Is Warframe an alternative history?

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

As you all know, there is very little evidence of 21st century civilization in the Origin system. There is so little evidence that I would have to point to certain ruins in the Plains of Eidolon that vaguely resembles the construction style of our era to make any argument about Warframe being a strictly furture timeline. And then there's the matter of which way you lean with Dark Sector. Very iffy. You'd also think that, if magic and the void existed, it would be known in the 21st century. All very weird and questionable. ... Or is it just a the far-flung future to the point that there is absolutely nothing left of our time? What of the proto skins? What does it all mean!?

[MystMan]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)Architect Prime said:

Or is it just a the far-flung future to the point that there is absolutely nothing left of our time?

This. Look at the animals, they all evolved far away into what we have today.   Dogs replaced by egg-laying Kubrows (dogs have all been altered by Orokin genetic manipulation, I guess). Such a drastic evolutionary change would take millions of years. And the Orokin have been around for that long before their empire collapsed.
Only Condrocs still look like our vultures. All other air/land/water animals in Cetus Plains are straight up alien-like.

1 hour ago, (XBOX)Architect Prime said:

What of the proto skins?

Easter egg fan service from DE's previous IP Dark Sector.  That game was supposed to be Warframe but got cut down into a single player game because of creative differences with publishers. Warframe is its spiritual successor, the game DE wanted to make in the first place without publisher interference.

Edited August 21, 2023 by MystMan

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

1 hour ago, MystMan said:

This. Look at the animals, they all evolved far away into what we have today.   Dogs replaced by egg-laying Kubrows (dogs have all been altered by Orokin genetic manipulation, I guess). Such a drastic evolutionary change would take millions of years. And the Orokin have been around for that long before their empire collapsed.
Only Condrocs still look like our vultures. All other air/land/water animals in Cetus Plains are straight up alien-like.

Alternate historoes typically have a point where they diverge from the regular timeline (before the present). I guess what I'm wondering is at what point Warframe's history most likely splits off. For example, the Fallout universe diverges when they never invent the transistor and micro proccessor - which results in its retro-futurism. So for Warframe, I wonder where that change would be. 

1 hour ago, MystMan said:

Easter egg fan service from DE's previous IP Dark Sector.  That game was supposed to be Warframe but got cut down into a single player game because of creative differences with publishers. Warframe is its spiritual successor, the game DE wanted to make in the first place without publisher interference.

In conjunction to my above response, You could head cannon it to be around the time that Dark Secotr would've taken place. 

 

There are other hints in the lore, like the "radiation wars", which might be helpful. 

[PollexMessier]

I'm pretty sure the warframe universe is so far into the future form our own that there's really no point in even considering where it started relative to our time. They progressed to a point where they could terraform most planets in our solar system including some gas giants (Note Uranus and Neptune have livable surfaces in WF), which by our current understanding is completely impossible. Then that civilization played itself out for likely thousands of years until it ended, and THEN enough time passed for their structures to lay in ruin across the solar system.

Not to mention Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system, is frozen over. And the entirety of plantlife on Earth is genetically modified.

Every trace of our modern civilization would've been dust long before the Orokin empire even started. The void is a discovery of the Orokin so we would have no chance of seeing even a trace of it at our current level of technology. I'd hazard a guess that the void didn't even interact with our plane of reality at all until the Orokin decided to mess with it. And as for magic, well warframe very much falls into the idea of "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" It's not that magic exists, it's that what's done in warframe that looks like magic was created by the Orokin. Granted what the operators do with void energy may very well be magic but that's back to the void which for all intents and purposes is impossible for modern science to discover or interact with.

Edited August 22, 2023 by PollexMessier

[Zahnrad]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)Architect Prime said:

Or is it just a the far-flung future to the point that there is absolutely nothing left of our time?

This has pretty much been my belief.

"Long ago in a Galaxy Solar System Far Far Away In the Future."

[(PSN)robotwars7]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)Architect Prime said:

Or is it just a the far-flung future to the point that there is absolutely nothing left of our time? What of the proto skins? What does it all mean!?

in his lore entries, Albrecht Entrati alluded to how the need for exploration has been with us forever, "before our Radiation Wars, Oil, Smoke...". the term "Radiation Wars" appears to me to reference an all out, global nuclear conflict, which would certainly wipe out much of our infrastructure from that time. I believe Radiation Wars are also referenced in the Duviri quiz, and there was apparently a lot of them, double figures at least.

the period that followed after this would be one where humanity only slowly rebuilds, and assuming the Radiation Wars take place in present time, it's only thousands upon thousands of years into the future when Humanity has regained much of it's lost technology that the Void is Discovered, and ultimately offers new technologies that pave the way for the Orokin Empire. then there's other indicators:

- the fact that their tech is almost magical in nature, defying physical and natural laws is easy, the Orokin cannot even die and have limited powers such as telepathy.

- the animals have all evolved from what we have now, a process that can only occur over hundreds and thousands of years at it's fastest, thoguh technology would play a part (breeding ideal pets for the Orokin for example)

- not just earth but the entire solar system had been conquered, even before the attempts to use the Void for FTL travel to reach Tau: Solar Rails would be used to launch spacecraft from one rail to another, with each rail being near a planet, possibly even in it's orbit.. again, the Orokin's technology would have sped up the process, terraformign the surface and changing the atmosphere to become more habitable, but it would still take a long time to travel to and from planets within our system, and also colonize each one in its entirety.

- the Empire that had ALL THIS still declined and eventually reached a point where they needed to leave Sol as there were no longer enough resources to sustain the Empire indefinitley, hence the construction of the Zariman. this decline would have happened slowly and over the course of hundreds, if not thousands of years more.

TL:DR:

everything got nuked

everything got rebuilt 

probably tens or hundreds of thousands of years later, the Void is discovered

activate Sci-Fi setting.exe.

Orokin empire starts and lasts for eons, long enough to almost totally deplete the system of resources.

Orokin Empire collapses.

and I believe this all takes place over the course of several hundred thousand, years, possibly over a million years. so yes, the FAR future is where we are.

 

 

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

Iirc the Orokin empire specifically removed all evidence of previous empires with the exceptions of (1) Warframes' designs and (2) Dark Sector inspired skins.

[GrayArchon]

3 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

the term "Radiation Wars" appears to me to reference an all out, global nuclear conflict, which would certainly wipe out much of our infrastructure from that time. I believe Radiation Wars are also referenced in the Duviri quiz, and there was apparently a lot of them, double figures at least.

You are correct. The Zariman quiz tablets say there were at least 18 Radiation Wars.

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

1 hour ago, GrayArchon said:

You are correct. The Zariman quiz tablets say there were at least 18 Radiation Wars.

THAT IS ALLOT OF NUCLEAR WARS

[SneakyErvin]

It follows our history, we just dont know when the WF specific history started. We also know that it is false that the Orokin wanted to hide past history, we can just look at the things in game to get that confirmed.

Plenty of things in the game related to human culture and progress.

Frames: Loki, Oberon, Titania, Excalibur, Garuda, Grendel, Vauban, Wukong, Nezha, Atlas, Nyx, Kullervo and Gauss are all reference to old earth achievments or cultures.

Weapons: Gram, Pangolin Sword, Paris, Tigris, Gorgon, Corinth, Artemis Bow (Ivara Exalted), Diwata (Titania) and Cronus.

Skins: Gemeni Surt and Ymir, The Danaus, Ivara Skathi, Revenant Mephisto, Zephyr Harrier and surely more.

Places: Most of the names on the planets, or the name of planets/moons themselves that date back to our time.

Edited August 22, 2023 by SneakyErvin

[TARINunit9]

On 2023-08-21 at 1:52 PM, MystMan said:

Such a drastic evolutionary change would take millions of years. And the Orokin have been around for that long before their empire collapsed.
Only Condrocs still look like our vultures. All other air/land/water animals in Cetus Plains are straight up alien-like.

Most of Earth's flora and fauna hasn't evolved, it's been replaced with genetically-engineered versions. The trees are descended from an area denial weapon. By contrast, non-Orokin humans have NOT changed, further implying we haven't had enough generations to see any meaningful evolution

In addition, we can see from certain skyboxes that Continental Drift has not set in yet, Africa is still the same shape

Thousands of years? Yes. Ten or twenty thousand is likely. But millions? No, were aren't quite that far

Edited August 24, 2023 by TARINunit9

[(XBOX)Hellsteeth30]

No, it's a poorly thrown together pile of ideas from writers who came and went over the years.

[(PSN)Unstar]

On 2023-08-21 at 1:00 PM, (XBOX)Architect Prime said:

You'd also think that, if magic and the void existed, it would be known in the 21st century.

Why would you think that?  Human society is constantly discovering new things.  We can no more presume that we are aware of everything that exists than people in the middle ages could.

 

On 2023-08-21 at 1:00 PM, (XBOX)Architect Prime said:

As you all know, there is very little evidence of 21st century civilization in the Origin system.

There's actually one very big remainder that most people seem to overlook: language.  To be precise, the people in the Warframe universe use a variety of figures of speech, terms, and metaphors that couldn't exist without certain prerequisites.

For example, Little Duck says, "We kicked a clown car."  That means clowns are a thing, and it means that clown cars are a thing.  That's a very specific thing.  According to Wikipedia, clown cars were first used by one specific circus company in the 1950's.  And this terminology is a remnant of that history.

And we can get even more specific.  Little Duck has this line in Scarlet Spear:

"We take that friendly data and use it as a Trojan horse for toxic data - think of it as a Kill Code."

You see what she said?  Trojan horse.  That's a term you don't get unless your world's history includes the Trojan War.

If you listen well, there are dozens of these references to Earth's history that characters of all stripes say in Warframe.  And it all suggests that the Origin System is our Sol System.

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

21 hours ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

Why would you think that?  Human society is constantly discovering new things.  We can no more presume that we are aware of everything that exists than people in the middle ages could.

...

21 hours ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

Why would you think that?  Human society is constantly discovering new things.  We can no more presume that we are aware of everything that exists than people in the middle ages could.

 

I like this response. I think you're probably smarter than whoever was writing that line though. I'm sure they're great artists, but I'm reasonably certain that they weren't thinking about this. 

[SneakyErvin]

13 hours ago, (XBOX)Architect Prime said:

...

I like this response. I think you're probably smarter than whoever was writing that line though. I'm sure they're great artists, but I'm reasonably certain that they weren't thinking about this. 

Well they uhm probably did since the discovery of the Void and "magic" is directly stated as something discovered by the Orokin Empire. So a human discovery not made until thousands of years into the future. I dont really see how we should have discovered it by now just because it is part of a game? We havent even reached Mars yet in a proper way.

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

9 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

Well they uhm probably did since the discovery of the Void and "magic" is directly stated as something discovered by the Orokin Empire. So a human discovery not made until thousands of years into the future. I dont really see how we should have discovered it by now just because it is part of a game? We havent even reached Mars yet in a proper way.

I suppose you're right about this. 

[(XBOX)Tanta Cinta]

Bro you were onto something with this thread. Did you know what the demo was going to be?

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

Update: It's wilder than we thought. 

[PublikDomain]

Quote

Is Warframe an alternative history?

No, it's a JoJo reference.

[Hypernaut1]

wow, what a call

[V2lkyr]

Are you a prophet?

[_Eclips3_]

How can this be the future and not an alternate timeline if the game is based in 1999 but the Warframe is a human in a suit that has all the same abilities as Excalibur?

Edited August 26, 2023 by _Eclips3_

[herflik]

Remember the new expansion timeline is 1999 during new year eve, so there must be some major event in 2000 year. Just like everybody was expecting something like world end. Especialy that the Dr. Entrati state that its to late when we hear the countdown of new year.

Edited August 26, 2023 by herflik

[Chewarette]

9 minutes ago, herflik said:

. Especialy that the Dr. Entrati state that its to late when we hear the countdown of new year.

Entrati’s smile was familiar though. I hope it’s more like Wally #*!%ing with us, because that last part was complete nonsensical garbage

[(XBOX)Tanta Cinta]

16 minutes ago, herflik said:

Remember the new expansion timeline is 1999 during new year eve, so there must be some major event in 2000 year. Just like everybody was expecting something like world end. Especialy that the Dr. Entrati state that its to late when we hear the countdown of new year.

How incredibly wild and crazy would it be if Warframe's history and rise of the Orokin all relied on Y2K lmaooo