Warframe Lore And The Foundations Series By Isaac Asimov

[Zemosu]

NOTE: This discussion is mainly aimed at tenno that are aware of the Asimov Foundation series universe.

 

I don't know if i should go in details about what is reveled towards the end of the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov.

 

But i do find some recurring elements (the upcoming Orokin moon), the nature of the Sentient being considered extinct yet having found evidence of the fact that they still exist and that they do posses a great ability of Infiltration(Lotus) .

 

Which coupled with some of the elements of the games such as mind control by the Orokin Neural Sentry and the Sentient as mentioned in the Great War records (The Sentient were able to turn the Orokin weapons agaisnt them).

I can see some Second Foundation and Gaia elements in play.

 

Vor makes me think of the Mule it wouldn't surprise me if he will  be up to something radical in the next update using his newly gained power and the fact that he broke free from the Grineer.

 

If anyone can help with more correlations please do. I feel we will find something peculiar on the new Orokin moon.

[Dhrekr]

Meeeehhno.

 

I frankly don't see any thematic tie between the two series.

 

Warframe is not a predictible universe for people on the inside. It is actually the result of series of miscalculations. No character in this universe has any sort of psicohistory at work: the main example are the Orokin, who completely mismanaged and miscalculated both the Sentient and the Tenno, in the hugest fail ever. There's no Hari Seldon in this universe. The only character to display any sort of predictive capability is the Lotus, who is however probably the only tactician in this continuity, but she is somewhat limited.

 

Vor is definitely no Mule. Vor, for starters, is of marginal to no importance. He went from a servant of the Queens to a Corrupted protector of the Towers. He is a pawn who is allowed to be alive by the Janos Key.

 

There's no Gaia in Warframe either. Sure the Neural Sentry has the ability to mind-control and manipulate the Corrupted, but this is extremely far from a Gaian theory. The Neural Sentries are also not the Second Foundation: the NS are never seen actually doing anything. They are 100% defensive minds, while the SF is 100% intervening.

 

 

Frankly, if I were to mention one narrative continuity that resembles Warframe, I'd talk of GRR Martin's science fiction works.

 

It has:

 

- Uber-powerful species that engineer servant-species, exactly like the Orokin created the Tenno

- Mind-controlling entities that enslave their enemies (such as the fungus of Greywater Station), like the Neural Sentry

- A universe where, at the end of the Old War, the once great empires fall into chaos, and where technology goes back to a much more primitive level

- The use of invasive biotechnological warfare (in GRR Martin basically everything ever done by the Eco Corps), mirrored in Warframe by the Technocyte and Vay Hek's aggressive poisoning of Earth

- A complicated, fractured universe where each factions thinks they're right. Plus lots of backstabbing.

 

 

To be honest, to me the only Asimov-like aspects to Warframe are the existence of a Trader Empire and the encyclopedic dedication of some Cephalons.

 

Other than that, as Hober Mallow once said, "violence is the last resort of the incapable" (or something like that). Just look at Warframe and guess what he'd think.

[worminthewood]

How did Vor obtain that Janos Key, actually?

[Gale47]

I can't help but see connections with Herbert's Dune series (not just that one book, no)... somehow... 

Foundation, not so much. 

[Zemosu]

Meeeehhno.

 

I frankly don't see any thematic tie between the two series.

 

Warframe is not a predictible universe for people on the inside. It is actually the result of series of miscalculations. No character in this universe has any sort of psicohistory at work: the main example are the Orokin, who completely mismanaged and miscalculated both the Sentient and the Tenno, in the hugest fail ever. There's no Hari Seldon in this universe. The only character to display any sort of predictive capability is the Lotus, who is however probably the only tactician in this continuity, but she is somewhat limited.

 

Vor is definitely no Mule. Vor, for starters, is of marginal to no importance. He went from a servant of the Queens to a Corrupted protector of the Towers. He is a pawn who is allowed to be alive by the Janos Key.

 

There's no Gaia in Warframe either. Sure the Neural Sentry has the ability to mind-control and manipulate the Corrupted, but this is extremely far from a Gaian theory. The Neural Sentries are also not the Second Foundation: the NS are never seen actually doing anything. They are 100% defensive minds, while the SF is 100% intervening.

 

 

Frankly, if I were to mention one narrative continuity that resembles Warframe, I'd talk of GRR Martin's science fiction works.

 

It has:

 

- Uber-powerful species that engineer servant-species, exactly like the Orokin created the Tenno

- Mind-controlling entities that enslave their enemies (such as the fungus of Greywater Station), like the Neural Sentry

- A universe where, at the end of the Old War, the once great empires fall into chaos, and where technology goes back to a much more primitive level

- The use of invasive biotechnological warfare (in GRR Martin basically everything ever done by the Eco Corps), mirrored in Warframe by the Technocyte and Vay Hek's aggressive poisoning of Earth

- A complicated, fractured universe where each factions thinks they're right. Plus lots of backstabbing.

 

 

To be honest, to me the only Asimov-like aspects to Warframe are the existence of a Trader Empire and the encyclopedic dedication of some Cephalons.

 

Other than that, as Hober Mallow once said, "violence is the last resort of the incapable" (or something like that). Just look at Warframe and guess what he'd think.

Thanks for the fresh take on things you are right about most of the stuff but I do want to point out the following:

-Earth crust becomes to radioactive do to Keldon Amadiro actions

to quote you we do have "- A complicated, fractured universe where each factions thinks they're right. Plus lots of backstabbing."

and we come to this after the fall of the Empire which would translate in warframe to the fall of the end of the Orokin domain.

-The Second Foundation is active but not in very subtle and unnoticeable ways hence it's ability to remain hidden from the First Foundation.

-Same goes for Gaia's actions

-Both factions only come in the open and even then for a very brief episode when we have the standoff between Brano and the  first Foundation Fleet, Gendibal with the support of the SF and Bliss with the support of Gaia, and we know that ends in a sort of reset where Gaia and the SF go back to being covert.

-Vor although a pawn of the Janus Key/Neural sentry still shows to posses  inteligence, memory, resent for the Lotus, and who know how things will develop maybe even a will of his own.

- The Lotus could be considered the master mind behind the events leading from the Old War.

 

I'll think of more common elements when i get back home and i'll write them down , maybe get you 2 cents on the matter on them as well.

[Cat_Jam]

How did Vor obtain that Janos Key, actually?

Behind his couch...

[Zemosu]

How did Vor obtain that Janos Key, actually?

Good question. IDK.

 

I can't help but see connections with Herbert's Dune series (not just that one book, no)... somehow... 

Foundation, not so much. 

It's hard for me to connect the elements precisely but i think I know why find them to be similar:

 

-3 main factions and their conflict : but if we consider the sentient, warframe has 5 main factions : Corpus, Grineer, Orokin, Infested, Sentient

 

- conflicts between the main factions: Dune has a ruling house more or less, warframe pretty much has balance.

 

-the wiki does state that the Corpus are dominant but i'm not really feeling that since there is no Prize location that one faction has controll over that gives that faction a solide rule over the other.

[Gale47]

Good question. IDK.

 

It's hard for me to connect the elements precisely but i think I know why find them to be similar:

 

-3 main factions and their conflict : but if we consider the sentient, warframe has 5 main factions : Corpus, Grineer, Orokin, Infested, Sentient

 

- conflicts between the main factions: Dune has a ruling house more or less, warframe pretty much has balance.

 

-the wiki does state that the Corpus are dominant but i'm not really feeling that since there is no Prize location that one faction has controll over that gives that faction a solide rule over the other.

You're right. HOWEVER, do remember the whole point of the Golden Path - to successfully deal with the threat that returns from the deepest reaches of space. The thinking machines of Dune are fairly similar in that regard to the Sentients, now that I think about it.

 

EDIT: As an additional note, I'd like to mention that the return of the thinking machines was almost certainly NOT the original plan of Paul Herbert. Instead, it was insinuated that the evolved Face Dancers were the real threat, as they now had godlike powers. Another interesting parallel to the clearly shape-shifting (Crewman Synthesis, Lotus/Natah) Sentients present in Warframe.

The more I think about it, the more similarities seem to spring up.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Gale47

[Dhrekr]

Ehm... I don't quite follow.

 

 

-Earth crust becomes to radioactive do to Keldon Amadiro actions

So? Earth in Warframe is not radioactive and is still inhabited. Equally, the Moon is still intact in the Foundation continuity while it's broken in Warframe.

 

I find no similarity here.

 

 

-The Second Foundation is active but not in very subtle and unnoticeable ways hence it's ability to remain hidden from the First Foundation.

"Not in very subtle ways hence its ability to remain hidden" reads like a contradiction.

 

Even so, there's no faction that fits this bill in the Warframe universe. There's no manipulating masterminds. The Lotus wields the Tenno with the same subtlety as a Viking wields a siege hammer. The Syndicates' scheming basically boils down to "beg the Tenno to kill people for us". The Grineer wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit them in the head. The Corpus would sell subtlety for half a credit. The Sentient's idea of subtlety is "LAUNCH A MASS INVASION AND CRUSH EVERYONE". I see absolutely no one being subtle and mastermindy here.

 

I find no similarity here.

 

-Same goes for Gaia's actions

Equally I don't see who you compare Gaia to. The Neural Sentry? The technocyte infestation?

 

You don't even suggest a similarity here.

 

-Vor although a pawn of the Janus Key/Neural sentry still shows to posses  inteligence, memory, resent for the Lotus, and who know how things will develop maybe even a will of his own.

So? I'm not denying this: he surely has maintained identity, intelligence and memory. However having identity, intelligence and memory... basically make him similar to 99% of fictional characters. You have to do a bit better if you want to show that Vor is similar to the Mule.

 

I see no similarity here.

 

 

- The Lotus could be considered the master mind behind the events leading from the Old War.

Highly speculative. The Lotus was sent to the Origin System to kill the Tenno. The Tenno were created in the middle of the war. You can blame the Lotus for starting the Old War from afar, but that's as unfounded as blaming the Twin Kweens.

 

Even if I conceded, what is the similitude? In what is the Lotus' war preparations rivalled in the Foundation universe? The only universe-planner in the Foundation is Hari Seldon, who has an extreme dislike for wars and murder. Hari Seldon is all about minimizing the conflict and planning for non-harmful solutions. Hari Seldon's best wars are the ones that have no casualties. The Lotus sends us to slaughter clones in their growing vats.

 

Also, while Hari Seldon is almost omniscient because of his psycohistory, the Lotus is clearly planning in the darkness. She has correctly guessed that the Sentient might return (although she has no idea when, and she's scared by seeing them in Natah), and she has failed to predict several events. So, even conceding your highly speculative proposition that the Lotus is the Old War mastermind (which I don't accept), she clearly isn't Hari Seldon. Nor is she Daneel Olivaw. Nor is she a Terminus Mayor.

 

So I see no similitude here.

 

 

 

All in all... the links I see between Asimov's entire opera and the Warframe universe are getting weaker and weaker. But I'm sure interested in what you have to say on this!

[Zemosu]

Ehm... I don't quite follow.

 

 

So? Earth in Warframe is not radioactive and is still inhabited. Equally, the Moon is still intact in the Foundation continuity while it's broken in Warframe.

 

I find no similarity here.

 

 

"Not in very subtle ways hence its ability to remain hidden" reads like a contradiction.

 

Even so, there's no faction that fits this bill in the Warframe universe. There's no manipulating masterminds. The Lotus wields the Tenno with the same subtlety as a Viking wields a siege hammer. The Syndicates' scheming basically boils down to "beg the Tenno to kill people for us". The Grineer wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit them in the head. The Corpus would sell subtlety for half a credit. The Sentient's idea of subtlety is "LAUNCH A MASS INVASION AND CRUSH EVERYONE". I see absolutely no one being subtle and mastermindy here.

 

I find no similarity here.

 

Equally I don't see who you compare Gaia to. The Neural Sentry? The technocyte infestation?

 

You don't even suggest a similarity here.

 

So? I'm not denying this: he surely has maintained identity, intelligence and memory. However having identity, intelligence and memory... basically make him similar to 99% of fictional characters. You have to do a bit better if you want to show that Vor is similar to the Mule.

 

I see no similarity here.

 

 

Highly speculative. The Lotus was sent to the Origin System to kill the Tenno. The Tenno were created in the middle of the war. You can blame the Lotus for starting the Old War from afar, but that's as unfounded as blaming the Twin Kweens.

 

Even if I conceded, what is the similitude? In what is the Lotus' war preparations rivalled in the Foundation universe? The only universe-planner in the Foundation is Hari Seldon, who has an extreme dislike for wars and murder. Hari Seldon is all about minimizing the conflict and planning for non-harmful solutions. Hari Seldon's best wars are the ones that have no casualties. The Lotus sends us to slaughter clones in their growing vats.

 

Also, while Hari Seldon is almost omniscient because of his psycohistory, the Lotus is clearly planning in the darkness. She has correctly guessed that the Sentient might return (although she has no idea when, and she's scared by seeing them in Natah), and she has failed to predict several events. So, even conceding your highly speculative proposition that the Lotus is the Old War mastermind (which I don't accept), she clearly isn't Hari Seldon. Nor is she Daneel Olivaw. Nor is she a Terminus Mayor.

 

So I see no similitude here.

 

 

 

All in all... the links I see between Asimov's entire opera and the Warframe universe are getting weaker and weaker. But I'm sure interested in what you have to say on this!

I have to almost fully agree with your presentation and interpretation.

 

I must also admit under light of such suggestions and comparisons that maybe my original idea was borne from my overly active imagination.

 

"Not in very subtle ways hence its ability to remain hidden" reads like a contradiction.

 

yeah sorry abotu this i kinda changed though on how to write this down mid sentence and forgot the "not" in there.

 that was just a side note.

[Dhrekr]

I must also admit under light of such suggestions and comparisons that maybe my original idea was borne from my overly active imagination.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that ;-)

 

It was a nice thought to entertain.

 

 

 

P.S. It also reminds me that there's no game that adequately represents Asimov's future. Agh, I'd really buy into something like that :-(