Social Dreaming (lore theory; SPOILERS)

[Spectolder]

So, having recently finished one of the latest story quests (namely the Sacrifice) and reestablished my empathies with the parties involved, i feel pressed to answer, at least to myself, a question about as ancient as the main questline itself, quick to bring unending mental ache to whoever stumbles upon it.

"How come i am always the sole protagonist?"

The fact that the awakened Tenno at the present point in time are numbered in thousands, if not millions, is acknowledged repeatedly throughout both main and side plot; for one, in Chains of Harrow Lotus mentions that she holds the record of every single child of Zahriman, but the story of Rell is quick to debunk that claim. One way or another, she maintains conatct with the vast majority of surviving Tenno, namely all those that are considered player characters. May big numbers in the output not confound us, as even the best warriors Orokin had to offer would indeed have to come in legions to both hold off the Sentient and subsequently throw the rest of the Empire into ruins. Massive endeavours like Fomorian fleet destruction and friendly settlement protection also require a respectable number of participants to take the desired effect. We are a giant army, and apparently all of us are approximately equial in their relations with Lotus, at least at the point of the awakening.

Can we number the "special occasions" with just us, Lotus/Margulis/Natah, and Stalker/Hunhow/Ballos? How likely are all those events to happen in succession to one person, out of all the Tenno out there? Of course, the techical side of the problem is obvious: it is impossible to create a million of unique and wholesome versions of the story so that every player has a specific place in the world - unless the development of the game is to take a million years. Even a dozen is already straining the creative possibilities of the developers. That`s why there are usually very few global choices of perspective to make in modern MMO games. In Warframe, there is none. All of what happens in the world, happens to you. This take on the story presentation, while appropriately gripping in itself, is bound to create a feeling of confusion post factum. Where were all your Tenno peers when the Stalker forced you to lift the lost moon from the Void and almost ended your life? Why did Lotus call you - out of all the Tenno - to investigate disturbances on Lua much later? How come no one else was around to stumble upon Teshin fiddling with somatic links? How come your cephalon (having the same one installed in every Orbiter is another can of worms) is the only one to catch a transmission leading them to Palladino? Millions of space ninjas flying around, and you just happen to be always in the right place at the right time - you and no one else? This goes a tall notch beyound just unlikely. 

There is, to the best of my knowledge, one relatively uncontrived way to tie the loose ends here. Following Sherlock Holmes` method, let`s try to eliminate the least likely. The entire storyline of Warframe is simply too much to happen to one person; therefore, it happened to different Tenno across the realm. Why do we all remember it then?

Most players probably have replayed one or more of the main quests, re-experiencing the warmly remembered events and making sense of some of the more obscure plot points in hindsight. Notice how every "playback" is somewhat different as the game does not revert player`s choices of Warframe and other equipment to what they were at the initial walkthrough, making it possible to play through Chains of Harrow as Harrow, etc.? Again, a more technical explaination comes to mind, as the recreation of these conditions from some sort of "backup" would take extra server powers and programming that DE might just not be prepared to allocate. But what if this is how the "replays" actually work in-universe?

The Somatic Link, an intricate and multifunctional system, is easy to imagine with a dedicated device or subroutine that captures the images not from the real world, but from the combined conscious/subconscious "memory bank" of the Operator. Once recorded, the memory can be played back at the creator via the Second Dream, with small inaccuracies similar to the adjustments our brain may make to memories when we recall them in our sleep. Aside from that, it is also possible to transmit the memory to another Somatic Link; in order to make it easier for a third party to percept the memory, their mind puts them into the first person perspective, as if they were the one to record it. With such technology, the important events can be retold to all the Tenno exactly as the withess remembers them!

So, yeah, it wasn`t all you after all. As is appropriate with a story of such grand scale, the protagonist is different for every point in space-time, but in order to see the big picture, each of us acts as a peer in a distributed network sharing memories - sometimes yours, sometimes your friend`s, other times Void knows whose, seeing as they might change thousands of hands - thousands of minds - until they reach you.

 

Well, that`s what i think, anyway. Thought the take was fresh enough to share. Please feel free to point out any discrepancies, assuming you are still awake after going through this little textwall.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Spectolder
Tag added

[Umbriellan]

That's interesting as we don't know truly the technology used by the Orokin and how it works...

But I prefer to stay basic there & think that the somatic link are just the USB-cable linking Operators & Warframes; but adding the "Multiverse" of the Quills, with "infinite possibilities".
With the Quills philosophy, you can think like this :
1- we (players) are all existing at the same times in our universe;
2- "me" will always be the main protagonist of his own story.

Like this, YOU are the "hero", while the Others are the side-Tennos - but we are all existing and developing, expanding the Co-Op side of the game (clans, alliances, being unequal to each others, making the forums & websites the background network where the tennos are communicating while in-game there is nothing about such thing (if we exclude the chatbox)).
To add to that: the Void and his nature could "scientificaly explain" how it works... making FashionFrame... lore friendly ? 😄

 

Thinking a bit of it, that view of the "Multiverse" is perfectly applying to our Real Life; you are doing your things, with your own perception, but other human being are there too, but side-characters to your own story; while at the same time you are existing in their stories as a side-character ...