Umbra Frames (As potentially set up so far) [SPOILERS]

[NeroAugustine]

Okay, so from what's been tied up with The Sacrifice, I have been thinking, because everyone's going to eventually want more Umbra, but Ballas aint really looking like he's ready to bust out the tools any time soon, both physically, and just... well, I doub't he'd give Umbra Excal a good rating on Amazon...

BUT it's okay, because according to the... uh... V-Vitruvian? (We need much more of that by the way) it's all set up where players themselves could create Umbra frames from their own current frames.
Here is my logic:
[IF YOU DID NOT PLAY SACRIFICE YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE, BUT DEFINITLY DON'T READ THIS!]
 

Spoiler

-Warframes (I'm assuming all. There was really no obvious differentiation given between Umbra and normal. In fact, I'm assuming that the ones reffered to in the Vitape-Recorder were primes.) were made by infesting (Jax?) soldiers, in the Helminth chair. This changed them into what they are.
-I think I just fit everything relevent into the first bullet point. Sorry.

So, the Idea would be that the final ingrediant needed is some rare item, from the Tau System maybe? That would allow someone to use the uh... thing mentioned above... to convert their Warframe into an Umbra variant. Considering the differences between Excal and Umbra Excal, some people might prefer to do that than have two different versions of the same frame.

I hesitate to put this in Fan Concepts, because while I am a fan, and this is a concept, I also hesitate to claim any ownership to what seems more just like connecting potential strings.
In the feedback sense, I say, if this is the intent of DE to do something like this, I applaud it.
If not, I would say the ...

Spoiler

Helminth Chair

... works both lore wise, and utility wise to suit such a purpose. Plus I'm sure players want it to do much more than it currently does anyways.

EDIT: On further thought, the Vitruvian or however you say it, could hold the glyphs needed to convert frames to Umbra, considering Ordis needed it to do so with Excal Umbra.
POST-EDIT: Considering there is a difference between normal Warframes and Prime, lore-wise, it may be that Primes are the ones you'd have to convert.

POST-POST-EDIT: On the furthest of thoughts, it might be just as beneficial, and a bit more lore-friendly, to simply make it where you only had THE Umbra you got from the Sacrifice, and could utilize the Helminth Chair to change the form of his frame, based on the Warframes you already had.

Edited June 18, 2018 by NeroAugustine
Oh. And Oh...

[Omega-Shadowblade]

Your info is a bit off. Umbra was designed as a warframe that had its memory intact unlike our normal frames that are entirely just husks. You can't just morph a regular frame into an umbra.

[NeroAugustine]

11 minutes ago, Omega-Shadowblade said:

Your info is a bit off. Umbra was designed as a warframe that had its memory intact unlike our normal frames that are entirely just husks. You can't just morph a regular frame into an umbra.

According to the Vitruvian, entry three, the Sentients turned all the Orokin's war machines against them, and so the Orokin crafted the infestation. They then hybridized it, conceiving of the Helminth. Utilizing the helminth, they took 'Thier finest warriors, willing or not' and polluted them with the infestation. These warriors they speak of are not Warframes. These warriors are probably Dax or something similar. they became Warframes. So all warframes, are derived from a previously conscious being.
If you are agreeing with all this but simply saying that through this transformation, a standard Warframe should not have memories, that is fair, but it could also be the case that thier memories exist, but are simply dormant, as is with some cephalons, or that even without memories, they can gain, agency, once mutated.

Further still, the biggest difference I'd say between an Umbra and other Warframes, or at least the Umbra in Sacrifice, is that he was not controlled by an Operator.

Edited June 16, 2018 by NeroAugustine

[Vashramire]

The info I got from it was sort of vague but I gathered that Umbra (I'm guessing there may be others than Excal) were the first Warframes. Allowing them to keep(or not knowing how to remove) their memories made them dangerous, unstable, and uncontrollable. Eventually they found a way to purge the memories or repress them and those were the Primes which used the Tenno to operate them. It's possible the Orokin slaughter was due to the Umbra alone or the Tenno as well if they found out about the horrible things they did to make frames. It's possible all frames have memories as such examples given from quests such as "Hidden Messages" and "The Limbo Theorem" and these in theory aren't Primes. We don't know when non Prime frames started being made since all their blueprints are in the void or we just suck at crafting and the rebellion against the Orokin was described as frames clad in gold and it would be unlikely that more frames would be made after the slaughter, at least by Orokin hands.

[Pizzarugi]

Given what happened in the quest, Umbra is a personal modification created by Ballas. A transference bolt was installed into the body of a pre-infested human and was injected with the specialized spores necessary to create a warframe. What separates Umbra from the others, from what we've seen in the quest, is that they kept chosen memories. In order for that to work, however, the warframe would have to be conscious and thus independent of an operator. Since no other frame has memories, their consciousness is inert.

Excalibur Umbra may have been created by techniques used in their failed bio-drone prototypes (hence his monstrous Independence), but was still given a transference bolt and prime augmentation. The purpose for this? He was never intended to be used by operators during the old war, as evidenced by the fact he's been locked up in a containment room in Lua this whole time until recently. This was done as a punishment.

I get the feeling future umbras (if any) will probably be born of the same circumstances: Political enemies, dissenters, traitors, do-gooders turned into modified primes and allowed selected memories and sentience in order to forever live out a torment. Of course, DE could surprise me and make umbras where people volunteered to sacrifice themselves out of something like love or dedication to a cause, but I'm basing things on what we saw in the quest.

What really needs to be done is add more lore to the vitruvius detailing the creation of the umbra models and their purpose. All it did was talk about the creation of warframes in general, all thanks to the discovery of the void and the Zariman incident.

Edited June 16, 2018 by Pizzarugi

[Eldihiriath]

Something that still bothers me, is that if warframes (prime or normal) is made by infecting a human body with the virus, how is it thagtwe can recreate that with blueprints, like where do we get all the bodies to make the frames. Or do we merely recreate a representation of the original frame using the blueprints?

I read somewhere that the normal warframes are weaker versions of the primes, made for mass production. So i can't see how a mass production warframe would still require a body to be made. Unless i'm missing something about how we actually construct the frames in our ship.

So my theory:

The umbras was the first attempt at creating warframes. They infected living people with the virus and turned them into warframes, thus their consiousness. They later refined this process and created the primes, maybe decided to infect dead bodies just as a surrogate, so that the virus has something to feed of, but since the bodie is dead, has no conciousness.

Then to make it easier to mass produce, they altered the process again to create the nornal frames, i'm not sure of this but maybe they took stemcells or DNA samples or something, to provide the virus a sort of template to how it should mutate, in order to get the desired warframe.

This theory has some gaps in it, but oh well. 

Ps. I think in the sacrifice quest, we didn't create a new frame, I think we rebuilt the warframe. Remember how we scanned the parts scattered on the map? The cloth piece, the golden arm pieces and so on, after it looked like to me, ballas destroyed the umbra. Ordis just needed the vitruvian thing to know how to assemble the parts. 

[NeroAugustine]

These are fair points. I guess it's really (I mean of course it is) up to DE to see how they'd go about it. My main motivation for this, is that it potentially give the Helminth chair lore-based utility, should they choose to go that route.

Thinking on it, DE did say that they might potentially utilize the bed-chamber in the back of the med bay, for certain capture targets (I think it had to do with the clan-missions thing? Where you take down the crime lords?)
Oh. That'd be messed up.
What's better for a criminal? Death, or being turned into a warframe?

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

14 hours ago, Eldihiriath said:

Something that still bothers me, is that if warframes (prime or normal) is made by infecting a human body with the virus, how is it thagtwe can recreate that with blueprints, like where do we get all the bodies to make the frames. Or do we merely recreate a representation of the original frame using the blueprints?

I read somewhere that the normal warframes are weaker versions of the primes, made for mass production. So i can't see how a mass production warframe would still require a body to be made. Unless i'm missing something about how we actually construct the frames in our ship.

So my theory:

The umbras was the first attempt at creating warframes. They infected living people with the virus and turned them into warframes, thus their consiousness. They later refined this process and created the primes, maybe decided to infect dead bodies just as a surrogate, so that the virus has something to feed of, but since the bodie is dead, has no conciousness.

Then to make it easier to mass produce, they altered the process again to create the nornal frames, i'm not sure of this but maybe they took stemcells or DNA samples or something, to provide the virus a sort of template to how it should mutate, in order to get the desired warframe.

This theory has some gaps in it, but oh well. 

Ps. I think in the sacrifice quest, we didn't create a new frame, I think we rebuilt the warframe. Remember how we scanned the parts scattered on the map? The cloth piece, the golden arm pieces and so on, after it looked like to me, ballas destroyed the umbra. Ordis just needed the vitruvian thing to know how to assemble the parts. 

We have a room dedicated to the helmith for a reason. Either they are recreated with cloned tissues, the nature of the infestation allowz the frames to be restored from fragments, or yes the orbiter recreates the frame with the exact same processes.

 

The infested room has always looked like a medical room. It looks like it was not for life support alone, if at all. But for the biological maintenance of the frames themselves.

[Femuru]

seriously if swear i pray they dont follow a umbra hype im entirely against them making more umbra.

-umbra will have different skills/mods advantage(we dont even kno if theyll bring more umbra mods really) making more balance issues they have a hard time balancing the base frames. theyre just throwing more random fuel in the fire for them to give effort to make NEW abilities on OLD warframes makes absolutely NO sense to me idc if its nearly the same it doesnt make sense why not just make a new warframe if u want new abilities???

-they need to throw away prime access then i can already see a few ppl salty that own excal p anyone who bought a prime access well guess wat if umbra series a thing yur wasting cash on prime. also itll take waaaay to long to umbra everything excal umbra=1 year over 30 warframes? um will warframe survive 30 years having a start on a new series w/o finishing the other well wen theyre obviously better just throw prime in the trash now?

-i see it as time wasting making a old frame but new abilities but nearly the same. ok u kno id rather they use that time and effort reworking the base frames ALOT of em need changes now imagine this they rework a base frame but now have to rework the umbra frame why? because its also changes but its different making it alot more work now the system gets screwy they take forever to change a simple warframe how many years will i have to wait for a proper rework/tweak/buff if umbra has to be considered now?

-again wit all that time and effort 1 year=1 umbra. ok they could make new open worlds, new quest, new modes, new battle mechanics, bug fixes (they will always have aton), new gear(actual gear not a umbra version), maybe something to replace raids. could be using that time to progress the game instead of just re shining old warframe but arent even them? y not just make yur warframes balanced and good each and everyone one not take the power creep route.

- now there are umbra mods greeeaaat somehow im not that excited its now to the point of  heavy grinding thats strange. regular frames can use these new mods but obviously u dont wanna put all of em or yur wasting yur slot points cuz it wont fit other mods at most maybe 2 can fit so i will have to reforma every polarity AROUND the umbra mod to make it fit. that is one fat grind wall to temp me into that for some reason barely gets u crazy stats just trying to get the best potential for my frame but umbra frame can use em right of the bat no work free umbra polarity yeaaaa = stats to primes riiiiiiight(if they release more its more prime buckets filled wit me saying why). hell i hated riven first release but atleast that grind wall felt satisfying at the end this make me feel wat am i doing wit my life.

[NeroAugustine]

2 hours ago, ShenRyujin said:

seriously if swear i pray they dont follow a umbra hype im entirely against them making more umbra.

-umbra will have different skills/mods advantage(we dont even kno if theyll bring more umbra mods really) making more balance issues they have a hard time balancing the base frames. theyre just throwing more random fuel in the fire for them to give effort to make NEW abilities on OLD warframes makes absolutely NO sense to me idc if its nearly the same it doesnt make sense why not just make a new warframe if u want new abilities???

-they need to throw away prime access then i can already see a few ppl salty that own excal p anyone who bought a prime access well guess wat if umbra series a thing yur wasting cash on prime. also itll take waaaay to long to umbra everything excal umbra=1 year over 30 warframes? um will warframe survive 30 years having a start on a new series w/o finishing the other well wen theyre obviously better just throw prime in the trash now?

-i see it as time wasting making a old frame but new abilities but nearly the same. ok u kno id rather they use that time and effort reworking the base frames ALOT of em need changes now imagine this they rework a base frame but now have to rework the umbra frame why? because its also changes but its different making it alot more work now the system gets screwy they take forever to change a simple warframe how many years will i have to wait for a proper rework/tweak/buff if umbra has to be considered now?

-again wit all that time and effort 1 year=1 umbra. ok they could make new open worlds, new quest, new modes, new battle mechanics, bug fixes (they will always have aton), new gear(actual gear not a umbra version), maybe something to replace raids. could be using that time to progress the game instead of just re shining old warframe but arent even them? y not just make yur warframes balanced and good each and everyone one not take the power creep route.

- now there are umbra mods greeeaaat somehow im not that excited its now to the point of  heavy grinding thats strange. regular frames can use these new mods but obviously u dont wanna put all of em or yur wasting yur slot points cuz it wont fit other mods at most maybe 2 can fit so i will have to reforma every polarity AROUND the umbra mod to make it fit. that is one fat grind wall to temp me into that for some reason barely gets u crazy stats just trying to get the best potential for my frame but umbra frame can use em right of the bat no work free umbra polarity yeaaaa = stats to primes riiiiiiight(if they release more its more prime buckets filled wit me saying why). hell i hated riven first release but atleast that grind wall felt satisfying at the end this make me feel wat am i doing wit my life.

I agree that they shouldn't make new separate umbra frame. Or at least not many.
I would prefer an Umbral transformation.
The difference is that it'd recycle the base frame, for this new one.
It'd be very similar to applying a forma to the frame, except it alters it visually, and modifies some of it's powers.
Otherwise, it has the main benefits of the Umbra frame, being that it follows, and has extra damage against Tau enemies.