What happened to all our Frames? (Lore discussion, WARNING, may be spoilers)

[Necromanrius]

When we wake up, we have a limited choice of Warframes, implying the vast majority of Tenno used the same Warframes during the war against the Sentients. Frames can easily be replicated, and the Orokin could build millions, since each of us Tenno woke up in a Warframe.

So, was Mirage lost? and Limbo? Or Valkyr? or Chroma? (missed a bunch, but too many to list)  Why did no Tenno wake up as those Frames? Why does there seem to be only one copy of those Waframes while there are hundreds of thousands of Excalibur? What about the Primes? Did all of the Tenno using Primes have died thus no Tenno in a Prime waking up?

There are two theories I have, but none seems to satisfy it completely.

First is, The Orokin were the ones who made this decision, maybe because they were developing new Frames as the war went on, and Excal, rhino... were the first frames, thus the ones they had the most time to produce. However it still doesn't explain why some frames seem unique. You'd think Mirage, from her impressive sounding kill count, would've been more popular, or Valkyr, with her invulnerability?

Second is, someone (possibly the Lotus) changed our Frames while we were out. Why? that's only speculation, but maybe, by interpreting Rhino Prime's codex entry, the first Warframes had Tenno infected with the technocyte virus as part of the material required. Thus, seeing them as her children too, she 'liberated' them (not sure where they are or what happened to them after) and figured out how to make Warframes with only neurodes/nano-spores, well, regular, non-Tenno infested flesh. But the design process and production was taking time and she lacked the vast resources the Orokin had, she limited herself to only a few Frames, thus why we have so little variety amongst wakening Tenno (and no Primes).

Is it tied to the way we have to farm for those Warframes? I always imagined that the farming is in fact only something we need to do for game play's sake. I mean, we start with a lot of Excaliburs, Mags and Volts, you'd think we'd have already the blueprints to make those. For Inaros we only had the possibly mummified remains of his body and it was enough, and we managed to get blueprints from Chroma from scanning him, so I'm pretty sure that without the gameplay, the Tenno wouldn't need to 'farm' for those blueprints as they can just share them. And Lore indicates Tenno are loyal to their own, so I doubt they'd all refuse that

Also, the only Valkyr we found was the one Salad V "customized". The Gersemi skin could be implied we found more Valkyr-using Tenno, thus obtaining the blueprints to restore her.

Edited March 19, 2016 by Necromanrius
grammar corrections

[45neo]

The lost frames had only 1 copy made... probable were more experimental and then A B or C happens causing the frames to be destroyed or to go missing. 

[Grimlock84]

7 minutes ago, Necromanrius said:

When we wake up, we have a limited choice of Warframes, implying the vast majority of Tenno used the same Warframes during the war against the Sentients. Frames can easily be replicated, and the Orokin could build millions, since each of us Tenno woke up in a Warframe.

So, was Mirage lost? and Limbo? Or Valkyr? or Chroma? (missed a bunch, but too many to list)  Why did no Tenno wake up as those Frames? Why does there seem to be only one copy of those Waframes while there are hundreds of thousands of Excalibur? What about the Primes? Did all of the Tenno using Primes have died thus no Tenno in a Prime waking up?

There are two theories I have, but none seems to satisfy it completely.

First is, The Orokin were the ones who made this decision, maybe because they were developing new Frames as the war went on, and Excal, rhino... were the first frames, thus the ones they had the most time to produce. However it still doesn't explain why some frames seem unique. You'd think Mirage, from her impressive sounding kill count, would've been more popular, or Valkyr, with her invulnerability?

Second is, someone (possibly the Lotus) changed our Frames while we were out. Why? that's only speculation, but maybe, by interpreting Rhino Prime's codex entry, the first Warframes had Tenno infected with the technocyte virus as part of the material required. Thus, seeing them as her children too, she 'liberated' them (not sure where they are or what happened to them after) and figured out how to make Warframes with only neurodes/nano-spores, well, regular, non-Tenno infested flesh. But the design process and production was taking time and she lacked the vast resources the Orokin had, she limited herself to only a few Frames, thus why we have so little variety amongst wakening Tenno (and no Primes).

Is it tied to the way we have to farm for those Warframes? I always imagined that the farming is in fact only something we need to do for game play's sake. I mean, we start with a lot of Excaliburs, Mags and Volts, you'd think we'd have already the blueprints to make those. For Inaros we only had the possibly mummified remains of his body and it was enough, and we managed to get blueprints from Chroma from scanning him, so I'm pretty sure that without the gameplay, the Tenno wouldn't need to 'farm' for those blueprints as they can just share them. And Lore indicates Tenno are loyal to their own, so I doubt they'd all refuse that

Also, the only Valkyr we found was the one Salad V "customized". The Gersemi skin could be implied we found more Valkyr-using Tenno, thus obtaining the blueprints to restore her.

The limited frame choice in the beginning is because of the limited frames actual tethered to our tenno.(assuming all frames went into stasis it could make sense why we only have 1 frame not in stasis or dead when we first awaken)

Any non prime frames weren't made by the Orokin and were either made by the lotus, some third parties or tenno themselves (And if certain tenno made their own frames that could be why there are a couple whose Blueprints only exist where they died)

also valkyr gersemi is just a skin valkyr wears. deep down she will never be the same

[45neo]

Also warframes are likely to have never had a living being inside piloting them. Stalker being the only exception.

[vodkacrepper]

Or it could be a simple case where Gameplay Mechanics doesn't equal Lore, like "Why the Infestation on our Ships spread casually only on Updates!? IS THAT LORE INFORMATION?" "why when we get obliterated by lv1000 heavy gunners our frames are top-notch condition on our Orbiter? DO THEY TELEPORT AND REPAIR!?" "if the Corpus have Nullifiers, why not having all units with nullifier bubbles? MAYBE IS ALL A CONSPIRATION?"

Not everything on the gameplay should be related to lore as not everything on the lore should be related with the gameplay, simple enough.

[SneakyBeakyIvarr]

I personally believe that, lore wise, there's only one of each frame (And one operator for each Frame). Obviously gameplay wise this can't be the case because we can't have only 20somewhat players playing at once.

Each frame was created based off the "Dream" of the operator. One wanted to be a dragon, so we got Chroma. Another a cowgirl, so we got Mesa. And so on. Operators could switch frames, but why would you want to be anything else but the frame you essentially created? (Also switching for gameplay reasons).

This doesn't explain certain parts of the game like how such a few number of Tenno made such a huge difference (During the Orokin Era and now) or why there are Prime and non-Prime varients, but I think it helps explain why some frames (Like you said) have been lost and couldn't be recreated. Each frame is unique, along with a unique operator, and is difficult to replace. Once they die, they're pretty much gone.

[firelordzx5]

you know... I always wondered why we entered in cryosleep in a orokin former structure using "regular" warframe instead of a prime version because... you know, we come from the orokin era.

[Necromanrius]

1 hour ago, 45neo said:

The lost frames had only 1 copy made... probable were more experimental and then A B or C happens causing the frames to be destroyed or to go missing. 

hmm, I like that theory. At the very least, that could well explain Limbo. They made a frame, he tested his powers, went too far, and then finished. Can see why they wouldn't make more after! Though, DE will almost certainly make a Limbo Prime, so that would mean there were at least 2 Limbo Frames, the regular one whose remains we found, and a Prime one we will find when DE puts it out.

 

1 hour ago, vodkacrepper said:

Or it could be a simple case where Gameplay Mechanics doesn't equal Lore, like "Why the Infestation on our Ships spread casually only on Updates!? IS THAT LORE INFORMATION?" "why when we get obliterated by lv1000 heavy gunners our frames are top-notch condition on our Orbiter? DO THEY TELEPORT AND REPAIR!?" "if the Corpus have Nullifiers, why not having all units with nullifier bubbles? MAYBE IS ALL A CONSPIRATION?"

Not everything on the gameplay should be related to lore as not everything on the lore should be related with the gameplay, simple enough.

I do agree with you. As I said, there are aspects such as Frame farming which I believe don't really exist lore wise but are in the game only for gameplay reasons. If we did share all our blueprints everytime time we found a new Frame, no farm, and no money to DE for buying that new shiny Prime! Still, I am trying to find the limit between gameplay and lore. Do you think it means that lorewise, Tenno woke up with all kinds of Frames including Prime ones? What about Frames like Inaros?

 

1 hour ago, Grimlock84 said:

The limited frame choice in the beginning is because of the limited frames actual tethered to our tenno.(assuming all frames went into stasis it could make sense why we only have 1 frame not in stasis or dead when we first awaken)

Any non prime frames weren't made by the Orokin and were either made by the lotus, some third parties or tenno themselves (And if certain tenno made their own frames that could be why there are a couple whose Blueprints only exist where they died)

also valkyr gersemi is just a skin valkyr wears. deep down she will never be the same

Well, I undestand why we wake up with only one Warframe, that's ok for me. My question is, why none of the Tenno that wake up from stasis have Mirage, or Valkyr, or another frame. Could be only a gameplay limitation, or there could be an explanation lore wise. Inaros especially makes me wonder, since it seems only one Inaros Frame exists, and it is not a Prime. We already know DE will release one, so I'm trying to figure out a story that fits Inaros' backstory and explains why there's a Prime and non Prime version of him (and every other Warframe). On that same logic, we couldn't make Zephyr until we (re?)discovered Oxium, and we know there's gonna be a Prime version too...

Since Second Dream at least, DE is making an effort at creating a consistent story, so I'm just hoping this forum topic is gonna help us figure it out more

1 hour ago, Zombies164 said:

I personally believe that, lore wise, there's only one of each frame (And one operator for each Frame). Obviously gameplay wise this can't be the case because we can't have only 20somewhat players playing at once.

Each frame was created based off the "Dream" of the operator. One wanted to be a dragon, so we got Chroma. Another a cowgirl, so we got Mesa. And so on. Operators could switch frames, but why would you want to be anything else but the frame you essentially created? (Also switching for gameplay reasons).

This doesn't explain certain parts of the game like how such a few number of Tenno made such a huge difference (During the Orokin Era and now) or why there are Prime and non-Prime varients, but I think it helps explain why some frames (Like you said) have been lost and couldn't be recreated. Each frame is unique, along with a unique operator, and is difficult to replace. Once they die, they're pretty much gone.

So, you think that either there'd only be a very small amount of Tenno, or there are in fact millions of unique Warframes, and DE only released an incredibly small amount, likely due to gameplay limitations. did I get it right? I never thought about that possibility. I doubt that's what DE will do, though I do think it was a very interesting theory, thank you for it!

The millions of unique Frames would be more likely, at least since DE, if I remember correctly, stated that our kills were canon (something about 4 billion grineer lancer a year? Someone correct me if I'm writing nonsense)

[Blakrana]

8 minutes ago, firelordzx5 said:

you know... I always wondered why we entered in cryosleep in a orokin former structure using "regular" warframe instead of a prime version because... you know, we come from the orokin era.

If Primes were a matter of rank, well, that'd be a good answer. The majority of an army aren't comprised of Generals or whatever the relevant would be, after all. Add in the sheer resource factor and it makes sense the Orokin would keep their elite variants closer to their actually important officials. Cheaper versions are easier to field in bulk, after all. As much as the narrative is (painfully) singular individual focussed, it at least honours being a generic grunt well enough in this case.

Of course, this is theory. Take with a pinch of salt.

1 hour ago, Zombies164 said:

I personally believe that, lore wise, there's only one of each frame (And one operator for each Frame). Obviously gameplay wise this can't be the case because we can't have only 20somewhat players playing at once.

Except that's just not carried out by the lore that stands. Let me dig up a quote of mine (Sourced here)

Quote

Consider the mathematics.

A Ghost clan is a batch of 10 Tenno together.
A Moon clan is 1000 Tenno. 100 times the smallest possible size.

If the Tenno total population was only in the hundreds...they'd just be one singular Moon clan at best. However, Steve has noted before that the Mod Polarities of Madurai, Zenurik, Vazarin, Naramon and Unairu were based upon the old Tenno clans, plural...which we know now as the five schools that define Focus (awkward as some of the descriptions to the paths to their application may be). Beyond this, we have knowledge that the Tenno have their own approaches to metallurgy (Nikana, Boar Prime), were involved in the design of certain Warframes (Nova) and there's enough for them to have a distinct ascetic aesthetic.

The logistics of what the Tenno created, as said above, heavily contradicts them having an insignificant population (a few hundred in the Solar System? Nothing at all noteworthy). After all, if you look at the given scales of the ships in setting, they're huge. Some have said they're several kilometres long by rights. You can get a lot of people in a ship that size...and when we're talking about a populated Origin System, the sheer numbers of people that'd imply...it's incredibly difficult to see Tenno numbers that don't even reach the tens of thousands would just barely be able to make a dent in the machinations of the Grineer and Corpus, let alone stamp down Infested outbreaks with such ferocity.

Much as it might seem easier to go 'it's really just 20 people'...The scale is just too large for that to be feasible, as the damage wouldn't be significant nor would the developments and constructions that need a broader set of strictures than a group that small would require.

Uniqueness then becomes more a question of 'less common production model' or the easier caveat that the Origin system is huge. When you're coming back from cryosleep without any established infrastructure and amnesia to contend with, you're not likely to have the full range of your former power base to access right from the off. Reclamation is an ongoing process as the system gets more and more opened up. Considering the unclear amount of time passed, losing Warframe variants over that time period to be rediscovered makes reasonable sense.

But, again. Theory, so take it with some reservations.

 

 

[Sloan441]

26 minutes ago, firelordzx5 said:

you know... I always wondered why we entered in cryosleep in a orokin former structure using "regular" warframe instead of a prime version because... you know, we come from the orokin era.

I still think this is evidence that the prime warframes weren't general field 'frames and weren't typically used against the Sentients during the war, at least not in the Sentient home system.

They're mostly associated with the Orokin Towers, mainly because all their parts come from there and they fit the décor. This implies that was exactly their job: security and looking formidable, stroking Orokin egos and meeting their aesthetic sensibilities. Also, the Saryn Prime trailer implies that what combat they did see was close to home...very much a praetorian guard.

[vrdwrst]

I thought the Second Dream showed that Warframes do not have permanence. If I go to the wreck of a Limbo, I can learn how to build the Limbo model that many others are currently using. Why Lotus makes such a a big fuss about that one singular Limbo in particular, I don't know, but Warframes are just mass produced models. 

[Arkfall]

With Second Dream we got an answer to a very important question: "What is the driving force behind the Warframes." However, we still have not gotten an answer to "What are the Warframes exactly."

Given that DE tends to go one way with an Idea, and then something happens (Time/Resources/New Ideas) and they start to take another direction leaves some of the Lore disjointed. They do patch it together when they get a chance, but alas Game Development is not as easy as day dreaming.

That said, There are still vast holes in the Lore and Time has not been measured out very well (How long was the Great War? How long was the Tenno-revolt? How long do people live (Darvo? Baro?) Do humans take longer to mature thanks to a prolonged ageing cycle? how long were we "asleep" for?). This leads to a bunch of subjective views that have little to no merit.

As for the Warframes themselves, and how Time Plays into all this... We do not know how long we have been out for, but we know that the Grineer and the Corpus have both actively been after the Warframes for some time before we awoke again. The Twin Queens issued a System-Wide purge of anything Orokin/Tenno related out of fear of our return and for the most part, the Grineer obeyed. (Insert "I know better then my supriors" Vor quote here.) We do not know how long this was going on, before we awoke.

It could be that the Lotus sat back and watched countless Warfarme be destroyed before she decided to act.

It could be that, despite the technology, if you stray to far from your "Transference Signal Device" that the Tenno's mind can't jump back to the orbiters, thus making Mirage's blood-lust and zeal for killing Sentients lead her to far out from the moon. This would also explain the lost of Limbo, as he could have been a researcher and "wondered" to far off into wild void space, leaving behind the barest scraps of his construction should anyone follow him. 

It could also be that the Gen2, Gen3 and Gen4 Warframes were made by singular Tenno that stood out amiss the rest. Who knows.

How old are our Tenno? How mature are they? (Mind and Body age are two different things after all.) There are still many questions we need answered. Hopefully, someday, we will find the serects we are searching for...

Till then... *Reloads his Soma Prime* We got a lot of work to do.

Stay Frost Tenno, Time is the greatest teacher.

[Necromanrius]

Perhaps.

I'd like to say, that based on the Mirage codex, we did lose a lot of knowledge about Warframe building. I mean, mirage was facing those Sentients and slaying them like we defeat low lvl enemies, and her shields and energy were down. Clearly, we don't make Warframes like we used to...

To be honest, I think the fact we only progress to like lvl 30, while the game can clearly reach above lvl 100 might be a clue that we are indeed far from reaching our full potential as Tenno (though if we did reach it ever, there's a good chance we'd be able to defeat the Corpus, Grineer and Infestation, and the game would end, so that's probably never gonna happen)

[SilentMobius]

The thing is, the limitation to Eacalibur/Mag/Volt[Loki] has to be a gameplay conceit, because the entire intro is unique to "our" Tenno. That is, each player has a unique story of their awakening,  our tenno is the only one who has to use an old lisete, the only one with Ordis as a Cephelon, the only one to suffer the Ascaris etc etc. In-world, all the other Tenno have a different story, which may involve a different starting Warframe. 

This is a very common conceit in multi-player games, where all of the player characters are "the chosen one" and obviously everyone else is not (Yet from their perspective they are the chosen one and we are not).

So IMHO we can conclude any, in-world, information form the limited selection of starting Warframes.

[BornWithTeeth]

Just now, SilentMobius said:

The thing is, the limitation to Eacalibur/Mag/Volt[Loki] has to be a gameplay conceit, because the entire intro is unique to "our" Tenno. That is, each player has a unique story of their awakening,  our tenno is the only one who has to use an old lisete, the only one with Ordis as a Cephelon, the only one to suffer the Ascaris etc etc. In-world, all the other Tenno have a different story, which may involve a different starting Warframe. 

This is a very common conceit in multi-player games, where all of the player characters are "the chosen one" and obviously everyone else is not (Yet from their perspective they are the chosen one and we are not).

So IMHO we can conclude any, in-world, information form the limited selection of starting Warframes.

 

It would be pretty cool to have a sort of multiple choice, choose your own past, "Is this how it happened for you?" thing later on, allowing players to sort of edit their personal Tenno history a little, but I can see how that wouldn't be easy to make work.

 

Well, I mean....actually, would it be all that hard? I have no interest in playing 'the chosen one', I'd rather play 'one of the Tenno, with their own odd story of how they got here'.

[Sixty5]

I've actually put some thought into this, and the best answer I can give is that in this case gameplay takes precedence over lore. 

We get 3choices for starting frames because that is what works gameplay wise. 

Lorewise there were definitely other frames around at the time the player comes out of cryosleep (see the E3 trailer). And given that switching frames doesn't make sense until after Second dream, which comes later, it makes sense to assume that they awakened in these frames. 

As far as "lost" frames go, I'd assume that they were unique variants, still in experimental phases. 

[SilentMobius]

On 3/19/2016 at 10:18 PM, BornWithTeeth said:

 

It would be pretty cool to have a sort of multiple choice, choose your own past, "Is this how it happened for you?" thing later on, allowing players to sort of edit their personal Tenno history a little, but I can see how that wouldn't be easy to make work.

 

Well, I mean....actually, would it be all that hard? I have no interest in playing 'the chosen one', I'd rather play 'one of the Tenno, with their own odd story of how they got here'.

Well It's a little different in Warframe, obviously our Tenno is the one instrumental in the return of the moon but other than that there is a surprising lack of the more usual "You are the destined hero" that you get from other games. In general our Tenno's story is probably not that different to any other Tenno's

Ultimately any "branching" content means creating content for a smaller and smaller subsets of players, and quests seem to be tough enough for DE to make as it is, so, I doubt well get much more than "You can decide X but it has no ongoing effect on the game world" other than community goals like Gradivus etc etc.

Still, Steve has expressed a desire to fill out character history. Things done in flashback that set up abilities (not content) for the current timeline are probably doable.

Full-on Orokin-Loyal Tenno fighting Sentients in flashback with a decision tree would be fantastic.

Anyway, back to the topic:

The problem is that some of the things to do with Warframes are going to be gameplay conceits and we don't know which are which so trying to form a coherent idea of "What a Warframe is" is virtually impossible.

I mean there is so much that we don't know like:

• Inaros, Chroma, Mirage and Limbo are all referred to in the singular as distinct entities, does that reference the Warframe, a specific Tenno, a unique Tenno, a Tenno with a call-sign matching the name of the Warframe? Is that where the Warframe got it's name form?
• Why are there seemingly unique Warframes pre-cryo when we can mass produce them easily now?
• Why did our Tenno think was going on when they switched Warframe before the second dream?
• Did any Tenno switch Warframes before cryo? If not, how did Primes work?
• When we build a Warframe what does the process look like, surely we should be able to know that after building tens of them?

None of these questions have convincing answers, sure we can make up answers for them, but really outside of "the story" DE really need to fill in critical information that our Tenno should know, so that we, the player, can at least, know what our character's are expected to know.

Edited March 20, 2016 by SilentMobius

[(PSN)kevin64811]

11 hours ago, vodkacrepper said:

Or it could be a simple case where Gameplay Mechanics doesn't equal Lore, like "Why the Infestation on our Ships spread casually only on Updates!? IS THAT LORE INFORMATION?" "why when we get obliterated by lv1000 heavy gunners our frames are top-notch condition on our Orbiter? DO THEY TELEPORT AND REPAIR!?" "if the Corpus have Nullifiers, why not having all units with nullifier bubbles? MAYBE IS ALL A CONSPIRATION?"

Not everything on the gameplay should be related to lore as not everything on the lore should be related with the gameplay, simple enough.

^ This. I'm all for a good page of lore and speculation, but I've seen some pretty tin-foiled up theories after the Second Dream.

[Miser_able]

It could be possible that as the old war went on more and more frames were lost and when it finally ended the only frames still "alive" were excal,mag, and volt and they got put in stasis.

Edited March 20, 2016 by shadowfire380
fixed some typos

[Heatnix.]

My theory is... that DE obviously couldn't make you choose any Frame to start a game, much less add the new ones to the rotation for new people to select when joining and leaving older players hanging.

So they picked 3, very standard frames that you could start with and gave the option to buy or farm more.

What I'm trying to say is: Not everything gameplay automatically means lore.

[Necromanrius]

First of all, thank you all for your contributions. There's been quite a few interesting theories you Tenno brought in, and I for one welcome them all!

So, first theory most of you seem to come to, when awoken, the Tenno did have a variety of Frames, at least more than the three ones proposed. There were probably Nyx, Loki, Ash... in addition to the Excal, Mag and Volt we got.

And they didn't all have the same fight with Vor (sounds pretty logic, though I can't help but imagine, what if Vor trying and failing to capture us happened to every Tenno? a few million failures... Vor just redefined epic failure!) Don't mind that part in brackets, it was just humour...

Still, things such as Mirage's codex entry makes me believe (pretty much convinced in fact) that we just don't make Frames like we used to. There is also very little right now to make us worry about Tenno death or Warframe death, from the lore of the Second Dream. Yet, it was something at the time of Mirage's codex entry. Yeah, I find that one entry rather telling and start most of my theory crafting from it.