Introduction

Greetings one and all. I am Xenogelion, one of Warframe’s bogglingly numerous partners. Back in April, Digital Extremes released the first half of my Blog post covering how the Tenno have affected the Origin System, which can be found here. Now, without further delay, let’s get right into the continuation!

This should go without saying but… SPOILER WARNING.

The Second Dream

Hunhow is awake and summons the Stalker to form a pact, adopting “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” as his mantra. Individually, each has failed in destroying the Tenno, and the Stalker grows weary of efforts invariably resulting in the Tenno rebounding with ease. Through the pact, Hunhow strengthens the Stalker in return for his loyalty and assistance with finding the Reservoir: the one weakness of the Tenno.

Months have passed since Hunhow’s awakening and the Lotus has been feeling his strength grow unbound. At this point, she feels an investigation is warranted and thus sends the Tenno to find information hidden in research labs on Neptune. Here they find a message broken in fragments; once reassembled, it is addressed to the Lotus. Our informant reveals himself: Alad V is back and looking far healthier than when we last saw him. Alad navigates us to the dig site of Hunhow’s remains, and the Lotus has us connect to the fragment still pulsing with “life”. As we do so, she can see the Stalker stronger than before, and there is confusion… “Oh no-”.

Hunhow: “Thank you, daughter. Fear has baited you to the snare. What was secret is now known. Your Tenno, their touch, I now see the Womb of the sky. My Shadow now walks the path.”

In a visceral “Oh shit” moment, the Lotus realizes too late that Hunhow baited her into connecting with him so he could learn the location of the Reservoir. With a quip from Alad about how we destroyed a civilization last time we engaged the Sentients (though we have no memory of this) Lotus changes our mission, and now we must chase down the Stalker and stop him.

Side note: Alad is helping us so that we help him in the future, no questions asked.

As we track the Stalker to a Void Gate, Hunhow finally sends his Sentients after us, which we dispatch with some considerable difficulty. When arriving at the Void Tower, Alad suggests that we find a nav console so that we can determine our location. In doing so, we discover the Moon. The Lotus moved the Moon to the Void to keep the Reservoir safe from the Corpus, Grineer, Infested, and especially the Sentients.

With the Stalker’s successful attack, the only course of action left to the Lotus and her Tenno was to take the Moon out of the void. Our mission was to render the Stalker’s attack ineffective by preventing the Moon from being destroyed... and the Tenno’s power along with it. The tables have now turned, and the Stalker is hot on our tails. However, we manage to succeed by the skin of our teeth and the Reservoir is spared.

Side note: At this point Alad leaves the narrative as Hunhow has found where he is transmitting from.

As we’re fleeing from the Moon, which is now re-entering the Origin System, we hear the echoes of Ballas and Margulis, Orokin from centuries ago. It’s revealed that Ballas wishes to destroy the Tenno but Margulis wishes to protect them.

With the Moon removed from the Void’s protection, Hunhow’s fragments can now attack the Reservoir directly, so we must get there first. Approaching ever closer, we encounter even more echoes of Ballas and Margulis; the Council of Seven (leaders of the Orokin) cast a verdict that sentences Margulis to death.

We approach the Reservoir and witness an intensely gripping scene. Pods rise from within it; one approaches us, blossoming to reveal a single occupant carried forward gracefully by a cradle. The occupant falls from the cradle, and all goes dark. Moments later we awaken, but our perspectives are glaringly altered. No longer seeing through the neural sensors of our Warframe, we catch the first glimpse of our true Tenno form. Crawling to our Warframe and laying a single hand on it restores it to life once again; a dramatic truth is revealed.

The Stalker arrives. Casting his gaze on the Reservoir and ourselves, he realizes what has been witnessed and abruptly leaves. As we flee to our Liset, we encounter Sentients and witness our true power for the first time

We descend to the back of our Orbiter, where we are told we’ll find a cradle waiting for us, but as we do, we also find the Stalker. We push against the Stalker’s attacks and attempt to restore the cradle using our Void powers, only for them to rebound and separate us from our Warframe. This grants the Stalker the opportunity to dispatch us once and for all. Stalker plunges his sword War, the vessel for Hunhow, into our Warframe before turning his attention toward us.

With each stride, the panic intensifies. Looming above, he grabs us by the neck and lifts us aloft like a marionette with severed strings. As the life is choked from our Tenno lungs amid Hunhow’s unchallenged soliloquy, the unexpected occurs: seemingly of its own accord, the Warframe grabs the vessel of Hunhow and breaks it while still pierced through the chest.

With his vessel broken, Hunhow’s power coursing through the Stalker reacts violently, and with a blinding flash, the Stalker disappears. We regain consciousness once more to find ourselves in the arms of the Lotus as she carries us to the cradle. We are finally awakened. The Lotus speaks to us of what has happened to us, with the Zariman Ten Zero, how the Orokin wanted to destroy us, and how Margulis protected us.

The War Within

Nearly a year has passed since we awoke from our slumber in the Reservoir, and Lotus has some troubling news: several of her sentries have become unresponsive and she wishes for our assistance. Upon sending a Warframe to Lua, the Moon, we discover Teshin’s presence. After being warned at the wrong end of a sword, we give chase. We are led to believe that not only has Teshin broken into a reservoir on Lua, but that he is also working for the fabled Grineer Queens.

Our prey eventually leads us to a desolate region of space near Sedna. After navigating an asteroid field full of laser grids and traversing subterranean passages, we eventually reach the other side to find a particular asteroid hurtling through space utilizing Fomorian engines. This was the first time anyone had seen the fortress of the Grineer Queens in years. Without hesitation, we infiltrated the fortress and were separated from the Lotus.

After worming our way past mines, cannons, and heavily armed Grineer, we find ourselves in the very large chamber of the Grineer Queens, with our exit cut off by Teshin. Our Warframe becomes immobilised at the hand of Teshin and given to the elder Queen, who proceeds to use something resembling a black and red seed to bore its way inside Warframe and our mind. The transference link between Operator and Warframe is stressed to the point of breaking, and we awake to find ourselves lying on the floor, several meters away from the cradle. We find our bearings and discover our abilities are gone, and with this unfortunate revelation Ordis rejects us, so we escape from the orbiter to a remote region on Earth.

Upon a mountainous summit we search for shelter and find a cave within where we find Teshin, and the remains of a long-abandoned individual. In a fit of rage we attack but are subdued with little effort. Baiting us to use our Void powers against him, we discover that when we do it causes us great pain and we fall to the floor. Teshin warns us that as we stand inside the cave near the mountain summit, the Queens are burrowing into our mind, and he is forced to undo what Margulis has done… and make us suffer.

Here is Xenogelion’s entire playthrough of The War Within, with commentary.

Forced to explore the boroughs of the mountain, we slowly uncover some of the memories of the Zariman Ten Zero that Margulis hid from us. After breaking through each barrier we discover a new piece of what happened, gain further access to our abilities, and Elder Queen inches closer to her goal. Finally after reaching a basic understanding of what happened on the Zariman, Teshin explains his role to us as a Dax: a slave to the symbol of the Orokin and the same substance that was trying to burrow its way into our mind, the Kuva.

We reach an Orokin chamber toward the top of the mountain and find a glorified catwalk used to parade young and exotic vessels in front of the Orokin as they bid on a new host for their continued existence. They bought children to swap their consciousness with so they could live longer. This is the same goal as the Elder Queen: to take possession of our body and live longer. Upon this realization, we push back against the creeping presence of the Queen and everything goes white.

We regain our bearings, noting that the transference link between ourselves and our Warframe is still being stressed; everything we witnessed was all in our mind, but now we are strong enough to push back. The seed is pushed away from our Warframe, eventually and violently snapping back as the invasion of our mind fails, and our Warframe slumps to the ground and falls into a pool of liquid.

Our vision returns and we’re disconnected from our Warframe; the transference circuits burned out, yet our powers are stronger and we no longer need the cradle. With a surge of force, our Warframe bursts forth from the liquid and shocks not only the Queen but Teshin too. Using a technique learned while dreaming of the mountain scape, we are able to appear before them all as our Tenno Self. Shocked by our sudden appearance, a call to action was required of us to kill the Queen’s elite guards, defeat Teshin, and strip the Elder Queen of her hold over Teshin by removing the Kuva from her possession and dealing with her, our way.

After escaping the Queen’s mobile fortress, we meet with Teshin again on the summit of the mountain on Earth. He explains that the Kuva is the power of the Orokin, and we make our final choice as what to do with the Kuva. Finally, a voice emanates deep within us and tells us, “Don’t forget, kiddo… you’re nothing without me.” And thus ends the saga of the War Within.

The Chains of Harrow

A little after seven months from the events on the Kuva fortress, we receive a request from Paladino, medium of the Red Veil. She seeks aid from the Tenno and their “Great Sentient Queen”.

The Red Veil are in peril, as their guardian and teacher, Rell, has been driven mad by the “man in the wall” or, as the Lotus explains it, from being “caught in a Transference loop”. We discover that Rell is a Tenno rejected by Margulis and other Tenno, and that he was autistic. It also came to light that Rell was apparently holding back an entity in the Void, but over the years, his condition deteriorated, and he could no longer do his duty. He had preserved himself thus far by binding with his Warframe, though had reached his limit.

Upon freeing Rell and finally allowing him to rest it became our duty to guard the Void. However, when we returned to our ship, we found ourselves greeted by our Tenno Operator with the same voice from seven months ago, saying “Hey, kiddo”.

Epilogue

As matters stand, many choices that were made throughout the last four years can be scrutinized. Would we have made the same decision to side with Sargas Ruk, given what we know now? Would the infestation have been released accidentally or otherwise by the Grineer if we hadn’t woken up? Would tensions between the Grineer and Corpus have escalated to the point of war if we weren’t interfering with either side? And with the truth of the Tenno slowly unraveling, will more side with the Stalker in his quest for our lives? These are all questions that are floating about in my mind.

Well, that’s it for this 2-parter of a blog post. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I had fun writing it, and I certainly look forward to seeing where DE takes the story of Warframe with the Plains of Eidolon, and the next cinematic quest “The Sacrifice”.

The Teaser Trailer for Plains of Eidolon

The Teaser Trailer for “The Sacrifice”