Why aren't we talking about the Junction-Specter talking?

[Evanescent]

Seriously, the junction specters talk to us. How? Why? What ARE specters? 

They aren't Tenno controlled, so there can't be an operator talking. We fight them, so we are enemies. Or at least, not allied.

What is the deal with that? Are specters sentient?

 

[MagPrime]

Yeah, I'm not sure how the Specters correlate to the Rails or why we have to fight them. 

[Tanner_Lindberg]

this would make a fun and interesting quest 

[Evanescent]

3 minutes ago, Noamuth said:

Yeah, I'm not sure how the Specters correlate to the Rails or why we have to fight them. 

Noa! What happened to your green halo of upvote greatness?

[kyori]

It's just a game mechanic that DE didn't think much more than what it is now. 

[Evanescent]

1 minute ago, kyori said:

It's just a game mechanic that DE didn't think much more than what it is now. 

I wouldn't be so sure....there was no reason to specifically record lines for THEM after all.

[Littlerift]

Is the talking actually spatially centred on the Spectre? I always assumed that like the Towers the Solar Rails have Neural Sentries, except that in the latter case they control a Spectre rather than Corrupting intruders, and that the talking was just the Neural Sentry talking through our Warframe in the same way Lotus and Ordis do.

Edited January 16, 2017 by Littlerift

[MagPrime]

2 minutes ago, Evanescent said:

Noa! What happened to your green halo of upvote greatness?

Support took it in payment of changing my email, apparently. 

[Evanescent]

Just now, Noamuth said:

Support took it in payment of changing my email, apparently. 

Ouch! That's super odd.

1 minute ago, Littlerift said:

Is the talking actually spatially centred on the Spectre? I always assumed that like the Towers the Solar Rails have Neural Sentries, except that in the latter case they control a Spectre rather than Corrupting intruders, and that the talking was just the Neural Sentry talking through our Warframe in the same way Lotus and Ordis do.

Well the neural sentry never talks through its controlled enemies. corrupted stuff talk their own mad talk. Take vor for example, and the corrupted babble.

The junctions don't seem to have that.  They seem like testing grounds and the specters' speech seems to indicate individuality.

Also, why were they put there, waiting for us? Interesting.

[nnexenn]

you remmember the void voice who talk to us in the war within, i think he creates the specters.

[NinthAria]

I just figured it was an AI or something on the rail junction. But it's hard to say for sure--probably intentionally.

[Sziklamester]

Up voted all. My idea about these specter are sentient controlled or just a better programmed version of specters whom waiting for us to be challenged. Another idea they are not exactly specters but warframes with no operator and the junction itself corrupted with void energy which takes control their specters or unused warframes.

 

I don't mind if they talk but sad about we cannot.

Edited January 16, 2017 by Sziklamester

[Ninjadeath721]

3 hours ago, Evanescent said:

Are specters sentient

aren't they?

[MillbrookWest]

33 minutes ago, Evanescent said:

Seriously, the junction specters talk to us. How? Why? What ARE specters? 

They aren't Tenno controlled, so there can't be an operator talking. We fight them, so we are enemies. Or at least, not allied.

What is the deal with that? Are specters sentient?

 

I'd wager the 'building' itself talks. In a similar way that the Neural Sentry in the Void looks after the towers. The Warframe was probably tasked to the building when the Orokin were still kicking about. The Rail probably uses the frames functions as a defence mechanism. So when you hear it speak, the building is probably trying to kick you out.

[FrackingBiscuit]

There are other instances of Specters being left behind to guard specific areas - see Silver Grove and Glast Gambit quests (especially Silver Grove, as the Specters there are from the Orokin era, as I would assume the Junction Specters are).

Ostensibly, like the Silver Grove Specters, the Junction Specters simply guard their assigned locations from anyone and everyone who intrudes, regardless of who they are.  This comes directly from what they say to you when you approach them.

Other things about Specters nobody talks about:

Spoiler

1. Their method of speech is very much the same as Stalker's.

2. The language they use to describe themselves (referring to themselves as shadows) is the same language Hunhow uses to describe Stalker.

 

Edited January 16, 2017 by FrackingBiscuit

[Gweredith]

I also never understood the thing with the relays in general. Were they taken over by the specters and no one could have used them before we cleared them? If the relays serve the same function as in Mass Effect, then wouldn't other factions want to use them as well? Leading to organized grineer/corpus attacks to liberate them.

[Jeahanne]

In my head I always assumed that they were put there by the Orokin during their fall. The Tenno were a/the major cause of the fall of the Orokin if I've read into the Stalker's lore correctly, so my guess would be locking the Junctions against us and other intruders, especially us since we were a major threat, would have been sort of like hitting a panic button. The specters never seem to reference being against just the Tenno specifically, but rather against any intruder at all, and locking down major paths of travel through the solar system would have been a way of trying to consolidate power and lock down the government as the whole thing collapsed. Since we as the Tenno are such a giant threat, using some kind of programmed-to-be-loyal Psuedo-Tenno for defense would have made a lot of sense. Fight fire with fire. Hypothetically anything strong enough to defend against Tenno should be strong enough to hold against nearly anything else, and thus should be a reliable guardian.

As to why they can talk, I hope we learn more about that as we learn more about the Warframes themselves. The simplest explanation is likely that they are controlled by some form of AI, perhaps Cephalon like, but it's impossible to know at this point I think.

[LABAL]

I think specters are like lesser cephalons

Spoiler

Like Jordas clones

 given form. Just limited semi-aware copies of the original.

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

 

24 minutes ago, Evanescent said:

Ouch! That's super odd.

Well the neural sentry never talks through its controlled enemies. corrupted stuff talk their own mad talk. Take vor for example, and the corrupted babble.

The junctions don't seem to have that.  They seem like testing grounds and the specters' speech seems to indicate individuality.

Also, why were they put there, waiting for us? Interesting.

Well, since Spectres are clones of Warframes, is it too far fetched to assume we created them on purpose, to guard the Solar Rails from Warframes that aren't ready to traverse further, while also trying to block Grineer and Corpus from trying to use them? I think it's pretty safe to assume, since other Warframes have talked like that in the past (Stalker, for example), that that's actually what we instructed them to do, and since their clones of us, they can speak? I'd assume this to be the case, as the Solar Rails do appear to be more Tenno in appearance than Orokin.

 

[ThunderZsolt]

55 minutes ago, Noamuth said:

Yeah, I'm not sure how the Specters correlate to the Rails or why we have to fight them. 

Because,

Spoiler

they are the specters of the rail

Isn't it simple?

[SurrealEdge]

I'd wager it's only used as a mechanic to make us work for the right to access the rail and having access to the different planets. Mostly due to the recent updates having little thought put forth with some of the decisions made, ie. having an infested charger as a pet despite it not making any sense.

If I had to hazard a guess, I would put it more in line with the rail itself as the specter regenerates(more than likely another game mechanic) after being defeated. It's a decent way to test the player to see if they're ready for the challenges that lay beyond the junction, as Steve has said on stream that it'll be reminiscent of Dark Souls. In that series, NPC invaders acted as a blockade to impede your advancements, if you can surpass them and their strength, you're rewarded with passage to the next area or sometimes rewarded. The rewards are similar as some junctions give weapon blueprints upon completion of the junction and the defeat of the specter.

[JalakBali]

This is my theory:

The introduction of relics and the fact that the Orokin could play around with the laws of nature and probability as well as their ability to make use of *some* power of the Void, thus breaking the basic rules of physics, suggest that the technology of the Orokin is anything but simple or logical. What do we know about spectres? We do know that the major players could use them. The Syndicates use them instead of their actual operatives. Maybe because spectres could be easily produced (as we could make them in our Foundry) and/or because they sent them to Tenno they don't like more like a hate mail than an actual attempt to kill the Tenno in question. So they're disposable. We treat them as such, as they cannot be turned back into their un-activated state. The spectres are also "not real" in the sense that they're not real beings put inside a tiny ball like some sort of Pokemon. The New Loka who hates infested would use spectres of Ancients. So they're more like holograms. Except deadly. And solid.

 

The spectres are almost surely the invention of the Orokin, who could bend the fabrics of reality. The spectres of Tenno seen in the rails talk of themselves as being "shadows". So they're some sort of reality bending not-quite-illusion but also not-quite-real copies of existing beings. They're possibly (this is entirely my theory) Void energy made solid. They must have limited lifespan or at least they're not as "sentient" as actual living creatures. In my opinion, they're like a recording of an actual living being so their interactions are limited to the amount of recording stored. Like if you recorded a video of a security guard and then played that footage and the "security guard" comes into reality to do the job but only that job because the recording only has memory traces of that job. It's like a recorded reality that could be played back infinitely until the record broke.

 

Now, on to deeper theories.

Spectres refer to themselves as "shadows" in the Rails. Hunhow didn't refer to Stalker as "Stalker". He called him "Shadow". Hmmmm, could it be that Stalker is a rogue spectre? Or a special kind of spectre? He also started forming a small band after, possibly, realizing his true self from the events in The Second Dream.

Second theory: the Stalker gang kept on talking about "shadows" during the Acolytes events. They appeared to know something we don't. And now we have a Light vs Dark alignment system where the graphics are Day vs Night, and where the word "shadow" is often used by Helminth to refer to Tenno trending to the Dark/Night side. The alignment system might be related to Stalker's lore and the very nature of what is a warframe.

And then lastly, you know a certain term used to refer to a certain kind of shadow?

 

Umbra.

[Extroah]

As somebody who is on the "Warframes are conscious and have their own Personality, the Operator only gives Status-Updates and Powers" kind of Boat i'd say this would fit it perfectly. There would have to be a huge HUGE room somewhere full of operators if that was the case, but why didn't the Stalker and Hunhow go after them rather than our lonely Operator? They would've been a much bigger, more valuable target. There are just so many holes in the lore that DE has yet to fill that i doubt it will be anything ground breaking. Probably just some random left-over Tennos/Corpus/whatever that control them to protect the Solar System yada yada.

[arch111]

Trust me, I have been talking about this for ever.

Specters are "Replicants" of a warframe. That very term means that they are copies.

Stalker and the Rail Specters talk with the same whisper-voice.

Both are shadows.

What is either a VERY deliberate hint or a very BAD misstake needs clearing up in the next Questline.

[laysonbaal]

The "ghosts" in the moon might be controlling them.

Hence their specter name.