Frames And Individuality (A Lore Discussion)

[_Corva]

Hi folks! This is my first time posting an idea of mine here, but the thought in question gained some traction on Reddit (http://redd.it/1j485w) over the past day, so I'm curious to see what you all might think of it.

Anywho -

Last time I checked, the discussion on whether there should be both male and female versions of each Warframe hadn't really gone anywhere; the Devs, at least, weren't really decided on if they wanted Frames to be their own characters, or just a suit the player character wears. Given that the last few frames have been full of personality, I think that DE's opinion has sort of leaned towards the former. But even if that's what we end up going with, there's still problem of how one explains a four Vauban squad. Are they all clones? If Vauban is a real dude, a real Tenno warrior, which one of the group is the real Vauban?

Say there was a real Vauban, in a bygone era before contemporary Tenno went into cryosleep. This Vauban of history died long ago, but the Tenno of the present become him whenever they wear the frame dedicated to his image. This could just be shift in personality, or it could very well be a literal transformation: male Tenno become Mag, female Tenno become Rhino, etc. Such life-altering technology already exists in the form of the Infested, and their technocyte plague is Orokin-made just like all the Frames are.

This'd have all sorts of cool undertones in what we're told is a Tenno culture of honorable warriors: distinguish yourself, become a legend in your own right, and perhaps one day a Warframe will be dedicated to you. Perhaps immortalizing your legend is a very literal truth in Tenno society, given that our fourteen frames survive long after their original inspirations died.

Of course, there is a darker side to this idea. If modern Tenno are spending the vast majority of their time in suits that turn them into other people - and if more than a few, including the player character, have lost their memory due to cryosleep - then what time do they have to be themselves? Who's to say that the people they are (or would be, if they recover their memories) aren't being slowly replaced by the Frames they wear?

If you subscribe to the idea that the Lotus may not have our best interests at heart (sorry Rebecca), maybe this was her plan all along. Lotus could very well be molding us into a race of soulless copies of history's greatest warriors, loyal only to her.

And if we're gonna do the whole tinfoil hat thing, perhaps there's already a Tenno who's figured this out. Perhaps he fled Lotus while he still had the will to do so. In place of an identity of his own, perhaps he's stitched together elements of the Frames he wore in her service, in a desperate attempt to make something unique out of an endless pile of identical pieces. Perhaps he stalks us even now.

Just something to think about.

Edited July 27, 2013 by columnFive

[Hipolipolopigus]

There's a thread over in the Fan Zone about "https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/68666-study-of-tenno-biology/'>Tenno Biology", where I speculated that the only thing Tenno about the frames is the mind and a little bit of the nervous system (See the spinal columns on Excalibur, Loki and Nyx for the best examples).

 

We know from Capture missions that the Tenno have the technology to reduce a living being to data (Or compress it physically in such a way that it can be easily transported) and reconstruct it for "interrogation" (If they even need to reconstruct it for that), so it's not too far out there to suggest that the frames themselves are brain-computer interfaces with a semi-organic body based on historical figures or Orokin designs.

 

Edit: And, yes, Lotus is evil. Mysterious figure wakes you up and tells you that you've lost your memory because [insert semi-sensical reason here]? Guess who you should immediately distrust.

Edited July 27, 2013 by Hipolipolopigus

[HeirOfVoid]

Hi, I'm from Reddit! Just wanted to stop by and offer double the support I showed on the /r/warframe forum, I wholeheartedly support this lore idea.

[Sir_Laser]

+1