What's the lore behind junctions?

[MaRKX36]

I mean, you fight some specter and then you hijack his house(?) and shoot some beam into space. Why?

[SneakyBeakyIvarr]

I believe that they're old solar rails. The specters act as guards to prevent unwanted people gaining access to the solar system. We take down the specter in order to further our own reach in to the system.

Not entirely sure but it makes sense to me

[CY13ERPUNK]

+9999 OP

[Arkvold]

The solar rails the locations where a ship (with a little help from the rail system itself) can achieve faster-than-light travel via the Void.  Each rail has a specific origin point and destination.  There are 'public' solar rails managed by the Grineer and Corpus, but for obvious reasons we Tenno can't use these under normal circumstances.  Instead, we have to fight our way to a long-forgotten Orokin Solar Rail Junction, get inside, and defeat its guardian to activate the rail to the next planet.  Thus, we can enable a 'pirate' rail network that we can use to get around the Origin system undetected by Corpus or Grineer.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Arkvold

[GrayArchon]

22 minutes ago, Arkvold said:

The solar rails the locations where a ship (with a little help from the rail system itself) can achieve faster-than-light travel via the Void.  Each rail has a specific origin point and destination.  There are 'public' solar rails managed by the Grineer and Corpus, but for obvious reasons we Tenno can't use these under normal circumstances.  Instead, we have to fight our way to a long-forgotten Orokin Solar Rail Junction, get inside, and defeat its guardian to activate the rail to the next planet.  Thus, we can enable a 'pirate' rail network that we can use to get around the Origin system undetected by Corpus or Grineer.

Oh, this is the best explanation I've heard. Is this your interpretation of what happens or is this stated somewhere?

[Arkvold]

20 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

Oh, this is the best explanation I've heard. Is this your interpretation of what happens or is this stated somewhere?

It's my interpretation based upon the information the game has provided.

Solar Rails are already stated to exist in the game.  They're used by clans wanting to access Dark Sectors, and the first step to taking control of a Dark Sector is to deploy a new Solar Rail tower there.  We also know that the Junctions that we fight the Specters of the Rail in are Solar Rail Junctions - just listen to the whispers the Specters utter prior to combat.

Listening to the radio scanner in your Orbiter, you'll hear a lot of idle traffic from Solar Rail enforcement officers, traffic controllers, as well as military, transportation, and trade ships using the solar rails.  There's also occasional references to attempts to shoot down Tenno ships as they're detected (none are successful).  Thus we know there's major rail systems used by the Grineer and Corpus, and that they attempt to violently deter Tenno from using them.

Putting two and two together, it's pretty obvious why we use the Specter-guarded Junctions.  By doing so, we have an alternative to the heavily-guarded main rails that the major factions use, and don't have to risk getting shot down just to go between worlds.