Am I "the Tenno", or am I "a tenno"?

[Raskalnickoff]

The older plot elements (e.g. Vor's prize, Operation Sling-Stone, The Gradivus Dilemma) make it seem like we are all yet another Warframe being woken up, and that every defense objective is another new player that we are rescuing from Vor. With 'the lotus' being a figurehead for the slowly growing political force that is going to resolve the 1000 year conflict between the grineer and corpus that is slowly destroying all the remaining livable habitat.

... but then there are the quests where I am "THE CHOSEN ONE' who is the only person in the whole universe that can think for themselves and yet as the only tenno remaining in existence I have no will of my own and follow any suggestion that someone throws at me.

 

Then with the warframes it seems that all the original Tenno (i.e. not us) exclusively used only one warframe. Supposedly the original operators for Sevegoth, Protea, Harrow are still safely secured in hidden locations on the moon, or their fav Warframe is running on autopilot like Excalibur Umbra.
... But for us today, we have no recollection of Margulis, the Ten Zero event or how many different warframes exist. Was there a platoon of Hydroid, or was there only one elite special forces Mirage? Doesn't matter, we no longer use teamwork past a squad of 4 and we tenno change warframes more often than we change underwear.

So if I am "the Tenno" then these other 3 squadmates must be figments of my imagination, or holograms like the blue Lotus.
But if I am "a tenno" then why does Sevegoth keep getting rescued? there must be thousands of shadow copies of his ship drifting about in the void multiverse storms.

 

[PublikDomain]

You are "a Tenno". Sevagoth keeps getting rescued for the same reason bosses can be fought over and over: Warframe is a video game, and there need to be some gameplay conceits made to keep things running. You are also "the Tenno", in that as far as the story is concerned you are the person doing all of these things like saving Sevagoth or taming Umbra. Again, this is a gameplay conceit made because each player needs to be at the center of their own story. Treat the other Tenno you meet like side characters to your story, and from their perspective you're the side character to their story.

[Sazero]

short answer? Yes.

Longer answer. When you wake up you are a Tenno amongst many.
You just happen to encounter all the plot events.

There is a seperation between what happens in gameplay and what happens narratively.
When you play with other players, narratively they are using frames like Ember and Excalibur since they are common frames. But they wouldn't be using frames like Excalibur Umbra or Protea, since narratively you're the only person to make contact with those frames.
Ostensibly you should also encounter tenno(players) who use frames you've never seen before.

[NuttyNuti]

I've thought about this, and I think the player is both a Tenno and the Tenno; you are among several Tennos, but you are also the Tenno who keeps encountering all the interesting stuff.

I think that if I ever wrote a fanfic or a RPG plot on Warframe featuring multiple Tenno, I might opt to neither give a single Tenno experience on ALL available plot elements (meaning, Tenno A might have helped Fortuna, and Tenno B might have collaborated with the Entrati family, but no one has done both). That way, each Tenno character has something interesting (and familiar) going on. It would also be reasonable to create a bunch of new things that they have experienced; maybe the quests offered by the game reflect just one Tenno's adventures.

(One rough fanfic plot idea I had long ago: one Tenno focusing on anti-Grineer measures, another one focusing on anti-Corpus measures, they band together to solve the mystery of the Umbra.)

DE gotta keep things interesting and make you encounter awesome things.

[0_The_F00l]

Here is how i make it in my headcanon:

I am a tenno , but i am not just any tenno, i am the transient , the unbound he who walks in many shoes (fashionable ones).

I am unique for i have no bonded frame , and i can bond with all frames i build while other tenno can only bond with one thoughout their life. They do not experience the same quests and story driven events that i do due to this uniqueness and what ultimately allows me to calm umbra.

That is my power , that is my unique trait that allows me to experience more than the 1:1 tenno warframe symbiotes that have awoken since the call.

 In continuation , the stalker and the acolytes were also tenno once , but they are fallen now.

[Sazero]

Thank you for sharing your fanfic.
Finally something that sucks worse than the new star wars trilogy.
:)

[Zeddypanda]

Warframe operates on what I like to call "Donald Duck time". Donald Duck is over 80 years old, yet in the comics and cartoons he is clearly not. He looks more like he's in his early thirties or so working crappy jobs and taking care of his nephews (except when they're not there). Sometimes that job is producing ammo in Germany.

Despite clearly not being 80 years old, he'll be 80 years old if the current issue is a celebration of his 80th brithday. All the other characters will come together with cake and whatever, wishing him a lovely 80th birthday.

In Donald Duck time, nothing happened except when it did. Everything happened except when it didn't. Did you free Sevagoth? You most certainly did if you're playing Sevagoth. That Mirage you're playing with did the Mirage quest while you didn't in the current timeline of the squad you're currently in. The guy who plays Frost? He went to beat up Lech Kril teaming up with Captain Vor. The actual player did that at least three times, but canonically he would've only done that once (and you wouldn't have done it any times). Killing the same couple of guys, extracting, and then immediately coming back three times in a row is just silly.

You're gonna have to assume all the other Tenno have had adventures just as rich and varied as the ones you've had, just not the same adventures. Maybe DE is actually updating for all of those guys during the content droughts.

[Carl_Bar]

Bearing in mind the reveals from the sacrifice even if you do all the major event's, that doesn't mean in universe the other tenno didn't get the blueprints shared to them. In fact unless there's a specific quest associated with it i allways assumed the whole "loot the blueprints for pieces" things was a straight up gameplay mechanic and lore wise you already have access or acquire them in one lot somehow.

[Sazero]

It's safe to presume that unique frames are only obtained by THE Tenno.
There would only be one Inaros/Titania/Excal Umbra/Protea etc.
It's frames that are prototypes, experimental or otherwise one of a kind.
I'd even argue that Broken Valkyr is only possessed by THE Tenno, while other Tenno could
possess Gersemi Valkyr (Pristine and unbroken)

While frames like Excal, Frost, Ember, Rhino etc, can be assumed to be more readily available.
While we the player get their parts from bosses. Other Tenno could get them from other sources.

So there wouldn't be a narrative conflict for 2 or 4 Frosts to exist at the same time.
But 3 Excal Umbras all running around at the same time would break the narrative.
(Since you have to do the quest to get him and the quest events only happens once in the timeline, and therefore only to THE Tenno.)

Unless of course THE Tenno is sharing their warframe findings with other tenno.
I presume we don't, because we haven't been shown to do so.

[Vlaun]

This is basically the problem with mmo type games in general. We're all the chosen ones, the champion, the prophesied hero, the guardians of light and the tenno. Get a cutscene about how everything hangs in the balance and you're the one to make things right, then load into a social hub where everyone else are also the ones to make things right. In Warframe I just pretend that we're all waking up as an army to prepare for a coming war and doing different things to prepare for this eventuality.

[MollAgdeduba]

I think you are both "a tenno" and "the tenno".

From your pov one thing happen only or you and one time. Like quest and boss fight and all the thing lore-related. So there you are "the tenno", but only when performing on this thing. Then when you interct and play you become "a tenno". 

For thing like umbra or different warframe in same mission, ther's no problem. Is like the quest for take them is yours, but you don't know how other tenno have taken theyr equipment. Remember that WF and weapons are/were "mass produced" for be weapon in a giantic war. So if in mssion yousee another umbra, from the pov of the player, you know he has already done the quest, but from the pov of the operator, you don't know how he has acquired it. There are a lot of frame scttered in the universe and from operator pov each one could have a story "outside the game mechanic".

[MqToasty]

Here's how I would explain (weasel out of) it: You are always "a Tenno", and you are "the Tenno" in your game.  Basically, there are many Tenno active at any given time, but only "the Tenno" got to experience all of the more unique events in the main storyline, while the other Tenno were busy getting Konzu an early lunch or saving researchers on Deimos.  So how can you and I both be "the Tenno"?  Multiple universes.  In your universe (your account), you happen to be "the Tenno" blessed with the dumb luck to show up at every single important event.  In my universe (my account), I happen to be "the Tenno" blessed with the dumb luck for the same.  All of the #2, #3 and #4 players we play with are just other schmoes who are "another Tenno".

[Loza03]

Warframe has a confirmed multiverse thanks to the Unum. So, if I had to guess, you're 'A' Tenno, but you happen to be 'the' Tenno that was particularly important in this timeline - whereas in another timeline (i.e. another player's perspective), they're the one. You're the one that Vor happened to go after one day - and thus you were fresh in the Lotus's mind when the early-game quests showed up, and so she sends you on them. You prove yourself extremely capable, and so you just become her go-to for major events like the quests, in turn distinguishing you later.

Any Tenno could have been 'the' Tenno, and all Tenno have been or will be 'the' Tenno in their own timeline. But that's just my theory on the topic.

[RazerXPrime]

Who's the Tenno?

I'm the Tenno!

[Carl_Bar]

7 hours ago, Sazero said:

It's safe to presume that unique frames are only obtained by THE Tenno.

 

Again the sacrifice outright states there's no such thing as a unique frame. The Excalibur Umbra we save isn't the original, it's a perfect copy we build. If we can create such a perfect copy of that, (complete with memories and the issues that come with them), there's no reason other tenno couldn't use a blueprint provided by us to do the same with any seemingly unique frame.

[Sazero]

I understand that it's a copy (like every "unique" frame really). But THE Tenno is the only one to undergo the events of the quests.
And therefore narratively is the only one who obtains the blueprints.

We could share the blueprints but until we are shown to do so, then I assume that we don't.


 

[(XBOX)Doragonzuk]

52 minutes ago, Sazero said:

I understand that it's a copy (like every "unique" frame really). But THE Tenno is the only one to undergo the events of the quests.
And therefore narratively is the only one who obtains the blueprints.

We could share the blueprints but until we are shown to do so, then I assume that we don't.


 

That's a problem with the lore itself we have little to no information about tenno society but we are to assume that we share the blueprints from quest's but one's obtained from something like sanctuary onslaught isn't or cant be shared 

[Teridax68]

This is pretty much the discrepancy between Warframe's quests and its main content in a nutshell: in the main content, each of us is one Tenno among many, fighting together in an endless system-wide conflict between multiple warring factions. In the quests, though, your Tenno is special, somehow chosen by fate to be the one to do all the special stuff the rest of the Tenno pick up on, e.g. discover the secret of Lua, meet the Grineer Queens, mend the Heart of Deimos, etc. I'd chalk it up to a whole bunch of unlikely coincidences, though I agree there hasn't been much done to explain the dissonance, other than the game treating each one of us individually as "special" in our solo adventures.

[Sazero]

Well, there are a lot of problems with warframe lore.
Maybe the real lore was the friends we murdered along the way.

[Happynuke]

The unique quests are special for your Tenno. 
Most missions, events and so on are not.
There are indeed many Tenno and many more were/are waking up. 
For example: When we are trying to survive in... Survival, we are doing it, in order to give other Tenno Operatives time to do/find stuff.
(Of course they are often scamming us, which is why we only get so little rewards for keeping the life support high!)

Some Factions speak, as if there are a lot of Tenno and Warframes running around.
There being a quite big network of Tenno, seems to be the canon, with single Quests being unique to the specific Tenno one is playing.

You can headcanon a lot of apparent incongruities. 
Every Tenno is actually killing most of the bosses again and again. Because they are clones (Grineer, Infested) or proxies (Hyena, Jackal, Ambulas, Raptor...).
Killing any of those wouldn`t permanently dispose of them. They would just get cloned or build again. 

Unique events, like many Quests, are unique to your Tenno. 
So how does everyone else gain the Warframes from quests? Well, the likely answer is, that everyone is supposed to get the Quest-Frames from their "unique" Storyline, while everyone else got them another way. Say, after you reconstruct a Warframe or lost weapon, the Lotus or Ordis or your Ship copies the blueprints and sends the necessary program to every other Tenno. They now can build the "lost" Warframe or Weapon, because someone else found them and shared thei findings. They might still have to find components and such, to be able to reconstruct it, just like you, but they don`t (canonically) have to do the Story-Quest. 
Another (less likely) option is, that every Tenno does actually do every Quest, The Void allows for who knows what timey-wimey stuff.

Is the Man in the Wall only talking to one specific Tenno? 
Kinda unlikely. We know, Rell tried holding him back at least. We might all think we get special treatment from him, when we are not. 

 
 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

you're the chosen one, I'm the chosen one, the Tenno above me is the chosen one.. we're all the chosen one!!

[(PSN)Tactless_Ninja]

Yeah its a strange discrepancy. They could easily fill in your teammates with spectre AI even if it was supposed to be solo. And not even a single Tenno npc except yourself which makes things even more convoluted. 

[Surbusken]

I'm not?

 

I don't even know who the tenno is, the little kids inside the iron man suits are the tenno? And then the warframes are just called warframes?

Who built the warframes, wasn't it the orokin or some raced that died out but then the warframes are semi sentient - but they are the sentients :D

 

I just think of it as reversed matrix but instead you jack into pokemon.

 

[BDMblue]

The story does a bad job of putting you into the game world. A quest to get a new frame should end with ya uploading its information to the rest of the lotuses followers. 

 

Its fine making us the Tenno who gets things done, but the way they have it. It’s like a single player games story disconnected from the multiplayer gameplay.

[(PSN)Kakurine2]

We are the tenno aka a group.