So... I'm seeing a lot of the lotus being the one to move the frame. I'm curious, why do you believe this? I'm generally interested. Is it Just because she shows up there or do you feel there are other instances where she controlled either a or multiple frames aside from powering them from afar?

Theory on why Stalker didn't wipe us right then and there at the moon. He was still in control and had a moment of weakness that Peepaw Hunhow didn't like. So the second time we see him on the ship it's Hunhow pulling his chain tighter, deeper in to his mind in his rage. Hence why when we broke the sword, which appears to be the strongest link Hunhow had during that time, it looked like it hurt the stalker, convulsing before being zapped off the ship.

Since warframes do possess personalities and the way we link to them is empathetic, I think that there is a certain level of consciousness in each warframe. I think transferrence in the tenno sense is essentially "joining" the warframe and tenno's mind together with the tenno in a sense filling in the missing parts, where orokin based continuity completely destroys and takes over the host. Edit: grammar

I think people forget one very important fact: The Warframes were made before the Tenno were found. THey were considered a failed experiment of uncontrollable weapons that is until the Tenno managed to transference into them as Ballas says, take the broken things and take their pain away.

The warframe moved itself, any other answer is less cool and less hype so I don’t care for it. Also the Tenno take away a warframes pain, that implies they can feel pain. Even if they are just as alive as an infested Moa would be that still makes them fairly alive. Though there is the note that the connection between an operator and their frame doesn’t exactly care about the distance between them and it might have been an earlier showing if long distance transference. Headcanon is the operators distress made enough energy to wake the warframe and though they couldn’t control it at a distance the warframe still moved to save them

It was the Warframes response to stalker calling them mindless puppets

Warframes definitely retain a shred of their personalities, as shown by the animation sets that can be equipped in the cosmetics menu, so my personal theory is that the warframe just had a small moment of clarity, even though they don't retain memories of before they became warframes.

I remember that DE talked about making Umbra transfer consciousness to other Warframes so that they can act on its own. I hope that DE realizes this.

Honestly the worst part about them having any kind of sentience leftover is the realization that barring physical destruction they will never be allowed to age or die. So if there is some kind of sentience still left in the Warframe which I think that there is and Warframes like Umbra prove that. It has to be a living hell of unimaginable proportions it's exactly the same nightmare as the sunken place in Get Out.

I believe your theory is correct. One thing that I noticed is that Tenno brings out the humanity/light in people like with the zariman crew from dying. This could possibly mean that the bond between Tenno and Warframe restores some form of humanity to the frame leading to saving the tenno life

From what was said in the War Within, it can be understood that it couldn't be the tenno controlling the warframe due to not being able to control it when not in the chair, thats why the tenno neads the somatic link in the back of the orbiter. Only after The War Within do they not need it, because their power us unlocked. And it can't be The Man In The Wall because he wasn't released until The Chains of Harrow. It has to he the Warframe's action. And Chroma could be implied to be controlled by Hunhow or influenced as such, since the Pelt of Chroma looks and shares characteristics of a Sentient, same as the wings which could explain the control. Atleast from what I think

When I first played it, I saw it more as the Warframe itself protecting the Operator, having made such a strong bond over time, and without us, the Warframe itself knows it can have no peace and no "life" and only silence. Especially after having done Umbra questline, seeing how we bring peace of mind to the frame, it's one of the more unique frames there is, with its more free will and act as it wants. It shows the frames has a personality, just us making them calm down, peace of mind. So for me, them wanting to protect us makes sense in my mind. Our frame is so sluggish with movement, struggling to do the simplest of things, while Umbra later on have full range of motion because of its more unique circumstances

A few points: The Drifter, when using a warframe for the first time, compares it to riding a horse. This suggests some free will. Next, Wukong's clone acts without direction. It still follows any instructions given, but moves and attacks freely by itself. This would suggest that at least some frames, even among the fully produced versions, were permitted to retain some free will. In the Vitruvian, Ballas say the warframes failed after they were sent to the battlefield. It is possible that warframes that were not traumatized by war, like Protea, did not rebel. (Something something Detroit: Become Human) Just before that he calls the warframes "bio-drones." A drone is actually more autonomous than most people think, with a built in autopilot to handle movement based on commands, rather than detailed movement instructions. So, in my mind, the warframes do have free will. They have to. But that will likely does not resemble anything like a human's anymore.

Honestly, I get the feeling that it would've had some ties to the Echoes of Umbra (A supposedly scrapped item that would've been able to give all of the Warframes Umbra's Passive Ability. it was announced around the same time as Disruption as a gamemode.)

My favourite theory and the thing I thought that happened is that the warframes have some will of their own(also I thought that the stalker was a sentient frame). So I assumed that our warframe liked us enough to do it

i don't know if it's just a coincidence or I'm just overthinking it but I found this: Xata (Truth): We learned the truth about ourselves in the second dream, and the about our past in the war within Jahu (Form): The man in the wall first appearance in the game as he took our for in the end of "Chains of Harrow". Vome (Order): We made took control of the Umbra and learned that our void power made the Warframes mind stable by "taking away their pain" Fass (Chaos): The new war. Ris (light): Same as Albrecht did describe it: "The senselessness of it, the paradoxic, the vague untime form" We learned about the void and it's ability to manifest emotions and "ideas" into a physical forms, we learned that through "Angel of the Zariman" and "Duviri Paradox" and "Citrine's last wish". KHRA (Time): The time travel of Albrecht, I don't know if the "Whispers in the Wall" count or we shall wait for the next ones. The last two (Netra and Lohk) or three (counting Oull) requiem words are to be answered in the upcoming quests.

My main theory is that it was similar to an umbra situation for like a one time thing (haven’t seen video it hasn’t premiered yet)

My personal belief is that the Warframes retain their humanity, or sense of self, but due to the infestation, it is inhibited, overtaken by the unfaultering rage of the helminth. And only after the Tenno calm that do they regain said humanity, in Umbra's case at least. For the other warframes I believe their tenno would have had to do something to them to allow them to regain control, something we are unaware of, perhaps it is what ballas had done to Umbra to allow him to retain his memory and sentience after we obtain him. At first I had always thought chroma was being controlled by the sentient based pelt he wears, since the tenno disappeared, it got control, but now I am starting to rethink that because of the mentioning of how it was trying to keep something a secret... Hopefully we will get 1999 soon to elaborate, if not some spacing updates prior. anyways wonderful video as always!

I think that the reason the Leverian has stories of Warframes acting with personalities was because it was Tenno acting with personalities. So when a Tenno did something, it was attributed to the Warframe they were using. I also think that each Tenno probably got their own specific frame, which is why there’s consistent characterization.

Also don't forget that the transference pods made the tenno operators drift into sleep, controlling the warframes through subconscious and this made them think they WERE the frames they were assigned to. Do this for years, possibly decades, and the warframe became them, so that is why they have personalities. They were different probably because each frame channels their power differently.

I interpreted Ballas’ speech in the vitruvian being true to their perception: that the original warframes were completely sane, but overestimated their power and rebelled against the Orokin. Thus the Orokin destroyed the originals, but continued to experiment on their clones, continuously attempting, through varying levels of lobotomy, to excise their rebellion, until they were left with feral warframes which, unfortunately for the Orokin, still didn’t take orders well. With the advent of the Tenno as controllers, even the ferality was excised, leaving a mostly blank slate for the Tenno to inhabit. Umbra is unusual, then, because he has that one tortuous memory to anchor his ego; I don’t think that’s standard for warframes.

31:14 The stalker most definitely has his own orbiter or at least a landing craft, as it directly shows what his looks like in the “Hunhows Gift” pack. It’s a sentient modified Scimitar Drop Ship.

Im still in the boat that it was either Imprinting, where it isnt too far fetched that both operator and warframe have imprinted onto each other. Similar to how the Operator identifying as Umbra when questioned on who killed Isaah. Or worse, it was Wallie as a contingency for when the Chosen Operator life is on the line. In our orbiter we are quite literally as far as possible from his influence; but, during the New War our frame not only had no reaction to our death, but the reveal that Wallie was on the other side of the gate plays into it further. (Not including the missing time between our death and revival via the drifter, as we saw bits and pieces of our prison manifesting as the Zariman, but time has passed in reality, the Zariman, and Duviri left unaccounted for.)

I would love a quest where we can make a warframe of our choice completely sentient like umbra. Only one though. Great video as always Siege

Could be a mix of both. Two minds acting as one, and that's a Warframe on the battlefield, similar to Jaegers from Pacific Rim. When the Tenno is held by the neck, they could be unconsciously calling for help, through the void, which the Warframe could possibly "hear" and "awake" to. A small shed of consciousness. One that was in a long period of peace, disturbed by the cries of the one who brought it to them. Most of these Leverian stories are told as if there's no Tenno because no one knew of their existence. As mentioned in the video, however, there could be others who used the helminth strain on themselves. A possibility being that Stalker and his acolytes could of been Dax who used the strain on themselves. This would eventually drive them insane, yes, but being hell bent on killing someone sounds like insanity to me.

I Think Stalker/Hunhow Accidentally Created A WireLess Conection Bewteen The Tenno And Warframe Shadow Stalker Is Linked To War Thanks To Hunhow (And His Armor Pieces), After Stalker Stabs Our Warframe And Leaves The Sword War, He Picks Us Up And Grabs Us, We Were In Contact With Stalker And Our Frame With The Sword, Making Some Weird Conection, Making The Tenno Able To Still Control Them, That's Why The Frame Instantly Goes To Idle The Moment The Sword Breaks, Because It Lost The Only Connection It Had To The Tenno (Via Hunhow And Stalker)

i said it once, but your channel is probably my best source of ideas and lore explanations for my warframe fanfic. Thank you not only for the lore but just for makin these so well!

What an excellent presentation! I didn't know about the conflicting theories -- always assumed it was the Tenno. Really enjoyed exploring alternates

So excited to see your take on this!! I have a few theories whirling around but wanna see what you think!! Can't wait!

The Ivara story seems compatible with the idea of Warframes possessing rational sentience for a period.

I feel like one very important factor to look at when observing how our warframes work should also be crafting. Although simply a gameplay mechanic for with a time requirement to build the warframes you need, umbra is special because of the fact that he was rebuilt with the parts of the original, being brought back like a Frankenstein monster rather than being built using a blueprint. Having a blueprint and pouring resources into a mold just shows that we are replicating what was there, but not what IS there now. The leverian stories might have had stories of warframes acting by themselves before the helminth strain did its thing, or stories like Voruna where a Tenno was at play. But the suits we use now are just reconstructed bio machines of what once was, as even by opening relics of the past you will only find more advanced blueprints for prime warframes, but never the original parts. For me, this means that the biological function is there, but the first host infected with the strain is not required, and can also be replicated.

Great Video. Thank you for your wonderful work here. it really reminds me why I love Warframe so much.. The story is soo deep and "well presented" its highly fragmanted and it took them over 10 years to come this State :) ButI love to solve it and learning more each year. its a long run but definitely a good one. Thanks again for making rhis video .

I always just assumed that the tenno was still 'waking up' and used transference remotely just enough to control it slightly. I think this was always the case, but now we have extra content that adds more NEW options. (aka this was never canon before these new things were added)

The key to the answer is Gara. Each Warframe was originally a human being with desires, feelings and self-determination. Fusion at the cellular level with the virus created by Orokin erased many of these characteristics, but not completely. And to return to the Gara, many forget the one that she preserves most of what the Gara used to be: Unum. What I want to say is that the fusion with the Infestation leads to new forms of existence and identity. In conclusion, every warframe retains parts of self-determination and that is the key. In fact, Umbra proves this unequivocally. Each frame has latent sentient capacity. Maybe we should be more careful how we use these warframes, because our actions have an impact on what were once human beings.

When you redo the quest with Umbra so the question doesn't matter lol

I do love the line hinting that Stalker actually WAS a Tenno.

In the update, Dante Unbound, Loid has a new quote when you talk to him about researching Dante that I feel is extremely important to this topic. He says, "Warframes cannot speak, as a rule. Their creator decided they should only scream, or roar, or howl. Dante spoke through his writing, and his voice was beautiful." I see this is as giving credence to the "The Warframe awoke and pulled the sword from its body" argument (which I personally believe, and have always believed, ever since I first experienced The Second Dream quest for myself.) Loid knows about the Tenno, or "Void Orphans" as he calls them, so why didn't he instead say, "Warframes cannot speak, as a rule. Their creator decided they should only scream, or roar, or howl. Dante's *Void Orphan* spoke through his writing, and his voice was beautiful."? That just doesn't make any sense to me at all. If that were the case, he would've viewed Dante the same way he views his Necraloid self, a "construct", nothing more. So no, I will never accept the idea that Warframes are nothing more than empty husks only for the Tenno Operators to parade around like some sort of puppet. Warframes have too much unique personality for me to believe that, plus, they were around before the Zariman incident occurred. Dante's lore also insinuates that he wasn't even created for combat in the first place, designed more to be a scholar, and that he did not share the same berserk and overly aggressive temperament that many of the other Warframes exhibited.

I ve always had a theory that the stalker resides in a ship near the sun. When youre in the Navigation if you zoom on the sun and look Northwest of it, you see the silhouette/shadow of what appears to be a Liset Ships profile and another shadow. Of course this can be just a game texture thing that coincidentaly resembles our Ship, but i have always found it curious

Thanks, been always wondering about this instance as well siege

from lore perspective, best channel there is. always nice to chill with TheDsIEGE videos and voice.

33:58 this here makes me really want umbra to be able to walk around and mess with stuff in the orbiter while you’re not piloting him, like imagine walking around as your Operator and he’s there, petting your cat or fumbling around with void relics or your mods

I love the lore of this game and it's so nice to see people still making content on it

I love that you talk about the stalker having his own orbiter and then DE recently released the teaser art for the jade shadows update.

Great video! As far as I remember, the voiced diary of Ballas during the Sacrifice quest mentioned that the warframe program was working as intended at first, and only after some time did they lose control. Maybe the mind was corroded by the infestation gradually, and without specific control options like with the umbra, they just continued living as soldiers, amassing achievements. You brought me some more insight about the nature of Tenno's being. I had all pieces of info, they just didn't connect into a sigle thought. So we are just of the "Void Demon" family, pure consciousness, and the Lua was CONTAINMENT to prevent escape. I guess the game's tutorial presents us with a warframe "sealed" while the transference was still active, preventing Tenno's escape. Thanks for activating my thought process in this regard :)

Since Tenno have experienced the most mind-bending cosmic horror that is the Void, I think they have very strong grasp on reality and are able to literally heal the tortured mind of Warframes. So, it is possible that they can replace mind in an empty mind (like Orokin's continuity), and in the same time they are able to heal a tortured mind Edit: I want to go deeper. According to the idea of continuity in warframe (everything that would happen have already happened or will happen). What if the Man in the Wall has basically allowed Tenno to move between all states on will? The current Tenno could be a Warframe in alternative reallity, so according to the continuity the Tenno moves to that state. The return is done to the last alive state. You can kinda think of it as controlled quantum immortality. (Wild, but cool speculation)

31:24 "But, he's built different." you just accurately described the concept of The Man in the Wall in 4 simple words. astounding. awesome video, been watching a lot of your lore breakdowns recently :) long overdue sub

One thing to note is that are operator looks just as confused if you look at him in the background especially the way his head lifts to look at the Warframe so i would like to think that it was instinctive reaction from the Warframe not full sentence

This awesome video reminded me of several key moments in my warframe career. Selecting Loki as my starter frame (remember that?), the tenno reveal in the Second Dream, the Sacrifice quest, and playing as Arthur. I really look forward to more quests from this game. The combat and looting is fun, but the lore is what keeps me playing.

Another great video as always, much appreciated TheDsIEGE! I am currently of the opinion that most frames are puppets with memories or maybe more like a person in a coma. The infestation allows them to perceive their surroundings, while the Tenno is able to calm or soothe their lingering emotions, allowing them to control (but more in a partnership way.) Reason the Drifter has a little trouble adjusting when they first try one out in NW where they mention a riding a horse. I believe in the second dream cutscene, it's the Warframe in proximity to the Tenno's growing self and growing understanding of their powers that activates the half of the Warframe's inner self, and as a way to pay forward the easing of the Warframe's pain of no control they then reach out to protect. But none of this is set in stone, in my mind, yet I believe the 1999 expansion will give us a few more inferences to what exactly are Warframes, so the idea will likely shift or grow during that I believe. Also I believe the duality of mind in Warframe and Tenno convergence to be backed by the infestation and how it affects the mind, if you look at the Entrati this can slightly be inferred during their meetings and the leveling of their reputation levels. Just like the Sister and Brother fighting over dominance in Deimos, both are of the same creature but fighting one another. We need a deeper dive into how much of a warframe is infestation and how much is the hero or warrior chosen to become one.

Another great video

It’s cool how in his speech he says Despair, Dread and Hate his weapons.

When it comes to the Leverian, I believe each Warframe is Tenno controlled, and each story is told from the perspective of someone who doesn't know the Tenno exists. The Orokin did do such a good job at hiding the Tenno that they themselves forgot they were human and believed they were the Warframes when coming out of the Second Dream. As for Chroma I believe it was being controlled by either Hunhow, or the sentient that it had killed, skinned, and was using as its cloak as it was seemingly searching for Hunhow by chasing the signal provided by the arcane codices. As for other quests it's been so long since I completed them that I can't remember what happened off the top of my head. As for the Second Dream instance, I believe the Warframe moved on its own. Partly because I love the thought of it wanting to save us. My theory is that all frames, excluding umbra, have been numbed by their extended therapeutic connection to the Tenno that they're basically in a sleep/meditative state mentally. If Umbra is anything to go by, the pain from the process of being turned into a warframe seems to be the only thing their minds are able to focus on and becomes their driving force from there on. So with that taken away, they become less active and again fall into a sleep or meditative like state allowing the Tenno to take full control. Grammar Edit

I like how much theorycrafting players can come up with. It allows DE to use some of those aspects for later updates.

Would stay up can’t can’t keep my eyes open

I personally have two extra ideas. The Lotus did it herself. I mean she literally arrived right afterwards. The helminth did it; it's in the next room over and the helminth and the tenno share a very important symbiotic bond. Without the tenno there will be no warframes to take care of, no one to feed it. More importantly maybe ordis is very keen on purging it from the ship if it didn't serve its purpose.

If I remember correctly, there was at least one point where DE was going o give us the ability to give any Warframe sentience, at least to some degree. That would indicate that all of them had the potential to be like Umbra and function at least to some degree independently. But at some point that seems to have just been forgotten. Depending on how you look at that, it could be a clue as to how DE interperpates the sentience in Warframes as well.

I absoluetly love when ballas speaks history in warframe. I just feel like the voice actor shows a mystery but also with pleasing voice.

4:47 that's a very nice way to explain why we can switch between frames

I believe the warframes still have their humanity but stays still when not controlled because they're in peace but they move when needed to save their operator. My theory is supported by the story of Citrine and how it "saved" Belric and Rania trapping them in her crystal to protect them.

I feel like perhaps in the past where most stories regarding each Warframe take place, a lot of Warframes were still capable of functioning on their own in the sense that the Tenno wasn't directly controlling them. Like how Umbra is able to accompany us now and not simply revert to being enraged all the time - Having a tenno linked to the Warframe was just enough for some of them to not go ballistic all the time.

Warframe lore that's what i needed now ❤

It was the power of love! (no, actually this is a correct statement according to warframe lore)

Man I always love watching Siege's videos. It's always fun to speculate on the lore of one of my favorite games :D

One thing that I notice is every frame “acts” different, the agile or noble animation, idle poses, ways they move, I think every frame we build as a “clone” of the original has just a bit of the person who was transformed, not a full mind maybe but something. Why would the Tenno made Yareli act like a giggly teenage girl or Altus a boxer? Why does Kora languish her whip around herself and Grendel do sumo stomps if it’s just one person piloting? Perhaps it’s kind of like Pacific Rim where each warframe is Tenno and Frame in concert

The entrati lab fragment about "partial" warframes may be the explanation about Arthur wearing excalibur's "carapace". Still waiting for DE to explore rogue chroma and warframe breaking the war.

you know i actually wana see umbra only missions kinda like with khal in drifters camp. show that he isnt just sitting in our arsenal but actually doing stuff and when we use him its more like calling in a favor could even introduce it as a mission where we get a mail from umbra but opening it causes him to transference to us and he talks. have a mission where we go to the control room and can swap between controlling umbra or tenno. could be an interesting mission

I'm a big fan of our warframe move on it own i know it would not make sense with the sacrifice. But as someone who use the same warfame for the story it more fun to think that over the journey our warframe piece it mind for one last act to save us.

So basically it was a Umbra moment where the sentient kick in to break the sword

I believe it's the 2nd half. Also, i speculate/hope there's other tenno (that are not players) that we'll eventually meet, and a theory to splinter off of the idea, and that's related to the video my threory is that maybe it was another tenno that momentarily took control of the frame to help us. (i just thought of this instead of a tenno it could have been the man in the wall)

26:55 there is documentation of someone other than a tenno controlling a warframe by way of transference, namely in the silver grove quest

There's also the case of Valkyr. If I remember right, she was tortured by Alad V. Like, part of the reason it was originally this ball of hate and rage in it's powers was cause of the torture of it, which I think it released before Second Dream and we got Void Child in our story. The non-Prime version at least. You can see the restraints still on the frame and it's missing half it's head/helmet.

When stalker is banished from the orbiter after the link with hunhow is broken, he sort of crunches in on himself, and it looks a lot like the animation when a Warframe revives themself from full death during a mission.

Dang it, missed the live premier.

Before my last Warframe hiatus, I was a child, and once I came back I was an adult. Your lore videos have helped me comprehend this game’s lore to a crazy degree. I loved it when I was young, but now I can love warframe even more now that I know what is going on 😂

great take on this, I was always wondering what could have caused the Warframe to move by itself in that quest. I found it funny as it was never mentioned in game, like that was completely normal. Theories are fun

Spy missions (in warframe) are not so forgiving, but the fires spy mission in the second dream hits me hard. Like the difficulty when from zero to 1000 in just the moment I try not to set of alarms.

I have noticed we cant control each others Warframes yet so I believe every Warframe we craft is connected to us like a lesser intelligence that might not understand but wants to keep us safe so like a protect the pact mentality.

Silvana fled her assignment and was hunted by the Orokin's soldiers (Dax). Titania sacrificed herself to rescue her. This altruistic act could not have been done by a Tenno for several reasons. For one, Silvana despite not being a Tenno learned how to perform Transference with Titania. This was a secret series of tests; Silvana couldn't have been entering Titania if a Tenno was occupying her. Secondly, she then abandoned Titania when she fled, but Titania was able to find her again. If Titania was Tenno-controlled then that would have to mean she told the Tenno where she was going. Thirdly, her act of rebellion happened much earlier than Ballas' coup, If a Tenno supported her then that would have caused animosity and distrust between the Orokin and the Tenno. But the Orokin went on relying on the Tenno throughout the Old War and did not see Ballas' coup coming, so they couldn't have perceived the Tenno as potentially rebellion until much later. Fourth, Silvana was one of the inventors of Transference, yet she had no gratitude for the Tenno when Titania saved her. She would have known if it was Titania or a Tenno, but she said that Titania gave her life to rescue her. The foremost expert on Transference was basically testifying that a Warframe acted independently. So the Silver Grove events clearly show a capacity for Warframe independence, especially when it comes to protecting someone that has performed Transference into them. I think what makes Transference possible is a mutual understanding and an alignment of values. You don't "wear" a Warframe, you "become" that Warframe. You don't invade their mind, you harmonize with it. But I also believe the Orokin didn't understand that because they lacked empathy, so their documentation doesn't show that. But Tenno who become one with their Warframes do, and after long enough they start to forget that they're separate entities from their Warframes (and I believe it works the other way around as well).

I love the idea of Warframes being slightly sentient, not autonomous like how Umbra is, but knowing when to protect themselves and the operator. Another way to look at it is how all Warframes have residual personalities from their original hosts who were turned into them by the Orokin. That, plus the strain used to create the Warframes, probably also has a degree of self-preservation, causing it to remove what it perceived as a danger to itself and the operator. Breaking the sword in half wasn't necessarily its plan, but it's just what happened because it most likely didn't have enough power to do more than that. I've always been a fan of the "warframe are sort of alive" theories so I always just believed it was the warframe acting on its own to help us. Like some form of really REALLY basic sentience. Nothing outstanding without the operator in control, but more like "oof ouch there's something sharp tearing my insides up, I need to get this out with the little energy I have left"

That scene leaves us questions about stalker too with what hunhow said.

You mentioned something interesting about the Tenno not being able to die because of their now ethereal nature. That quote from Ballas in the New War. "You cannot kill the devil, but you can send it back to hell." I thought he was just being pretentious as usual, but if we canonically cannot be killed because of Void funny business, then it makes sense that he would just wound us and trap us in a special kind of temporal limbo that only a paradox could free us from.

I do want to make a note regarding the Leverian, which is that Drusus doesn't seem to know what the Tenno are - or at the very least, he's writing with that assumption in mind for any visitors. He mentions frequently that the stories he's telling are derived from old texts and second-hand accounts, and it's made clear throughout that the majority of the folks in the Warframe universe, especially at the time full of Propaganda, only knew the Tenno as their Warframes. So for the Leverian stories, it must reasonably be concluded that when Drusus refers to a Warframe taking the actions they do, knowingly or not he really means a Tenno Operator piloting said frame.

I personally used Rhino Prime (basically my canon frame when it comes to quests, with one exception of Inaros when the Grineer Queens tried to do the mind corruption thing) it works with the frame's lore too since it went on a rampage so there was established it can move on its own.

I never questioned this, to me it just seemed like the tenno was able to control the frame from a short distance

We should get a vid about Ordan, Ordis before being turned into a cephalon

I believe the Lotus was the one who manipulated the Warframe to aid us, the Tenno, since we didn't retain much memory of ourselves after awakening from the Second Dream. Moreover, we didn't achieve full control over void energy and transference until we underwent the War Within quest. I speculate that the Lotus possesses the ability to manipulate or influence Warframes to some extent, though she may not wield complete mastery over them. Our understanding of the Lotus and her true capabilities remains limited. She maneuvered the moon into the void, directing and commanding some Tenno in the Prelude to War quest, and is aware of the Man in the Wall, yet she continues to withhold numerous secrets from us. This video is truly remarkable, as always.

Revenant is my favorite Warframe too. He is so awesome and so broken. He reminds me of Talion from Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War.

One thing to I will say about you mentioning arthur is I think he isn't the actual excaliber but a person on one of the plague ridden worlds Ablrech visited as the way he said it sounds like he traveled to other realitites. But that's just my two cence. I still like to believe the frames are partially sentient but are in dormant states, for example umbra when orbiter could be kept dormant to help his mind heal a little or something.

If you look at rhino prime his description has a little lore about him awakening and try to take revenge

Wild theory I've had for a while. The Stalker didn't wanna kill the tenno child, but obviously insinuating that he uses transference. In the moment, he took over the frame to double cross Hunhow

I always assumed it was Lotus from the way she strutted in afterwards and carried the Tenno

Now with Jade Shadows out, we know a lot more about The Stalker. Maybe we can get a short update on this video?

Where Ballas is explaining the warframes and he says they gained their tough bodies and super powers but regained their minds, or so the orokin thought at first. That hints to there being a period where they regained themselves, like Arthur, and slowly but surely turned into true warframes

Warframes are archetypes worn as personas. This event shows that archetypes have an aparrent life of their own. In real life this follows both poll answers. It acts as a singular entity... but is also just an amalgamation of the dreams of others. The same paradox applies to the concept of self - self is both singular and plural. In that paradigm, puppet and puppeteer may be interchangeable concepts, a reciprocal bond like a symbiosis. Merging with a warframe then would be like being an avatar of its traits incarnate, able to shape those traits while the traits simultaneously shape them. What if... the stalker is just another frame connected to the tenno with aparrent autonomy. After all he mimics the tenno's movements when questioning his identity. Btw the archetypal nature of excalibur as a leader's weapon of destiny is explored with the service weapon in control - a game that revolves around jung's theories.

My head cannon, at least up until watching this video, has always been that the warframes we are using now, are copies of the originals. We are printing them out and creating them from the materials the blueprints call for. The original warframes, the ones we are making copies of, were the ones created directly with the infestation, helminth and willing or untilling volunteers. That's how the original Inaros was known to Baro, but now we can create our copy for our own use, etc. If this isn't the case, then feeding the helminth one of these copies for it's ability takes on a whole new meaning. Something to chew over, no pun intended.

Thematically, Warframe draws from two deep metaphysical wells, Buddhism and Jung. Both are motivated by the existential conundrum of suffering (or conflict) but offer different solutions. In the former, the answer to pain is detachment while the latter requires integration. Either way, both demand acceptance of some ultimate truth or reality. My impression is that the game lore is attempting to offer a middle path. One where shedding identity as a final stage of consciousness can be along side retaining some semblance of self. Not only that, but these opposites exist as a continuum. So for some (most?) who were made into warframes, "going into that good night" was a welcomed release, no shred of any identity remains. Their former twisted physical forms nothing more than a living fossil. One that can be animated by Tenno. For those whose with savagely strong survival instincts, the only notion of a self that remains is fear of annihilation. Fight or flight. An automated response to threat that might be the basis for some the unique abilities of the various warframes. Those who were driven by feelings that intensely connected them to something - a person or group, a place, an ideal - what remains of their identity prompts them to stay as willing golems. To serve as vengeful ghosts or protective angels who "sleep nothing" while the Tenno is away, but join in when called upon. Whether Excalibur Umbra is a major outlier is unclear, given whether the details of memory the Tenno had access to was done through direct to the physical brain or whether it was through Void time-line buggery. Ultimately, each person who became a warframe has an individual choice of whether and of how to be present in the Tenno reality line. There is no "one size fits all". Moreover, the Principle of Eternalism would assert that the choice need not be permanent - or rather a singular one.

In the Sacrifice we see that the rage of Umbra is what keeps him subconscious, although not all warframes like Umbra have people in them they are still living things with emotions and subconscious attached that likely they take on the operators will/subconscious duties after be bonding with them for a period of time or are influenced by the void's conceptual embodiment. You also see the operators' will is influenced given that warframes have stances causing them to behave certain ways in idle likely after the concept they embody from the void that gives them their powers just like incarnon weapons.

Non-tenno can use transference, silvana did in the silver grove quest, and ballas used it on umbra through his unique transference bolt, when making him kill his own son, and onwards, which probably also plays a part in him keeping his memories, some control and such. The other frames we have probably have a different bolt that makes them more of a husk, or potentially some other factors behind it, considering he was designed specifically to suffer and all. I think lotus is very likely to take control on some ways, the fact it's likely she also took a deal with the man in the wall, her chamber looking like a transference pod almost. Not to mention there is also a kinda cool parallel with the "they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing-- And take away its pain" between margulis(and I guess by extension lotus) and the tenno as well, not just tenno to Warframe... Idk tho!!

I always thought it was just the Tenno controlling the warframe externally. Their void powers can pull and push things, so perhaps they were just pulling and pushing the warframes around, explaining why they seemed weaker as the Tenno weren’t fully controlling them.

I believe the warframes are capable of their moments of independent actions like in the second dream and sacrifice, with some of the side missions being instances of that and others just being a "canon" tenno who only had the given frame at their disposal and was just doing their own adventure before we came along and we were just crossing paths with a pre-second dream mindset tenno.