Just how many wars have there been? (lore) (spoilers!)

[[DE]Momaw]

In reference to the new Cephalon Fragments. The one titled Warframes from Lua is quite interesting to me. It says,

"The true nature of the Warframes and their Tenno connection is a secret lost to the Old War."

That much we knew. The Tenno themselves didn't even know what they were, until the events of The Second Dream.  However...

"Together they represent our best hope in turning the tide of the machine war. Warframes are unique from Dax and other Infantry, deploying dangerous and esoteric Void energy, and equipped with often mundane physical weapons - this is key to fighting an enemy that had turned our technology against us."

This entry seems to be written from the perspective of the Orokin, based on their casual reference to Dax which was one of the social castes of the Orokin era, and their use of the present tense to refer to the war with the Sentients. This entry seems to be written at a period of time after an "Old War", but before the (apparent) victory over the Sentients.

This also meshes with the codex entry for Mag Prime, where our narrator is contemporary with the war against the Sentients but refers to the Tenno as "ghosts" and "casualties of the void era".  You don't talk about something that's happened recently as a different era. He also refers to the warframe casting "ancient shapes" when it uses its power.

The impression I get is that there's actually two wars in the game's backstory.  The Old War, somehow involving the Infestation (Lephantis was created to fight in the old war and is a millenia old according to Lotus), the destruction of the Moon, and whatever Ordis/Ordan was involved with...  and then, much later, The Machine War involving the Sentients where the Tenno ultimately rebelled and destroyed the Orokin ruling class causing the emipre to crumble.

... but then the cephalon fragment "Archaic Weapons" specifically says that the Old War was against the Sentients.

Anybody have any thoughts on reconciling the confusing perspectives here?

Edited August 4, 2016 by Momaw

[Blakrana]

Whilst I can't say for specific war numbers...Things to consider at least:

1) Earth was a ruin even in the Orokin era, Ballas' comments in the Saryn Prime trailer suggesting that it'd been lost to the Infested at some point prior. Whilst this is conjecture, there may be good odds there was a hard losing battle to either keep it contained there, or to at least get off world. Indeed, in one way it could be considered a good incentive for the Warframe project's first practical test, to reclaim Earth where no other force had before...Though again, conjecture.

2) The Empire may not have arisen from Earth outwards on the outset. If we consider that the Sands of Inaros quest describes a distinct cultural group from what we consider the Orokin empire proper (Golden Skymen and all that), then it may be Origin had different cultural groups before being 'brought in' to the Empire at large...and this may mean the Orokin 'unified' the system the classical way: blood and conquest. Even if the Empire might have been cosmopolitan in the way the Roman empire was, the Romans nonetheless conquered by the sword first. Granted, this is conjecture.

3) During the Empire's reign, there were clearly dissident groups or those dismissed by the Seven (such as the Corpus Fragment recounts and the Mara Detron's fluff alludes to). So, it may be that there were smaller scale conflicts as the Orokin struck at these groups. It may be that Ordan's mercenary band were involved in such conflicts, especially considering he recounts how there were similarities between himself and those he fought against; by contrast, the Infested and Sentient are obviously distinct to the human being (_{or at least, the Sentient units likely encountered by Orokin combatants...}). Once again, conjecture.

4) It's noted in the Kuria that there was the Grineer uprising, which may have been akin to a war as the scale rose, what with Bilsa noting having a Grineer "army" come the Guardsman Synthesis.

All told...We've confirmation for one, the Old War, two if we count the Grineer uprising with room for at least two more hypothetical wars, the 'Loss of Earth' with the Infested and possibly "Forging the Empire" (_{which could have been many, many wars for each planet potentially...}) and of which, the Warframes and Tenno are only explicitly acknowledged to be present for the Old War..._{though whether they're present before then is another question entirely which the below discusses separately.}

56 minutes ago, Momaw said:

This also meshes with the codex entry for Mag Prime, where our narrator is contemporary with the war against the Sentients but refers to the Tenno as "ghosts" and "casualties of the void era".  You don't talk about something that's happened recently as a different era. He also refers to the warframe casting "ancient shapes" when it uses its power.

Everything below this point is conjecture on my part and is not to be considered necessarily correct or canonical until suitable further evidence is acquired

My thoughts on this is that the Warframe Project had actually been established long before the Old War, the Old War merely being the only time it was made 'Official' for the wider public's appraisal. More likely, the technology and R&D had been worked on since the discovery of Transference 'off the books', and it's only in the absolute desperation of the Old War that the Tenno and Warframe technology are formally disclosed to the Empire at large...with all that 'off the books' rumour and hearsay feeding into the perception of them as monsters and demons of a different time entirely. With how bad the Old War is described, it seems odd to me to think the Orokin would have the means any longer to really construct such an effective technological system, especially when we note that the Crewman Synthesis already implies they're beginning to face what may be a resource crisis...a War would only exacerbate this hypothetical scarcity situation.

Whilst it is admittedly likely to be reaching due to it being a Game aspect alone so far, I think that there's some evidence for this due to there being the four Eras in Relics, and each era has some level of Warframe components within them, suggesting to me that the Warframe technology had been around for quite some time. Again conjecture here...but it's plausible, as it would also support how the Tenno managed to get the military experience, hardware and their own subculture.

Furthermore, it makes sense when we remember that Ballas and the Executors at least hate the Tenno. Using them off the records with plausible deniability is perhaps the most they could stomach as they are undeniably useful weapons with the Transference system and Warframes; all it takes is one Warframe to yield substantial casualties and the whole 'doesn't die when killed' trait makes it cost effective compared to throwing Dax soldiers at the same problem (_{not that the Orokin care for loss of human life if they can get away with it}). After all, Ballas himself makes a strong distinction in Second Dream with the line "I know we are desperate Executor, but these aren't Dax soldiers...these are golems possessed by devil minds"...a similar distinction the Zero-tech soldier seems to be making, seeing a monster rather than a fellow human warrior. To the degree they're wondering if they'd be better off attacking the Mag outright, something I doubt they'd have done were it a Dax.

With all that in mind then, it becomes a question of value and need; is the need of the Tenno in full deployment greater than the likely damage such use would have on wider morale? It's largely the potential risk of Absolute Defeat (extinction may or may not have been another factor) that tips it in favour of 'Yes, the Tenno are worth using in full', though certainly not without a degree of heavy deliberation in the lead up to that. Morale is very important to maintain, and it may be the use of Tenno could for the common citizen be on par with the modern citizen's view of deliberately using weapon technologies which we have decided to be illegal even in the concert of war; there's a reason the Tenno are described as monsters in the Prime codices after all and whilst that may have been/probably is engineered by the Orokin...it's not like the common people would be able to outright dismiss such stories when faced with the supposed subject of them. Even less so if such rumours were then quantified by direct combat performances.

As said though...all the above is conjecture, therefore feel free to dismiss outright should you find the above argument too weak to substantiate.

Either way, apologies for going on, as always.