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The Scrying Eye–An Exploration Into The Manifold Influences On Warframe

(PSN)MoRockaPDX

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(PSN)MoRockaPDX

(PSN)MoRockaPDX

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tl;dr: This the first in, hopefully are series that explores the inspirations, influences and references that the DE dev's use to create Warframe. At its most minimum the new infested tileset was influenced by art commissioned for a book cover for a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories. But, I discuss how HPL's influence is so pronounced and and by so many degrees that it can be found almost everywhere.

 

Part I The Long Shadow Of H.P. Lovecraft

Introduction

 

  The purpose of this thread is an examination of the influence and reference that can be found in Warframe. By looking at the game, Warframe itself and guessing at possible sources and references, by looking at past Digital Extremes (DE) games, and interviews with staff who have discussed their work.

 
  There are a great deal of possible influence that amalgamate to create Warframe as evolved by numerous developers over the course of many years and ultimately more than one game. I will look and DE as a company, its staff, the games they produced and what they have cited as influential and what I identify as such. This will, for starters, not happen in any kind of order.
 
  I want to also point out, that many if not most of the influence I discuss are guess and inferences I make. I also want to point out that much of this is my opinion on the matter. And, I would to underline how much I think, regardless of number of references and degree of influence, DE has made a unique, creatively original, and evocative work of art.
 
  For starters, I am going to talk about an influence that has only in the last ten or so years been receiving wide spread recognition. That is the influence of Howard Phillip Lovecraft (HPL, or Lovecraft). I can almost hear the dev’s and even some of the you readers collectively grown as I write this. The reason is, despite growing acceptance of the early 20th century weird fiction, and horror writer, backlash is already setting in. This can be in-part because 90% of people miss the point with Lovecraft. 
  So, I will dedicate a large part of this post on breaking down HPL and why his body of work is relevant and valid influence on Warframe.
 
The Long Shadow H.P. Lovecraft
 
  Howard Phillip Lovecraft, has become revered as one of the fathers of modern horror and the weird tale, sometimes called gothic horror. Strangely, his popularity has only recently begun to grow, likely because his stories were originally printed in little respected pulp-mags and amateur papers. However, over the generations many of those youthful readers would become inspired by Lovecraft’s tales. A few of them are; Robert Bloch (Psycho), Ridley Scott (Alien), Guillermo Del Toro (Hell Boy), Wes Craven (The Thing), Stephen King (The Mist), etc. These are some of the more well known names that claim inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft’s work. Most writers and directors have been more obsessed with Lovecraftian surface details, tentacles, pseudopodia, but they miss the deeper philosophical meaning that’s at the source of his style. Director, Stuart Gordon’s more cheesy-horror adaptations of Reanimator and Dagon are a good examples of this. While closer film adaptations, still struggling to achieve greater audience include, The Call of Cthulhu, and Whisperers in the Darkness by the H.P.L.H.S. (H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society) or Huan Vu’s German Production, Die Farbe (The Colour).
 
  Now you can see just from that list of content, are probably someone or something that you see has inspired the creation other works. Ridley Scott, H.R. Giger, and Dan O’Bannon where originally attempting to do Lovecraft’s, At the Mountains of Madness (atMoM), before moving forward with a more mixed conceptional piece. Guillermo Del Toro has been attempting for years to make a major motion picture to honor what is arguably HPL’s most accessible story. Even Prometheus, despite its flaws, was a return to many of the original concepts of atMoM, namely finding an ancient alien site and learning of

the precursor origins of the human race, and our infinitesimally diminutive place in the scheme of beings that live over cosmic spans of space and time.

 
  And there it is. The Cosmic. H.P. Lovecraft is attributed to the creation of the philosophical concept of Cosmicism. This essentially is a rejection of teleology, divine influence or anything other than a mechanistic material universe. It is similar to Nihilism its rejection of the mostly Victorian era notion moral conclusion on, good and evil. Only egotism exist (Michel Houellebecq, 1999). Where it tends to differ is in the concentration on the insignificance of human existence, rather that a denial of a higher purpose for humanity. H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic perspective and philosophy are best summed up in his own words.
 
  “Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interest and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large. To me there is nothing but puerility in the tale in which the human form–and the local human passions and conditions and standards–are depicted as native to other worlds or other universes. To achieve the essence of real externality, wether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all.”
 
  And here is the rub. Lovecraft’s writing goes against the majority of popular fiction and even most people belief in reality, on a philosophical level. This is why there is largely three camps of Lovecraft fans. 
 
The Three Camps of Cthulhu Mythos
 
The Eldritch Rube
  All those Cthulhu Plushy’s, and charming Chootuloo jokes, and various cute manifestations of the Cthulhu mythos are categorized under the Eldritch Rube. I both hate and love the Eldritch Rube.
  Both a curse and blessing is exposure. Any new and good news, even when its bad news. Too bad this kind of good problem never materialized when Lovecraft was alive. HPL did have to defend his work from critics and even was called out on his racism during his life, and he softened some, though never truly reformed. I will discuss that disappointing attribute more, later.
  The Eldritch Rube is really just a way of categorizing the many people familiar with the surface of the Cthulhu Mythos, but in most cases have never read Lovecraft, not even any of Lovecraft’s many followers, and have at most just seen some of the movies or comics, or games that have some Lovecraftian influence in it. What these people latch onto most is the surface details of Lovecraft’s work. 
  Now there are a couple of interesting things here. Without even knowing much about HPL stories people are immediately drawn to the themes and visual horror that Lovecraft so effectively evoked. 
  The problem is that many of the rube’s attribute the value of HPL on just these surface aspects of his work and attach them to philosophies that are antithetical to Lovecraft’s expressions. This isn’t surprising as it is natural to adapt the work of others, Lovecraft himself did plenty of that. So, the Eldritch Rube is kinda a double edged sword. Almost worse is the Derleth Camp.
 
The Derleth Camp
August Derleth, was a friend and the individual ultimately left in charge of the Lovecraft estate after HPL’s untimely demise. He was also a writer and one that, to put it bluntly didn’t get Lovecraft, or didn’t care. That is a bit crude. He may well have cared, but he wanted a more commercial Lovecraftian mythos, and Lovecraft was infuriatingly non-commercial. Aside from not coming out with material fast enough, he fought revision and editorial, and would not conform in the slightest. Perhaps, Lovecraft’s most commercially accessible work was Reanimator. He treated the work as a satirical cereal piece, and actually made some money doing it. But he was loathe do such work. Even most of Lovecraft’s ghost writing, that actually comprised of a lot of work, was rarely so commercial.
  Derleth, however was not. He wrote Lovecraftian stories, that conformed to a more traditional good and evil philosophy before and after HPL’s death. He promoted the idea that Lovecraft encouraged the collaboration and repurposing of his pseudo mythology and locations, setting and characters. Despite, some collaborations, Lovecraft’s general approval of the practice applied to mostly his friends and contemporaries, like Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E Howard (Conan author). Not anyone and everyone was included in this circle of collaboration and it was not as expansive as Derleth and successors, like Robert Pierce, would argue for. And why? Money of course. The generations of Lovecraft followers would come from either a sort of Derleth Camp or something more true too Lovecraft. Not, all of the Derleth style Cthulhu mythos imposters are totally bad, but they do misconstrue Lovecrafts work and betray his philosophy. A corpus of work that has been recognized to have serous literary merit. And why? To conform to the familiar themes and tropes that people are raised with all over the world, and attract their dollars? Who knows, but even if there is room for both in a big world it is a shame that the Derleth Mythos is what most people are really thinking of when they think of the Cthulhu mythos, and not the real Lovecraftian Mythos.
  Having said all this, I would be remiss not to point out that Derleth was instrumental to keeping the flame of Lovecraft’s work alive over the years to inspire so many people into such a verity of creations.
 
The Scholarly Camp
  For me, I had to read and reread and then read annotated and analytical books of Lovecraft’s work before I felt I could truly understand it. Why? because it I, like almost everyone, has grown up exposed to literature, movies, and TV, that reflect a very different world view than that of the one Lovecraft portrays. The Cosmic Indifference wasn’t lost on me but I couldn’t fully conceive of the meaning of it. It was my first glimpse into a different world view, a path of philosophy that fundamentally sees reality differently than the vast majority of people of the planet. One that doesn’t except a platonic Prime Mover, or any other teleology. It was the door to atheism for me, a path that I am not alone on, but I have discovered that many people arrive her via different means, and that just the rejection of the status quo is not the same as a denial of teleology, and therefore a true atheist. This is only important, in understanding that Lovecraft was a hardcore atheist, and though he did not promote ideologies very much, every story is still painting a message. And Lovecraft’s was that you are a small animal, in a small moment on a small rock in  a small corner of an incomprehensibly large universe, and when your time comes to return to the void you came from it is over. Or, Cosmicism. Many scholars over decades have revealed how layered and nuanced this message is throughout Lovecraft’s work. After you get past the mere surface revulsion HPL expresses toward what he often seems to feel as a pointless excursive in living, we get to the awesomeness of the cosmic mystery that spreads like an infinity of unknowable reality. 
  It was from the reading of S.T. Joshi annotation and analysis of HPL’s writing, and biographical information on Lovecraft that I grew to truly appreciate the depth and meaning of the work. For years I struggled with brainwashing of romantic fiction and teleological philosophy that permeates everything in society, that I had extreme difficulty not trying to conform Lovecraft’s writing into standard tropes. The the more I read the more stringently the scholars pointed Lovecraft’s denouement of those beliefs. And the horror of Lovecraft became my horror and loosing faith in a world back by motivations and purpose. It was a liberty that I was not prepared for and most people are not either. Most liberty is seen as burden and that is why it is so often surrendered. 
  Not too many people have read all the works of Lovecraft or the associated studies on his work. Few too are those you are already of like mind that read the work and, “already get it.”
 
Recognition Of HPL’s Racism
 
Joshi, one of the most prominent Lovecraft biographers, stated his disappointment that a man who could reevaluate his world outlook, in face of evidence, would fail to do so so throughly as when it comes to race (I paraphrase S.T. Joshi). 
  The racism issue with any author is only a problem if there material is usually centered or promoting of racism, otherwise is more important to note the racism and factor it in when considering the body of work as a whole. Similar to Mark Twain, who has rather divisive racist issues. Then you have propagandist works that promote pseudoscience to promote a system of racism, and such works are justifiably met with ridicule, like Mein Kampf.
  In short, the racism should be acknowledged, but if it is an issue of great concern to you I would be more concerned with our current systems of racial injustice, instead of equivocating over a dead guys degree of racism, and that isn’t the point of this piece.
 
Digital Extremes and Lovecraftian Influence
 
  So, how does DE and Lovecraft cross? Simple, at this point it is almost impossible to not have come in contact with the work of Lovecraft, either directly or indirectly. HPL’s shadow has landed everywhere, but as I explained people land all across the spectrum of three major Cthulhu Mythos camps. 
  Lovecraft, Cthulhu and even the word Eldritch is mention between 35 and 40 times across the Warframe Forum. And during the, Meet Mark T piece on the Warframe website, (https://warframe.com/news/let’s-meet-marc-t) We see the mention of HPL.
 
“The first thing that popped into my head were those H.P. Lovecraft book covers. If you’ve seen the covers, with the grey and the red eyes and the tree with all the eyeballs on it. That’s the concept that I started the pallet from. That kind of bright red and dark crimsons for the Infested work. In order to keep it in a really hard contrast were the bright clean Corpus lighting, and the bright blue moonlighting.” – Marc T
 
  He probably even read some of it. The infested, and before that, the Tecnocyte infected from Dark Sector have some Lovecraftian atmospheres to them. I also got a, the Shadow Over Innsmouth, vibe from the neighborhoods in Dark Sector. And as I have also mentioned, what qualifies as Lovecraftian is a pretty watered down thing now. Marc T used the artists work that was contracted to create a vision of Lovecraftian horror in one book cover. And that image stuck in the mind of the artist that made the new Infested tile set. 
  All the developer over the years probably have various degrees of meta-lovecraftian influence pronounced throughout the development of Dark Sector-to-Warframe. Steve Sinclair, as the lead creative behind Dark Sector and ultimately Warframe would gate keeper for game shaping influence. I would be equally unsurprised is he said Lovecraft was thought little of, as if he said is was deeply thought of. A personal recognition to the significance of Lovecraft’s writing and it’s impact across multiple industries would be nice, because Lovecraft deserves it. And I think he could do so without undermining the quality and uniqueness to DE hard work and creative genius. It is important to note that I am not trying to say that because people have been influence by Lovecraft, that their work is derivative, necessarily. And in the case of Lovecraft, if you could actually be derivative of his true work, then that would be welcome. Even the Call of Cthulhu, Dark Corners of the Earth, as game steeped in the Cthulhu Mythos and is set in an actual Lovecraft setting, looses connection with the core themes and philosophy of Lovecraft. But, being hardcore Lovecraft isn’t the point, it is examining the possible influence on Warframes development.
  I could also point out staff’s own comments about Hydroid, either born from there own opinions and reaction to the community. Point is, there is no way Warframe was developed in a vacuum and there is no denying the power HPL has had on the creative world.
 
  What I find more interesting and subtle are the more cosmic themes in Warframe and wonder where DE pulled inspiration from. DE staff has mentioned that the Orokin are very old, even maybe hinting at them being older than time spans suggested by the Orokin era, presumably a time come and gone in our future. Cycles of time are major element in Lovecraft stories and all the mention of big time spans make me think maybe the Orokin, or something older ties all the Warframe Lore together. Maybe something that retcon’s Dark Sector into the rest of the Lore. But this gets into deep speculation, a topic for another kind of post. Back to cosmic themes, Simaris reminds me of another Lovecraft fan and arguably equal of the Cosmic wit, Clark Ashton Smith and his creation, Vergama. I wrote a piece on this already, you can read it here, https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/413942-simaris-the-librarian-cephelon-and-vergama-whose-other-name-is-destiny/?p=4572797
  Simaris the Cephalon is both in it’s post-humanism, it’s megalomania, and obsession with cataloging everything in the universe to simulate. Such a great custodian exist in Vergama, a twist on neoplatonic metaphysics turned hieroglyphic ciphers. Even if nobody at DE ever read Smiths work, the idea isn’t unique(even the Collector from Guardians of Galaxy is an example of this idea), but the parallels are interesting. 
 
In Conclusion To This Chapter
 
  I can’t express enough the degree of influence HPL has on creative media. It has changed the face of art across almost every medium. I chose to start with Lovecraft because it is a subject I have studied throughly for reason I mentioned, and I can see his influence everywhere. There is fear, alienation, difference, inference, and otherworldliness, all throughout Warframe. Deep time, mystery, and evocation of an infinite mystery that threatens to engulf us all. Those, are probably more than any surface detail a closer and better list of examples of Lovecraftian, cosmic and existential influences I can identify in Digital Extremes game. I also with I could say I identify even more, but I can’t say for sure. 
  There are things, both in the game, and from what the Dev’s have said that make me worry that ultimately the core of the game is good old classic romantic adventurism, is the spirit of fun. As such, I cannot blame DE for doing so. Chasing Star Wars seems like a safe strategy, but I will always advocating going a different braver, if not riskier, path.
  Though this concludes my dedicated treatise on the influence of Lovecraft on Warframe, it will not likely be the last time I mention it when moving on to other chapters. 
 
  I am open to comments, questions, and suggestions from the community, and would absolutely love, but am not holding my breath, interested in what the Dev’s think.
 
Recommended Reading
 
At the Mountains of Madness
Shadows Over Innsmouth
The Colour Out of Space
Whisperers in the Darkness
The Call of Cthulhu
Dagon
 
Almost anything written by Lovecraft, though it isn’t all good.
 
Writers Lovecraft was influenced by,
 
Edgar Allan Poe
Ambrose Pierce
Lord Dunsany 
Arthur Machen
Algernon Blackwood
Robert Chambers
 
 
I Am Providence, The Biography of H.P. Lovecraft by S.T. Joshi 
The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos, by S.T. Joshi
 
Movies
 
Die Farbe
The Call of Cthulhu
Whisperers in the Darkness
2001 the Space Odyssey
Alien
The Thing
 
The Next Part
 
  In the next piece I will pick another area of influence to explore. Maybe DE’s time working on Unreal and Unreal Tournament, with all the PVP 2.0 going on. Or Archwing’s obvious nods do famous space mecha fiction. The list goes on and on.
 
References
 
Michel Houellebecq, H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (1999)
S.T. Joshi, Rise and Fall of Western Civilization (1999)
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Teqnologyque

Teqnologyque

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Well, if its any consolation, I read most of it.

 

The rest was stuff I already knew, or figured out on my own. Think about it seriously, though. Try naming one modern Sci-Fi or horror story that isn't a nod to Lovecraft. I don't think its possible, especially where the horrors of space are involved.

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