Characters / Warframe - Tenno

Warning: This page has contents of "The Second Dream" and onwards. Expect heavy spoilers.

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Main Character Index | Tenno (Warframes A-M, Warframes N-Z) | Grineer | Corpus | Infested | Orokin | Void | Sentients | Syndicates | Colonies | Others

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Tenno

The playable characters of Warframe.

A Proud Warrior Race of armored warriors with esoteric powers who existed during the fabled age of the Orokin Empire, which is also the source of their powered suits. The Tenno, while fighting for and protecting the Orokin people from their ancient enemies, were not part of the Orokin themselves. At the start of the game, the Tenno are being revived from cryosleep to fight once more to protect the Origin System from those who would harm the remnants of civilization.

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Warframes in General

For generations, you slept. No purpose. No call to awaken you...

...We built a Frame around them, a conduit of their affliction. Gave them the weapons of the Old Ways. Gun and Blade.

—Excerpt from Orokin "Warframe" Archives

The titular frames the Tenno use in battle. Each Warframe is built with a specific purpose or "theme" in mind, such as Elemental Powers, animal themes, geographical or historical concepts, or particular weapons and fighting styles.

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• Achilles' Heel: The Warframes, while each having certain roles, are fully capable of doing well in any combat situation, especially if modified using Helminth Alchemy. However, if the link to its operator is cut, the warframe will cease to function....unless the operator is in mortal danger. Proto-Frames do not have this problem, being fully capable of functioning on their own.
• Action Hero: Most of their activities can be summed up as, "Cut a bloody swathe through the enemy to achieve an objective and blast their way out through an equally bloody exfiltration."
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • While initially referred to as the distant "Outworlder", Konzu and the other Ostrons frequently tag friendly nicknames to the Tenno as their standing with them increases. These include "Surah" (a well-liked and respected person), "Killer", and "Cetus' Champion".
  • Eudico refers to the Tenno as "Sparky" because of their glitzy and shiny Warframes that glow in the dark.
• Ambiguous Situation: How much of a Warframe's established personality is its own and how much of it is an Operator's personality leaking through is ultimately up in the air. For that matter, there is also a question as to which Warframes had Operators and which did not, as some cases such as Gara and Qorvex are heavily implied to never have an operator controlling them before present times, while most others such as Ember and Excalibur seem to have been connected to Operators. Dante Unbound suggests most of this confusion is due to the existence of Dante, an independent Warframe whose human host kept his sanity after being converted and wound up blurring the line from his charisma.
• Ambiguously Human:
  • Capable of superhuman feats of strength, endurance, and agility, having straight up superpowers, not an inch of flesh being seen, and the only hint of biology being bleeding out when close to death. Initially, it wasn't entirely clear if the Tenno were superhumans, robots, or something in between.
  • This gets expanded upon in "The Second Dream" quest, where the Tenno are shown to be not inside the Warframes. They are indeed human (albeit with Void powers), and hardly physically and psychologically older than teens and the Warframes are robotic Remote Bodies. And then when we think we have the answer, they muddy the water again by showing an unpiloted Warframe move under its own volition, making as many questions as we got answers.
  • "The Sacrifice" quest tells the exact of the origins of the Warframes. They were humans infested with an Orokin-engineered strain of the Infestation, turning them into suffering, insane, superhuman killing machines. The Orokin didn't quite help themselves with trying to brutalize the Warframes into compliance and functionality. With the Operators being able to empathize with, and then take away the pain of the Warframes, the frames found a measure of peace and self control.
• Beast of Battle: The Tenno have five different flavors of this:
  • Kubrows, which are dog-like creatures used in a similar manner to attack dogs. They tend to be heavily armoed and inflict lots of slash damage.
  • Kavats, which are infestation-eating cat-like creatures. They tend to be more fragile than Kubrows, but have a more acrobatic fighting style.
  • Helminth Chargers, which are bred from the cysts created by Helminth. Extrordinarily heavily armored and packing quite a bit of power, they can trample enemies to death and use a flesh and bone harpoon to drag enemies toward them.
  • Finally, there are the Predasites and Vulpaphyla, which are wild creatures from the Cambion Drift. These creatures are not bred, instead being rescued from the Drift, after which the Tenno nurse them back to health with the assistance of Son, who can also modify them according to the Tenno's request...as long as he is compensated.
  • With the Sisters of Parvos update come the Hounds, customizable robotic attack dogs that can be aquired by defeating the Sister that owns it.
• Big Damn Heroes: Twice.
  • The first time is mixed with Heroic Second Wind; at the end of "The Second Dream", as Stalker is choking the life out of your suitless Tenno, your seemingly-empty Warframe sits back up and, with the last of its strength, shatters Hunhow's War Sword, forcing Stalker to retreat.
  • In "The Sacrifice", before Natah and an entourage of Sentients were about to launch toward what is presumed the Tau System, Excalibur Umbra pulled the Operator from the Sentients collectively blasting the Operator like what they tried with Umbra in the beginning of the quest.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The reason why the Tenno can control the Warframes: rather than use force of will or Void powers, they simply empathized with the human-Infested hybrids inside and found a way to relieve them of the torment of their existence, bringing peace to the tormented creatures. This is why, in the Big Damn Heroes entry above, your Warframe went to extreme lengths to act on its own and protect its suitless Tenno from both Hunhow and the Stalker.
• The Berserker: The first generation Warframes were completely impossible to control due to being driven mad by being equal parts human and Infested. The Rhino Prime codex entry mentions it being an absolutely insane monster that rampaged through an Orokin vessel nonstop until it encountered cryopods containing the dreaming Operators.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Following the release of Old Blood, all Warframes have an extended blade in their arm called a Parazon that can be used to perform "Mercy" finishers on enemies below a certain threshold of their health, which can be increased via Impact-base damage, or are stunned or blinded by another ability. They're also used to hack consoles and are essential in taking down Kuva Liches.
• The Blank: Very few of the Warframes have any facial features.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: A possible (and common) load-out.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Each and every Tenno may be a One-Man Army who will send their foes' mulitated remains flying through the air, but they also have propensity for helping with Master Teasonai, Biz, and Son's conservation efforts, collecting floofs for their orbiters, and petting and loving a variety of animals up to and including their zombie dogs. This makes a lot more sense when you learn that the Tenno are children.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Whichever side they decide to take in the conflict between the Corpus and Grineer, they will always pick the option that would help the most innocents. Lampshaded by Vay Hek, who mocks those who get help from "bleeding-heart Tenno".
• Cool Starship: The Tenno have three different flavors:
  • First off are their landing craft — the Liset, Mantis, Xiphos, Parallax, Nightwave, Skaut and Scimitar. The size of a fighter jet, these ships are capable of stealthily inserting the Tenno into all battlefields, and can provide ground support for the Warframes in mission — be it by hacking the enemy computer network or carpet bombing enemy personnel.
  • Next are the orbiters — the mobile base of each Tenno, each one has an armoury, modification center, incubator for companions, a communications array that can work from anywhere in the system, and a database on all enemies, as well as a personal quarters and transference room for the Tenno Operators.
  • Finally, there are Railjacks. These are multi-person interceptors designed to allow the Tenno to take on Capital Ships, each crewed by a group hand picked by the Tenno who built the ship.
• Cyber Ninja: They are a race of futuristic ninja-like warriors. Even the slowest of Warframes are capable of amazing acrobatics.
• Determinator: "The Second Dream" revealed that the Warframe, without a connection to its Operator is able to remove an impaled War for its chest to save its Operator from the Stalker. This is because the Warframes in general are human-Infested hybrids, and the Stalker is threatening the life of the Operator of that particular Warframe.
• Depending on the Writer: Whether or not a Warframe can act on its own is... complicated at best. Gameplay wise, they are static when the operator is not mentally controlling them. The only time they move in story is when Hunhow and the Shadow Stalker are on the verge of killing the operator, but this a very rare occurrence not thought possible. Still, there are lore entries that attribute feats to the Warframe themselves, as if they had acted on their own, rather than the operators that are supposed to be in control of them. This seems to be intentional due to many lore entries being written from the perspective of someone who hadn't known the deeper secrets of the Tenno, and due to how Warframes were utilized in different parts of the Old War, their circumstances would naturally lead to conflicting if not contradictory statements. Dante's Leverian reveals that his charisma and attitude resulted in most historians simplifying the whole thing by referring to the frames as the Tenno themselves, as Dante himself was one of the frames without an operator who managed to retain his sanity by writing his thoughts down to communicate.
• Did You Get a New Haircut?: Everyone in the game is able to recognize a particular Tenno on-sight without an issue, even as they swap between completely different looking Warframes that can be dolled up with a variety of accessories.
  • However, as "The War Within" demonstrates, the Operators are perfectly capable of speaking through their Warframes, so it's possible they're just being recognized by voice instead.
• The Dreaded: Much like their Tenno Operators, an active Warframe is the last thing a Grineer or Corpus grunt wants to see on the battlefield, because it means a gristly death is nigh. Even among civilian populations, encountering a Warframe isn't quite a positive thing if you're not absolutely sure it's on your side, due to one of the most infamous things known about them among commoners is that they betrayed and slaughtered their Orokin masters, and though the in-game lore shows that the Orokin very much deserved this fate, their prescence tends to make people a bit squirrely; from the eyes of your local villager, they seem more like an immortal, Nigh-Invulnerable Proud Warrior Race of walking WMDs capable of dishing out merciless slaughter to anyone who dares stand in their way, only to wordlessly leave once the job is done and dissappear into the Void-knows-where, and then resurface halfway across the Solar System to hand out death to another unfortunate faction.
• Energy Weapons: The Tenno prefer to use Kinetic Weapons, since the Sentients could not subvert these, but they do still have some energy weapons at their disposal. Most are restricted to Railjacks, but there are two notable energy weapons that are used as Tenno small arms — the Athodai pistol and the Fulmin Lightning Gun.
• Eyeless Face: Their Warframes have no obvious eye-holes, visor slits or what-not.^note With the exceptions of Chroma and Mirage, and the former Double Subverts it when you realize the eyes belong to Effigy, not Chroma. In the latter's case it's a mask she stole from the Grineer. In "The Sacrifice", it is revealed that the Warframes do have eyes under their helmets, since they are partially human and partially Infested and still retain vaguely humanlike features.
• Fallen Hero: Virtually all of the Warframes used to be Dax Soldiers from the Orokin Era. Some volunteered for Ballas's experiments, some Got Volunteered, but the end result was the same — a homicidally-insane, uncontrollable supersoldier with all sorts of freaky powers. It wasn't until the Operators came along that the Orokin discovered a way to harness the Warframes in battle.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Originally, the three starter frames you had to choose from fit this mold (Excalibur as Fighter, Loki as Thief, and Volt as Mage, later replacing Volt with Mag to have one of the starters be female). However, they eventually replaced Loki with Volt due to them feeling Loki was too difficult for a beginner player compared to the other starter frame choices. The current trio now more heavily fits Speed, Smarts and Strength.
• Good Is Not Soft: They fight to defend the peace of the system, but that doesn't mean they'll pull any punches. They will electrocute, dismember, flash freeze, incinerate, poison, irradiate and use any other means of Cruel and Unusual Death to lay waste to anyone they deem their enemy. They'll even ensure there's no survivors during a mission the moment the Lotus requests it of them, or the fact they make no attempt to free the victims of Narmer, despite the fact Kahl proves it to be quite possible.
• Half-Human Hybrid: The Warframes are hybrids of Orokin soldiers and the Infestation biomatter. The original Warframes were uncontrollable berserkers without the Tenno to control them. Modern Warframes are exact copies of the originals, right down to the memories of the original human used to build them.
• Heroic Willpower: Even without their Operators, the Warframes are capable of tearing Hunhow's War Sword in half independent of any commands from their Operator. While the sword is stuck through their torsos.
• Hive Mind: This is part of the implication of "The Second Dream". The Tenno appear to be each two separate beings, the Operator and the Warframe, working as one with the Operator acting as a kind of tactical control or guiding force for the Warframe's incredible abilities. As the dream shows, they are capable of functioning independent of each other to a certain extent. Later on, in "The Sacrifice", when using Transference to experience Umbra's past, the Operator will come out of the memory briefly thinking that they were Umbra and that Isaah was their son, and in an optional conversation with the Man in the Wall, will admit that they really felt that they were Umbra. In the prologue to Scarlet Spear, we see several operators (including yours) acting as a single unit with red eyes and moving in perfect synchronicity, something that your character seems to have no recollection of doing.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: With their melee weapon out, Tenno can block anything with it. This includes bullets, missiles, grenades, other melee weapons, and flying sawblades, and with a certain mod they can reflect the damage right back to their attackers. At one point, if a window on a spaceship was broken, they could use their weapons to block their own suffocation (with accompanying sword-waving as the Tenno somehow parried away... the lack... of oxygen...?), but this was quickly fixed. However, getting hit by something powerful like an Ancient's tentacle-fist will still push the Warframe back a few feet, they just won't fall over.
• Improbable Weapon User: Tenno are lethal with just about anything they can get their hands on. Just to prove it some of their best "weapons" are actually things like re-purposed mining equipment or other odds and ends that weren't designed to be weapons. Darvo even implies that one of the whips you can build was primarily made to clean the plumbing on spaceships. Essentially, if it can shoot, cut, smash, stab, or explode somebody a Tenno can murder a small army with it.
  • Emphasized with Incarnon Weapons. The original Incarnons are described as ceremonial tools given for the maiden voyage of the Zariman, the only actual weapon being the Felarx, a hunting shotgun. The Laetum was a confetti pistol, the Phenmor for burial rites, the Innodem a symbolic item and the Praedos a farmer's sickle (albeit in reference to farmers using such tools as weapons). With the Void warping these weapons, even their base forms have become actually dangerous weapons, with their Incarnon forms becoming even more powerful and deadly.
• It Can Think: It's safe to say that both the Grineer and Corpus knew the Tenno were more than cyborg mercenaries long before they got their hands on one. By "The Second Dream", the Warframes themselves are far more capable of action without their Tenno pilots than anyone suspected, much to Hunhow's alarm, and by "The Sacrifice", Umbra is able to operate entirely on its own without any Operator. It's later justified with the Warframes being human-Infested hybrid soldiers, with memories of the humans they were based from.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Expect Tenno to run over and grab everything that isn't nailed down or locked. Missions can easily be extended by several minutes by those who want to open every locker and break every container for more loot.
• Latex Space Suit: All Warframes appear skin-tight, but most of them are padded up with armor, tech, and other decorative bits. In fact, the Valkyr, which is clearly a partly-dissected Warframe, has very fine armor plating beneath the elaborate suit.
• Lightning Bruiser: Legitimately every Warframe is a fast-moving, face-smacking, gun-toting badass, provided with enough experience and upgrades to get there.
• Meaningful Name: The name "Tenno" is derived from the Japanese term "Heavenly Sovereign".
• Multi-Melee Master: They switch effortlessly between BFSes, daggers, Dual Wielded blades, giant hammers, normal-sized swords, Power Fists, scythes... Pretty much every weapon you can think of.
• Multi-Ranged Master: As above, but with assault rifles, bows, kunai, pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles, other heavy ordnance...
• The Musketeer: As mentioned above, they are skilled both in melee and ranged combat.
• Ninjas: Specifically, Space Cyber Ninjas in the future.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The Warframes are Ambiguously Robotic Cyber Ninja husks engineered from Infested flesh, possessed by remote Operators who take contracts to raid and sabotage enemy (space)ships and outposts. About as close to literal as can be.
• Non-Elemental: Tenno unique weapons and equipment (e.g. Warframes and Void Powers) have no special elemental powers, and thus give and receive damage equally from all sources.
• One-Man Army: A single well-equipped Warframe can kill hundreds of enemy soldiers per mission with little difficulty.
• Organic Technology: Many of the Warframes have an organic design aesthetic at a minimum, and some appear to have biomass growths, carapaces, etc. as well. In "The Sacrifice", it is confirmed that the Warframes are a hybrid of humans and Infested flesh, created initially as a weapon to fight the Sentients, but were uncontrollable until the Tenno were able to calm them.
• Painful Transformation: The process of infusing a Warframe with a Helminth ability or the ability of another Warframe involves impaling them with spikes while they visibly struggle and writhe with agony.
• Power Glows: Prior to update 26 The Old Blood, Melee Channeling causes certain parts of the Warframe's body and melee weapon to glow in the selected energy color.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Ember Prime's codex contains a story about a military experiment wherein a ship full of kids is lost in the Void and fished back out; they're scared, scarred, and mutated by the exposure. "The Second Dream" quest confirms that yes, your Operator is one of these kids. They've lain comatose for the better part of a millennium, remotely controlling an arsenal of Warframes via Somatic Link from within their dream. It's also implied, and later confirmed that Warframes themselves were made from the combined biomass of Orokin Dax soldiers and the Infested.
• Psycho Prototype: "The Sacrifice" clarifies the origin of the Warframes: they were created from people — willing or otherwise — infused with the Infestation through the Helminth system, causing them to have superhuman abilities without being uncontrollable like the Infested. They still went berserk anyway from a combination of their infested-induced mutilation and the brainwashing techniques the Orokin inflicted on them to force their obedience.
• Pulling Themselves Together: At least when Gameplay and Story Integration are in play, this is how you acquire new warframes: by tracking down the body parts they've left scattered throughout the system, and assembling them back into a whole.
• Remote Body: The reason why one Operator can fluidly switch from the inhumanly-broad Atlas into a slimmer female form like Mag between missions, through a Somatic Link and a process called Transference.
• The Speechless: The comics imply that the Warframes cannot speak; when they need to communicate, they project a hologram of the Lotus, who speaks for them. The Operators can definitely speak once they awaken from the Second Dream, though whether they bother to do so with anyone beyond Ordis and the Lotus is unclear. They regularly conduct business with the people of Cetus and Fortuna, but they might be doing that with the help of Ordis and the Lotus (which is what happened in the comics). Players do speak through their warframes during Scarlet Spear, but only to other Tenno.
  • This is no longer true as of "The War Within". Though rarely seen outside of that quest, the Operators are shown to be fully capable of speaking through their Warframes
  • Dante downplayed this, and it's the reason he turned out as well as he did, as while he couldn't speak he could just write his thoughts down in Noctua instead to communicate.
• Superior Successor: "Heart of Deimos" reveals that the Orokin originally created the Necramechs for fighting the Sentients, but while the machines were able to resist the Sentients' hacking abilities, they ultimately fell short of expectations. The Tenno, meanwhile, managed to defeat the Sentients, with their later actions entirely being the Orokin's own fault.
• Super-Strength: The Warframes are superhumanly strong, able to perform death-defying acrobatics, leap huge distances, and smash and slice through virtually any kind of armor. It's telling that the arrows they fire are able to send the victims' corpses flying down a hallway if they aren't ripped in half first.
• Taking You with Me: Goes with the One-Man Army thing, which is the reason the Orokin made them from the first place. They'll fight to the death and make sure they drag as many enemy forces into hell with them as feasible. Your Warframe even destroys Hunhow in his War sword-form by breaking him in half with the Warframe while the sword is rammed through its chest.
• Technicolor Ninjas: Warframe colors can be personalized, and that includes pastel or extremely bright colors.
• Tron Lines: Specific details briefly flash across the Warframe's body when an ability is activated.
• The Voiceless: Intentionally. Drusus Leverian states that the Warframes were made deliberately unable to speak, only "scream, or roar, or howl," presumably with the intention of further suppressing the former humans within them. Only Dante was able to get around this limitation... by simply writing what he was thinking into Noctua. It probably helps that he was also the only confirmed original Warframe to have kept his sanity without a Tenno.
• We Help the Helpless: Their Chronic Hero Syndrome has them jumping all over the Origin System to sabotage the Grineer and Corpus and protect what few neutral settlements remain. They also don't mind accepting payments for their work, if only to develop more weapons and Warframes to continue their crusade.
• Wrestler in All of Us: One of the finisher attacks against Kuva Liches involves a German suplex to incapacitate the lich before killing it with a stab from the Parazon.

Player Characters (Warframes)

Due to the page's length, the Warframes have been put into their own separate pages.

• Warframes A-M^note Ash, Atlas, Banshee, Baruuk, Chroma, Ember, Equinox, Excalibur, Frost, Gara, Garuda, Gauss, Grendel, Harrow, Hildryn, Hydroid, Inaros, Ivara, Khora, Limbo, Loki, Mag, Mesa, Mirage
• Warframes N-Z^note Nekros, Nezha, Nidus, Nova, Nyx, Oberon, Octavia, Protea, Revenant, Rhino, Saryn, Titania, Trinity, Valkyr, Vauban, Volt, Wisp, Wukong, Zephyr

Prime Warframes

• Bling of War: Being Orokin-tech-enhanced versions of their respective Warframes, they have a lot of gold elements, fitting the Orokin aesthetic.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: For the default Warframes and before the later, stronger Proto-Warframes.^note They are the Mid-Season Upgrade storywise as well, coming after the barely controllable Proto-frames and the reduced and scraped together modern frames. The Prime Warframes have White/Black coloration that resemble angelic figures, fitting their old purpose as defenders of the Orokin.
• Super Prototype:
  • Prime versions of the original Warframes often have better stats than their original counterparts (large energy capacity, more shields and/or tougher armor), as well as more polarized mod slots. Justified in this case as the Warframe are originally Orokin technology which everyone else, the Tenno included, can only create subpar copies of at best.
  • Subverted in Ivara's Leverian which implies that the original warframes we use are in fact the originals, and primed warframes are 'rewarded' to those models that prove their usefulness, while those that do not are scrapped and forgotten.However, it is later stated that some are originals and some were upgraded, making it a question of why were some made weaker than others.
• Temporary Online Content: Excalibur Prime was only ever available to people who had purchased Founders Packs during early on in Warframe's development. He, alongside Lato and Skana Prime are the only pieces of equipment to date which will never be rereleased in some form.
• Voodoo Shark: Due to flip-flopping on whether Prime Warframes are the originals or upgrades, it creates a lot of confusion on why some were upgraded while others were always primed.

The Operators (Spoilers)

The male and female Operators in their default suit.

"This is who you really are: A Tenno. More than human, but once a child like any other."

—The Lotus

The Tenno, human children who somehow managed to survive aboard the Orokin colony ship Zariman Ten-Zero after a Void jump accident sent it listing in the Void for years before reappearing near Saturn, giving them incredible, if horrific, powers.

Unmarked spoilers below.

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• All There in the Script: While the Operator is never referred to by name (and the player is thus free to Headcanon their own, or simply use their in-game alias), Word of God is that the internal name used for the Operator when script-writing is "Mara".
• Ambiguous Gender: When you first customize your Tenno character, there are no direct gender select options; the faces are mostly androgynous and can be either male or female with different choices of hair and fine detail, especially after the option was added to allow you to choose two faces and blend them to create near-infinite options, while your body is slim and similarly androgynous. The only definitive choice between male or female is in the voice you choose for your Tenno — two of the four voices are definitely male, two are female. Your choices of face and voice will very subtly tweak your body shape towards male or female, but it can be difficult to notice. None of the NPCs ever refer to the Operator with gendered pronouns — some will use nicknames or disdainfully call the Operator "it", but most will just call you "Tenno". "The New War" has characters refer to the Operator as singular "they".
  • A small blink-and-you-miss-it detail, but the initial body-type of the Operator, before their customization is unlocked, will vary inversely with the Warframe you use in your first playthrough of the final mission of "The Second Dream" (ie masculine Warframes will produce an Operator with a feminine body-type and vice versa).
  • Overall, it's implied that the "default" Operator is female. The game's main mascot is the male Excalibur, which would result in a feminine body-type at the end of "The Second Dream" and their name used in script-writing is the feminine "Mara." However, this is not reflective of Operators as a whole and should be taken with a grain of salt.
• Ambiguously Human: "The Second Dream" confirms that the Tenno are void mutated humans who are able to command and calm the Warframes' afflicted psyches.
  • "The War Within" takes it a step further, confirming at the Tenno pretty much walk the line between being corporeal beings and Energy Beings.
  • "The New War" shows that they were normal humans, until they made a deal with The Man in The Wall on the Zariman which turned them into what they are today.
• Amnesiac Hero: The Operators don't remember anything of their past lives before the events of "The Second Dream", although afterward they do start to remember their pasts on the Zariman Ten-Zero. "The War Within" has Teshin informing the Tenno that Margulis "erased the Zariman children" by suppressing their more traumatic memories and locking away some of their more dangerous powers.
• Armor Is Useless: They'll take the same amount of damage regardless if they're wearing just their Operator suit or full-body armor.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: The biggest advantage of Operator Mode is that the Operator's attacks all deal Void damage. Sentients are uniquely vulnerable to Void damage; not only does it reset their built-up resistances, but it's the only way to destroy a Vomvalyst once its outer shell has been broken and the only way to take down the shields of an Eidolon.
• Astral Projection: After "The Second Dream", they can manifest an astral projection of themselves that fires a powerful void beam at their foes, on a fairly lengthy cooldown; during this time, the Warframe is deactivated and invincible. This ability is permanently lost partway through "The War Within" however, in favor of allowing you to physically manifest the Operator on-demand for use in combat.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: The majority of "The War Within" is spent within your own mind, confronting and overcoming what happened aboard the Zariman Ten-Zero. In doing so, you remove the hold the Grineer queen has over you.
• Body Surf: How the Operator moves between Warframes, by effectively possessing and controlling them remotely. The Operator also uses this to escape the Grineer Queen's control in "The War Within".
• Canon Name: While they don't have a name listed in any officially-released material, comics and otherwise, the Entrati family give them one upon reaching Rank 5 with the Syndicate, naming them "Ayatan".
• Child Soldiers: The Operators were turned into these out of necessity by the Orokin when they realized the children could control Warframes.
• Coming of Age Story: "The War Within": Discovering more of the Tenno's story includes a Troubled Backstory Flashback about their Parental Abandonment during a brutal bloodbath in the Zariman transport after being cast off into the Void; this enforces which of the Tenno's choices were already taken and which ones that they will make once they're fighting the Grineer Queen herself.
• Conspicuous Consumption: The Operators' tastes in fashion and firearms are apparently this in-universe, as the credit charge imposed on all crafting recipes is an attempt by Ordis to stop them from blowing all their cash on such frivolities compared to stuff they actually need for their services to continue functioning.
• Deal with the Devil: Though the Tenno are The Chosen Many who protect the Origin System, it turns out that the player's Operator specifically was the one who made a deal with the Man in the Wall in order to save everyone who remained sane aboard the Zariman. While the Tenno have been a boon for the entire system, it's implied this will have consequences in the future, as the Man in the Wall doesn't seem particularly benevolent.
• The Dog Bites Back: The reason they betrayed the Orokin; even beyond getting flung into the Void as children then dragged out and made into soldiers, the Orokin treated the Tenno horribly for all they were supposed to be their last defense.
• The Dreaded: Back in the days of the Orokin Empire, they were rumored to be boogeymen, a falsehood invented to terrify. The fact that they were publicly deployed against the Sentients was a sign of desperation by the Orokin. They have the same effect on the factions vying for control in the current Origin system; even before the revelation of the Operators came to light, the sighting of a Tenno Warframe meant bad news for all involved, to the point that the Grineer began an extermination campaign to destroy dormant Warframes before they awakened, and to capture those that already had. The trailer for "The New War" shows that a Frame-less Operator is no less feared, with the mere sighting of one causing an entire squad of Grineer Marines to cut and run, and for good reason when said Operator begins vaporizing them with her Void beams. Keep in mind that the Operators, for the most part, still look like the teenagers they were when first exposed to the Void.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Oh boy — the Operators had their powerset given a major revamp in the Angels of the Zariman update, which radically altered their skillsets.
  • Operator powers were initially modifications to their Void Dash, Void Mode, and Void Blast powers. After the revamp, they were instead given keybindings, just like all other abilities in the game.
  • Operators had a pool that limited how many abilities they could have active at once and could be increased by spending focus points. This was flat out removed.
  • The Operators initially had a melee ability in the form of Void Blast. This was also removed, with attempts to melee opponents resulting in transference back into their Warframes.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: The Operator and their abilities are only unlocked after the player completes "The Second Dream", which requires the player to complete most of the boss battles and many of the in-game quests. Even then, it's only partial access; full access requires completion of "The War Within", even deeper into the star chart.
• Elite Army: The Tenno are a relatively tiny force, where individual troopers are highly lethal, yet counter enemy strength-of-numbers by sending Tenno on spec-ops surgical raids to undermine enemy focus.
• The Empath: Operators are able to empathize with and soothe the rage and fury of a Warframe, calming the beast within and allowing them to work in tandem.
• Energy Beings: One of the theories in-universe trying to explain how a single Tenno can use and occupy several Warframes of different builds and genders was that they were some sort of energy beings, able to travel between bodies and change them at will. Gets subverted during "The Second Dream", when we find out that the Tenno are actually flesh-and-blood humans whose mind is remotely projected onto a Warframe body. And then double subverted during The War Within, where we learn that Tenno exist in a "border" state between the physical world and the Void which grants them their innate powers, including the ability do dash-teleport as well as phase in and physically possess other bodies, including their Warframes. So, while they are not pure energy beings, they are not completely corporeal either.
• Falling Damage: Unlike their Warframes who can walk off heavy landings from multiple stories up, one of the things that makes Operators extremely fragile by comparison is their vulnerability even to short falls. It's quite easy for the Operator to kill themselves by Void Dashing off the end of a balcony, or even straight upward and bouncing off a ledge in their way. However, the damage can be negated with quick reflexes by using Void Mode (assuming you still have the Energy), or Transferring back into the Warframe before impact.
• False Reassurance: During a flashback in the The New War, the "moon" version of the Operator tells Berryn his mom will come get him soon after the Zariman's Void jump accident, covering up the fact that all of the ship's adults had gone insane and started killing each other. This is also the same version of the Operator that has a human body count from hunting them in cold blood, doubling as a rather rough case of Good Is Not Nice for a protagonist.
• Glass Cannon: Overlapping with Squishy Wizard, the Operator is capable of an astronomical damage scale, but is only about as durable as, well, your average teenager without their Warframes.
• Good Is Not Nice: In contrast to the "moon" Operator emotionally detaching themselves from various points in the game's story, the "sun" Operator is passionate and headlong at the cost of themselves looking inconsiderate for the emotions & needs of others at points. This is best shown during The Glast Gambit, where the Operator forcefully cures Neewa and robs the Mycona of their culture & economy to the glaring disapproval of Ergo Glast, and during a flashback in The New War, where their idea of consoling a panicking Berryn who just wants his mother is to yell at him like an idiot for doing so (with the justification that the Zariman 10-0 incident had driven the adults insane.)
• Good Is Not Soft: The "moon" Operator has been described as "pragmatic" and "idealistic" in the same sentence, and it generally shows in their dialogue choices involving things like Shoot the Dog, False Reassurance, and some degree of emotional detachment for the greater good.
• Hand Blast:
  • The default power of the unarmed Operator is a Void Beam, a mid-range continuous beam of Void energy shot from their hand, that can be modified into a number of types of attacks by their Amp's prism. Picking up your first Amp allows use of the Void Beam on a separate resource pool from other abilities, like with Warframe weapons.
  • Previous versions also had the Void Blast, a melee attack in the form of a short, cone-shaped burst of energy, which knocked nearby enemies away and could disarm Kuva Guardians. This ability was later removed to improve Warframe-operator synergy.
• Handicapped Badass: Initially, the Tenno Operator is never shown to walk under their own power, needing to crawl to their Warframe and be carried, which suggests that either they were this as a result of their alterations or that countless years in stasis have caused their muscles to atrophy. In "The War Within", the Operators become capable of walking by themselves, and they become able to sprint and jump after the quest.
• Hypocrite: A minor example. They lambast the Corpus for using proxies rather than fighting themselves, even though the Operators utilize the Warframes from a distance, at least until they learn to perform Transference on their own.
• Improbable Infant Survival: In-gameplay, they can't be killed, simply returning to their Warframes once their HP hits zero. However, this induces the Transference Static debuff, which lowers your Warframe's maximum health until it reaches the point of just instantly killing you. In regular missions, it's suggested that Transference is a form of Astral Projection, and that your operator's real body is still on the Orbiter. This is played straight in operator-only quests, however, where it's clear that yes, your operator really is running into danger in person, but where dying just resets you to a checkpoint.
• Irony: They were able to empathize with the suffering of their Warframes, which technically are monsters. But they did not hesitate to bully and shun one of their own, Rell, whose autism disgusted the other Operators.
• Kids Are Cruel: As much as they were horribly mistreated by the Orokin, they weren't above ostracizing and bullying one of their own, Rell, for being autistic. The "Chains of Harrow" prequel comic showed Rell being locked out of a quarantine during the Zariman Ten-Zero incident by other children, and forbidden from entering an escape vessel carrying his peers because of his "weirdness". In the modern day, many Tenno still make a living as mercenaries, and although they tend to be A Lighter Shade of Grey than most factions, they're still not above occasionally working with said factions, such as when the Grineer and the Corpus were vying for control of Mars. There's also the question of how much of each original Warframe's personality is their own and not an Operator's; assuming much of it is the latter, that would mean certain Warframes like Gauss get their disturbing personae from people who are still physically teenagers.
• Kid Hero: The Operator is the protagonist of the series and presumably still in their teens.
• The Kid with the Remote Control: Due to the Operators being able to empathize with the Warframes' trauma and eventual Sanity Slippage, they could effectively calm and work in tandem with them where the Orokin could not.
• Leitmotif: This Is What You Are; you can hear it in the Orbiter's Transference Room.
• Liminal Being: As mentioned in the Ambiguously Human entry, the void mutated them into...something that hovers between the realm of Energy Beings and mutated humans. This is likely why the Orokin treated them like dirt, since they no longer saw the Tenno children as pure humans any more and referred to them more as monsters or "demons."
• Limit Break: At first, using the Operator is a limited-use Super Mode called Transcendence, which can only be triggered every 3 minutes. It turns you invulnerable for 10 seconds while firing a huge, powerful beam of Void energy in front of you. Finishing "The War Within" removes this ability and replaces it with Transference, which is weaker but more versatile and can be toggled on and off at will, thus no longer qualifying as a Limit Break.
• Loss of Identity: Empathizing with Umbra causes the Operator to suffer from this for a time, believing that they are Umbra, not helped by the Man in the Wall seemingly encouraging this.
• Magikarp Power: Your operator starts out about as squishy as you might expect, with their attacks and defensive intangibility drawing from the same limited pool of energy. Getting an amp from the Quills solves this latter problem, though, and better amps and Focus powers can gradually make the operator much more useful.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Their name Tenno is a Japanese title meaning "Heavenly Emperor", that accentuates their martial prowess and supernatural abilities.
  • The name itself originated from the colony ship called the Zariman Ten-Zero. "Zariman" in Sanskrit means "birth" or "bring forth". So the ship would literally be "The Birthplace of Heavenly Emperors".
  • More literally, if you refer to the Zariman 10-0 in a different pronunciation, they are child survivors of the ship numbers "Ten Oh".
• Meaningful Echo: "Operator" is the word that Ordis uses for the Tenno, because they are not controlling the Orbiter, but the Warframes themselves.
• Mouthy Kid: They frequently trash talk the Grineer, Corpus, and Infested.
  Operator: [referring to the Grineer] You'd think they'd clone something a little less... ugly.
• Morality Pet: What they are to the Warframes. Ballas of all people explained it best.
  Ballas: We had created monsters we couldn't control. we drugged them, tortured them, eviscerated them...we brutalized their minds...but it did not work. Until they came. And it was not their force of will - not their void devilry - not their alien darkness...it was something else. It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing, and take away its pain.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Entering Void Mode allows the Operators to withstand almost any kind of attack for as long as they have energy left to sustain it.
• Older Than They Look: They're teenagers in pretty much every relevant field, but they were around during the Orokin era and were put into stasis by the Lotus for hundreds of years.
• Parental Abandonment: Repeatedly. First, the Tenno's birth parents were driven insane by the same event that granted them their powers, homicidally so. While it's up to the player whether a given Operator killed their own parents or avoided the slaughter, no Tenno's parents survived the ordeal. Then, Margulis, who went out of her way to treat the Tenno like children, even when they unintentionally hurt her, was executed by Ballas and the other Orokin elite for not turning them into killing machines fast enough. And finally, the Lotus, who modeled herself after Margulis, is maybe brainwashed by Ballas and leaves with him for parts unknown, right in front of a horrified Tenno; when they finally catch up to the pair, the Lotus has apparently been assimilated by the Sentients again and shed her human form, leaving to reunite with an entity she refers to as her mother.
• Power Incontinence: The Operators are unable to fully control their powers without the use of Warframes or a Somatic Link, until "The War Within".
• The Power of Love: Every single Warframe is tortured, broken and constantly suffering unbearable physical and mental agony. The Tenno can take that pain away. That's how they synchronize with them.
• Power of the Void: The source of their powers is the reality-breaking Void where "science and logic die." The Void is so powerful that it serves as the antithesis to the Sentients, outright destroying them if they make contact with it, and the Operator can unleash the Void directly to harm their enemies.
• Precursor Killers: The Operators were the ones who ultimately made the decision to slaughter the Orokin leadership once they had defeated the Sentients. The exact reasons why each Operator chose to do so vary, ranging from simple vengeance for their treatment by the Orokin, to a sense of justice and punishment for the Orokin's numerous horrific crimes.
• Really 700 Years Old: The Operators were alive when the Orokin existed, which was hundreds of years before the events of the game. They still physically resemble teenagers. If "Chains of Harrow" is anything to go by they may not be biologically immortal, as Rell, who didn't fall into cryosleep, long since died and left what remained of his consciousness inside Harrow. However, any given Tenno may still be biologically immortal due to their choices in whether or not they drank the Kuva (which is stated to grant immortality) during the events of "The War Within", though the same questline reveals that the Tenno may not be completely corporeal anymore. (see Energy Beings above)
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: According to Cephalon Cordylon, the reason crafting costs credits is because it's the only way Ordis can budget the Operators' cash flow into essentials instead of having them blow it on often-superfluous material assets.
• Sanity Slippage: A small (for the moment) example, but after completing The Sacrifice in a conversation with the Man in the Wall, your Tenno now seems to believe that they personally killed Issah after controlling and living the memories of Excalibur Umbra, who was the one who actually killed Issah under Ballas' control.
• Self-Made Orphan: "The War Within" reveals the Zariman children had to Mercy Kill their parents, who had been driven insane from being adrift in the Void, eventually turning on each other and the children. Depending on your choices, your Operator either hid from them, locked them up or hunted them down, but ultimately the Zariman children are all "patricidal monsters". The tie-in comic Rell for "Chains of Harrow" suggests that the people the children killed weren't simply the adult crew driven mad, but something else either having taken them over completely or replaced them outright.
• Teleporters and Transporters: After "The War Within", on multiple counts.
  • The Operator is able to use Transference to teleport to the battlefield using their Warframe as a conduit^*This could also be a case of Astral Projection on part of the Operator, although Ordis' and Teshin's reactions to their first use of Transference during "The War Within" implies they are moving their physical being to where their Warframe is in space; if the Operator would take lethal damage in combat, they instead teleport back to the Orbiter to recover, though this will inflict a stacking "Transference Static" penalty on the Warframe until they have.
  • The Operator is able to "Void Sling" to quickly surge short-to-moderate distances, which will ragdoll enemies in their path and disarm Kuva Guardians. In addition to this, the Operator can voluntarily return to their Warframe, summoning it to their location; many players will combine these two properties with the Warframe's own parkour abilities for extremely fast travel.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Without upgrades, operators are very fragile and not very useful in combat... but they do mean that you always have access to a stealth mode, a silenced weapon, and a way to make your warframe briefly invincible.
• Trauma Conga Line: The Tenno used to be the normal children of a spaceship's crew and passengers. Said ship got stuck in The Void after a botched jump to the Tau system, and was adrift for an unspecified length of time. By the time the ship was found, every adult on board had died or gone insane, not necessarily in that order, and the Tenno had gained uncontrollable powers. This was before they were locked up, put to sleep and made to pilot their Warframes in a semi-lucid dream.
• Turned Against Their Masters: The Tenno slew the Orokin leadership, which is why the Corpus calls them "The Betrayers". Considering what the Orokin did to them, it's hard to blame them, and at the end of "The Second Dream" the player's Operator can even outright say that they turned on the Orokin as revenge for what they did to both the Tenno and Margulis.
• Virtual Paper Doll: They can be dressed up in a variety of unlockable (but purely cosmetic outfits) that can be crafted or purchased from Baro Ki'Teer or the Market. Their voice, skin tone, gender, and facial structure can also be swapped out at will via the Somatic Link room.
• Silent Protagonist: Completely averted once "The Second Dream" ends. They gain one of four different voices (two male, two female), and talk during cutscenes and occasionally give one-liners during missions (although these one-liners are disabled by default in the options menu). Their overall personality is still up to the player and what they choose during cinematic quests like "The War Within" and "The Sacrifice".
• Squishy Wizard: In-gameplay, they have a relatively paltry amount of health and shields on top of a rather slow walking and running speed. They compensate for this with their Void Mode and Void Sling abilities, which render them invisible and intangible and allows them to cross areas quickly respectively. Investing in the focus trees also provides access to a variety of useful powers, such as the ability to produce a field that grants an energy recovery buff to Warframes, weaken enemy armor and shields, or give allies a protective barrier.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The Duviri fragments mention a devastating event called the "Rain of Chains" which is heavily implied to be an aftershock of Mercy Killing Rell during "Chains of Harrow" and allowing the Man in the Wall to roam free.
• Vocal Evolution: The main Operator's voice goes up by about an octave during The New War, both to emphasize the fact that they're still biologically a child and to better highlight the differences between them and the Drifter, a grown adult version of themselves.
• Welcome to Corneria: Outside of story quests, the Operators have a limited array of dialogue with seemingly random triggers. You can hear them say, "Phew, that was a close one.", even if you just wiped out an entire room with one attack and are completely undamaged. They also tend to say, "My Warframe is strong." for no apparent reason. There is an option to turn off Operator dialogue if you get tired of hearing it, and after an update these lines are disabled by default.

Railjacks

"Railjack. Sigma series. Top-of-the-line. Crew. Four-thousand-eight-hundred-and-ninety confirmed kills."

— Cephalon Cy

Specialized multi-person interceptors used by the Orokin at the height of the Old War. The Sigma-series Railjacks would later be restored by the Tenno to engage enemy space forces.

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• Badass Crew: Each Tenno can recruit a crew to aid in flying their Railjack when other Tenno are unavailable. Any crew that can keep up with the One-Man Army that is a Tenno is badass by default.
• Base on Wheels: Downplayed, but Railjacks have life support, a portable Forge, and a portable Arsenal. However, you cannot adjust active live companions (e.g. Kubrows or Kavats) or access the equipment production Foundry - the one aboard the Railjack is for producing Railjack resources only.
• Cool Starship: Railjacks are the largest starships the Tenno can use, and are fully capable of taking on fleets in battle, as well as travelling throughout the Origin System without relying on the Solar Rails, unlike the Orbiters.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Railjacks, from their release to Spring 2021, had a bunch of oddities compared to the rest of the game that would be patched out either in Update 29.10 (for PC) or Update 30: Call of the Tempestarii (for everyone else).
  • Railjack weapons had their own damage types that corresponded to the seven base damage types currently in Warframe, but had their own status effects. They also cannot use hybrid damage types.
  • Railjacks had depletable stamina, unlike Warframes or Archwings.
  • Railjacks had a tiered internal structure, which was phased out to have a (mostly) single level containing all of their components. The forges are still one floor below, but the layout is much more compact and accessible.
  • All Railjack consumables, resources, and ammo stockpiles were intially shared between the entire crew of the ship. For instance, if one Tenno were to use up all of the Flux Energy by themselves, there would be nothing left for the rest of the crew until someone replenished it at the Forge. The relevant Railjack rework changed this to make all stockpiles independent to each crewmember.
  • Railjack modifications initially consisted of their own unique system, with Avionics in place of Mods and Dirac as a substitute for Endo.
  • The Railjack turrets were originally placed on the port and starboard sections of the ship. They would eventually be moved so that they are dorsally and ventrally mounted, for ease of perception.
• Energy Weapons: Railjacks can be equipped with six so far; the Cryophon and Glazio, Arca Plasmor-like turrets that inflict Cold damage, the Photor and Talyn, lasers that inflict Heat damage, and the Pulsar and Vort, shorter-range chaining blasters that inflict Electric damage.
• Human Cannonball: Tenno can be fired out of the Archwing Slingshot to reach far away targets at significantly faster speeds. Reaching Rank 4 for the Gunnery Intrinsic allows Tenno to damage enemies via ramming into them, and to directly enter Crewships via this method.
• Serial Escalation: Railjacks represent the greatest upgrade to Tenno firepower in the game so far, being capable of taking out small fleets with their armaments. From a gameplay perspective, they also embody the greatest level of integration in the game so far, as they allow for the usage of Warframe, Archwing, and Railjack weapons and powers in a single map, and with the right Intrinsic upgrade, Necramechs as well.

Necramechs

"Look, you were the second wave, kid. The Necramechs were Void-shielded, Sentient-pulse immune... as bright as a bag of hammers and just as dependable. Not like you."

— Father

Robots created by the Entrati as precursors to the Warframes the Tenno use.

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In General

• Awesome, but Impractical: While their ability to use an Arch-Gun indefinitely is interesting, they can only travel across the open worlds or Railjack missions, and they can be summoned in slowly. At the time of writing, DE have announced plans to make them summonable in regular missions, with the caveat that their size may prevent them from fitting through some doors, necessitating either finding a way around the obstacle or leaving the Necramech behind and resummoning it on the other side. Operation: Orphix Venom downplays this, as Necramechs can actually fit through all doors, emitting sparks when they go through doors that seem too short for them to enter. However, they cannot maneuver through certain halls that Warframes can normally traverse.
  • As of Lua's Prey, Necramechs can be summoned in the Lua Yuvarium and Circulus Survival missions, however there's a time limit on how long you can use them for.
  • They also can be summoned permanently in Albrecht’s labs, but doing so requires finding a terminal and playing a Hacking Minigame each mission. The extra firepower is much appreciated against the hordes of enemies fought in those locations, though.
• BFG: They use Arch-Guns as their main weapons, but they are associated with their signature Necra-guns as well, Mausolon, Cortege and Morgha, all coming with special charged secondary fires for massive burst damage. Creating your first Necramech will also give the player a Mausolon for free.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: While Necramechs can use any Arch-Gun, they have a special line of Arch-Guns with golden fittings, each with a special Charged Attack and a pre-installed Gravimag.
• Bling of War: Necramechs have some shiny highlights incorporated into their design, which makes sense considering they were made by Father (who is an Orokin), and that they were inspired by Egyptian sarcophagi.
• Charged Attack: Of the Collect type, Necra-Guns need five kills with the Primary Fire to be able to use their Secondary Fire.
• Death or Glory Attack: Using a Necra-Gun's Secondary Fire not only requires five kills with the Primary Fire, but using it means a long delay before being able to even use the gun's primary fire again.
• Dumb Muscle: While it's debatable how sentient Necramechs are, it's agreed upon in-universe that the necramechs are pretty much just capable of destroying what was laid out in front of them and not much else. This lead to them being phased out and replaced by Warframes.
• Flawed Prototype: Combined with Super Prototype. While Necramechs have amazing raw power and durability, their lack of agility and versatility led to them being replaced with the Warframes we know nowadays.
• Foreshadowing: Father mentions rerouting your Warframe's impulse stream to Snake, which is an early hint that the Warframes are being remotely controlled. If you play through the "Heart of Deimos" quest before "The Second Dream," Loid will make an active note to him on how it's too soon for the Tenno to use a Necramech.
• Ground Pound: Like the Tenno, Necramechs are capable of this. The Voidrig accomplishes this by slamming headfirst on the ground, while the Bonewidow does a Sword Plant with the Ironbride deployed or a Ground Punch with its shield if not.
• Jump Jet Pack: Necramechs are able to jump high and hover temporarily, and mods can affect hover and fuel efficiency.
• Mighty Glacier: Has a large health pool, but doesn't have a Warframe's ability to parkour. Downplayed in that, on flat ground, they are somewhat swift through their dash... but this rapidly drains the Necramech's fuel.
• Mini-Mecha: Not of the "pilot inside" variety, but like Warframes remotely piloted by the Tenno.
• Required Secondary Powers: Necramechs are capable of using Archguns with or without a gravimag installed.
• Skull for a Head: Necramechs are built around a gilded sarcophagus with an opening at the head that displays a human skull.
• Sprint Meter: They have to keep watch over their engine meters, or they'll be unable to do much more than walk and jump.
• Super Prototype: Combined with Flawed Prototype. Necramechs are the earliest predecessors of Warframes during The Old War; they were the first successful iterations of Transference technology that was designed for combat against the Sentients. Though they lacked speed and agility, they made up for it with raw power, as they were designed to hit hard and endure excessive amounts of damage from the enemy.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • AI-controlled Necramechs are this, using tactics that boil down to spamming all of their available attacks at whatever enemy is unfortunate enough to be in their line of sight. Since they are armed with some of the heaviest firepower available and durable to boot, this is fairly effective.
  • Lore-wise, this was ultimately the reason why they were phased out in favour of the Warframe program. While Necramechs were powerful, they lacked the tactical flexibility that the Tenno offered.

Voidrig

A general-purpose Necramech that is specialized towards ranged damage.

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• Anchored Attack Stance: The Voidrig Necramech's Guard Mode braces it on the ground in order to handle the Arquebex's recoil.
• BFG: The Arquebex is an automatic mortar mounted in each of the Voidrig's shoulders that serves as its Exalted weapon. The recoil is so powerful that it needs to be braced to the floor to fire, thereby turning the Voidrig into a gigantic turret for as long as it has energy.
• Deflector Shields: The Voidrig's Storm Shroud ability swathes the Necramech in a powerful electrical field which damages enemies that hit it.
• Shooting At Your Own Projectiles: The Voidrig's Necraweb ability involves a canister that can be shot midair after it is thrown to cause a fiery conflagration.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The Voidrig Necramech seems specialized for this. Not only is it able to lay down a field of proximity-triggered Gravemines, it can also convert into a stationary turret armed with the Arquebex, a pair of rapid-fire automatic mortars.

Bonewidow

A melee-focused and tanky Necramech.

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• BFS: The Ironbride is a huge khopesh-shaped sword that the Bonewidow uses as an Exalted weapon; unsurprisingly, it can be equipped with Arch-melee mods.
• Energy Weapon: The Bonewidow has the Firing Line ability, which sweeps enemies with force beams. This doesn't do any direct damage, but does line them up in front of it to set up for other attacks and make use of its directional shield.
• Life Drain: The Bonewidow's Meat Hook ability siphons health over time from the enemy it impales. Activating the skill again will cause the Bonewidow to throw the poor sap.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Bonewidow carries a shield it can use to defend itself upon activating its Shield Maiden ability.
• Meaningful Name: The Shield Maiden ability derives its name from the Norse warrior-women of the same name.
• Shield Bash: The Bonewidow can attack with its shield if it is deployed to ragdoll enemies.
• Sword Beam: An update allowed heavy attacks with the Bonewidow's Ironbride to launch an explosive projectile, making it not completely useless in distance engagements.

The Drifter (Massive Spoilers for "The New War")

"How long's it been, since the Tenno left without sayin' goodbye? Since Narmer and the masks? Since the truth became a luxury few can lay their hands on? Whoever's picked up the mantle the Tenno dropped, driftin' wild, poppin' masks and loosin' bonds, whoever you may be, we salute you. Drifter."

— Nora Night

A mysterious figure who became active in the Origin System following The New War. They have a mysterious connection to the Tenno.

Due to the nature of this character, all spoilers will be unmarked from this point forward. Read at your own risk!

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• Alternate Self: They're actually the Operator from a time where they were never rescued from the Void and were instead trapped in Duviri.
• Ambiguous Situation: A Zariman Tablet in Duviri suggests that instead of the Drifter refusing the Man in the Wall's offer, the Drifter's timeline is simply one where the Man chose to give all of the Tenno powers except for the Drifter. However, the entry is clearly written from the Man's perspective, meaning that due to his and the Drifter's conflicting takes on the latter's origin, the exact truth remains unclear.
  Drifter: You wouldn't welch on a deal, would you?
  The Man in the Wall: I saved them. All of them. Never said I'd save you.
• And I Must Scream: Subverted before we even met them, but one of Dominus Thrax's favorite stories was executing the Drifter for their "crimes" repeatedly in the endless time loop that was Duviri. The Drifter makes it clear this broke their will until the Lotus accidentally freed them.
• Badass Normal: The Drifter is a version of the Operator that never received Void abilities and is a normal human, or what passes for normal in Warframe. They are still more than capable of taking down Narmer Grineer/Corpus without breaking a sweat, and destroy at least two corrupted/enhanced Warframes with only the Stalker's help...
  • Empowered Badass Normal: ... and then they receive the Operator's Void powers.
• Badass Transplant: At the start of "The Duviri Paradox", Lotus' severed hand latched onto the Drifter's right hand when they inspected it, granting them the Operator's Transference and the ability to break Duviri's time loop.
• Body Horror: Looking closely at the Drifter's hand after the Lotus's own attaches to it reveals it accomplished this process by degloving their entire forearm, possibly also crushing the bones within. The skin of the Drifter's forearm that didn't get squished out awkwardly flops around whenever they move.
• Brought Down to Badass: Compared to their Alternate Self - they initially lack the ability to use Void powers, in part because they come from a timeline where they never got them. They're still fully capable of fighting off enemies on their own, though they are significantly more fragile than their warframes.
• Calling the Old Man Out: They do this with Hunhow once he calls them out for going to face the Archons without any way to harm them. It shakes him so much he willingly gives them Nataruk so they have a chance of success.
  Drifter: I've got work to do. You can lay here all you want, doing nothing, wallowing in ancient grudges. She chose the Tenno, but Ballas and your groveling son... they used her. They'll do it again and again, burning her up for whatever suits them and tossing the ashes when they're done. They cannot have her.
• Canon Character All Along: Their initial appearance has them as a random drifter who started opposing the Narmer forces after the Tenno disappeared. It's only after you return to their camp that you learn that they are the Operator, or rather an Alternate Self of the Operator.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Actually egged on Thrax to just execute them for the day rather than spending more time dreading while a prisoner of Duviri.
• The Cynic: Not necessarily in general compared to the Operator, but in regards to the Zariman at least, they are even less attached to the place than the Operator is. While the Operator has no love for it, they at least would see it protected for the memory of their parents and everyone else who died there. The Drifter on the other hand would see the place destroyed if not for the remaining few who are connected to the place. Understandable considering in their reality, they were tortured in Duviri for Void-knows-how-long after refusing the Man in the Wall's offer before getting swapped with the Operator during the New War.
• Drink-Based Characterization: They toast to freedom with the Operator over what is implied to be some sort of Gargle Blaster or A Tankard of Moose Urine, given how the latter (who is physically underage) immediately gags on the drink. The Drifter then sarcastically quips "yep, tastes great," showing how little they thought of the idea until they were broken out of Duviri.
• Foil: To the Operator, their Alternate Self. The Operator is recently awakened from cryosleep while theDrifter has spent possibly milennia awake in Duviri at the mercy of Dominus Thrax. As a consequence, The Operator is The Idealist while the Drifter is The Cynic. The Operator uses Warframes in extremely fast-paced combat while the Drifter fights on their own at a much slower pace. Warframe and Operator abilities are derived from the Void while most of the Drifter's powers come from gadgets they have on hand.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: "The Duviri Paradox" opens with the Drifter getting impaled by a ghostly version of the Paracesis at the same time Ballas impaled the Operator with the actual sword in "The New War".
• Morality Pet: Quite literally; the animals in Duviri are the only thing that can elicit genuine happiness from the Drifter without a hint of sarcasm or backhandedness.
• Sealed Good in a Can: Never escaped the Zariman Ten-Zero and later imprisoned within Dominus Thrax's sadistic games, spending years there trapped and tormented by Thrax and his soldiers. The Operator being thrown into the Void caused them to break the time loop and take the Drifter's place, paradox preventing both of them occupying the same place at the same time for too long. After the New War, it's possible for the Drifter and Operator to swap between the Zariman and the Orbiter (changing who plays as your Operator) at any time.
• Self-Inflicted Hell: Duviri is this for them - the entire area is actually a pocket of the Void that has fed on the Drifter's emotions and been shaped by them. Its ruler, Dominus Thrax, is the embodiment of their guilt and self-loathing.
• The Sneaky Guy: The Drifter is heavily geared toward stealth — a perfectly reloaded Sirocco shot will vaporize an opponent, meaning their corpse won't put enemies on alert, while the Rumblejack's guranteed electricity Status Effect on top of finisher damage when it is used for a Back Stab is pretty much a One-Hit Kill against any unaware enemy.
• The Quiet One: Unlike the Operator, they never speak outside of cutscenes or scripted events. invokedWord of God is that they have a backlog of Operator lines they need to add into the game before giving gameplay dialogue to the Drifter.
• Took a Level in Cynic: In contrast to the Operator, who retains some form of idealism across all of their dialogue options, the Drifter was forced to abandon a lot of their emotions to survive and was burdened with heavy Survivor's Guilt, something that the Void latched on to and created Duviri out of. When starting Angels of the Zariman, bringing the Drifter to the intro mission will have them immediately say the Zariman should be destroyed as soon as possible, compared to the Operator who still at least acknowledges the ship as their home.
• Walking Spoiler: It is flat out impossible to talk about the Drifter in detail without revealing that they are an Alternate Universe version of the Operator who was never rescued from the Void and only escaped Duviri when Ballas threw the Operator into the Void, allowing the Sentients to win the New War. Even with the release of the Duviri Paradox allowing them to be introduced in the new prologue, the true nature of their bond with the Operator is still a massive spoiler.

Tenno-allied NPCs

Lotus

Great work. I am pleased with your performance.

Voiced by: Rebecca Ford

"I am the Lotus. I will guide you, but we must hurry."

A mysterious woman who guides you through your missions and gives you objectives. She's the one who awakened the Tenno from cryosleep in the first place.

---

• A Form You Are Comfortable With: "Chains of Harrow" confirms that she intentionally modeled herself after Margulis in order for the Tenno to trust her. Her true form, shown in "The Sacrifice", is a warped variation of the Sentients, with a human-like face. In "The New War", she picks her appearance as Margulis, Natah, or the Lotus depending on the Operator's opinion.
• Ambiguously Human: It's hard to say what she is, since she appears to be a human with a wired helmet, but still manages the daunting task of micromanaging every Tenno cell in the solar system. That, and she's apparently been around since the Old War. The Natah quest finally shows what she is: a Sentient in an Orokin-human disguise.
• Ambiguous Situation: The exact nature of her supposed brainwashing is somewhat of a mystery in itself, made more complicated by the fact that there are multiple people trying to manipulate her all at the same time for their own seperate ends. While she says she was brainwashed by the Orokin to protect the Tenno, she makes this claim after she spent time with her father, who was planning on brainwashing her. Throwing onto this is Lotus' own admission that the passage through the void did indeed sterilize her, keeping her from ever having children of her own, which apparently affected her motherly instincts towards the Tenno when she finally located them. It's entirely possible that her original Heel–Face Turn was genuine, (though possibly manipulated by Ballas into taking the form of Margulis as part of his own gambit to make Natah the Replacement Goldfish for his wife) and Hunhow's "fix" made her believe she had been brainwashed. It doesn't help that the timeline of the Old War and the rise of the Tenno is still unclear; we don't know exactly when the Lotus took over protecting the Tenno, or how long she was doing that before she put them to sleep. There's also the fact that the Warframe whose parts the Ropalolyst drops, Wisp, takes a lot of aesthetic designs from the Ropalolyst, implying that the Lotus was brainwashed into siding with her kin and is still trying to provide the Tenno with a way to fight Hunhow. See also Public Secret Message below. Finally laid to rest in "The New War", where the Drifter, an Alternate Universe Operator with no real connection to either sides due to having never escaped the Zariman 10-0, outright tells Hunhow that Natah joined the Tenno willingly, with Hunhow not bothering to deny it, indicating that the Lotus was Not Brainwashed by the Orokin, but made a Heel–Face Turn.
• An Arm and a Leg: In "The New War", Ballas severed her hand with the Paracesis when the Operator was holding on to stop her from getting sucked into the Void portal. Said hand falls into the portal and crash lands in Duviri, providing the Drifter with a way to get out of the Stable Time Loop in "The Duviri Paradox".
• Anger Born of Worry: When Natah goes after Ballas, she asks the Operator/Drifter to stay out of it, both due to her worrying for their safety and because she has a very personal grudge with him. When the Tenno arrives at Ballas' throne room in Praghasa, Natah's understandably livid.
  Lotus: I. Said. To. Stay. Out. Of. THIS!
• The Anticipator: Turns out she fully knows that your Operator is present in the scene during her talk with Erra, but does nothing about it. It is unclear if it's because she cannot affect them, can but decides it's unimportant, or lacks the volition capacity to get herself to act on it.
• Anti-Villain: During the Ropalyst boss fight, she angrily claims that the Orokin actually brainwashed her into the Lotus and forced her to love the people who killed her species - and reveals she knows about the Man in the Wall, fearing him and knowing he's a grave threat to the Sentients who may be using the Tenno. Even if it wasn't for her Avenging the Villain aspects, she has every right to be angry.
• Back from the Dead: After Ballas stabs her and tosses her into the Void, she eventually ended up under Ordis' care, rapidly deteriorating and close to death by the time the Drifter starts their operations against Narmer. Ordis explicitly calls her an Eidolon, for good measure. Luckily, the Drifter gets her enough Archon Shards to bring her back to health.
• Benevolent Boss: She gives you monthly gifts and keeps you well-informed instead of just throwing you at places to slaughter. She sees the Tenno as her children because she couldn't have any of her own, and when the Stalker and Hunhow invade the Orbiter at the climax of "The Second Dream", Lotus arrives in person to save her beloved child.
• Big Good: She's the adoptive mother of all Tenno, dedicated to guiding and managing their efforts in keeping some sort of balance in the Origin System so that the innocent people living in various colonies can live somewhat safe lives. She loses this position after "Apostasy Prologue", leaving with Ballas to rejoin the Sentients, then returns to it after "The New War" frees her from this predicament and firmly remains by the Tenno's side.
• Breath Weapon: She's able to fire energy beams from her mouth in her Eidolon form.
• Call-Back: A very somber case occurs during the first trilogy of cinematic quests.
  • At the end of "The Second Dream" she says "This is what you are" to your operator, soon after they wake up from their stasis and see their true form for the first time.
  • And at the end of The Sacrifice she says "This is what I am" to your Operator, when they see for the first time her true form as a Sentient.
  • At the end of "The New War", The Drifter carries her in their arms before placing her back into her chair in the Lua Reservoire, mirroring the Lotus carrying the Operator to their chair in the Orbiter.
• The Cameo: Appears as a Spirit in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which can be enhanced into Natah.
• Cleavage Window: The camera views her so closely that it is usually obscured, but when she appears in person it's very clear she has one.
• Face–Heel Turn: As of "The Sacrifice", the Lotus has returned to the Sentient side as Natah, even going so far as to have a horde of Sentients fire upon your Tenno while they are out of their Warframe. When we hear her during the Ropalolyst boss fight she is openly resentful towards the Tenno.
• Flunky Boss: Not by choice. While Ballas has her under his thrall and forces her to fight the player during the climax of "The New War", Narmer Deacons periodically show up to support her and their master.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: In her original form as Natah, her pupils have a white glow.
• Godzilla Threshold: During the events of "The Second Dream", the threat of the Stalker and Hunhow working together to find the Reservoir is dire enough that Lotus has to ask Alad V for help.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: Saving the Tenno instead of destroying every single one of them at the end of the Old War was not within her parameters. She went so far as to isolate them until the start of the game and considers herself their mother.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: She clearly switched sides at some point, but the nature of the switch isn't entirely clear. She was originally a Sentient agent sent to the Origin System to destroy the Tenno; however, the crossing rendered her sterile (at least, the Sentient definition of sterile) and she apparently wanted to be a mother. So instead of killing the Tenno, she sent them to sleep, and woke them up centuries later as her "children", only to end up being Natah again after the events of the Apostasy Prologue.
  • If her dialogue preceding the Ropalolyst boss fight is to be believed it was not a Hazy-Feel Turn but a Heel–Face Brainwashing.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: She manages to be a victim of this twice, inflicted on her by two different sides directly opposing each other in a war. Initially a Sentient mimic created to infiltrate the Orokin and destroy the Tenno during the Old War, she was discovered and brainwashed/reprogrammed into being their handler. Then in the present Ballas finds her and brings her back to the Sentients - who, if her behaviour during her appearances following the Apostasy Prologue is any indication, instead of removing the Orokin conditioning re-brainwashed her themselves in order to get her to fall in with their plans.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: She's switched sides several times, and not all of them were her choice. She infiltrated the Orokin as a mole, engineering their genocide at the hands of the Tenno, only to betray her own people and adopt the Tenno as her children. Ballas apparently brainwashes her into returning to the Sentient side, after which she claims her original heel-face turn was the product of brainwashing to begin with. She settles back on Face in "The New War" and returns to the Tenno's side, this time of her own volition.
• Heel–Face Turn: At the end of "The New War", she kills Ballas and goes back to being the Tenno's Mission Control again, this time with the option of choosing between Natah (Sun), The Lotus (Neutral), or Margulis (Moon) as her permanent name for the entire game. You can also spend platinum to get any of the other appearances, as well as other skins for her.
• Horror Hunger: Her need to feed on Tau energy to heal herself overrides her common sense. After the Drifter brings her the first Archon Shard, she tries to bite them before calming down, and goes completely berserk after eating the second shard.
  Natah: More...
  Drifter: Soon. Soon. I promise.
  Natah: MORE! [snarls and attempts to bite the Drifter]
• Icy Gray Eyes: When her eyes don't glow, they're naturally gray. She's also very cold and temperamental in her true form.
• It's Personal:
  • Ballas' attempt on her life angers her so much she decides to pursue and stop him from destroying the Sun by herself. She considers this a personal matter and tells the Tenno to stay out of it.
  Natah: This is not your fight, Tenno. Ballas is mine!
  • She takes the Archon Hunts very personally, seeing how they involve her sending you to stop a corpse of her brother taken over by a Puppeteer Parasite along with revenants of her former comrades from Tau. While she conducts other Tenno operations for the sake of restoring peace and stability in the Origin System, the Archon Hunts are something she clearly does just as much for herself as for the sake of extinguishing the Narmer remnants.
• Kiss of Death: She finishes Ballas off this way at the end of "The New War", by draining his lifeforce and retaking the Tau energy he stole from her.
• Leave Him to Me!: She insists that the Tenno leave Ballas to her during "The New War", and gets what she wants by way of a life-stealing kiss.
• Mission Control: Barring a few specific missions, the Lotus is usually the one who gives you intel on your mission objectives and how to accomplish them. Following the events of "Apostasy Prologue", Ordis is forced to create a holographic copy of Lotus to replace her. This was noticably the point where newer mission types and quests began to feature more and more unique characters to serve this role instead, even if they technically took place prior to "Apostasy Prologue". This persisted even after she officially reclaimed the position after "The New War".
• Monumental Theft: The Lotus stole the Moon and hid it in the void for the sake of the Tenno. Alad is suitably impressed, commenting that the Lotus "makes a fine villain".
• Monster Lord: Natah is this to the lesser Mimics, having come from Sentient nobility; dialogue from her father and brother imply she was engineered from birth to infiltrate the Orokin ranks and subvert the Tenno. In "The New War", she's able to hijack and take control over smaller Sentients, and disable Murex shields despite no longer being allied with them.
• Not Brainwashed: "The New War" confirms that the Lotus' original Heel–Face Turn was genuine, with Hunhow doing nothing to deny the Drifter's claim that she chose the Tenno.
• Offing the Offspring: Inverted. Her original plan was to eliminate every single Tenno after rallying them off into acceptable slaughter groups. Instead, she took them in as her children and became their commander in missions to maintain balance in the Origin system, and soon to possibly thwart the incoming Sentient threat, where the Lotus originated from.
• One-Woman Army: The last third of "The New War" has her rampaging through Ballas' sentients so that she can personally kill him. The Drifter/Operator will find heaps of Tau corpses as they try to catch up to her.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Getting attacked by the Grustrag Three is heralded by a transmission from the Lotus telling you to abort the mission before she is cut off, the only time you see her break from her usual calm, controlled demeanor.
  • During Operation Arid Fear, her voice was full of veiled contempt whenever she mentioned Alad V, showing that he was going to be a very important character in the future. Considering what he did to poor Valkyr and Mesa, not to mention the Zanuka, she's got reason to.
  • She is very uneasy during "Chains of Harrow". There is an unmistakable sense of urgency and worry in her dialogue throughout, concerning the possibility that Rell can be saved. She goes completely silent when Paladino proposes a Mercy Kill, and does not appear for the rest of the quest afterwards.
  • She is notably less composed during the Archon hunts following "The New War", at various points displaying grief, nostalgia as well as restrained anger and contempt. Makes sense, seeing how these hunts entail a very personal matter for her.
• Parental Abandonment: In the Apostasy Prologue, she sides with Ballas, taking off her helmet and by extension her identity, and leaves with him, all while the Tenno watches. The heartbroken, confused look on the Tenno's face as they retrieve their "mother"'s discarded helmet is akin to that of an abandoned child, wondering why their parent decided to leave them. And then "The Sacrifice" decided to twist the knife further.
• Post-Victory Collapse: At the end of "The New War", after killing Ballas and protecting herself and the Operator/Drifter from the Man in the Wall, the Lotus faints.
• Pre-Final Boss: After abandoning the Tenno yet again to go after Ballas in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, he ends up taking control of her during the final confrontation of "The New War". He promptly forces her to kill the player, making her the last enemy faced before fighting Ballas himself.
• Public Secret Message: During the "Operation: Orphix Venom" event, she would pop in every few waves to comment on Sentient losses while mentioning seemingly random alphanumeric callsigns and attack protocols as intercepted instructions for deploying more Sentient drones. Players realized that the numbers were sequential and never repeated; by ordering the letters based on the numbers that followed them, she was secretly spelling out "I AM DYING".
• Really 700 Years Old: The Natah quest confirms she's from the Old War as a Sentient sleeper agent.
• Replacement Goldfish: Instead of becoming the weapon to destroy the Tenno, the Lotus becomes this to Margulis for the abandoned Tenno. The Tenno themselves also become this to Natah/Lotus, due to the journey through the Void from the Tau system rendering her sterile and unable to have children of her own. After "The New War," the Tenno can even have her accept her Margulis identity as her main identity.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Late in "The New War", after she regains most of her strength, Natah goes into one of these, desperate to stop Ballas before he destroys the whole Origin System with Praghasa. Despite her still being weakened by her near-death experience, Natah single-handedly slaughters the Narmer fleet with her hijacked Murex, leaving a trail of devastation and mutilated Murex corpses in her warpath, from Mercury to the Heliosphere.
• Resurrection Sickness: After Ballas nearly kills her in "The New War", Natah loses most of her memories after turning into an Eidolon-like form. Once she consumes the crystals of two Archons and mostly heals herself, she goes berserk and tries to kill the Drifter as she can't recognize them.
• So Proud of You: If the player attains Mastery Rank 30 (aka the final non-Legendary rank of True Master), she will send them a special message congratulating them on their monumental achievement and explicitly stating that it was an honor to guide them and that she is proud to see them become a master.
• They Look Like Us Now: Unlike most Sentients, who were designed for various roles necessary for terraforming Tau, Natah was designed as a mimic to infiltrate Orokin society. This is why she looks like a human/Sentient hybrid in her true form.
• Unstoppable Rage: Ballas almost killing her and one of her children enrages her so much that she goes completely berserk after recovering enough of her strength. The carnage she unleashes when she goes after Ballas' head is unmatched by anything seen before in the game.
  Tenno: Please. You're not thinking straight. You need more time to heal.
  Natah: There is no time. No mercy... for Narmer.
• Vocal Evolution: Her voice has changed quite a bit across the Updates, only partly due to change of the filters used.
• Volumetric Mouth: In her Eidolon form, she's able to open her mouth in a bigger range than humans due to her lower jaw being detached from the rest of her face.
• Walking Spoiler: Just take a look at the rest of her entry. Everything about her beyond what the game makes obvious from the start is either a spoiler in and of itself, or carries massive spoilers about the rest of Warframe's lore.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: According to Cephalon Cordylon:
  I find it curious that you would ask for information related not only to military vehicles, but civilian transports as well. Statistically, there are few instances where blowing up a civilian transport would ever be deemed necessary, and the Lotus would only demand such a task be completed as a last resort.

Ordis

Operator? Ordis wonders... What are you thinking about?

^{Click here for his sentinel form.}

"I am Ordis, ship cephalon, a shadow of my former self."

An AI (or rather, a Cephalon) that resides within the Tenno's Orbiter. He handles various tasks around the ship and offers humorous commentary, but also has what appears to be a suppressed violent personality. He is also an amnesiac, with his backstory hidden in Cephalon fragments hidden across the Origin System and accessed by hovering your cursor over certain locations on their artwork.

---

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • Ordis is a full-on Benevolent A.I. towards his operator, being polite, cheerful, and subservient. But he's also glitchy, implying a much angrier and violent side, or even a full-on Split Personality, that he tries not to show the Operator. It's eventually revealed to be caused by damage, allowing the personality he had in life to slip through.
  • The damage which causes his glitches are implied to have been caused due to being held in stasis for centuries, as well as having parts of the ship he's integrated with removed by Grineer salvagers, who were not gentle. Ordis has also theorized that he damaged himself purposefully, to block out memories of the past. He is right.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: The Cephalon Ordis is very different from the human Ordan Karris, though the latter periodically comes out in his dialogue.
• Artificial Intelligence: He is technically not one, as he is a Cephalon, and the Orokin had a severe aversion to creating true AI. Cephalons like Ordis are actually uploaded human minds.
• The Atoner: Even as Ordan Karris, he loathed himself for what he did. As a Cephalon, Ordis has to talk himself out of committing suicide when he remembers Ordan.
• Broken Pedestal: Ordis practically worshiped Cephalon Simaris. This changes after seeing his callous disregard for the Operator's well-being in The New Strange, and proceeds to reject him, his offer of being repaired, and a place in the Sanctuary. Neither of them get better, either - after "The Second Dream", Octavia's Anthem shows that they still hate each other to no end, to the point that both of them vocally don't care about each other's destruction. And when it seemingly does come around, Simaris doesn't appreciate that despite having advocated for the pragmatic solution, he himself simply couldn't stand back and allow neither Ordis nor Suda to come to harm.
• Comedic Sociopathy:
  • In regards to Grineer, Corpus, or the idea of having a filthy Kubrow aboard. He is also abnormally cheery about the idea of you finishing the Archwing and becoming a "winged death machine."
  • During the Vor's Prize questline, he's absolutely furious that the Grineer dismantled many of his and the ship's major components.
    Ordis: Foundry restored. Here, the Operator will craft many powerful weapons and tools to - EXACT REVENGE FOR DISMANTLING ME - to expand your arsenal.
• Cornered Rattlesnake: Do NOT mess with him or the Operator in the Cephalon weave. Hunhow learns this the hard way.
• Curse Cut Short: Thanks to his mood swing glitches, and Servile Snarker tendencies, he often catches himself juuust before cursing, especially if the results would have a negative impact on his Operator, or him.
  [After Darvo contacts the ship to demanding an apology for Ordis insulting him]
  Ordis: [glitching] Yyyou can go straight to...h- Operator, I am sorry.
• Dark and Troubled Past: As a human, he committed many murders while serving the Orokin, and was haunted by it. He tried to betray his masters and kill as many Orokin as he could before he died, but instead he was taken and made an A.I. as punishment just to spite him.
• The Dog Bites Back: Human Ordan Karris came to despise his Orokin masters for their mistreatment of him and others like him, and tried to kill as many as he could in a suicide attack.
• Electronic Speech Impediment: When in his violent psychopath mode, his voice is distorted.
• Fanboy:
  • Toward Limbo, thinking very highly of him after "The Limbo Theorem" Questline, once he realizes Limbo was Talking through Technique.
  • Cephalon Simaris was the object of his hero worship... until he discovered how truly callous Simaris is.
• Fighting from the Inside: During The War Within, when the the Witch triggers a Battle in the Center of the Mind and causes the Operator to hallucinate, a hidden part of his programming activates and forces him to "purge" the Operator, ostensibly for losing the power of Transference (whether he really has this programming or the Witch invented it to hurt the Operator further is unclear), but he clearly doesn't want to and tells the Operator how to get away. "The New War" shows that this "hidden part" of his programming was a lie made up by the Witch; Ordis has no issues, programming or otherwise, working with the Drifter, who is an Operator who never received their powers.
• Energy Weapon: Can shoot powerful lasers in the Cephalon weave.
• Happiness in Slavery: Ordan Karris hated himself, and regretted a life spent killing for the Orokin's amusement. After a failed attempt to kill Ballas and the other Orokin Executors, Ballas turned him into a Cephalon, apparently as a form of punishment - accidentally giving "Ordis" the purpose and happiness he never found in life.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: A troubled and violent human Ordan Karris was turned into a loyal servant cephalon Ordis, programmed to love his Operator. He liked the change.
• Heel Realization: Ordan cites the moment he saw a child ruined and twisted by the Orokin's experiments as the moment he realized warriors like him were "pit dogs, ruining ourselves for the pleasure of the glorious and beautiful".
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Ordis' glitches can lead to rather spiteful and downright murderous behavior, but it's almost always played for laughs.
• I Choose to Stay: He ultimately rejects Simaris' offer to join him in the Sanctuary and restore his lost memories and chooses to stay with your character. At least part of this can be chalked up to Ordis' knowing he fragmented his memories for a reason.
• I Hate Past Me: He did not like what he found when he returned his lost memories.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: Says this at the beginning of the Archwing Trailer when complaining that he can't extract the Tenno due to the ongoing space battle happening right outside the ship they were infiltrating, before happily asking if he should deploy the Archwing unit.
• Irony: Tells Hunhow that he is no longer the person that Ordan Karris was. Cue him making bloodthirsty comments during the finale of Octavia's Anthem as he continuously zaps Hunhow's Eradycysts.
• Killer Rabbit: Ordis looks particularly harmless, especially with his damaged and simple look. But don't threaten him or the Operator with things that he can interact with in the Cephalon weave. They'll just get zapped out of the way, assuming, of course, he isn't restrained first.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Is fully combat-capable in the Cephalon weave, which is only revealed in the finale of Octavia's Anthem after Hunhow captures him and is subsequently freed by the player. His main attack is a laser beam similar to the Artax, but is damage-oriented and can take out mid-tier enemies quickly.
• Loss of Identity: Ballas Mind Raped Ordan Karris into becoming Ordis, until his own name meant nothing to him anymore. When Ordis remembered he Was Once a Man, he willingly fragmented his own memories of Karris.
• Mission Control: Becomes this after the Lotus leaves with Ballas in "Apostasy". All missions that the Lotus narrates are retroactively replaced by Ordis playing a recording of her from this point onward.
• Mood-Swinger: Played for laughs; as part of his glitchy processing, he's prone to dipping into aggressive, borderline-psychotic rants before correcting himself and happily offering his services to the Tenno. Played for drama with a complete Fragment collection; given that Ordan Karris was mentally unstable and had a similarly low voice, the distorted voice is implied to be his original personality asserting itself.
  Ordis: Ordis will gladly assist the Operator in - CUTTING A BLOODY PATH - in what ever mission they choose.
• Out-of-Character Moment: During The Sacrifice, a Vitruvian computer installed into the Orbiter causes a lot of his "vestigial" precepts to be knocked offline-those precepts being his ability to care and aggression, causing him to develop a Machine Monotone and become The Stoic until he puts them back online later in the mission. Additionally, when the Operator first discovers the Vitruvian, the normally technology obsessed Ordis immediately suggests you destroy it, implying Ordis is aware this machine might not benefit you. At all.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Ordis will usualy make a Verbal Backspace whenever he has a Mood-Swinger moment. The few moments he doesn't indicate he feels very strongly on the topic. Case in point, his reaction when you find Konzu with a Narmer Veil on his face?
  Ordis: Oh no, Konzu's been afflicted with one of those wretched Narmer Veils. TEAR OFF THE LYING MASK!!
• Organic Technology: According to Ordis, Helminth handles the orbiter's biological functions. As Ordis is usually quite deliberate with his wording, you might note he did not say "life support."
• Parental Abandonment: He recognizes the player as his Operator from the Old War, and asks why they abandoned him as a child would. Of course, he also claims his memory banks of the war were misplaced, so how accurate this is can be called into question.
• Portmanteau Word: Well, "Name", in his case. Ordis was originally called Ordan Karris.
• Promoted to Parent: After the Lotus leaves the Operator. Poor Ordis isn't nearly as well equipped to comfort the Operator (not to mention the fact that Ordis himself is rather unstable), and the Operator rejects most of his attempts to reach out.
  Ordis: I know I'm just a broken, old Cephalon, but I'm here if you ever want to talk...
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Ordis was one in his past life as Ordan Karris. He grew to hate said past life.
• Red Baron: The Beast of the Bones, as he was known in his fleshy days. He was infamous enough that even Hunhow knows who he is.
• Robotic Psychopath: When glitched, he violently advocates cutting a bloody path through anyone who wronged him and will tell the Operator's allies to shove it.
• Sapient Ship:
  • Well, more accurately, he's the ship's A.I., but treats it as his own body. Which is why he really doesn't take kindly to others ripping his vital components out... or installing components he really wishes stayed out that may involve having a "filthy Kubrow" on the ship.
    Ordis: [sarcastically] Joy. An Incubator. The only segment Ordis is glad th- THE SAVAGES - looted. [with forced cheer] I would be happy to help you install it.
  • Conversely, he's happy when it comes to making, or installing anything mechanical, to the point he gets impatient if the player hasn't begun manufacture on their first Archwing unit yet, constantly insisting they start making it right away every time the player comes back from a mission.
    Ordis: Gun. Gun. Gun! Hmmm, the foundry has items for you, Operator.
• Servile Snarker: Especially if it involves anything with Kubrow.
  Ordis: [indignant] An Incubator Segment? You want to turn me into a petting zzzoo? [abruptly calm again] Ordis is happy to assist the Operator restoring ship functionality.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: As Ordan Karris, having been long warped into a bloodthirsty, self-loathing monster, who reacted by being offered immortality by killing the offerers to force an execution. They made him immortal anyway as punishment, out of sheer spite. He actively tells you he doesn't want to remember who he was.
• Squee: Ordis interrupts himself to describe the Silver Grove, in a whimsical voice, as "MAGICAL!"
• Suicide by Cop: What Ordan Karris' goal for his meeting with the Orokin was. He wanted to kill as many as possible before dying in his attack and freeing himself from his nightmares. Given what he is now, it seems that the attempt was a Bungled Suicide.
• That Man Is Dead: Meekly responds in this vein when Hunhow taunts him about his past during Octavia's Anthem.
• Third-Person Person: Often uses the third person when describing his functions, though he uses first person just as often.
• Undying Loyalty: Serves the Operator, regardless of his complaints of their abandonment, with signs of almost Yandere tendencies occur when the Lotus leaves the Tenno/Operator after attempting to hide her Sentient origins.
  • He will ignore invitations from more respectable factions of a greater cause, especially Cephalon Simaris, who invites him to join the high ranks of the Sanctuary, because that would mean no longer serving the Operator.
  • Even before the Operator awoke: During the years he was alone he rediscovered his memories as Ordan Karris, the Beast of the Bones. Out of fear that his old identity would hurt the Operator, he again cast off these memories, this time willingly.
• Verbal Backspace: Does this all the time whenever he glitches and says something rude or Ax-Crazy.
• Violence Really Is the Answer: He's a bit... enthusiastic about the Tenno's number one solution to problems.
  Ordis: [cheerfully, about a mission to locate Captain Vor] Ordis assumes finding Vor implies violence?
• Warrior Poet: Ordan was fairly well-read and insightful when he was alive.
• Was Once a Man: Being a Cephalon, he was once a human who was transformed and uploaded into the Cephalon Weave.
  "So you see, Operator, no Orokin would permit a thinking machine. Such things almost destroyed them. No... Cephalons were alive once. And now they are immortal, phantom minds, imprisoned to serve. Ill-will and longing memories fragmented and erased. Only the bits they need remaining."
• Wistful Amnesia: Witnessing his Operator fight in the Old War made him realize that some of his memories were missing.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Being a shell-shocked Death Seeker, Ordan Karris was shocked and appalled when the Orokin laughed off his attempted Suicide by Cop and invited him to join their immortal ranks. When he refused, his punishment was to be made immortal anyway - as a mechanical servant.
• You're Insane!: Tells this to the Drifter when they decide the best course of action to save the Lotus and bring down Narmer is to ask Hunhow of all people for help. The Drifter doesn't refute it, telling Ordis to stay close in case things go wrong. Luckily, Hunhow ultimately agrees to an Enemy Mine because he still loves his daughter despite their differences.

Teshin

See the Conclave entry in the Syndicates page.

Helminth

(Living substances is our domain. How will we serve you.)

(Who nurtures you in your times of rest? Who restores your battle-torn frame, day after day after day? Whose milk enriches your kindred flesh with endless strength and vigor? It can only be me.)

A sentient Infested infection who dwells behind a similarly Infested door in the player's Orbiter. While Ordis is not a fan of it being on the ship, it seems to be loyal to you for whatever reason, and so he grudgingly tolerates its presence. It will only allow you into its room while playing as Nidus, which it calls "Master", or as any Warframe with a mature Helminth Cyst, which it can remove for free and inoculate the Warframe from future infection. Installing a Helminth Segment permanently unlocks access to its infirmary for all frames.

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• The Assimilator: With an upgraded segment, Helminth is able to subsume non-Prime Warframes into itself and in exchange allow it to bestow one of its abilities to other frames. A lotus flower of the subsumed Warframe's colors grows from the wall it was assimilated into, as Helminth's tribute.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Good is stretching a bit, but it keeps the Orbiter alive in service to the only real heroes the Origin system has.
• Boring, but Practical: Its abilities unlocked without subsuming Warframes are given little dressing and have simple effects, but they can be effective when used correctly, such as Energized Munitions allowing for far more ammo economy while active or Sickening Pulse doubling Slash, Heat and Toxin procs.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Mostly due to Blue-and-Orange Morality. While it is the sentient embodiment of a malignant disease, all it really wants is to be kept alive and to serve Nidus, and is otherwise friendly to a point.
• Discard and Draw: By allowing it to consume a Warframe, it gains the ability to replace a Warframe's abilities with one of those from any consumed.
• Expy: In Heart of Deimos, it evolves into a creature that looks a lot like Audrey II.
• Extreme Omnivore: The Helminth needs to be fed to use its higher functions, such as Ability Infusions and weekly Invigoration buffs. What it actually consumes are any spare resources you choose to give to it, which can range from vegetation collected from open world maps, to rare crystals and space rocks, to industrial-grade metals and hardware, to the remains of other Infested organisms or even Sentients. The more varied the Helminth's diet, the more efficiently it generates "secretions" for its abilities.
• Fake Longevity: Helminth's subsumption feature, outside of buying Warframe duplicates (which would waste the pre-installed Orokin Reactors, if you added one to your crafted frames) means you need to craft at least two of any non-Prime Warframe.
• Giant Medical Syringe: The claws around its examination chair have this function.
• Horrifying the Horror: When entering its room as the Operator, it notes:
  Helminth: We fear nothing but the Void demon.
• If It's You, It's Okay: Non-sexual example. While it deals with most Operators and Ordis very begrudgingly, it speaks to Nidus with genuine respect and gratitude, calling them "Master" and gladly bestowing its gifts upon them.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: Like other Infested, Helminth speaks in animalistic growls that are shown as proper words in subtitles.
• The Medic: There's a reason why its room is called the Helminth Infirmary. Ordis describes the Helminth as necessary to the Orbiter's "biological functions", primarily the maintenance and repair of your Warframes between combat engagements. None of this repair is ever actually seen, but given that its near-instant infusions and cyst treatments involve strangling your Warframe while brutally impaling them with its claws as they struggle to get away, it's probably best not to see what a full regimen looks like.
• Monster Progenitor: The Sacrifice reveals it to be the source of the "domesticated" Infestation the Orokin used to create Warframes.
• Organic Technology: As with all Infested, Helminth is a perfect fusion of microscopic robots and organic flesh.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Presumably. Its infection doesn't take control of Warframes, just causes a disgusting growth that eventually can be drained to infest a Kubrow egg, creating a "Helminth Charger".
• Small Role, Big Impact: While a helpful part of expanding building potential with subsumes and Archon Shards, it has no current plot relevance at all and is only unlocked after an optional quest, and even after that you need to buy upgrades to make it useful. Despite this, it's a big part of the Warframes' biology, being the strain of Infestation that Ballas used to mutate candidates into superpowered weapons.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: It vocally regards Operators as "demons".

Excalibur Umbra (Unmarked spoilers for The Sacrifice)

Ferocious and untamed, Umbra's fury is second only to his mastery of the blade.

— Excalibur Umbra's description

The third variation of Excalibur first introduced in the Chinese build of Warframe in 2015 as "Excalibur Umbra Prime", with stats identical to Excalibur Prime as the founder's pack frame to the version's release.

He eventually arrived howling into the fray in the global build's "The Sacrifice" Update in 2018, stats matching Excalibur Prime, alternate ability and passive, and introducing the exclusive Umbra polarity.

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• Aborted Arc: Due to "The Sacrifice" heavily indicating that the Tenno would have a special bond with Umbra, and the fact Umbra had dealt a crippling blow to Ballas with their help, it seemed like Umbra would have a special connection/interaction with the Operator/Drifter from that quest forward, especially for "The New War". But this is far from true, as there's no difference between Umbra and any other Warframe besides the obvious.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Every type of Warframe should have an "Umbra" prototype along with their Prime-era and standard models, but the Excalibur Umbra is simply nicknamed "Umbra".
• Animal Motifs: Umbra's motif is feral beasts, specifically wolves. His ability Radiant Howl and his Agile animation set definitely give him a wolf-like vibe.
• And I Must Scream: Whoever Excalibur Umbra once was, Ballas programmed the Warframe to constantly relive his last living memory: becoming an Infested and murdering his own son at Ballas' behest. He knows it's going to happen because of Ballas' telepathy, but he can't do anything about it because his Restraining Bolt and the loss of his mouth.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Excalibur Umbra's passive allows him to act on his own accord and fight along side the Operator.
• Badass and Child Duo: An uncommon example where the child in question is also a dangerous combatant. He has this general mechanic with the Operator.
• Chekhov's Skill: His ability to act independently allows him to save his Operator's life. At the end of "The Sacrifice", he pulls them out from under Sentient fire.
• Bling of War: Like the Prime Warframes, Umbra is outfitted with all sorts of Orokin gold accents as a reminder of his nature as a Super Prototype.
• Broken Faceplate: Upon initially building Umbra, the Warframe goes berserk and shatters its own helmet, revealing a single human eye beneath surrounded by Infested tissue. Completing the quest grants this alternate helmet as an additional reward.
• Cultured Badass: In his life as a Dax warrior before becoming a Warframe, Umbra was a talented shawzin player and fond of the game of Komi, a boardgame akin to Go.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Despite his shadowy theme and savage disposition, Umbra is just a broken man who is constantly forced to relive his single worst memory and live with the knowledge that he will never be able to take revenge against the person who ruined his life.
• Good Parents: Of what character Excalibur Umbra's memories were based from, it's clear his son Isaah thought highly of him and mentioned the fond memories of them playing Komi and Excalibur Umbra playing songs for his children's behalf. His son's death by his hands also haunted him ever since.
• He Knows Too Much: Umbra's original identity was aware that Ballas planned to defect to the Sentients after being made to execute Margulis, but was still gathering evidence against him. Ballas injected him with a culture of Infestation to keep him from talking, then punished him for his treason by forcing him to murder his son before turning him into a Warframe that can only relive this memory.
• It Can Think: Excalibur Umbra displays its own "personality" - unlike other frames which simply stand there like an action figure when the Operator uses Transference, it will actively attack on its own.
• Katanas Are Just Better: His signature nikana, the Skiajati, has the highest status chance and attack speed of all nikanas and has the unique ability to turn the user invisible after using a finisher, allowing him to quickly rack up stealth kills against unwary foes.
• Leitmotif: Howling and Umbra. Also Smiles From Juran after Umbra is soothed and tamed by the Operator, and doubles as the quest's end theme.
• Lightning Bruiser: He has everything the original Excalibur has and more, with improved shields on top of exclusive Umbra mods and polarities.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: His Radial Howl can stun enemies and remove built up resistances, such as the Sentient's resistances being removed and exposed for massive damage.
• Man of Kryptonite: Umbra is designed to take the Sentients head on with an addition of Umbra exclusive mods that makes him more effective at taking and delivering damage against the Tau-based Sentient entities.
• Master Swordsman: Described as such and he demonstrates his skill with his personal nikana Skiajati during your battles against and alongside him.
• Meaningful Name: On two levels. Firstly, "Umbra" can mean "Shadow" or "Dark," which fits with his much darker color scheme, backstory, and themes than the average Warframe. It can also be traced back to "Umbrage," meaning "offense or annoyance." Which fits Umbra's tendencies towards Unstoppable Rage. His signature nikana, Skiajati, is derived from the Greek word for "shadow" and the Sanskrit word for "birth", referring to its ability to cloak the user with a finisher and the fact that it was grafted from his own flesh.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: He's one for the player. Excalibur is the poster child of the game and the vast majority of the playerbase started with him. Excalibur Umbra, meanwhile, is the only frame the player can obtain absolutely "free", complete with Orokin Reactor and Warframe slot (every other frame has to be manually constructed and have to have a Reactor installed), making him the most powerful warframe a player can get outside of Prime Access or excessive grinding. And even then, with his unique Umbral Mods, he is likely going to remain one of the most powerful frames in a player's arsenal until much, much later into the game.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Ordis warns the Operator not to build him and he is initially extremely hostile towards them. However, his mind is just heavily bent due to the infestation corroding his memories, leaving only his last moments alive the sole reason why he fights in the first place.
• Offing the Offspring: Excalibur Umbra was controlled by Ballas to kill his son Isaah to destroy his will and turn him into a mindless warrior.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: While the Operator is able to see his last memories, his original identity is never given, only that he was once a Dax. The only name associated with him is his Warframe moniker, "Umbra". Which is exactly what Ballas did to Ordis.
• Power Nullifier: Radial Howl can stun and remove the adapted resistances of Sentients.
• Primal Stance: His Agile animation set shows him acting more feral when idle, such as having his back and head hunched over and occasionally growling after a few seconds. His idle Agile animation without a weapon even has him howl before swiping his arm in the air like a claw.
• Rebel Relaxation: He makes the pose while idle when his Noble animation set is equipped.
• Restraining Bolt: Has one that keeps him from killing his creator, at least until the Operator helped him overcome it.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Umbra's goal after becoming a Warframe is to make Ballas pay for everything that he did. He succeeds in defeating Ballas with the help of the Operator.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Excalibur Umbra wears one that flows past his knees.
• Sixth Ranger: Of sorts. He would later join the Operator and Ordis in their quest to confront Ballas.
• Situational Sword: The Anti-Sentient passives on his Sacrificial mods give him the ability to deal bonus damage against them, but aren't as strong as the Primed mods without the set bonus.
• Sword Beam: Like the original Excalibur, Umbra can fire these en mass with his Exalted Umbra Blade.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Outwardly, he appears as a feral berserker. But when the Operator transfers inside his mental landscape, we can see that rather than rage, he is broken with pain and grief.
• Super Prototype: Even more so than Excalibur's Primed variant, since its passive allow him to act independently if using transference.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For a majority of the playerbase, Umbra is the next best thing to Excalibur Prime they'll get to play, and he does look a lot like a Prime regardless. He was originally called "Excalibur Umbra Prime" when he made his debut in the Chinese version a whole three years before The Sacrifice's release as their version of Excalibur Prime, cementing their similarities even further.
• Trauma Conga Line: As punishment for attempting to stop Ballas, the Dax that became Excalibur Umbra was infected with a strain of Intestation that sealed his mouth, before being forced to murder his own son (which he was made aware of before it happened, but unable to warn his son of it due to the aforementioned lack of a mouth), then turned into a Warframe that's forced to relive this memory over and over while being fitted with a Restraining Bolt that stopped him from taking revenge.
• Was Once a Man: Umbra was actually a Dax soldier (the same caste as Teshin), who had his own family, before becoming a Warframe by Ballas's doing. During the flashback of his memories, the player can view a portrait of himself in his room when he was a proud Dax soldier.
• Weapon of X-Slaying: Umbra comes equipped with mods that bolster his damage output against Sentients.
• Wipe That Smile Off Your Face: The strain of Infestation he was infected with took away his mouth, leaving him unable to warn his son that he was about to be forced to kill him.

Rell (Spoilers for Chains of Harrow)

"HE SUFFERS WHILE YOU DREAM"

— Message written in blood from Chains of Harrow

A Tenno cast out and separated from the rest by the Orokin due to his mental disorder. Notable for being the only Tenno NPC in the game so far.^note Several of your classmates on the Zariman appeared and were named during flashbacks to the Void incident in "The New War", but only as ordinary children before they actually became Tenno.

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• Aerith and Bob: While Rell isn't by any means a common name, it's one of the very few in Warframe that's remotely recognizable as a present-day name.
• All of the Other Reindeer: The majority of the Tenno ostracised him due to his autism. Even Margulis rejected him, although this may be connected to his claims regarding "the Man in the Wall"; The Lotus' immediate reaction to hearing this phrase was to deny its existence. This is why he went on to form the Red Veil.
• Barrier Maiden: He warded against the coming of the Man in the Wall, and created the Red Veil to do the same. At the end of "Chains of Harrow", he leaves this duty to the Tenno — who immediately receive a visit.
  • The Duviri fragments mention a cataclysmic storm that hung over the sky in a red veil, which rained down broken chains across the landscape. Not long after this "Rain of Chains", the Hollow Children started to pay Duviri some visits as well...
• Foreshadowing: At the end of "The Second Dream", one of the dialogue options for the Tenno has them remember a fight, with one child holding another by the throat outside of an airlock. The implication from the later quests is that this was Rell.
• Handicapped Badass: Despite his mental disabilities, when he became a Tenno, he wasn't some pushover. He kills his own mother (or, according to him, the thing masquerading as her) without hesitation while boasting how his real mother trained him, kills another adult while he and the other Tenno start running, and when one of the other kids blocks him from entering the safe zone out of prejudice, he calmly sits outside the door, starts up his Donda and decides to start trying to figure out The Man in the Wall despite there still being more adults out for blood.
• Madness Mantra: Rap. Tap. Tap.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: He never went into stasis like the other Tenno. He died while transferred into his Warframe, Harrow, allowing him to live on but requiring his Warframe to be chained in the depths of the Red Veil's temple to prevent from going berserk. Prolonged captivity did little good for his sanity, and the Man in the Wall didn't help much either; by the time you find him the entire complex is full of bizarre entities that are either fragments of Rell or actual ghosts.
• Self-Made Orphan: While this applies to all the Tenno, Rell gets a special mention because he's the only person visualized actually killing his own parent, specifically his mother, who loved him dearly and supported him the absolute best he could. However, he does the deed without hesitation or grief because he believes his "mother" is something else, even if he's not sure what, and is clearly confident about this conclusion, having already come to terms with the fact that his mother was already dead, as far as he was concerned.
• Shoot the Dog: The player Tenno has to destroy his Warframe, and the last vestiges of his humanity, to put his manifestations to rest.
• Walking Spoiler: There's a reason "Chains of Harrow" uses The War Within as a prerequisite.

Cy

On this ship we work before we play.

"I am Cephalon Cy. You will refer to me as such."

Another Cephalon similar to Ordis in function if not in personality. Like Ordis he assists the Tenno by managing and running their spacecraft: the Sigma-series Railjack, a larger interceptor vessel capable of performing in open combat. The Tenno create his imprint after researching it in their Dry Dock, and after installing him Cy guides them in assembling their own Railjack.

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• Badass Crew: His Dax crew (Zada, Sukhin, and Krodhi) during the Old War managed to rack up an impressive number of 4890 confirmed kills against the Sentients. His new crew would also qualify by virtue of being the Tenno.
• Big Damn Heroes: Shows out of nowhere just as the Tenno are stranded in open space during the New War.
  ''On your six, Tenno".
• The Captain: While the Tenno is the one in control of the Raijack itself, Cy carries himself like a disciplined sea captain, barking orders and giving objectives. You'd be forgiven for thinking he stepped right off the deck of a galleon or ironclad battleship.
• The Chains of Commanding: During the Old War, a sortie against a Sentient Worm-ship went bad, with him forced to choose between completing the mission and preserving his crew's life. He prioritized the former, which resulted in all of his crew dying, and he very clearly regrets it.
• Closest Thing We Got: Cy insists that you need a find a command Cephalon for your Railjack, as he is no longer a viable choice. After an entire mission of searching, he is incapable of finding anything even remotely suitable for the task, and is forced to reevaluate himself as a viable command Cephalon for the simple reason that there is literally no other option if you want the ship to move at all.
• The Comically Serious: Veers into this between his tone and slightly staccato speaking style.
  Cy: It would be stupid to investigate. (Beat) Saddle up. We are about to do something stupid.
• Consummate Professional: Very serious, stern and task-oriented, Cy provides a sharp contrast to the more mellow and emotive Ordis.
• Cultured Badass: Cy is a military cephalon, and several of his lines and meditations paraphrase quotes of Niels Bohr, Carl Sagan and the like.
• Danger Deadpan: Not even "The New War"'s apocalyptic endgame is enough to break Cy's calm demeanor.
  Weird. That thing appears to be eating the sun.
• Deadpan Snarker: He occasionally cracks dry commentary, especially when the Railjack is boarded by what he knows are vastly inferior forces to even a single Tenno.
  Cy: Oh, look. A boarding party. Crew, if you would...?
  Cy: Jamming drones. Yay.
• Enraged by Idiocy: He does not approve of incompetence. For example, when boarders breach his ship he seems to be more irritated by their inadequate armaments than the fact that they are now attacking his interior:
  Cy: Intruder alert. Full squad, small arms. I want those amateurs off my ship.
  • He's less open about it towards the Tenno, but will not try to hide his disapproval if you perform poorly, though his annoyance is also part Anger Born of Worry, considering what happenned to his crew the last time he wasn't there to pull them out of the fire.
• Gunship Rescue: Being the Cephalon in charge of the Tenno's personal gunship (read:the Railjack), he is fully capable of doing this, though he typically prefers to let the Tenno do the piloting and only steps in when things are getting really hairy. But when the Tenno needs their ship, he doesn't hesitate.
  Cy: Tenno. On your six.'
• Know When to Fold 'Em: In the present time he seems to have reevaluated his precepts, and if your ship comes to the brink of a catastrophic failure he will forcefully abort the mission and retreat instead of testing the ship's endurance further.
• Last of His Kind: After the Railjack is rebuilt, Cy reveals that he is the only surviving Cephalon compatible with it, after having failed to find another throughout the quest.
• Logic Bomb: He has two main precepts: Complete The Mission and Preserve The Crew. When a situation arose with his old crew where these became incompatible this greatly threw him off the loop. Ultimately he chose the former. His regret over this leads to him refusing to command another Railjack until it becomes clear he is the only possible choice, and if the ship's destruction is imminent he will forcefully abort the mission to retreat and save his new crew.
• Mission Control: Serves as this during Railjack missions.
• Morton's Fork: Found himself in such a situation in his backstory. With how he describes that situation and how his priorities were set, there was no way for him to actually complete his mission if it depended on survival of the crew; either he prioritizes saving the crew, retreats and fails the mission, or prioritizes completing the mission, proceeds to lose the crew and fails the mission because he tried to complete it. With no way out of the loop Cy was set up to fail due to his programming — which does not stop him from putting the blame on himself.
• My Greatest Failure: He regrets and blames himself for the events that transpired under spoilers in other entries, which is why he insists he is not up to the task of being a Railjack's command Cephalon. He only takes up command when it becomes clear that no one else in the entire Origin System can do the job in his place.
• Pun: In "The New War" he refers to the Sentient mothership, with the Lotus in it, as "your mother's ship."
• Refusal of the Call: Adamantly insists during Railjack assembly that the Tenno will require a command Cephalon for the craft, and just as adamantly states that he is not adequate to the task, despite his history, and he is searching for a replacement. By the end of the Rising Tide quest he concedes to being put to the task simply because no other known Cephalon even approaches the necessary qualifications.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to Ordis' Red. Where Ordis is emotive, whimsical, sometimes Hot-Blooded and is not above attempts to make a joke Cy is always ultra-serious, logical, and focused on a task at hand. Even the moments where their original selves resurface maintain this dynamic, contrasting both their usual selves and each other. Where Ordis turns violent and aggressive, Cy mellows out and displays compassion and empathy as well as pride of his former crew's capabilities, something he's normally too restrained to allow.
• Sapient Ship: Similar to Ordis, though first you have to assemble the ship for him to control.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: A survivor of the Old War, who lost his crew in their last mission. It's the main reason he considers himself non-viable.
• Smug Super: His attitude towards the enemy forces you have to deal with, and especially boarders, can be described as "amused contempt". He knows that a Railjack with the Tenno aboard outperforms enemy ships of the same class in every way that counts, with their only way of getting an upper hand is through overwhelming numbers. Downplayed - he's subtle about it, never openly gloating, does not actually underestimate your opponents and if the opposition starts racking up damage or brings something that can notably harm the ship he will treat this with utmost seriousness.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Cy is typically very straightforward and professional in his delivery of tactical callouts, sometimes he can't help but crack a joke; and then another one before immediately reverting back to a more professional attitude.
  Cy: Asteroid base. Its commander is a known war criminal, lives on Vobi butter, and smells like a blown up men's room. Take him out. Leave an air freshener.
• The Stoic: Fittingly for his Consummate Professional persona, his delivery never goes out of Danger Deadpan territory even mid-crisis.
• Terse Talker: Occasionally slips into this, especially when giving directions.
• Unperson: All data regarding his crew and his last mission has been seemingly wiped from the Cephalon Weave for reasons unknown. In fact, you obtain him when Ordis intercepts some bits of scrap data from the Weave that make sense and you extrapolate and reconstruct from that through dojo research - meaning that it's only due to your intervention Cy can even exist in the present day, otherwise being literally and figuratively erased from history.
• Verbal Tic: Whilst not truly a verbal tic in the strictest sense, Cy sometimes has a somewhat staccato manner of speaking that the subtitles and text quotes often fail to properly convey.
• Wistful Amnesia: Completing stages of Railjack assembly unlocks some of his memories from the Old War. Such moments are marked by his avatar turning white from his usual red.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Inverted. Cy is unable to comprehend or perceive the Railjack's Reliquary Drive, or anything related to the Man in the Wall. He can only see a weird emptiness in its place, that he describes as perceiving an entirely new color, or being touched by it, which due to him being a Cephalon, is literally impossible. Retrieving the Reliquary Key reveals that the Drive is empowered by the Man in the Wall's right index finger, and its activation outright drives Cy to say "Perception Failure" and recalibrate his sensors.

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