Are We Really The Good Guys?

[Voidbringer]

"Good" is such a naive concept, we're Tenno we fight for our own interests, not for "good". 

[Wyzilla]

We all know the story. We have woken from cryo sleep, and being the guardians of the solar system, we are once again called upon to defend it from the bad guys that threaten it.

 

But what if the Corpus and Grineer aren't really the bad guys? What if Lotus is the bad guy, and the Tenno are just her pawns?

 

If you don't know already, the Tenno were created by the Orokin to be supersoldiers in the war against the Sentients (taken from Excalibur's codex entry). We also know that Lotus was around during the war, as she mentions flashbacks about guiding a Tenno in a Mirage frame that was fighting the Sentients (talked about during quest for Mirage).

 

Because Lotus is there for every Warframe, maybe she was an AI that was created to help us. But what if Lotus got corrupted? In the series Red vs Blue (by Rooster Teeth), there are AI that were made to help the soldiers, but some went psycho and would take over the user and control them, using them to kill others.

 

After winning the war against the Sentients, all the Tenno supposedly decided to murder their Orokin masters that were celebrating their victory (Stalker's codex entry). But what if the Tenno really didn't do it? What if it was the corrupt Lotus AI that took over the frames, using them to kill the Orokin. And when the Tenno came to and realized what had happened, they locked themselves in cryo pods to prevent the Lotus AI from taking over again and killing more peolpe.

 

Years later, the Lotus has probably found a way to open these cryo pods. Because of how long the Tenno have been in cryo sleep, they have forgotten everything. So Lotus tells them that there is a new enemy: the Grineer and Corpus. Because the Tenno don't know anything other than what is being told to them right now, they go along and follow Lotus.

 

Now the Grineer and Corpus are hunting the Tenno, not because they are being evil, but because they are trying to stop them from wiping out their race. Sure there are some evil people within the Corpus and Grineer (Alad V, Captain Vor, etc), but in general they really aren't the bad ones. It's the Lotus that is the bad guy, and the Tenno that are the threat.

 

What are your thoughts on it?

There are no good guys in Warframe, every faction by modern standards is baby murdering evil. Although I could also always point out that morality is subjective, and thus everyone is good and evil. But by first world standards, every faction looks like a nice dark shade of grey.

 

Also, I take offense at your literature and gaming ignorance when you cite Rooster Teeth as an example of how AI can go rogue, when Issac Asimov says hello and Bungie delved into the subject of "rampancy" in AI with their Marathon trilogy.

[Aramanth]

A Tenno enters a spy mission.

 

Lotus: Change of plans, leave nothing alive.

 

Sounds pretty sadistically evil to me.

 

Lotus: Tenno, we need you to infiltrate this Grineer ship and collect as much intel as possible.  Try to avoid conflict if you can.

 

*Five minutes later*

 

Vor: Hey Lotus!  Your hat is dumb!

 

Lotus: you little.....Tenno, change of plans, kill everyone.  @(*()$...everyone.

[Kartumterek]

There is no good or evil. We simply can enforce our will upon the residents of this system and bend/break them in our mold. Just like the other factions.

 

Even the Infested behave the same way

[vaugahn]

This is taken straight from the faction bio:

 

"Fragments of history suggest that discipline and chivalry are the cornerstone values of the Tenno: is this true today? The Tenno are emerging into a world unfamiliar to them. One sees a noble warrior, building his strength against an oppressive regime. Another sees an opportunistic mercenary, exploiting the Warframe's superiority for wealth. Regardless of their future, the Tenno stand united against a common foe, loyal only to each other."

 

So, both good and bad sort of?

[SilentMobius]

Given that the devs answered the question with direct word-of-god "You are the good guys" I don't think there is any room for debate.

[Wiegraf]

I doubt there's any true black and white; this future is far more full of shades of grey in which the Tenno are part of. Maybe we were once responsible for the end of the Orokin era and there was evil intent behind it... or maybe the Orokin themselves weren't all that good and the Tenno merely responded to them as a threat as much as the Sentient were.

 

As for now, I believe that while the Tenno retain their training and perhaps some of their morals, the fact that they can be warring between themselves over solar rails and decide to aid their enemies against another of their own volition means they're only as evil as we, as players, make them to be.

 

After all, while the Lotus might be guiding our hand most of the time, we're the one left with the decision to go through with something ultimately. Else, we'd always run away from the Grustrag 3 whenever they appear since Lotus demands it... but we've had multiple opportunities to take them down instead of our own choosing.

 

So if you're personnally fighting for an actual improvement of the situation, sure you're a good guy; if you're fighting for credits, then you're a greedy materialist. If you're fighting simply for the joy of indiscriminate killing, then you're most probably evil. It's up to you now since the Tenno are individuals now and no longer a cohesive force (like I believe it's been hinted they were before).

Edited July 30, 2014 by Wiegraf

[MrKage]

I really dont care if we are the good or bad guys im having fun killing anything dat Lotus points to kill so......but a little more lore to know exactly what we are would be good

[EviLxKR]

Yea, I was thinking that maybe stalker is the good guy that he realised what he was doing are wrong and Lotus was lying. :o

[Pansoy]

I'd prefer being bad.

 

[Phantasm98532]

Noone has really speculated, but I would like to take a stab at solving some of this puzzle, We all know the Tenno revolted against the Orokin in spectacular fashion according to the stalker codex. No one however, really understands why, personally, I think some if not all of the answer lies within the Infested. The Orokins used every research at their disposal to try and win the old wars against the sentients, including unleashing the engineered bio weapon virus on the galaxy.

Think about it, how benevolent can these people have been unleashing a plague into the world that continues to overrun maim and destroy world after world after world even to this day after the war, this virus corrupts and mutates seemingly everything.............how many planets? How many lives? How many families ripped apart and turned into these gnarling moaning creatures that we are slaughtering constantly, the Orokin were clearly experimenting heavily into multiple aspects, who is to say they wanted to stop at winning the war? Who is to say they were satisfied with just the Tenno? No, I think they became greedy, I think there were more sinister motives still left in play, you had just won the war by creating the ultimate in super soldiers with godlike power, and crippled countless other galaxies with a lab engineered virus in essence paving the way for an invasion the likes noone had seen................I don't think the Tenno liked the thought of being used as conquerors.

 

 

I would love to see this opened up into a wide sweeping epic involving the war's and political plot twists and turns involving the orokin society, I think a story line in this manner would be quite satisfying.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Phantasm98532

[Gentlemoa]

They told me I could be anything...

 

So I became a threshcone.

Hmm video tag not working: 

To be serious, the lotus is the evil and i don't trust her but i want moar loooooore. 

Edited July 30, 2014 by Gentlemoa

[SoIaris]

The first "Tenno" was Hayden Tenno from Dark Sector, the "perfect" version of mutation that grinder are failing at. He was a special agent of sorts to stop them from taking over the world. And lotus is ( most likely ) a black market dealer's daughter who also supported Hayden's cause. So I doubt she is evil, but it could be the war frames themselves got corrupted ( similar to ordis ) and to save them she put them in cryosleep to re-"purify" them.

[SoIaris]

So in other words she isn't evil nor good so to speak, but truly trying to keep instead of world control solar system control

[Gentlemoa]

The first "Tenno" was Hayden Tenno from Dark Sector, the "perfect" version of mutation that grinder are failing at. He was a special agent of sorts to stop them from taking over the world. And lotus is ( most likely ) a black market dealer's daughter who also supported Hayden's cause. So I doubt she is evil, but it could be the war frames themselves got corrupted ( similar to ordis ) and to save them she put them in cryosleep to re-"purify" them.

DE said multiple times that dark sector and warframe are different universes. 

[SoIaris]

Also to reply on the stalker being good, I don't think he's bad and in Tenno standards he must have been highly ranked to have custom made weapons. I think the stalker thought that the Tenno were the ones taking over with the excuse of balance to keep them human. So he decided to make sure the Tenno didn't get out of control. Which could be a reason that after the jackal fight he reminds you of the consequences of too much power

[SoIaris]

DE said multiple times that dark sector and warframe are different universes.

but they are just so similar D:

[LuNick]

Lil Sis: why did the stalker sent me that mail?
Me: cause you kill ambulas
Lil Sis: but he attacked me first!
Me: no. you get in there without permission and killed everyone.
Lil Sis: and why did i do that?
Me: cause lotus want you to do it...
Lil Sis: and why did she want me to do that?
Me: ... i don't know! cause they were evil?

Lil Sis: how do you know they were evil?

Me: I DON'T KNOW!! STOP PLAYING THIS GAME!! LET'S GO TO THE PARK!!
 

[vaugahn]

Also to reply on the stalker being good, I don't think he's bad and in Tenno standards he must have been highly ranked to have custom made weapons. I think the stalker thought that the Tenno were the ones taking over with the excuse of balance to keep them human. So he decided to make sure the Tenno didn't get out of control. Which could be a reason that after the jackal fight he reminds you of the consequences of too much power

 

In his codex he's referred to as a "low Guardian" so I doubt he's highly ranked.

 

And he does that randomly after any boss fight, not just jackal XD

[Arabaxus]

I hope we're actually the bad guys. The bad guys always get the cooler toys. Except maybe Iron Man. And Batman.

[Viridias]

Also to reply on the stalker being good, I don't think he's bad and in Tenno standards he must have been highly ranked to have custom made weapons. I think the stalker thought that the Tenno were the ones taking over with the excuse of balance to keep them human. So he decided to make sure the Tenno didn't get out of control. Which could be a reason that after the jackal fight he reminds you of the consequences of too much power

 

We have not the foggiest who the "Low Guardians" actually were and what their relationship with the Tenno was, other than that they were clearly a separate organisation. The name suggests an existence of a separate force of "High Guardians", which may have been the Tenno or, say, the personal bodyguards of the Orokin rulers (this has AFAIK been the usual case IRL where similar names were used).

 

Whoever the LGs were they were clearly unable to keep the Tenno mutiny from summarily massacring the gathered Orokin notables or exact retribution after the fell deed, so clearly they were not on par with the veteran supersoldiers in combat ability. Quite likely, going by what snippets we've been given of the manner in which the Tenno aquired their Void powers and how they were regarded, these Guardians either lacked comparable abilities or only had lesser versions thereof. If we go with the latter it could be theorised the Lows were either the products of efforts to find alternate means of creating Void-powered warriors or "partial success" Void exposure cases who survived but did not exhibit the power levels that would have qualified them for frontline service in thw war against the Sentients.

Or whatever.

Which, of course, raises the question where the Stalker's powers come from. Was he of some kind of officer class among the LGs? Did he only aquire his powers only after the Fall, one way or another? His Codex entry makes it sounds like his Batcave is located in the Void or the Dark Sectors or something similar, as well as that where the Tenno went into cryosleep he stayed more or less active - did he simply start out with only very weak powers and develop them into their current level over God knows how many years of practice (and maybe minor Void exposure)?

 

His weapons are actually the easiest to explain. If they weren't at least partially part of his original kit as a Low Guardian, after the fall of the Orokin and the Tenno retreating into their long sleep he basically had a free rein to take his pick from the ruins of an empire - and due to his previous position he probably had a fairly good idea of where to go looking for armouries and storages.

 

Insofar his motives go his main thing seems to be trying to keep the awakened Tenno from meddling too much in the developements of the current era. Probably thinks they should leave it to the "locals" to take things where they want without the interference of such ancient specters from stasis pods.

Seems kind of tilting at windmills mind you, but then nobody said Stalky is very sane...

[SilentMobius]

DE said multiple times that dark sector and warframe are different universes. 

 

No they didn't, they were explicitly vague on the subject. They said:

"They came from the same well of awsome", "That events of Warframe would happen soooo far in the future of the events of Dark Sector that it wouldn't matter" and "Of course there is a connection between Dark Sector and Warframe" also "Hayden Tenno was the first 'Tenno'"

 

It's far from 100% canon but there are are a _number_ of DS parts that Warframe directly references.

Edited July 31, 2014 by SilentMobius

[Vanell32]

i dont care about it, i just like to shoot stuff :)

 

im a mindless soldier

[Renegade343]

What is good anyways? 

[TheErebus.]

I like to think of this as I do in Dark souls. More specifically in dark souls 1. In both the endings

the chosen undead either links the fire with their soul. Making them hollow and no longer sentient. And effectively continuing the world that we went through in the game. A dark, unforgiving world filled with death. Now you may think that's the bad ending right? 

No. 

In the other ending, you no leave the bonfire. Effectively bringing the entirety of Lordran into the new age of dark (which is the age of humans).

 

It is up to us to interpret whether our actions are good or not. Perhaps the Grineer are xenophobic because they know they are weak and have since then adopted their behavior as part of their culture.

In the prologue, we attack the corpus first by raiding their supply caches.