Lore discussion: Grendel's Leverian entry supports that there's only 1 of each WF

[Jarriaga]

Some time ago I started thinking about Revenant's "creation". Originally, Revenant was a different WF called Warden, but had been exposed to the remains of the Sentient killed by Gara for so long that he became corrupted and transformed into what we know as Revenant. This got me thinking about the convoluted process it would be to actually create a second Revenant by having another Warden follow the same process in order to obtain the same results. That, when coupled with Gara's lore entry referring to her as if she was the only Gara (Or at least the only Gara worth talking about) got me thinking that maybe frames are unique.

There's also Chains of Harrow before Mask of The Revenant. Not even the Lotus knew of Harrow, which is difficult to believe unless there was only one of it.

Sure we have WF blueprints that create fully built frames, but these are only gameplay concessions in my opinion for the same reason we have all done TWW and got one of the Queens killed.

Fast forward to the Leverian and Grende's entry, and it includes a dedicated section just for Gauss because he was apparently always present around Grendel. They were "Ancient Allies":

"It came as no surprise to me, to find this tiny fragment of Gauss just outside the city. Indeed, if one thing is for certain, wherever we find evidence of Grendel, we're sure to find some trace of Gauss as well. Did they breach the city as a pair? Or did Gauss hang back intercepting the patrols, generously letting his friend Grendel eat his fill at the feast within?"

This supports the notion that there's only one of each WF because, otherwise, the only other alternative would be that somehow every single Grendel (If more than one) would have happened to have a Gauss best friend, and all Grendel and Gauss units would have also have happened to travel together.

What do you all think? And what would be the implications for frames such as Valkyr Prime for example?

[BornWithTeeth]

My money?

 

1. First and foremost, DE care very much less about a clear and consistent lore and very much more about having tight core gameplay and releasing lots of Warframes. That’s always gonna be the case for all of these things.

 

2. People who don’t know about the Tenno, don’t know. They don’t necessarily know about the distinction between Tenno and Warframe. So, historical accounts written by third parties are likely to confuse the weapon with the individual. There are also some faint and contradictory accounts which might be either an out of control ‘frame, or a Tenno carrying out a personal objective.

 

3. Warframes can, however, be cloned, or so it would definitely seem. There may be lost Warframe models which will never be recovered.

[Dragmod]

My understanding is that while originally there were only one of each frame, those being the Primes, the "standard" frames were developed after the fall of the Orokins.

Though, we know there were also multiple attempts to create Excalibur. Umbra being one of the early attempts and Prime being the final, perfected attempt.

[(PSN)Eluminary]

2 minutes ago, BornWithTeeth said:

 

3. Warframes can, however, be cloned, or so it would definitely seem. There may be lost Warframe models which will never be recovered.

Everything even living things are just machines built with different things we get the blueprints and they can be mass produced.  Later models have the memories conveniently removed as well.

 

The umbra quest showed this for the most part,  all excaliburs are clones of that guy and he was the first.  We even see him killed and we rebuild him.

[Rakosta_Kai]

I've always thought all the Warframes were single units...Particularly the primes.

My thinking: In this game, the Operator, is the star of the show and everything they get is unique for them from a narrative perspective.

So there can be many operators but only yours is getting all the good stuff through lore so to speak.

I'm sure there's a writing term for it but am not that smart.

1st person narrative maybe? (someone's gonna correct that because it's probably wrong)

[BornWithTeeth]

3 minutes ago, Padre_Akais said:

I've always thought all the Warframes were single units...Particularly the primes.

My thinking: In this game, the Operator, is the star of the show and everything they get is unique for them from a narrative perspective.

So there can be many operators but only yours is getting all the good stuff through lore so to speak.

I'm sure there's a writing term for it but am not that smart.

1st person narrative maybe? (someone's gonna correct that because it's probably wrong)

Schrodinger’s Protagonist?

[kengxiaoju]

in the lure.  only those kids have void power so population is limited and people who can control warframe is limited. however they can control as many as they like.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I always figured there is only one "original" of each frame, whose personality/theme was tailored to their creator (host?). We are just creating blueprints to duplicate that specific design. 

Edited November 13, 2019 by (PS4)Ozymandias-13-
typo

[Rakosta_Kai]

2 minutes ago, BornWithTeeth said:

Schrodinger’s Protagonist?

I had to look that one up and still only half understood it. I'm giving tha tone a definite maybe since the story makes whomever is playing it the central character each time but we all know (and it's referenced) that there are many Tenno.

 

[CephalonDizzy]

My knowledge on lore might be a bit rusty but here goes...

1 hour ago, Jarriaga said:

There's also Chains of Harrow before Mask of The Revenant. Not even the Lotus knew of Harrow, which is difficult to believe unless there was only one of it.

I was under the impression Lotus didn't know of Rell, not the actual Warframe Harrow.  It could be that some warframes were indeed one of a kind (similar to how some military equipment designs had a prototype but not mass produced), but that doesn't imply all warframes are one of a kind.  Some of the helmets being called "standard issue" implies mass production.  

The original Gauss and Grendel could have been best friends, siblings / twins even; warframes are made from people after all. Since it's implied warframes retain some personality traits / characteristics of the person they are created from, you can argue that all future creations of Gauss and Grendel will still have that link.

We also don't necessarily know that prime = original frame.  Prime just means built with orokin tech that the tenno cannot currently reproduce.  So the fact the leverian doesn't show prime frames also isn't necessarily lore breaking.

 

Valkyr is a bit tricky. The way I see it the original Valkyr was created from a dax warrior who already had a highly aggressive personality and a propensity for close combat.  Hence Valkyr prime might have been a more refined version of the original Valkyre, and thus still has her talons and can go into berserker mode, and Valkyr's overall fighting still might have contributed to why one was captured by Salad V.  It's not so much that Salad's experiments giving Valkyr her powers.

Edited November 13, 2019 by CephalonDizzy

[DrBorris]

I highly doubt that DE is just ignoring their established lore with the Tenno with the repeated instances of "single Warframe". Limbo, Mirage, Titania, Valkyr and now Atlas, Gauss and Grendel (maybe some others I am forgetting). 

We know that Warframes are crafted from semi-conscious individuals (Mirage Prime) and that our Foundry can replicate anything including their memories (Umbra). 

My take is that there were " original Warframes", self sentient beings. And when Ballas talked about those un-piloted Warframes being uncontrollable that was not that they were beasts, but that those Warframes had their own free will and did not follow the will of the Orokin. It is easier to control the will of teenagers that have had their mind wiped than some person you tortured. 

Edited November 13, 2019 by DrBorris

[(XBOX)CaligulaTwily]

I just figured that during the Orokins rule, they only built 1 of each frame. All our frames are clones/duplicates of those original badasses that did all that amazing stuff, so there could be a thousand Ivaras now. 

I'm sure it can be explained how all the different Tenno were able to do that quest and kill the same Revenant spectre, Bro revives just like the Eidolon 

Edited November 13, 2019 by (XB1)aMichealMeyers

[SordidDreams]

"Our demons of void womb must be different. Unusual. Singular. Crafted without cast, wrought of the finest ore, slender and queer." - Banshee Prime trailer, 2017

Not exactly a new revelation, then.

Edited November 13, 2019 by SordidDreams

[CephalonDizzy]

9 minutes ago, SordidDreams said:

"Our demons of void womb must be different. Unusual. Singular. Crafted without cast, wrought of the finest ore, slender and queer." - Banshee Prime trailer, 2017

Not exactly a new revelation, then.

Not necessarily.  One can take that to mean each individual warframe might have slight differences but there can still be multiples of the same type of warframe. So while each copy of Banshee (or whichever frame) may not be exactly alike, there are still more than one Banshee.

Otherwise there will be no more Lokis (beheaded by Stalker) or Excaliburs  (dismantled by Salad).  And Mirage Primes trailer showing her fighting post orokin grineer is impossible due to Mirage being destroyed in the old war.

[SordidDreams]

2 minutes ago, CephalonDizzy said:

Not necessarily.  One can take that to mean each individual warframe might have slight differences but there can still be multiples of the same type of warframe. So while each copy of Banshee (or whichever frame) may not be exactly alike, there are still more than one Banshee.

Otherwise there will be no more Lokis (beheaded by Stalker) or Excaliburs  (dismantled by Salad).  And Mirage Primes trailer showing her fighting post orokin grineer is impossible due to Mirage being destroyed in the old war.

Inconsistencies in Warframe lore? Inconceivable!

[Marvelous_A]

Each warframe had an unique owner during the Great War. That's my take on the lore.

But most warframes are lost afterwards, only blueprints are left for the tenno coming after to make an exact replica. 

[CephalonDizzy]

20 minutes ago, SordidDreams said:

Inconsistencies in Warframe lore? Inconceivable!

Never said it was inconceivable. Just going with the discussion here.

[SilentMobius]

 

2 hours ago, Jarriaga said:

This supports the notion that there's only one of each WF because, otherwise, the only other alternative would be that somehow every single Grendel (If more than one) would have happened to have a Gauss best friend, and all Grendel and Gauss units would have also have happened to travel together.

What do you all think? And what would be the implications for frames such as Valkyr Prime for example?

There are a lot of variables here:

• From the Sacrifice we know that when we create a new Warframe in the foundry they come with a complete imprint of the personality and memories (The Umbra we make is based on scans of the one that Natah blasted)
• The existance of the Zarimen Teno-Zero children was a closely guarded secret (So much so that Ballas considered it betrayal to let the Sentient's know this)
• Prior to the existance of the Operators some Warframes' existed as "Bio Drones" until they rebelled.
• Some Warframes retain more of their persona than others. (Umbra, Mirage Prime)
• The physicality and personality of a Warframe can be re-clones, lockiing in the changes (Valkyr)
• The Second Dream suggests that the Zariman children thought they were the Warframes, and that the personality of the warframe (In the Stance) can show through.
• From the Sacrifice we know that Warframe have a progenitor being who was infected with the Helminth strain of the infestation. We also know that some warframes were formally designed (Nova) We don't know if any Warframe's are "cloned" then modified from a common progenitor or if each Warframe line (Or even Warframe variant) was once a unique person.
• We have multiple canon variants of Warframes.
• Post-cryo there are multiple canon instances of specific Warframe lines (Profit trailer has an Excalibur with variant helmet destroyed)
• Even at the height of the Old War the Tenno were secret enough for the front-line toops to be able to not believe they existed (Mag Prime codex) this suggests that any stories may well be apocryphal. First person stories surrer from the possibility of an unreliable narrator who believes they were unique or even a story from the time of Bio-drones, before the operators.
• Post-cryo, sleeping Tenno can still change Warframe without conceptual issue.. somehow. Also they have no problem collecting and building Warframes or being told by the Lotus to "Master them" (plural)

I don't think it's as simple as "All Warframes were once unique" I think it's messier.

• Some might share a progenitor
• Some might retain friendships from when they were people, replacating that into every cloned Warframe pair
• Some warframes might have only hade a single Prototype/Prime created and post-Old War and pre-Cryo the Tenno themselves created their own versions (Not sure how that happens when the Tenno didn't know they weren't the Warframe.

Certainly in at least some cases, as some point, singular stories happened.

Edited November 13, 2019 by SilentMobius

[Serafim_94]

I always believed that originally there was one frame per one tenno, and they didn't switch their frames around. Some frames, like Titania, didn't even have tenno assigned to them yet when first created. We only started to reproduce and switch frames after the first awakening.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Serafim_94

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

If anything I thought it supported that there were multiple of 1 Warframe. The Gauss part said “For every Grendel there is a Gauss”.

[chaotea]

As far as i have grown to understand it, originally each 'tenno' weilded thier own warframe (specifically the prime version). However after they woke up after being asleep, they started using the non-prime mass production versions.

[Loza03]

I disagree. Consider this - there is a piece of Gauss found wherever there is Grendel. If Warframes are unique, that means they are irreplaceable. However, there is a full Gauss with helmet aerofoil intact in Drusus's Leverian, from Altra. If Gauss was unique, he couldn't have been found at Altra because Altra happened pre-fall, and thus he would have walked away unharmed to lose his piece later, and thus would lack it at Altra. Since there is a complete Gauss, and we know from other entries that Drusus does use actual exhibits wherever possible, that means that there were multiple Gausses, because there's multiple instances of the same parts.

There's also the fact that we know from Umbra that two different origin people can produce a frame with (roughly) the same abilities. Primes are known to be the 'originals', or in our case, recreations of the originals, but there exists Excalibur Prime and Excalibur Umbra, two variants of the same frame but made from different people. We know Umbra came second because Excalibur Prime was the first (publicly used, Tenno-operated) Warframe whereas Umbra was created just before Ballas's betrayal and subsequently, the War's end.

Even if it's just to replace the original Warframe, it's highly unlikely that each Warframe was entirely unique. It is likely that they were given to Tenno in a limited capacity though - so not every Tenno got a Grendel or Gauss, or an Excalibur or a Limbo - these frames were given out based on performance, aptitude and role. It's likely some combinations may also have been deployed together regularly, such as Grendel and Gauss because their abilities are better suited to Anti-Infantry and rebellion suppression and complement each other (Gauss is able to catch stragglers and disrupt entrenched defenses, Grendel can annihilate priority targets and offers better long-term combat). Subsequently, any Tenno given Grendel and Gauss were deployed together because they were good at rebellion suppression. Since there was likely a fairly long time of them being deployed like that, even after the Fall of the Orokin they kept the habit, or became friends naturally (possibly assisted by transference from their frames suppressed consciousness). From there, any time a frame was lost in combat permanently, the Tenno were just issued a new one.

 

As for Individual Warframes that endured changes that affected their whole line, we know that Infested make 'blueprints' that they can recreate (shown in the Corrupted Ancient synthesis imprint). It's likely Helminth works in a similar fashion, recreating the details of a Warframe from these blueprints, likely requiring assistance from a foundry in some areas, presumably due to having its own ability to grow and spread harshly leashed to prevent it from growing out of control. So, when a frame like Valkyr was first rediscovered and experimented on, the torture experienced affected the very nature of the Technocyte 'blueprint' permanently through psychic trauma, updating it and causing any future Warframes built from that blueprint to have that experience built-in. Except for Limbo - he's on so many levels of space magic when whatever happened to him did, I imagine it somehow managed to jettison the very concept of the Warframe into outer space.

 

Tl;Dr A wizard makes them.

[chaotea]

7 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

If anything I thought it supported that there were multiple of 1 Warframe. The Gauss part said “For every Grendel there is a Gauss”.

Sounds more like a saying that a litteral thing, like "Every cloud has a silver lining".

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 minute ago, chaotea said:

Sounds more like a saying that a litteral thing, like "Every cloud has a silver lining".

Yeah that comparison doesn’t work.

[ant99999]

There's the thing called 'ludonarrative dissonance'. The game often omits parts of it's story for the sake of clearer gameplay and vice versa.

That's not the only example of this in Warframe. For instance the game provides all the players with the same story of their Tenno, while story-wise it simply cannot be true, as there esists only one person who killed the Queens, needled Ballas' liver and such.

While I do believe that games should be treated as a whole, their gameplay inseparable from the story, from the economic point of view that's often simply impossible let alone ineffective.

Same with the subject. Story-wise there probably were hundreds or thousands of unique warframes, as the lore of such frames as Limbo and Mirage hints their abilities depend on the person's character, but imagine writing a story, making models, abilities and stats for thousands of frames, that's ridiculous.