Tenno Transhumanism – A Theory Based On In-Game Facts (Updated 12/20/21)

[Otaiken]

Well, there are few things that could prove otherwise. 

 

1) What about rescue missions? Hostages you save there are quite obviously meant to be Tenno without their suit. They have this basic undergarment and visual interface that would imply their suits have been taken away from them.

 

2) Some of bosse's lines.

 

3) Warframes actually bleed when you run out of shield. It's not very apparent, but it's there. Also, when you slash other frame with melee, even if that doesn't hurt them you get blood splatters on the wall occasionally.

 

 

So that means there is something/someone in those suits and that it is made of flesh. That said I don't think they can or want to actually leave their suit. 

 

The whole warframe design is in general very bio oriented. It looks more like insect chitin exoskeleton than metal armor. My theory for that is as follows: Tenno make basic electronics and joints when making warframe and after that they grow the outside armor over it. Basically you make a mesh and then let some kind of biological substance do the rest. If you look at some of the frame designs they really look like there's some kind of skin that has been unevenly grown over some basic metal skeleton.

 

You could also quite plausibly get a material that's very strong but also flexible and light this way. It's been estabilished that Orokin are probably the creators of technocyte virus. So they did have technology that could warp and mold biological and nonbiological matter.

 

Maybe frames are grown over Tenno, so they kinda merge together. But there's still someone in there.

Edited May 31, 2013 by LocoWithGun

[Otaiken]

SNIP

 

This makes sense. Technocyte Virus is most definitely linked to Orokin since they created it. And when you go on Assasination mission for Golem Lotus even says that: "Golem is a creature created by the Orokin to battle the ancients." So they definitely used the virus as a weapon. I dunno about the merging with it part. It would make sense that they left the galaxy pursuited by their enemy, since we haven't seen either the Orokin or those so called Ancients yet.

Edited May 31, 2013 by LocoWithGun

[Hekatonkheire]

So when talking about the Tenno, I was previously under the impression that the Tenno were an organic race of beings who may have become so indoctrinated in their warrior mindset that they were akin to monks and ninja. Individual identity was not so important, so they called themselves by their given Warframe names – their outer faces if you will. Perhaps the Lotus was a controlling faction of beings, using the Tenno as their trigger men / women, supporting them because they themselves lacked military might.

Recently, a lot of things did not add up to that conclusion. The way the Lotus refers to herself, or the things said by bosses as they are cussing you out. Small cracks appeared in my theory of an organic race wearing a suit, but started leaning to something much more prophetic.

In short it goes like this; The Tenno is a Transhumanist Race, living in a state of either digital or energy-based life.

Let us start with the Warframes themselves.

The basics of their construction revolve around three components; the helmet, the systems and the chassis. The Helmet is pretty straight-forward in its explanation. The head is usually the most complex part of a body and generally contains a whole bunch of sensory organs / equipment. The systems are also another separate component, perhaps emulating a central nervous system. On top of that, you then have a chassis. The word chassis is the name for the underlying framework for a man-made object to function, not specifically a suit exterior or skin. All of the words seem to point towards a construct, rather than anything ‘organic’ involved, even though the plating on the Warframe looks almost like flesh and bone. If it were only a suit of armor, then why not call it such?

The recent call of gender has also made me think about the nature of the ‘Frame itself. The Devs (during the Q&A livestream) have hinted that there is perhaps no such things as ‘gender’ in the Warframe world. However the bosses call your character by name, then mentions how cowardly you act when you hide behind your ‘X’ Warframe. This would imply that either the Tenno are capable of gender swapping, or in fact, the ‘Frames are indeed constructs that are specifically made, and the Tenno somehow pilot these ‘Frames into battle.

There is also a lot of talk from bosses that may seem like simple insults, but when approaching the subject from a different angle, things start to make sense. One boss states that you are a ‘Walking Tomb’. Perhaps it is a simple insult to say that the Tenno is already dead, but then why not say that? The use of the word tomb implies something inanimate; it is a hollow, cold place to store the dead. It hints that the contents may be nothing but shades and ghosts.

The Corpus is known to take Tenno bodies and Cryopods and study them for the secrets of the Orokin. It is a technology alien to them and given their penchant for ritual and faith, perhaps it is because the contents of the body cannot be explained by their science and ritualism is often associated with a faithful reverence for something ethereal. It is – after all - implied that the Corpus engage in some kind of religious science to use and study Orokin technology.

The Grineer are envious of the Tenno, but it is never stated why. It is known that the Grineer are the results of years of cloning and genetic degradation. They discovered and reactivated the cloning technologies of old, long abandoned by the Orokin. What if the Orokin abandoned those technologies because they had found an even better way to immortalize themselves? Free of the horrors of the Technocyte plague they created and leaving behind physical, mortal weakness to disease and sickness?

The Grineer, left behind as a mortal military force would feel nothing but anger for the people who would leave them behind. Having to scrape together old technology and clone themselves into extinction would cause any mind to go on a genocidal binge of revenge, especially when a system-wide plague – created by the same people who abandoned them - was consuming whole sectors of the solar system.

It is my suspicion that the Orokin did not die out, but in fact became something completely different: a new race of transhuman creature called the Tenno. Of course in many ways, both the Grineer and Corpus are removed from the origin of humanity, less so with the Corpus perhaps with their use of proxies, but the Grineer became the evolutional dead end.

The game seems to support these ideas with both imagery and action.

The White Tower (as it has been recently called) seems more like the loading program from The Matrix. Tests are staged here and there is even talk of some kind of Tenno dojo coming to place within these Orokin towers. If these structures were in fact residences, the ability to live in them would be hard to maintain.

I think Orokin towers are nothing more than Tenno nodes and server farms. The essences of the Tenno live within these towers, gathering, training and living in a virtual environment that allows them to communicate, train and share information. Cells of Tenno are grouped into attack teams, all of them using their own Warframe Proxies to download into, perform their missions and then return to the Orokin outposts. Even the Lotus seems to be more like a control and organizational system assigned (perhaps built) by the Tenno to act as caretakers, operatives and information gatherers.

Yes. I am saying DERebecca is an AI. (Or at least her character is!)

Speaking of The Lotus, let’s talk about how she hints at a Transhumanist state.

The big hitter for me is that when you are doing a mobile defense mission, one of the objectives is to plug a data mass into the machine then guard it. The Lotus prompts you to ‘Put me into the Machine’ rather than saying, ‘connect me’ or ‘insert the connection program’ or something. The phrasing seems oddly specific. In fact, this also makes sense when she states ‘The Lotus will be pleased’ when completing a mission.

The Lotus could be the overhead AI that controls, organizes and strategizes; a defense computer if you will. Directing the Tenno and making sure that the Tenno rise again as a race seems like the kind of programming left behind by the people who created it; The Orokin. When all of the Tenno were forced into exile (supposedly by Grineer military action) whole towers were probably destroyed, losing thousands of individual Tenno essences. How do you hide? Put the Tenno in proxies and freeze them in deep space. The Lotus would watch, assess the situation and when the time was right, reactivate the Tenno and begin the process of rebuilding.

Another contributing factor is that you essentially atomize the captured corpus operative on the ship missions. After killing him, your character seems to break them down into an energy-like state and suck them into the palm of the Warframe. No sooner have you done so, the Lotus states ‘The prisoner has been transported successfully.’ (Or something like that. I’m paraphrasing.) How is it that a person turned into energy matter after being cut down can be interrogated? By digitizing a soul, the Tenno could potentially tear it apart like a program.

I am also sure the process is incredibly painful.

I have more, but I want to hear what you guys think!

 

 

That helps my theory.

 

The Tenno made the Waframes to Survive the Old war. 

 

But the Orokin made the Primes, so the Tenno tried to copy or stole the Technology, much like the Corpus/Grineer Did.

 

I've never given Lotus much thought, but I can't help but think of her as an evil character, but I have a feeling that the Tenno aren't exactly Angels themselves.

 

"You've lost your memory, but that's not important" Like hell it isn't, who's to say I'm not being manipulated. 

 

As for how the Warframes work, I was under the idea that they're like Eva's or the Suits from Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040. 

Edited May 31, 2013 by Karetchi

[Oz270]

While I do agree and think most of the points here are really good, I doubt that the final canon lore would be something like transhumanisim.

The reason being that transhumanisim creates a disconnect to the player that ends up with the player (being human) can't connect to. ( that's why the majority of novels, movies and games never have you play as anything else but human)

If a player or person can relate or have a common ground to connect themselves to their in game characters, most people will find the game unapealling, or even repulsed.

So in the end I really doubt that DE will realease a version of the lore that states that our warframes are piloted by a trancendent entity.

(Would really like to see a lore based on the OPs theory, the whole every story is human is getting old.)

Edit:sorry for bad grammar and disjointed sentences will correct when I get access to a computer, of this small mobile phone keyboard

Edited May 31, 2013 by Oz270

[caboosetheawsum]

This thread has some pretty awsum ideas!

caboose made a theory about the relationship between the lotus, tenno, and TCV, but his internet kinda ran out while typing it and the thread kinda died so caboose thought, "meh, screw it" <.<

"Here's caboose's current theories on the Tenno and their relationship to different factions. :D

I try to base them off of various in-game facts, posts I read, Dark Sector, etc. I also draw some inspiration from Spartans in Halo, I think Spartans and Tenno are similar in various ways. Since there's so little established lore I'm still thinking about some of the parts of this.

I believe the Tenno were a warrior clan that existed during the Orokin era. They served the Orokin and fought their wars for them. I strongly believe that they are human, and I do believe that parts or even the majority of their warframes are organic. In other words, parts for their suits were "grown" and customized for each Tenno, which would create a deep bond between a Tenno and their warframe. Similar to Spartans, the Tenno would undergo augmentations and intense training to be able to use warframes to their utmost potential. Training their minds is just as important as their bodies, so they're able to have full control of their suit via the various sensors. Like Spartans, their mastery and control over their suits augments their abilities even further. It could be possible for Grineer to have a warframe, but cuz of their constant degradation and allowing emotion (more specifically, anger) to take over, a warframe to them is nothing more than a fancy halloween costume or one of Tyl Regor's fashion accessories. I believe the Tenno were put into cryopods as a means to preserve them for future wars. The Orokin may have found temporary peace at one time, and had no need for warriors.

Now for the Lotus. I think the Lotus are descendants of the Orokin, or (at the very least) have very strong ties to the Orokin. I do think the woman that speaks to the player is an actual person, not an AI. I think of her as a decker from Shadowrun. She is able to "transmit her being/consciousness" into a machine. I do not see the Lotus as liars, but as trying to restore order to the solar system, similar to the Orokin era. If the Lotus are the true descendants of the Orokin, then it only makes sense for the Tenno to serve them.

As for the technocyte virus, I agree that it was a byproduct of the same research that created the warframes. The Orokin were resourceful, and were able to weaponize the TCV. TCV not only made an excellant biological weapon, but it was a "cheap/inexpensive" way to make super-soldiers out of those not fit to use warframes. However, TCV's nature made it near impossible to control and eventually gave way to the infested.

I like to think of the infested as a much, much weaker version of the Flood from Halo. I think the infested are sentient, but still in the process of gaining power. The infested are still in the stage where they must constantly consume, but they are also gaining intelligence at the same time. Recognizing that the Tenno and warframes come from the same research, the infested view them as "family" in a really f*cked up and twisted sort of sense. It may be possible that some infested made it out of the solar system and continuously consume and grow w/out opposition.

I also have a lil theory about the golem. The way Lotus describes him as living for centuries while consuming and replicating makes it sound like we aren't really fighting the "true" golem. We may just be fighting one of his weaker "replications"."

[SilverBones]

You guys should read the last few pages of back and forth!

A lot of what we discuss has been mentioned in there, including why the Tenno 'bleed' and how an exo-suit would be unsuitable in the underlying person was a vanilla human.

MORE TOMORROW!

[Mabswer]

You guys should read the last few pages of back and forth!

A lot of what we discuss has been mentioned in there, including why the Tenno 'bleed' and how an exo-suit would be unsuitable in the underlying person was a vanilla human.

MORE TOMORROW!

Nice and all, buut where does Stalker fit in to this ? hes tenno yes?

[BramBlackmon]

Theory number 2

 

The Warframe Universe is set after the technological singularity. The orokin aren't an alien race, they're just highly advanced robots who gained sentience and the ability to continually make themselves smarter. This explains how thousands of years after the fact, tech they made, is still more powerful than modern tech with thousands of years of advancement.

So, what happened? The "Ancients" The pure bred humans at the time did one of two things, they either started a religion around this new robotic life that promised Utopia in time, or they became distrustful and rallied against them. The Tenno were the warrior caste of the Orokin cult, blessed with suits composed of both organic matter, and highly advanced technology that augmented their fearsome skills and made them the perfect soldier.

 

and thus the robot-human war commenced, with the humans suffering mass casualties and being pushed back on every front. So they decided as a last ditch effort to start mass producing clones to fill in their ranks ((The only way to explain grineer cloning is to picture a time where they needed a massive amount of manpower, but couldn't wait for the natural birth process to raise them)) and they started pushing back. They started pushing back hard.

 

So a slow war of attrition set in, The Robots either couldn't or wouldn't use cloning to fill their ranks, so they started feeling the loss before long. So they turned to biological warfare, modifying the bacteria used to grow warframes to attack living humans and convert them into organic machines. But things went wrong. Either they didn't have as much control over the infected as they originally thought, or they never expected the virus to evolve. The second singularity occurs shortly after, bringing a new and very dangerous 3rd party nobody has control over.

 

And so the robots, deciding to cut their losses and make use of their new tech, freezes and hides their warrior followers. 

 

As to what happened to the non warrior members of this religion? They became the corpus, leaving earth and colonizing the rest of the galaxy far away from the earth's clone army and control. Over the years, their religious document gets thoroughly revised, leading them to believe the way to ascension is to merge technology with humanity ((A corpus without his helmet, looks essentially like a human with some wires attached)) The reason they rely on proxies so much is that they lost a lot of members during the war, reducing the amount of healthy conceiving pure bred humans.

The Lotus were originally the priests of this robot cult. We're not on just any kind of mission, we're reigniting a holy war and purging the non believers and those who have lost the way of our faith.

 

The Stalker is a tenno who managed to both keep his suit and be freed of the years of indoctrination he would have faced under his robot overlords. This is why he won't work for the corpus, he views them as betrayers of the human race. This is why he so passionately defends the grineer, Because they're the closest thing to original humans that the galaxy has left.

 

The Grinner are the result  of taking humanity, forcing them into a war against a superior force, forcing them into a genetic bottleneck, cloning that genetic bottleneck repeatedly. The reason they continue to clone is because they continue to have threats in the universe. The Corpus aren't friendly to them by any stretch of the imagination. They had a lot of weapons lying around that were in use well before the Tenno showed back up. and the infested are pretty much the borg. This also explains the limited use of technology and robotics and even shields in their soldiers. There's a handful of people with shields, people who know the tenno are coming for them and want every edge they've got.

 

Other than that, they're major technophobes. Everything from the way they do battle ((Energy shields are fairly common, yet with the exception of light infantry which is meant to be fast on their feet, they all use bulky, heavy armor, or use big metal shields to protect their body)) to the design of their ships and factories. (( very low tech, lots of simple machinery. Very little in the way of complex tech or robotics)) 

 

The only time you see tech in the grineer faction is if it's at levels relative to modern day standards. Roller balls are pretty similiar to some robots currently used by military forces. Someone could easily build a roller with modern day  levels of tech. They're not smart machines.

 

The only logical reason for them to be this distrustful of advanced tech, is fear of creating another singularity, landing them in another war with machines. 

 

There ya go. Chew that over.

[CourageosDream]

well since the corpus use proxies to control crewman isnt it also possible that tenno do as well?

maybe the warframes are living dolls controlled in a similar fashion? would explain the need for the control module material

and isnt it possible that the tenno are hunting for materials for more warframes, hence the strike on jupiter for the much needed neural sensors?

[Lumireaver]

well since the corpus use proxies to control crewman isnt it also possible that tenno do as well?

maybe the warframes are living dolls controlled in a similar fashion? would explain the need for the control module material

and isnt it possible that the tenno are hunting for materials for more warframes, hence the strike on jupiter for the much needed neural sensors?

 

I think you've misunderstood something. The crewmen are crewmen, stationed in order to repair the proxies. The Corpus proxies are the Moa, Osprey, and the Jackal/Hyena, and they're reffered to as such because they handle the business end of negotiations in place of the Corpus. The greater majority of the Corpus simply aren't present in the game because they hightailed it to the boundaries of the system when things started to get nasty. They're like martial pacifists in space. They have weapons and means of self defense, but would rather not get involved with conflict. It just so happens we Tenno like screwing with everyone. 

 

Or, alternatively, I've misunderstood something. Either way, keep in mind that Coprus crewmen are just wearing stupidly large hats. They are not robots. ...And neural sensors are Grineer tech. Our make-shift Warframes aren't like the Orokin tech of yore. They're made out of salvaged, double reverse engineered scraps lifted from all over the solar system.

[SilverBones]

Okay, still working on a post, but I added this to the front for now!

 

-----------------------

 

A brief summary of discussions so far and my Arguments for Transhumanism in the Tenno.

• The Warframe is not a machine, but perhaps a biological, mechanical construct that houses the ‘essence’ of the Tenno. This means that the Warframe can bleed, stumble, fall whatever, but is also capable of superhuman feats of strength, power and agility that are impossible for the human body to perform without full replacement augmentations.

   

• The Tenno in rescue missions are perhaps diplomats or some other political member of the Tenno race. Although they may appear human, the body could be just as much a construct used for meeting other, more physical races and provide the illusion of similarity. They sure don’t act like masters of Gun and Blade, even without Warframe armor! Remember, the Devs have said that what lies below the armor is not set in stone.

   

• The human body is incapable of performing the kinds of feats used by the Tenno on a daily basis. Even if it were a super-powered suit, the joints, musculature and bone structure of a vanilla human inside would be liquefied after a few weeks.

   

• Matter to energy conversion has been confirmed in the Capture missions, turning the prisoner into energy and essentially absorbing it. This means that essentially digitizing a consciousness for interrogation is possible; eluding that such a process could be used by the Tenno.

   

• We all agree that the races share a common ancestor in Humanity!

   

• This would be the simplest explanation for the lack of a gender swap, while having several Warframes of the same type in one ‘cell’ of Tenno. The Warframe is perhaps designed with little room for leeway change, so the Tenno ‘re-sleeve’ themselves into the new Warframe when needed. Essentially meaning that perhaps the Tenno have no ‘gender’ per se. (As Scott mentioned in the Dev stream.)

   

• The Warframes are not remote controlled, as the distanced needed to transmit data would not allow for a 1-to-1 connection. Tenno would need to physically possess the suit to make sure there is no movement lag. This also brings up the possibility of death for the Tenno. Without a home for their essence (digital or otherwise) the mind would die.

   

• Why humanoid? Well, psychologically speaking, the mind still has a self-image. Also, there have been studies suggesting that if humanity ever did find another sentient, dominant species, it would most likely share humanoid traits (such as two legs, two arms and a head on top with sensory organs.) Evolution has proven it to be the most effective setup, so why change that?

   

• I do not believe an AI would be able to control a Warframe. I also do not think that it would be a desirable use of their chosen weapons. Tenno are like Samurai in my view; the Warframe may be a construct or piece of equipment, but it is treated with the same reverence as their Skana (which is stated to be a pillar of their training) and used with great care and distinction. It is their physical ‘face’ and as such must be kept pure.

 

Please note that some of the items listed in my first post have been revised over several pages of discussion! Please read the back-and-forth between the posters if you plan to respond!

[Wormyish]

What about a link to the brain like in the movie Avatar?

[demonaii]

A brief summary of discussions so far and my Arguments for Transhumanism in the Tenno.

• The Warframe is not a machine, but perhaps a biological, mechanical construct that houses the ‘essence’ of the Tenno. This means that the Warframe can bleed, stumble, fall whatever, but is also capable of superhuman feats of strength, power and agility that are impossible for the human body to perform without full replacement augmentations.

   

• The Tenno in rescue missions are perhaps diplomats or some other political member of the Tenno race. Although they may appear human, the body could be just as much a construct used for meeting other, more physical races and provide the illusion of similarity. They sure don’t act like masters of Gun and Blade, even without Warframe armor! Remember, the Devs have said that what lies below the armor is not set in stone.

   

• The human body is incapable of performing the kinds of feats used by the Tenno on a daily basis. Even if it were a super-powered suit, the joints, musculature and bone structure of a vanilla human inside would be liquefied after a few weeks.

   

• Matter to energy conversion has been confirmed in the Capture missions, turning the prisoner into energy and essentially absorbing it. This means that essentially digitizing a consciousness for interrogation is possible; eluding that such a process could be used by the Tenno.

   

• We all agree that the races share a common ancestor in Humanity!

   

• This would be the simplest explanation for the lack of a gender swap, while having several Warframes of the same type in one ‘cell’ of Tenno. The Warframe is perhaps designed with little room for leeway change, so the Tenno ‘re-sleeve’ themselves into the new Warframe when needed. Essentially meaning that perhaps the Tenno have no ‘gender’ per se. (As Scott mentioned in the Dev stream.)

   

• The Warframes are not remote controlled, as the distanced needed to transmit data would not allow for a 1-to-1 connection. Tenno would need to physically possess the suit to make sure there is no movement lag. This also brings up the possibility of death for the Tenno. Without a home for their essence (digital or otherwise) the mind would die.

   

• Why humanoid? Well, psychologically speaking, the mind still has a self-image. Also, there have been studies suggesting that if humanity ever did find another sentient, dominant species, it would most likely share humanoid traits (such as two legs, two arms and a head on top with sensory organs.) Evolution has proven it to be the most effective setup, so why change that?

   

• I do not believe an AI would be able to control a Warframe. I also do not think that it would be a desirable use of their chosen weapons. Tenno are like Samurai in my view; the Warframe may be a construct or piece of equipment, but it is treated with the same reverence as their Skana (which is stated to be a pillar of their training) and used with great care and distinction. It is their physical ‘face’ and as such must be kept pure.

 

Please note that some of the items listed in my first post have been revised over several pages of discussion! Please read the back-and-forth between the posters if you plan to respond!

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

ORIGNIAL POST:

 

So when talking about the Tenno, I was previously under the impression that the Tenno were an organic race of beings who may have become so indoctrinated in their warrior mindset that they were akin to monks and ninja. Individual identity was not so important, so they called themselves by their given Warframe names – their outer faces if you will. Perhaps the Lotus was a controlling faction of beings, using the Tenno as their trigger men / women, supporting them because they themselves lacked military might.

Recently, a lot of things did not add up to that conclusion. The way the Lotus refers to herself, or the things said by bosses as they are cussing you out. Small cracks appeared in my theory of an organic race wearing a suit, but started leaning to something much more prophetic.

In short it goes like this; The Tenno is a Transhumanist Race, living in a state of either digital or energy-based life.

Let us start with the Warframes themselves.

The basics of their construction revolve around three components; the helmet, the systems and the chassis. The Helmet is pretty straight-forward in its explanation. The head is usually the most complex part of a body and generally contains a whole bunch of sensory organs / equipment. The systems are also another separate component, perhaps emulating a central nervous system. On top of that, you then have a chassis. The word chassis is the name for the underlying framework for a man-made object to function, not specifically a suit exterior or skin. All of the words seem to point towards a construct, rather than anything ‘organic’ involved, even though the plating on the Warframe looks almost like flesh and bone. If it were only a suit of armor, then why not call it such?

The recent call of gender has also made me think about the nature of the ‘Frame itself. The Devs (during the Q&A livestream) have hinted that there is perhaps no such things as ‘gender’ in the Warframe world. However the bosses call your character by name, then mentions how cowardly you act when you hide behind your ‘X’ Warframe. This would imply that either the Tenno are capable of gender swapping, or in fact, the ‘Frames are indeed constructs that are specifically made, and the Tenno somehow pilot these ‘Frames into battle.

There is also a lot of talk from bosses that may seem like simple insults, but when approaching the subject from a different angle, things start to make sense. One boss states that you are a ‘Walking Tomb’. Perhaps it is a simple insult to say that the Tenno is already dead, but then why not say that? The use of the word tomb implies something inanimate; it is a hollow, cold place to store the dead. It hints that the contents may be nothing but shades and ghosts.

The Corpus is known to take Tenno bodies and Cryopods and study them for the secrets of the Orokin. It is a technology alien to them and given their penchant for ritual and faith, perhaps it is because the contents of the body cannot be explained by their science and ritualism is often associated with a faithful reverence for something ethereal. It is – after all - implied that the Corpus engage in some kind of religious science to use and study Orokin technology.

The Grineer are envious of the Tenno, but it is never stated why. It is known that the Grineer are the results of years of cloning and genetic degradation. They discovered and reactivated the cloning technologies of old, long abandoned by the Orokin. What if the Orokin abandoned those technologies because they had found an even better way to immortalize themselves? Free of the horrors of the Technocyte plague they created and leaving behind physical, mortal weakness to disease and sickness?

The Grineer, left behind as a mortal military force would feel nothing but anger for the people who would leave them behind. Having to scrape together old technology and clone themselves into extinction would cause any mind to go on a genocidal binge of revenge, especially when a system-wide plague – created by the same people who abandoned them - was consuming whole sectors of the solar system.

It is my suspicion that the Orokin did not die out, but in fact became something completely different: a new race of transhuman creature called the Tenno. Of course in many ways, both the Grineer and Corpus are removed from the origin of humanity, less so with the Corpus perhaps with their use of proxies, but the Grineer became the evolutional dead end.

The game seems to support these ideas with both imagery and action.

The White Tower (as it has been recently called) seems more like the loading program from The Matrix. Tests are staged here and there is even talk of some kind of Tenno dojo coming to place within these Orokin towers. If these structures were in fact residences, the ability to live in them would be hard to maintain.

I think Orokin towers are nothing more than Tenno nodes and server farms. The essences of the Tenno live within these towers, gathering, training and living in a virtual environment that allows them to communicate, train and share information. Cells of Tenno are grouped into attack teams, all of them using their own Warframe Proxies to download into, perform their missions and then return to the Orokin outposts. Even the Lotus seems to be more like a control and organizational system assigned (perhaps built) by the Tenno to act as caretakers, operatives and information gatherers.

Yes. I am saying DERebecca is an AI. (Or at least her character is!)

Speaking of The Lotus, let’s talk about how she hints at a Transhumanist state.

The big hitter for me is that when you are doing a mobile defense mission, one of the objectives is to plug a data mass into the machine then guard it. The Lotus prompts you to ‘Put me into the Machine’ rather than saying, ‘connect me’ or ‘insert the connection program’ or something. The phrasing seems oddly specific. In fact, this also makes sense when she states ‘The Lotus will be pleased’ when completing a mission.

The Lotus could be the overhead AI that controls, organizes and strategizes; a defense computer if you will. Directing the Tenno and making sure that the Tenno rise again as a race seems like the kind of programming left behind by the people who created it; The Orokin. When all of the Tenno were forced into exile (supposedly by Grineer military action) whole towers were probably destroyed, losing thousands of individual Tenno essences. How do you hide? Put the Tenno in proxies and freeze them in deep space. The Lotus would watch, assess the situation and when the time was right, reactivate the Tenno and begin the process of rebuilding.

Another contributing factor is that you essentially atomize the captured corpus operative on the ship missions. After killing him, your character seems to break them down into an energy-like state and suck them into the palm of the Warframe. No sooner have you done so, the Lotus states ‘The prisoner has been transported successfully.’ (Or something like that. I’m paraphrasing.) How is it that a person turned into energy matter after being cut down can be interrogated? By digitizing a soul, the Tenno could potentially tear it apart like a program.

I am also sure the process is incredibly painful.

I have more, but I want to hear what you guys think!

Aww, sooo much text...

[Brasten]

Aww, sooo much text...

Welcome to SciFi fandom, it draws people with reading comprehension skills, unlike most of the Internet.

What about a link to the brain like in the movie Avatar?

0 chance of that. Watch the PS4/E3 trailer. The Tenno and the Body are one. Also with brain link tech if raises the question why don't we (the brains) run several Warframes at once. There are other issues with Avatar like brain link tech, like latency. Imagine trying to control your body with even a several second delay in all feedback. Now try to doing so in the middle of combat.

[SilverBones]

Theory number 2

 

The Warframe Universe is set after the technological singularity. The orokin aren't an alien race, they're just highly advanced robots who gained sentience and the ability to continually make themselves smarter. This explains how thousands of years after the fact, tech they made, is still more powerful than modern tech with thousands of years of advancement.

So, what happened? The "Ancients" The pure bred humans at the time did one of two things, they either started a religion around this new robotic life that promised Utopia in time, or they became distrustful and rallied against them. The Tenno were the warrior caste of the Orokin cult, blessed with suits composed of both organic matter, and highly advanced technology that augmented their fearsome skills and made them the perfect soldier.

 

and thus the robot-human war commenced, with the humans suffering mass casualties and being pushed back on every front. So they decided as a last ditch effort to start mass producing clones to fill in their ranks ((The only way to explain grineer cloning is to picture a time where they needed a massive amount of manpower, but couldn't wait for the natural birth process to raise them)) and they started pushing back. They started pushing back hard.

 

So a slow war of attrition set in, The Robots either couldn't or wouldn't use cloning to fill their ranks, so they started feeling the loss before long. So they turned to biological warfare, modifying the bacteria used to grow warframes to attack living humans and convert them into organic machines. But things went wrong. Either they didn't have as much control over the infected as they originally thought, or they never expected the virus to evolve. The second singularity occurs shortly after, bringing a new and very dangerous 3rd party nobody has control over.

 

And so the robots, deciding to cut their losses and make use of their new tech, freezes and hides their warrior followers. 

 

As to what happened to the non warrior members of this religion? They became the corpus, leaving earth and colonizing the rest of the galaxy far away from the earth's clone army and control. Over the years, their religious document gets thoroughly revised, leading them to believe the way to ascension is to merge technology with humanity ((A corpus without his helmet, looks essentially like a human with some wires attached)) The reason they rely on proxies so much is that they lost a lot of members during the war, reducing the amount of healthy conceiving pure bred humans.

The Lotus were originally the priests of this robot cult. We're not on just any kind of mission, we're reigniting a holy war and purging the non believers and those who have lost the way of our faith.

 

The Stalker is a tenno who managed to both keep his suit and be freed of the years of indoctrination he would have faced under his robot overlords. This is why he won't work for the corpus, he views them as betrayers of the human race. This is why he so passionately defends the grineer, Because they're the closest thing to original humans that the galaxy has left.

 

The Grinner are the result  of taking humanity, forcing them into a war against a superior force, forcing them into a genetic bottleneck, cloning that genetic bottleneck repeatedly. The reason they continue to clone is because they continue to have threats in the universe. The Corpus aren't friendly to them by any stretch of the imagination. They had a lot of weapons lying around that were in use well before the Tenno showed back up. and the infested are pretty much the borg. This also explains the limited use of technology and robotics and even shields in their soldiers. There's a handful of people with shields, people who know the tenno are coming for them and want every edge they've got.

 

Other than that, they're major technophobes. Everything from the way they do battle ((Energy shields are fairly common, yet with the exception of light infantry which is meant to be fast on their feet, they all use bulky, heavy armor, or use big metal shields to protect their body)) to the design of their ships and factories. (( very low tech, lots of simple machinery. Very little in the way of complex tech or robotics)) 

 

The only time you see tech in the grineer faction is if it's at levels relative to modern day standards. Roller balls are pretty similiar to some robots currently used by military forces. Someone could easily build a roller with modern day  levels of tech. They're not smart machines.

 

The only logical reason for them to be this distrustful of advanced tech, is fear of creating another singularity, landing them in another war with machines. 

 

There ya go. Chew that over.

 

This - by the way - is beautiful :)