Regarding Warframe Lore: One Tenno vs All Tenno

[WarframeStigma]

as one among many lore-peeps, i have issues regarding consistency in the story of Warframe. it regards how the story deals with the Tenno as a character.

from Vor’s Prize to present, many of the quests work under the narrative of the One Tenno, you, the main character. and much of the core game elements work under this narrative as well, however it leaves room for All Tenno, addressing the fact that you are not the only Tenno who is awakened from cryo. in reality, many Tenno are active, however, how do we know that this is the intent of the story itself?

in Second Dream, One Tenno, under the guidance of the Lotus, brings Lua back to its original place orbiting the Earth. One Tenno finds their true self and is hunted down by the Stalker and Hunhow. One Tenno realizes who they really are. but how does this revelation affect All Tenno from a narrative standpoint? it is never mentioned. we only know that others have awakened because of the interactions we have in-game. but how does that fit in-story? do All Tenno, after SD event, awaken? if the Lotus brings more of them out of cryo, does she take them directly to Lua to find themselves? after the One Tenno does, what is the fate of all the other Operators in Lua? are there even other Operators on Lua at all? how many Tenno fully unleashed their void powers post-TWW? these things are never addressed, and because this game heavily emphasizes the multiplayer experience, i think it should.

if by, logic of the story, there is but One or few Tenno that are focused on, then what does this mean for the Tenno of the past who owned warframes that were, for all we know, exclusive to them. Mirage, Limbo, Inaros, Gara, etc. the story plays out as if they are dead, but Tenno dont die by death of warframe. so if they are actually dead, then the One Tenno only collects what data is left on the warframes they had without any implication of other Tenno having used them. if they are dead, what would this mean about All Tenno?

the idea that some warframes are exclusive to specific Tenno lines up perfectly with the old pre-SD theory that each warframe type is an individual Tenno. if that outdated theory bears weight in the story of One or All Tenno, then that means that, in the Old War, there were as many Tenno as there are warframes(double that if prime frames are to be considered separate entities from their standard counterparts. also keep in mind that DE said that all warframes can be primed).

as of update 22.15.1, we currently have knowledge of 35 warframes, including Khora. that would mean that, as far as we know, there would have been at least 35 Tenno during the Old War. if there truly is a 1:1 ratio between warframe type and Tenno count, then most Tenno are either inactive or dead, and only very few remain, including the One Tenno. we are the One Tenno, fighting in the Origin system alone with none or few brothers and sisters fighting by our side. and we, the One Tenno, collect the remains of the fallen and honer them by using what they have lost.

of course, thats only the case IF there is a perfect 1:1 ratio, and if the fact that we collect all warframes but our own is not a coincidence of gameplay.

but what if that wasnt the case? what if this story was actually about All Tenno. if it is in fact about All Tenno, we still must ask more questions: how many of us are there in the story? does the 1:1 ratio still apply? why do we start off with only one warframe if the data is shared among many Tenno? why are some warframes exclusive until we find them if all warframes are supposedly shared?

the game may have alot of multiplayer features that show All Tenno, but the story works in favor of One Tenno or very few. this is something DE needs to either fix or confirm.

 

 

Edited March 10, 2018 by Stigma_Deathshatter

[CaptainZgred]

Don't try to search for logic in warframe lore. As much as I love it - it's an absolute nonsense 

[WarframeStigma]

Just now, CaptainZgred said:

Don't try to search for logic in warframe lore. As much as I love it - it's an absolute nonsense 

i know but i cant help but think about things. i cant shut off the think!!!

[NeithanDiniem]

I believe it was only the prototype warframes that had a 1:1, which explains frames like Limbo and Mirage and Valkyr, while the ones released into the war on a broad scale were more numerous.

[Katinka]

12 minutes ago, Stigma_Deathshatter said:

Mirage, Limbo, Inaros, Gara, etc. the story plays out as if they are dead, but Tenno dont die by death of warframe.

In the case of Mirage, I like to think that we are now supposed to read between the lines and consider that as Lotus regained memories of Mirage in battle she was still trying to maintain the secrets of Second Dream.  When she talks of sentients ripping open Mirage's ship and killing her I would now, with hindsight from Second Dream, read that as sentients ripping open the ship and killing an operator.  This may be part of the reason why operators were moved to Lua instead of using the chairs in their own orbiters.

19 minutes ago, Stigma_Deathshatter said:

why do we start off with only one warframe if the data is shared among many Tenno?

Because Lotus woke our operator to protect that one warframe from falling into enemy hands.  She didn't want them to have a warframe and possibly learn from it, either gaining new advances in weaponry or possibly back-tracing the warframe's connection to tenno and discovering Lua.  The warframe had to become active and fight it's way out by waking an operator and putting them in charge of it.  After that we fix up our ship and build more warframes once we acquire blueprints, which is an easier task for some frames than others due to their histories and the possibility of records being lost over time.

[Chimiasai]

You know, maybe Tenno created their own warframes but unlike our actual who awakened, they... Died when their warframe was killed.

How?

 

Their mind. Actually, as a Tenno, our mind is linked to the warframe which act as a substitute (Until TWW) but while our mind is linked, we have no sensations from our body. Like when we sleep, our nerves aren't connected. 

And, in the Tenno case, not only our nervers aren't connected but also we don't know or even remember we've a true body outside the warframe. We transfer our conscience to another warframe by contact, our sole self-awareness is our ability to move a body and transfer ourself to another. But outside of that, we've no identity, no true-self. We're only puppets designed to channel our power.

And what happens when we die. Like i said, we're actually like sleeping, we're in fact dreaming. And when we suddenly wake up, we open our eyes. But in the tenno cases, they doesn't remember to possess eyes at all. They don't know possessing a body. And what happens when after having the sensation of dying, you're paralysed, your eyes opened inside a coffin?

 

Actually, my theory is: The death of a Tenno is a mental one. The trauma of being killed without self-awareness, without any clue about the existence of our true body, traumatize us. And like the mind over the body, that actual trauma affect the body, forcing us to stay inside a coma. Uh... Yeah, that's a #*!%ed up theory and i totally doesn't have the right words to explain it in the way i would like to.

Sorry.

[CaptainZgred]

4 minutes ago, Stigma_Deathshatter said:

i know but i cant help but think about things. i cant shut off the think!!!

Well, I've been trying to figure out the most reasonable turn of events from rise of the orokin empire to now but there are quite a few obstacles on the way:

• Is Lotus a Sentient, Margulis or something else (as displayed in the apostasy prologue)?
• Why the hell Teshin seems to know everything?
• Why Dax soldiers are on one hand displayed as mighty warriors of the Orokin and on the other a literal cannon fodder as shown throughout Inaros and Titania quests?
• How did Vor turn from a Grineer officer to some maniac wandering around the void to a commander leading Grineer assault on some village (as shown in one of PoE comics)?
• What happened with the older Grineer queen? Is she dead? Is she alive?
• Are Tenno-wielded blades simply "sharp enough to cut through metal" BS or rather power weapons working on similar principles as those from 40k?
• Is Ballas alive? Is he dead and all we see in trailers are some pre-recorded speeches of his? 
• What exactly made "old school weapons" so much more effective against Sentients during the Old War than highly advanced Orokin guns?
• Who are people in relays? Tenno? Corpus? Some sort of Grineer? Ostron? "Humans"?
• How do the syndicates operate freely in Tenno relays when they constantly try to kill Tenno warframes for no reasons other than interfering with their businesses?
• How much in common do warframes have with the infestation? Are they structurally closer to the techno-organic matter between Orokin Walls or an actual technocyte?

[(PSN)Killerworld]

Also, what of Chroma and Mesa? I know we see Mesa with the mind insurgence/control collar from mutalist alad v but was Chroma a frame that wandered without an operator or did the operator lose its mind and rell was fighting this same madness, which is slowly affecting us

As for other tenno, we see some pods fall in derelict, can the infestation devour or entrap tenno as they sleep? What caused tenno to sleep? Why does Ballas look like that, if Tenshin and ex orokin grineer queen looks ok (unless Tenshin is an orokin cyborg and how does he still look young), how many tenno has she devoured/siphoned from to keep alive. 

Long ago when you escaped cryo room we would see 3 or 4 frames come rescue you similar to the trailers, they removed that now as you adventure out.

Is lotus and margulis a fusion as a way for sentients to fight back the orokin as orokin used warframes and probably daxes, do orokin funerals launch bodies in space?

"This secret drove the stalker to madness" -second dream, lotus. Probably same reason why lotus doesn't want other tenno to know for fear of creating more stalker(s, probably how acolytes came to pass and stalker picks up the rejected, weird that lotus calls stalker as is vs tenno, or is someone labelled as tenno because of lotus synch or ways of a tenno?  

Edited March 10, 2018 by (PS4)Killerworld

[Blakrana]

10 minutes ago, (PS4)Killerworld said:

Also, what of Chroma and Mesa? I know we see Mesa with the mind insurgence/control collar from mutalist alad v but was Chroma a frame that wandered without an operator or did the operator lose its mind and rell was fighting this same madness

As you rightly note, Mesa was controlled by Alad V, whilst Chroma was under the control of something but, last I recall, we're still not clear specifically what was controlling it; if there's been breakthrough/allusions to what it might have been, then fair.

With regards to the Chroma, Simaris notes: "If it is not under Tenno control, then what entity dominates it? That is the true prey"

Although...a factor that still sticks out for me: both Infested Mesa and Chroma are explicitly stated to not be under Tenno control, yet both Lotus and Ordis respectively make statements that go a degree further than what you'd think applicable for "empty shells" as the Infested put it.

In regards to Infested Mesa, Lotus asks us to "put it out of its misery"
In regards to Chroma, Ordis tells us to use the Synthesis Scanner to "release it from its control" without having to kill it.

Both of these aren't statements you'd associate with mere objects, at least not without heavily personifying things; sure, people personify their cars or what have you...but considering Lotus and Ordis and their natures, personifying to that level seems out of place. They also both imply that, in both of these cases, there is an imposition of will upon the Warframe from outside forces...something that generally warrants termination, though in more of a mercy kill vein than simply scrapping an old beater, which has always stood out to me as odd.

Apologies for going on, any rate. Hope that helped.

[(PSN)Killerworld]

2 hours ago, Blakrana said:

As you rightly note, Mesa was controlled by Alad V, whilst Chroma was under the control of something but, last I recall, we're still not clear specifically what was controlling it; if there's been breakthrough/allusions to what it might have been, then fair.

With regards to the Chroma, Simaris notes: "If it is not under Tenno control, then what entity dominates it? That is the true prey"

Although...a factor that still sticks out for me: both Infested Mesa and Chroma are explicitly stated to not be under Tenno control, yet both Lotus and Ordis respectively make statements that go a degree further than what you'd think applicable for "empty shells" as the Infested put it.

In regards to Infested Mesa, Lotus asks us to "put it out of its misery"
In regards to Chroma, Ordis tells us to use the Synthesis Scanner to "release it from its control" without having to kill it.

Both of these aren't statements you'd associate with mere objects, at least not without heavily personifying things; sure, people personify their cars or what have you...but considering Lotus and Ordis and their natures, personifying to that level seems out of place. They also both imply that, in both of these cases, there is an imposition of will upon the Warframe from outside forces...something that generally warrants termination, though in more of a mercy kill vein than simply scrapping an old beater, which has always stood out to me as odd.

Apologies for going on, any rate. Hope that helped.

Thanks, I always viewed it as Iron Man 3 or Age of Ultron or Ant-man style where the operator links to a low or no conscious frame  ("i know the conditions are desperate but these aren't dax soldiers, these are golems with devil minds") and the empty shell quote was, in my comprehension the infested feeling the technocyte or some sort of infested frequency picker  the infestation rely on with the hive and that its not triggering a response, like how hunhow says to lotus about the tenno hive and her'll remove it to regain her. Didn't really think on it about what ordis and lotus says about those moments and how it makes it seem its like a person. I wonder if warframes evolve or because of not knowing who we were we have given life to an other wise mindless being.

Edited March 10, 2018 by (PS4)Killerworld

[Lion]

52 minutes ago, Chimiasai said:

You know, maybe Tenno created their own warframes but unlike our actual who awakened, they... Died when their warframe was killed.

How?

 

Their mind. Actually, as a Tenno, our mind is linked to the warframe which act as a substitute (Until TWW) but while our mind is linked, we have no sensations from our body. Like when we sleep, our nerves aren't connected. 

And, in the Tenno case, not only our nervers aren't connected but also we don't know or even remember we've a true body outside the warframe. We transfer our conscience to another warframe by contact, our sole self-awareness is our ability to move a body and transfer ourself to another. But outside of that, we've no identity, no true-self. We're only puppets designed to channel our power.

And what happens when we die. Like i said, we're actually like sleeping, we're in fact dreaming. And when we suddenly wake up, we open our eyes. But in the tenno cases, they doesn't remember to possess eyes at all. They don't know possessing a body. And what happens when after having the sensation of dying, you're paralysed, your eyes opened inside a coffin?

 

Actually, my theory is: The death of a Tenno is a mental one. The trauma of being killed without self-awareness, without any clue about the existence of our true body, traumatize us. And like the mind over the body, that actual trauma affect the body, forcing us to stay inside a coma. Uh... Yeah, that's a #*!%ed up theory and i totally doesn't have the right words to explain it in the way i would like to.

Sorry.

Biggest flaw in this is that there's actually dialogue your operator says "The Transference makes this hurt." 

[Chimiasai]

il y a 1 minute, Blade a dit :

Biggest flaw in this is that there's actually dialogue your operator says "The Transference makes this hurt." 

The first time he does a Transference or continously? Or only when the operator enter in a Warframe, or when he receive damage? Actually, we have not enough hints.

[Lion]

Just now, Chimiasai said:

The first time he does a Transference or continously? Or only when the operator enter in a Warframe, or when he receive damage? Actually, we have not enough hints.

It's just one of the idle things the operator says during a mission. 

[Chimiasai]

il y a 1 minute, Blade a dit :

It's just one of the idle things the operator says during a mission. 

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Operator/Quotes

 

When he takes damage... If he's mind is linked to the nervous system, he does feel damage like you do. He's insensible to the damage of his own body, not the warframe's one 

[(PSN)Zero_029]

Well...

I look at it like this.

After Second Dream, Lua & as a result ALL Reservoirs are now vulnerable to all enemies of the Tenno: Sentients, Grineer, Corpus, & even Stalker himself (he can ALWAYS goto Lua on his own terms).

So from many standpoints ranging from tactical to personal.

Lotus had no choice but to wake all the Tenno.

In their pods Tenno are truly vulnerable & can finally be killed once & for all.

So I 100% believe that Second Dream's events (whether you see your Tenno or another's as the Catalyst of the event) basically forced all Tenno to wake up.

 

Now"The War Within" is where things get hazy.

I like to believe that many Tenno discovered their past, or unlocked their abilities through their own trials. Obviously only 1 Tenno actually faced The Queens & endures the trials of TWW.

It's also possible some awaken Tennp are the veteran Tenno, or those who had already broken Margulis' mental blocks and/or who were never blocked in the first place.

 

I hate the chosen one story. I dom't consider my Tenno to have been the "hero" of Second Dream, nor has my Tenno endures The War Within.

I see my Tenno as one who got a rude awakening post Second Dream, & who unlocked his dormant abilities overtime through the constant trials he endured.

But my Tenno also has PTSD (I don't lile to assume our Tenno are jist dandy after all the orokin manipulations & being void imbued) & hates Grineer to the extent that he'd enact an "Extinction Level Event" to them if possible.

So...he got his abilites by commiting Genocide.

I have had Nakak forge me a Grineer mask, & Onkko forfe me new armor by compressing the ashes of millions upon millions of Grineer into a diamond like (in toughness) substance.

No I'm no RPer. But I play around with the idea of a storyline for the fun of it.

Edited March 10, 2018 by (PS4)Zero_029

[Mints]

If you would be so kind as to lend me some of your patience I'd like to postulate that it is possible that the Tenno can experience eachothers' memories. It is entirely possible that there is no "One Tenno." Let's take the Second Dream and War Within for example. How can we reconcile the fact that these events could not have happened to all Tenno, but are known to all Tenno in great detail? How can we justify the sheer number of Awakened Dreamers among the Tenno? Because whichever Tenno it happened to shared those memories somehow. Come to think of it, the only thing unexplained by this is the presence of Ordis. But then, what if Ordis is actually a mass produced template series with identical personality problems due to their origin?

Do we have any proof that each Tenno has their own personal cephalon unique from Ordis? We certainly can't have proof that each Tenno experienced these event directly because that would be impossible unless they experienced the events as a contiguous sequence of memories taken from another Tenno's mind. This would also grant more leniency in our conceptual understanding of the alignment system and how the choices made in it could conflict with canon. Also why we can view and play narrative quests more than once.

What a curious survival mechanism the Tenno would possess if they automatically shared traumatic experiences among eachother. It would explain why they are only truly loyal to eachother, especially since Operators barely ever interact directly and Warframes can't speak. Immortal Void Ghosts learning how to kill their enemies one unfortunate death at a time. Sounds like Tenno to me. For some reason the instance where Hunhow read Lotus' mind for the location of Lua via physical contact with his bones (through a Warframe!) comes to mind. That's an identifiable instance of this ocurring even in non-Tenno, and this process may also be intrinsically tied to the Transference of the Orokin who apparently overwrite the consciousness of a host with their own after drowning the existing consciousness in despair.

In relation to Warframes and their nature, I favor the theory that each unique type of Warframe shares an Oro with all of its duplicates. They are many instances of the same entity, not unlike Rell's shadows being fragments of Rell. Many are One and One is Many. The story of these Warframes is generally that they were lost to time or hidden away. Their quests, and the ability to build them, hinge on rediscovering them. I don't know how to reconcile that with the fact you can buy 'Frames with platinum and that the vendor selling them is Darvo via his Marketplace. I also don't know how to reconcile it with the fact that you can see other Tenno using supposedly lost/extinct Warframes. I'd have to think about that one for a little while. That's one of those high concept answers that comes to you in a shower or in front of a fridge, you know?

Edited March 10, 2018 by Mints

[NightmareT12]

Well, the whole Tenno vs All Tenno is something that can easily be solved. For instance, I suggested a Hijack gamemode variation on Lua some time ago, that basically explained how other Tenno were getting out of Lua. Lotus sends a squad, you get a Tenno, and bring him out while fighting the Sentients. Ezpz stuff right?

War Within might prove a bit more challenging, but I'm sure there has to be ways for that too.

[SilentMobius]

6 hours ago, Stigma_Deathshatter said:

as one among many lore-peeps, i have issues regarding consistency in the story of Warframe. it regards how the story deals with the Tenno as a character.

There is a standard conceit with almost all story-based multiplayer games:

One unique character moves the story along, you play that character and everyone else has a different story. This is true for every player.

The mechanical equivalent is when forming a team you see all the other Tenno's landing craft come to you, where you are obviously still in the Liset attached to your orbiter. But from the perspective of any other member of your team they are the ones in their Liset attache to their orbiter and you have taken your landing craft to them.

No as far as Old War lore goes, we have no idea how many Tenno there were nor how many of each Warframe. Maybe Inaros was active across many Tenno, but only one Tenno absorbed the "Inaros" persona from the Warframe during their second-dream that caused them to rebel and got to Mars.

It seems unlikely to me that all Warframe's are unique to one Tenno, regardless of some of the suggestion in story. At the very least there Primes and the Tenno versions existed  to that must make sense somehow even while the Tenno were still in in the Pre-Cryo second dream.

[SilentMobius]

6 hours ago, CaptainZgred said:

Who are people in relays? Tenno? Corpus? Some sort of Grineer? Ostron? "Humans"?

This was answered in a devstream sometime after the Gradivus dilemma. There are "Normal Humans" scattered across the system that are neither Corpus nor Grineer. Mostly they trade to survive (Ostrons, Myconians) some join the syndicates but some join the Lotus and help, those are the ones in the Relays and the operatives we rescue (Note the Lotus symbol on their visors)

[(PSN)Silverback73]

7 hours ago, Stigma_Deathshatter said:

as one among many lore-peeps, i have issues regarding consistency in the story of Warframe. it regards how the story deals with the Tenno as a character.

from Vor’s Prize to present, many of the quests work under the narrative of the One Tenno, you, the main character. and much of the core game elements work under this narrative as well, however it leaves room for All Tenno, addressing the fact that you are not the only Tenno who is awakened from cryo. in reality, many Tenno are active, however, how do we know that this is the intent of the story itself?

in Second Dream, One Tenno, under the guidance of the Lotus, brings Lua back to its original place orbiting the Earth. One Tenno finds their true self and is hunted down by the Stalker and Hunhow. One Tenno realizes who they really are. but how does this revelation affect All Tenno from a narrative standpoint? it is never mentioned. we only know that others have awakened because of the interactions we have in-game. but how does that fit in-story? do All Tenno, after SD event, awaken? if the Lotus brings more of them out of cryo, does she take them directly to Lua to find themselves? after the One Tenno does, what is the fate of all the other Operators in Lua? are there even other Operators on Lua at all? how many Tenno fully unleashed their void powers post-TWW? these things are never addressed, and because this game heavily emphasizes the multiplayer experience, i think it should.

if by, logic of the story, there is but One or few Tenno that are focused on, then what does this mean for the Tenno of the past who owned warframes that were, for all we know, exclusive to them. Mirage, Limbo, Inaros, Gara, etc. the story plays out as if they are dead, but Tenno dont die by death of warframe. so if they are actually dead, then the One Tenno only collects what data is left on the warframes they had without any implication of other Tenno having used them. if they are dead, what would this mean about All Tenno?

the idea that some warframes are exclusive to specific Tenno lines up perfectly with the old pre-SD theory that each warframe type is an individual Tenno. if that outdated theory bears weight in the story of One or All Tenno, then that means that, in the Old War, there were as many Tenno as there are warframes(double that if prime frames are to be considered separate entities from their standard counterparts. also keep in mind that DE said that all warframes can be primed).

as of update 22.15.1, we currently have knowledge of 35 warframes, including Khora. that would mean that, as far as we know, there would have been at least 35 Tenno during the Old War. if there truly is a 1:1 ratio between warframe type and Tenno count, then most Tenno are either inactive or dead, and only very few remain, including the One Tenno. we are the One Tenno, fighting in the Origin system alone with none or few brothers and sisters fighting by our side. and we, the One Tenno, collect the remains of the fallen and honer them by using what they have lost.

of course, thats only the case IF there is a perfect 1:1 ratio, and if the fact that we collect all warframes but our own is not a coincidence of gameplay.

but what if that wasnt the case? what if this story was actually about All Tenno. if it is in fact about All Tenno, we still must ask more questions: how many of us are there in the story? does the 1:1 ratio still apply? why do we start off with only one warframe if the data is shared among many Tenno? why are some warframes exclusive until we find them if all warframes are supposedly shared?

the game may have alot of multiplayer features that show All Tenno, but the story works in favor of One Tenno or very few. this is something DE needs to either fix or confirm.

 

 

Stalker could be the power of compartmentalized trauma giving life to one Tenno's monstrous Id (and Ego) via Freud or it could be the Collective Unconscious of the trauma of ALL Tenno (Jung's theory stacked on Freud's).

While some live to tout their prowess by screaming about plot holes and inconsistencies, it's really just the art of marrying game mechanics with storytelling as the whole process evolves, sometimes in a very non-linear fashion.

Edited March 11, 2018 by (PS4)Silverback73

[(PSN)Lowk721]

Multiverse theory. It explain everything.

Edited March 11, 2018 by (PS4)Lowk721