept art/descriptions are to be believed, the gold orbs at the focal point of said craters are used to create floating “coolant glaciers” that then crash onto the Venusian surface. The coolant from these glaciers is then sucked up by the coolant towers to help regulate the surface temperature. Kinda lame since the craters themselves look quite spooky in my opinion, especially Harindi Crater.

There’s also the large smoking/sparking Sentient wreckage that can be seen off the coast of the Plains of Eidolon. Perhaps it could be the remains of the original Sentient that terrorized Cetus? Or is it simply one of the many scars left by the Old War? Regardless, the fact that it showcases constant activity much unlike the other Sentient corpses we have encountered, and the sheer scale of the wreckage itself greatly intrigues me. 

Sorry if any of this fuels your anxiety OP.

Reading this gave me another idea/speculation/comparison. What if this "coolant" liquid has a similar origin as that yellowish liquid thing from Knowhere (from the MCU)? Like this coolant liquid is actually pseudo-biological material from these ancient, assumed dead beings from eons ago? 

I linked this as a size comparison in my reply to someone else's reply above but it definitely does present some more imagery as to how "mining" this liquid from "deep under the ground"/"into the depths of Venus" could be plausible. Now again, no Warframe lore knowledge here, I'm sure there's already some kind of explanation for why Warframe's Venus is iced over when Venus is supposed to be the hottest planet in the Solar System, but what if it may be connected to such beings (assuming they may exist/have existed at some point)?

I'll say this, the anxiety more or less comes from the initial exposure to such gigantism of the structures of Orb Vallis, and tie that in with how immersive Warframe is and how high you can go in Orb Vallis, results in a more "eerie" reaction rather than outright blunt anxiety. Now I'm just engrossed and fascinated by such speculation since I can let my imagination run free...which may be ultimately pointless since all this speculation stems from my lack of knowledge on Warframe lore anyway. These pillar things could really just be buildings or towers and have always just been inanimate stone structures which would completely defeat the purpose of this speculation but I'm doing it just for the sheer fun of it.

[rapt0rman]

It's part of a satellite grid around Venus. They showed it off in the Railjack demo:

 

[Corvid]

As others have mentioned, it's part of Venus' planetary defense array that got de-orbited and landed in the Vallis. IIRC, there's at least one more that's visible from the playable area. I also like to scale it from time to time, though my hope is that we'll eventually get the chance to go inside it.

[mosaickle]

1 hour ago, rapt0rman said:

It's part of a satellite grid around Venus. They showed it off in the Railjack demo:

 

RIP my speculations

[(PSN)Pengu_Imperialus]

1 hour ago, Corvid said:

As others have mentioned, it's part of Venus' planetary defense array that got de-orbited and landed in the Vallis. IIRC, there's at least one more that's visible from the playable area. I also like to scale it from time to time, though my hope is that we'll eventually get the chance to go inside it.

We may eventually. Orokin Dig Site is part of the collapsed orbital device.  Maybe an entrance...