Warframe's plotline is rather scattered with many aspects pertaining on yet-to-be-released information of the universe before the player stepped into the fray, not to mention the world events players participated that moved the plot along.
This recap page is an attempt to sort the stories that has been revealed together in proper order, based on PC version of the game note .
Be warned that there are unmarked spoilers in this page.
darkSector
Digital Extremes previously said that Hayden Tenno, the protagonist of darkSector, is the first Tenno. Fans were skeptical whether events in darkSector were canonically part of Warframe's timeline or not, up until mid-2015 when Digital Extremes retracted the statement and made it clear that darkSector is not canon to the Warframe timeline. At least, not directly. The events of darkSector still happened, but so far in the past that any effects on Warframe's plot is negligible.
The Orokin Empire
- Location: All synthesis entries within Cephalon Simaris' library, the various scannable objects found within the Origin System and Plains of Eidolon barring the Somachord Fragments and Frame Fighter Character Data Fragments, and many of the game's quests have some allusion to the Orokin in one form or another.
The Orokin were an ancient but highly-advanced empire whose influence once spanned all the Origin System and maybe beyond. Among their creations are the Prime weapons (most of them, anyway; some are implied to be made by Tenno with salvaged Orokin tech), the various Towers and Derelicts encountered in Void missions, the genetically engineered plants on Earth and Kubrow pets, the Cephalon AIs, and the Tenno themselves.
The Orokin Empire had a caste-based structure, each with defined purpose, status and duties. Castes revealed so far include:
- Executors, who enforce order in the Empire, be it by law or by force. They are free to access any place as they see fit.
- Lorists, in charge of mending and healing duty.
- Archimedians, the scholars and scientists of the Empire.
- Sectarus, who interface with ship Cephalons and control naval systems.
While originally thought of as being Benevolent Precursors, recent evidence shows otherwise.
The Anti MOA synthesis entry gave us hints that there are more 'races' aside from the Orokin and the Grineer living under the Empire, though from the use of the word "corpus" we can assume most (if not all) of them to be Orokin refugees.
Tau System crossing
- Location: Detron Crewman synthesis entry
For reasons unknown, the Orokin Empire had a plan to make a journey into Tau System. Countless ventures had failed until Archimedian Perintol presented the Orokin Empire with a '...creature, no larger than a hand. Its body was symmetrical, star-shaped with a seamless, matte-black shell' that regenerates, self-replicates, and can adapt to threats in its environment, as a means of terraforming distant planets. He claims that the Void (subspace of Warframe universe) is poison to them and thus, they will be marooned in Tau too far away to threaten Orokin Empire should any unfortunate changes occur.
Players have speculated that this creature is a prototype Sentient, given its adaptive capabilities and vulnerability to the Void.
The Corpus and the Grineer
- Location: Anti-MOA synthesis entry, Detron Crewman synthesis entry, Arid Eviscerator synthesis entry, Guardsman synthesis entry, the Kuria Poem, and "Natah"
The Grineer are clones created by the Orokin, designed to have low intelligence and thus suited for hard labor. Several Synthesis Codex entries show the Grineer putting their tools to use as weapons. The Orokin treated them like slaves and even used them as meatshields against Infested attacks. Even the most foolish animal has its limits; Tyl Regor's dialogue during the "Natah" quest indicates that the Sentients freed them from Orokin control during the Old war, instigating a rebellion and the eventual creation of the Grineer Empire. A Poem first written by an entity known as "Olemadi" and inscribed upon the mysterious "Kuria" statuettes scattered throughout the Origin System also revealed the identity of the Twin Queens as Orokin shunned by the rest of their peers for their sameness; presumably they led the Grineer Rebellions after the Sentients freed them.
"Corpus" is originally a loose term for "family" in Orokin Empire, mostly referred to those of non-Orokin lower castes. Most of them survived the Old War, and it can be presumed that many of them united to become the twisted mega-corporation that spans the Origin System after the core of Orokin society was gone.
The Old War, the Technocyte Plague, and the Grineer Rebellion
- Location: Corrupted Ancient synthesis entry, the Kuria Poem, "Natah", and "The Sacrifice"
At one point, the Sentients turned against their masters, attacking and subverting any Orokin technology used against them. The Orokin were unable to fight back directly, as their weapons were ineffective due to Sentient Adaptation.
It is assumed that the Technocyte Plague was created to combat the Sentients, but it went rogue, assimilating everything in its path and attacking everything else, including the Orokin. Similarly, it is implied that the Grineer slaves were used to fight the Sentients and the Infested until the Sentients freed the Grineer from Orokin influence and facilitated their rebellion as led by the future Twin Queens.
The Sacrifice sheds some light on why the Sentients rebelled: their AI eventually came to the conclusion that if they let the Orokin colonize the Tau System, and other systems beyond it, the pristine worlds they settled on would become just as choked and dying as Earth was.
The Children of Zariman Ten-Zero
- Location: "The Second Dream" and Ember Prime's codex entry
The Zariman Ten-Zero was a ship that had a void-jump accident; it was considered lost until it suddenly reappeared days later. Investigation showed that all hands were lost save for the children, who were twisted by the energies of the void.
The Orokin were frightened: these scarred children were prone to involuntary outbursts, unleashing the destructive power of the void, such as burning an Inspector Kaleen's face off when she tries to contact them. After a while, the Orokin decided to execute the children.
A researcher named Margulis constantly tried to comfort the orphans, despite their periodic outbursts that harmed her and once rendered her blind. It is hinted by the Lotus that the Orokin executed Margulis. The Orokin used the findings she left behind to create 'Transference', a procedure that transports the consciousness of its subject into a stronger, more resilient body, allowing the children to channel and focus their powers to serve the Orokin Empire: the Warframes. They were the given weapons of the old ways; guns, swords, bows, to succeed where both advanced and zero-tech armaments of the Orokin failed, the controlling children locked up in cyrostatic sleep and hidden inside the Moon.
Captain Vor of the Grineer, an extensive scholar of Orokin technology himself, came nearly close to the truth of Warframe creation many years later after the Orokin Empire fell, having theorised that the Tenno are energy beings that control the Warframes.
Chains of Harrow: Rell
One such child that had gained Void powers during Zariman Ten-Zero's fateful Void Jump was a young and autistic boy named Rell. As he was coming to terms with his powers, he was accosted by a hunting party of adults driven insane by their exposure to the Void. One of the adults - Rell's mother, Kay - attempted to lure him out only to be killed by Rell in self-defense, the child declaring her to not be his mother but "something else" that he hadn't yet figured out. Rescued by a young girl, Rell was then led to a safe area cleared out by other survivors, only to be locked out by a larger boy who declared him to be "weird", much to the girl's rage and consternation. Unfazed by this ostracizing and declaring the company of other survivors to be "too much noise", Rell powered up his Donda and mused that there was someone - something - he needed to figure out on his own.
Ballas, the Traitor Executor
- Location: "The Sacrifice"
Driven to grief following the death of Margulis, Ballas decided that the entirety of humankind had fallen to decadence and decay, and thus needed to be wiped out. To this end, he secretly defected to the side of the Sentients and planned out the fall of the Orokin Empire, using the Tenno as his primary vector for doing so. It is implied that those who stumbled across his plans were turned into Warframes for the Tenno to use, and at least one Dax soldier fell victim to this plot, becoming the Excalibur Warframe code-named "Umbra".
Umbra and the first Warframes
- Location: "The Sacrifice" and Rhino Prime's codex entry
In order to fight the oncoming tide of Sentients, Infested outbreaks, and the Grineer rebellion, the Orokin ironically turned once again to the Technocyte Plague that had spawned all manner of Infested horrors within Origin, this time creating a hybrid of human and Infested biology as a sort of Super Soldier, called a "Warframe". The humans used to facilitate this process were a mix of both volunteers and unwilling participants, the latter implied to be those who had discovered Ballas' plans for defecting at some point in time. In one particular instance, a renowned Dax Soldier who had fallen ill was turned into one of the first Warframes, an Excalibur with the code-name "Umbra"; it's implied that all Warframes created by infusing humans with the Technocyte Plague had this code-name. The Umbra Warframes, and all subsequent "First" Warframes, all had one burning memory implanted into their human halves in order to further increase their potency against the Sentients.
This method of creating Warframes was later discarded in favor of mass-produced Prime and non-Prime Warframes created through the use of a specific, "Docile" strain of Infested called Helminth. The process of implanting a single, burning memory within these frames was still maintained though, and it's implied that all copies of the "Original" Warframes share these memories.
However, these warriors were ultimately considered failures and killed due to their Infested biology and memory-fueled rages causing them to become unstoppable berserkers, that is, until an incident involving a Rhino Warframe (presumably either a Primed or Umbral variant) that had breached containment in an Orokin facility and had gone on a rampage wound up within a room containing a Tenno Reservoir, which instantly calmed it.
This turned out to be the key needed to tame the Warframes: the Tenno's basic empathy allowed them to soothe the Unstoppable Rage the Warframes felt one way or another, and thus they became surrogates to the Tenno.
Ordan Karris
- Location: Cephalon Fragments
Ordan Karris was a mercenary fighting for the Orokin Empire in order to contain rebellious elements, known as "The Beast of The Bones" due to the sheer number of people he killed. As he was to be honored by the Orokin Executors for his service in the form of eternal life, Karris was horrified to learn that he was affected by a terminal cancer that had already metastasized within his body and would kill him within months.
Already afflicted with PTSD from his many, many campaigns against Orokin rebels real or imagined, and believing himself naught but an Unwitting Pawn for the vain and beautiful after a fateful encounter with a young child accused of being a spy, Karris formulated a plan to go out in a blaze of glory. Using bone plugs - daggers meant to serve as a way for him and his elite to take as many enemies as they could with them if suicide were the only way out of a corner - Karris slaughtered several Executors and Dax Soldiers at the ceremony meant to honor him and reward him with eternal life.
However, his plan failed and the Executors thought of his attempted Suicide by Cop to merely be Actually Pretty Funny, as their means of Immortality meant that they could die thousands of times before truly biting it. As punishment, Ballas uploaded Karris' mind into the Cephalon Weave, erased his memories, and assigned him to watch over the Orbiter of a Tenno Soldier in the Old War, rechristening him as "Ordis".
Octavia's Anthem: What Remains
During the Old War, an old Orokin Archimedian voluntarily underwent the Brain Uploading ceremony that turned her into a Cephalon, later called Cephalon Suda, in order to preserve what remained of her memories; which were being consumed by either senility or early-onset Alzheimer's and jeopardizing her ability to uphold an oath she had taken to be a living codex of Orokin information. Before initiating the ceremony, the Archemedian sent a letter to an unidentified love detailing why she decided to do this; this person is implied to have undergone the ceremony himself to become Cephalon Simaris.
The Tenno rebellion and the Fall of the Orokin
- Location: Stalker's codex entry
After the Old War, the Tenno returned to the Empire and slaughtered all of the Orokin during the victory celebration ceremony.
The Stalker knew of the coming betrayal, but was unable to stop the Tenno. Since then, he continues to hunt down the Tenno as revenge.
Of the Orokin, only nine are known to have survived the massacre: The Twin Queens of the Grineer, Archimedian Sylvana via Transference to the Silver Grove, Executor Ballas through unknown means, and five members of the Entrati family. note
Plains of Eidolon: The Legend of Gara
- Location: Shatter Lock fragments scanned during "Saya's Vigil"
During the final days of the Old War, an Orokin Tower called the "Unum" came under attack by a massive Sentient, who sought to break through her Deflector Shields to get to the people within like many of the Orokin Towers on Earth it had assaulted before. Weakened by sunlight, the Sentient would attack during the night before retreating to tend to its wounds in the daytime. When it realized that the Tower's Kuva - the Unum's lifeblood - might be able to heal it from its journey through the Void, it became much more brazen in its attacks and started devouring the local wildlife to get at the Temple Kuva found within them, gifted to them by the Unum to be her scouts during the Sentient's assault. These more vicious attacks threatened to tear through the Unum's barriers, and the Unum's lover, the Warframe Gara, stopped it by feeding herself and a nuclear bomb to the Sentient, detonating her weapon when it reached its heart in a Heroic Sacrifice. Because of her sacrifice, what was once a dangerous soldier in the service of Hunhow was now a mindless beast, half-ghost, half-Sentient, which could do little more than wander about and mournfully wail in despair at its fragments. It's a tragic end for the Sentient, but in the end it's better than leaving it to fully heal itself and get loose.
Natah
- Location: Natah questline
The Lotus is a Sentient, once named Natah, who infiltrated the ranks of Orokin Empire as part of a Sentient plannote to use the Tenno to wipe the Orokin out. She was supposed to destroy them afterwards; however, the Lotus found herself Becoming the Mask and became attached to the Tenno, desiring 'children' of her own since the passage through the void made her barren. She put the Tenno away in 'the second dream', leaving the final part of the Sentients' plan unfulfilled.
Plains of Eidolon: The Tale of the Woman of the Earth and the Husband of the Sea
- Location: Thousand-Year Fish Statues scattered throughout the Plains of Eidolon
Several years after the fall of the Orokin, Merchant groups began to ply the trade routes of the Origin System; the largest among these being the Ostrons. Within their massive floating markets, the Ostrons were renowned for being one of the few who were never abated by Grineer, Corpus, or Infested forces during their travels, their clades and families growing rich and powerful over their centuries of existence. The oldest of these clades was the Yingbinyudai ('Great Bond'), and amongst their ranks was a young woman named Er-Phryah, who loved a man named Mer-Sah. While the love was reciprocal, many Ostrons thought their love to be Star-Crossed and feared that they would have a Maligned Mixed Marriage and an Awful Wedded Life, as while Er-Phryah was of one of the most powerful clades of the Ostrons, Mer-Sah was Cetus: a phrase that, while the name of a great constellation of a whale to us modern humans, meant 'landless, cladeless, a body turned to dust turned to motes on a careless wind' to the Ostrons. Er-Phryah's father, blinded by greed and selfishness, refused to bless his daughter's marriage and exiled Mer-Sah from the Yingbinyudai clade's merchant ship.
However, to his horror and eternal grief, Er-Phryah had left with Mer-Sah when he was exiled, leading her to some distant place where a voice had called him. Her father died full of regrets, believing that his daughter had died due to her foolishness... and his shortsightedness. Meanwhile, the rest of the Ostron clades and merchants continued their lives, plying the trade routes of the Origin System as they had thousands upon thousands of times before.
However, decades later, merchants trading in orbit of Earth would be surprised by a signal, consisting of a single woman's voice, calling out to their ships. This voice never told them where she was, but begged to know of the Ostrons and the Yingbinyudai clade in particular. When word reached the aforementioned, they realized that it was Er-Phryah, still alive and well, even though she was living on Earth, its atmosphere still choked and polluted from thousands of years of Orokin hubris; as the great forests sprung from the Silver Grove were still young. When they came to Earth, Er-Phryah was overjoyed, and told them to set down in the shadow of a mighty Orokin Tower - the same Unum Tower that Gara had defended so many years ago. The Ostrons quickly found out why when the Grineer attempted to slaughter them - the Unum maintained a strict Truce Zone on the territory within her shadow, rendering their mighty weapons of war nothing more than useless bricks of iron and steel. Reunited with Er-Phryah, and surprised that she and Mer-Sah were Happily Married despite their fears, the Ostrons used the Unum's powers to set up a town within her shadow, called "Karafamil" ('The Family and Prosperity'). With the Unum's blessing, the Ostrons began harvesting her tower for the meat they would need to survive, while Er-Phryah became the first of Karafamil's leaders.
Mer-Sah, however, was still Cetus, and decided to live a hermit's life, never setting foot within Karafamil; it's implied that the Quills were founded by him. This didn't affect his and Er-Phryah's marriage however, in fact, Mer-Sah did it because he wanted Er-Phryah to be happy with her family, and with her husband. In the meantime, Mer-Sah would voyage on the waters of Earth, gathering treasures from them that others would consider insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Back in Karafamil, Er-Phryah would voyage out to the Plains of Eidolon and make communion with the creatures there, to the point where she had even enacted a truce with the mighty Sentient Eidolons that roamed the plains at night. In this time, the Ostrons enjoyed a great golden age, and Karafamil became a wondrous, thriving city.
But, as with all good things, it came to an end. One day, Mer-Sah took his collection of treasures, and disappeared into the sea. The legend states that instead of dying, he instead reincarnated into the mighty Thousand-Year Fish, a rare, massive entity and one of the ancient spirits of Earth, but whether this means he underwent Transference or not is unclear. Er-Phryah, wrought with grief, mourned for many days and nights, and the beasts and Eidolons of the Plains, driven mad by her grief, reverted to the wildness they once knew, forcing the Ostrons to rebuild the Force Field that once surrounded the Unum Tower and never again venture onto the Plains of Eidolon at night. When the time of her mourning was ended, Er-Phryah went to the seas, seemingly communing with her beloved Mer-Sah in a language of the soul, until she herself died. When the Yingbinyudai clade buried her, the legend states that the Thousand-Year Fish surfaced and held vigil over her grave for ten days and ten nights, then vanished forever.
As for the Ostrons, Er-Phryah and Mer-Sah's love inspired them, and they renamed their town from "Karafamil" to "Cetus", turning what was once a cruel pejorative into a welcome and an invitation to everyone that needed a home, from Grineer running from their cruel Queens, to Corpus interested in trade alone, to travelling monks and wandering adventurers, to, eventually, the Tenno themselves.
The Ghouls of the Grineer
Ghouls are the most depraved, ugly, and nightmarish of the Grineer's forces. First encountered in the official Comic, they are possessed of a ravenous hunger, an unyielding bloodlust, and paralytic blood that can freeze a Warframe in their tracks, allowing Grineer forces to easily capture them. They are a force to be reckoned with and a nightmare for any non-Tenno who might encounter them.
The Ghouls: The Ascension
Aboard the Kuva Fortress, two Grineer nobles are preparing for an audience with the Twin Queens themselves. One noble is identified as Doctor Tengus - the Grineer who would later be responsible for unleashing the Infestation on the Origin System once again, as well as the one who created the Grustrag Three later on down the road - while the other remains unidentified. The unnamed Noble notes that he is anxious that the Queens will reject his and Tengus' plans without any consideration, only for Tengus to offer some succor in the form of them both becoming what they were meant to be.
In the Queens' grand hall, the unnamed Noble bungles his appearance before the Queens by trying to play the "good host" to his - rather annoyed - fellows, causing the Elder Queen to mockingly tell him to continue his shtick and be a source of amusement for her and her sister. Regaining his posture, the unnamed Noble reveals the project he and Doctor Tengus have been working on for the past while: a cadre of special shock troopers that can be gestated and deployed within days without the need for expensive landing craft that would be the most vicious and ruthless soldiers ever known by the Grineer. The Noble then presents the Ghouls to the Twin Queens, only to be pushed into their ravenous, clutching maws by Doctor Tengus.
Still, not all is lost for the Noble, as the Queens instruct Doctor Tengus to recover his head and give him a new body. After what must have seemed like an eternity for him, he is able to see what he has become: magnificent, while everyone else is just maggots compared to him. The comic then closes out on the unnamed Noble, revealed to be Councillor Vay Hek, strangling Doctor Tengus.
The Ghouls: Sigor Savah
- Location: Ghoul Journal Fragments obtained from killing Ghouls or completing Ghoul Purge Bounties
Much of what is known about the Ghouls came from a rogue Corpus scientist who lived much of his life amongst the Ostrons in Cetus. Believing that the Ghouls had dug up secrets from the ground, this scientist studied these Grineer shock troopers almost religiously... before leaving his notes and journals with their leader, Konzu, and disappearing entirely.
The scientist, Morphology specialist Sigor Savah, believed that the Ghouls had dug up the remains of the Warframe Khora from the Plains of Eidolon, which was why he was so obsessed with the Ghouls. Years earlier, while Savah was still with the Corpus as an employee under Nef Anyo, he had traveled to Venus to study the Orokin Terraforming project located there only to stumble upon the remains of an incredibly unique Kavat, christened "Specimen VK-7", in reality Khora's Ace Custom Kavat Venari. Initially desiring to run a few tests on her before making a killing off of selling her to the highest bidder, Savah was surprised to see VK-7 literally will herself Back from the Dead right before his eyes. VK-7 proceeded to show extremely heightened levels of intelligence and knowledge, and eventually managed to escape right from underneath Savah's nose. Later spotted butchering Infested hives and Corpus soldiers sent to cleanse said hives, Savah ultimately reunited with VK-7 when he went with one of the aforementioned cleaning crews to deal with yet another Infested hive on Venus' surface; shortly thereafter, VK-7 presented Savah with the last remaining fragment of the original Khora Warframe, implicitly trusting him with the task of bringing her master back to life. Already beginning to develop a conscience regarding her when she initially came back to life, Savah ultimately decided to initiate a Last Stand against some of his coworkers once he learned that they were going to kill her. While his attempt was bungled by air filters, VK-7 was able to escape the wrath of the Corpus, and would come to his aid by killing the Corpus soldier assigned to execute Savah. While Savah was forced to leave VK-7 behind by VK-7 during their escape attempt, he was certain that the Kavat had managed to escape Venus unharmed, and went about his mission to restore Khora to her former glory by researching the creatures he was certain had recovered her remains.
While much of Savah's story was left hanging, he was right about Venari escaping Venus unharmed - Helios Sentinels under the command of Cephalon Simaris found her later and proceeded to Synthesize her into Sanctuary. Meanwhile, a member of the mysterious Ostron guild of "Quills" gave Simaris Khora's pieces to be added into Sanctuary as well. Shortly afterward, both Warframe and Kavat hid themselves within the Sanctuary, something Simaris thought impossible for a sentient being to do.
Vor's Prize
This is where you, the player, come in.
Admiral Vor, a Grineer officer, has been trying to uncover as many Orokin artifacts as possible. Unlike other clones, he is shown that to have a deep understanding of Orokin technology. In the process, he has acquired a powerful Janus Key and uses it to unlock the chamber leading to you, a Tenno currently in cryosleep.
Fortunately, the Lotus sensed something else and decided to intervene. She awakens you to save you from Grineer captors, however the abrupt awakening from cryosleep left you weakened long enough for Vor to put an Ascaris — a device to enforce obedience made by the Corpus for their proxies that slowly assumes control over you as time passes — on your Warframe in an attempt to control you. Fortunately, The Lotus intervenes and overcharges your Warframe's power systems, enabling you to fight once more. You fight your way through Vor's forces, retrieving your equipment and skills in the process, and escape via your Liset.
From here, you set off on a series of missions (which also serve as an extended tutorial) in order to build an Ascaris Negator. Upon using the Negator, it is revealed that the Ascaris had a failsafe and instead burrowed deeper inside the warframe. Vor's assimilation of you is inevitable now; your only hope is to deactivate the Ascaris permanently by eliminating Vor.
Traveling to Mercury, you confront Vor in battle. The Admiral is defeated, but you leave the Janus key with his body, it's not like a Void Key would be able to do anything with his body cut in half... right?
During the process of the quest, the Tenno encounters more allies;
- Ordis, a Cephalon in charge of maintaining the Liset. He sports a split personality due to damage caused by disrepair and being stripped for parts. Though created by the Orokin, he recalls nothing of the Old War. It's implied that he erased those memories himself.
- Darvo, a rogue laid-back Corpus black marketeer. He allies himself with the Lotus, and continues to supply the Tenno with weapons and equipment throughout your career.
Operations: Sling-Stone and Arid Fear
Grineer and Corpus relations have never been the greatest, with both sides barely tolerating each other at the best of times. However, tensions reached an all-time high when the Corpus decided to stockpile supplies for themselves while raising prices on those bought by the Grineer. In response, the Grineer reveal they have been constructing a new class of ship, the Fomorian, and send them to destroy private Corpus resource stores, intent on forcing them to lower prices again.
Normally, such an assault would not even be of note to the Lotus, much less the Tenno as a whole. But the Grineer having a weapon capable of shifting the balance of power, as well as the Corpus offering the then-rare Ammo Mutation mods, led to the Lotus to decide to send the Tenno to destroy the Fomorians by using Infested flesh to force the cores to implode. After a long period, the Corpus emerged victorious with the help of the Tenno.
However, the Corpus are still willing to work for anyone in the name of money, as shown by the fact that they were willing to work with the Grineer in hiding the coordinates to their Phobos colonies.
The plan, created by a then low-ranking Alad V, was simple: Hide the scouts who had said coordinates in certain sections of the void, where they would be protected by Void Storms. Against most factions, this would be a very effective plan. Against the Tenno, however, this was little more than an inconvenience. After gathering the necessary materials, the Tenno were able to jury rig a Void Key designed to reach the Corpus ships. Many keys and scouts later, the Tenno had the information they needed.
Operation: The Gradivus Dilemma
- Available: 24 October 2013 - 30 October 2013 (World event)
Alad V and his Corpus found a hidden area with many Tenno still in cryosleep and planned to capture them for study. However, Grineer General Sargas Ruk also heard about it and demanded to be given the Tenno so he could kill them. Alad V refused, and the Grineer waged open war on the Corpus in Mars.
The Lotus, finding out about the conflict brewing and the reason for, decided to intervene by sending the awakened Tenno, leaving the choice in the their hands: they could either support the Grineer and be able to rescue their sleeping comrades at the cost of Grineer gaining control of many Mars colonies; or support the Corpus and protect the colonies from being taken but let the sleeping Tenno fall into Alad V's hands.
By the end of the conflict, the Corpus Board stopped supporting Alad V's war and withdrew its funding. Without the funds, Alad V had no choice but to retreat. With the Grineer victorious, the Tenno saved their brethren from the hand of Alad V, but let the Grineer gain control of most of Mars in the process.
Operation: The Hunt for Alad V
- Available: 20 November 2013 (World event, alongside Update 11)
Alad V has been working on Zanuka Project, cannibalizing parts of captured Warframe and incorporating them into a new robot with Warframe abilities. In fear of the project succeeding and Alad V gaining more influence, Corpus Board member Frohd Bek sent ships to Jupiter in order to track him down under the pretense of making Alad V pay for massive debt he incurred from The Gradivus Dilemma. Instead, the Corpus found hordes of Infested, who proceeded to overrun their ships in orbit above Jupiter.
Wary of losing his pending position as Corpus CEO, Frohd Bek cut a deal with the Tenno despite the Lotus's initial distrust. Players were charged with clearing the Infested Invasion out of every single node on Jupiter in exchange for Alad V's location. Fighting alongside the Corpus, the Tenno fought their way to Alad V and his new pet, eliminating another mad scientist from the galaxy, with the parts for the Valkyr Warframe as their prize.
Operation: Cicero Crisis
- Available: 19 December 2013 - 6 January 2014 (World event)
Cicero Crisis introduced the Earth Forest tileset into the game.
The Grineer has long been unable to conquer Earth's forest, a result of Orokin's super plants that grew at a breakneck pace. Councilor Vay Hek planned to use the Cicero Toxin to clear the way for Grineer settlements on the planet.
Using data from local flora, the Tenno created anti-toxins and loaded them into the Cicero Toxin injectors, causing them to break down. Eventually, the Tenno prevailed, and the Grineer were unable to gain a firm foothold on Earth.
Oxium Espionage
- Available: 29 January - 5 February 2014 (World event)
Oxium Espionage saw the Tenno raiding a Corpus research facility near Eris that was developing a new kind of lightweight metal called Oxium, which was used mainly on their Osprey drones.
Operation: Tethra's Doom
- Available: 5-12 March 2014 (World event)
Tethra's Doom introduced Hijack missions and the Grineer Shipyard tileset into the game.
Councilor Vay Hek has been rebuilding the monstrous Fomorian fleet, aiming for no less than complete dominance of Origin System.
To prevent the Grineer from doing so, the Lotus ordered the Tenno to hijack Fomorian Power Cores that were still in production inside heavily guarded Grineer Shipyards, intercepting Grineer's communications and using Tethra Ciphers to locate the hidden facilities. The Tenno attacked relentlessly during all 3 phases of the event, diverting their shield power into Grineer tramway to steal the cores away aboard their Lisets.
While the operation was declared successful, it became evident later that nothing will stop the Fomorian ships from being built. However, the operation provided the Tenno valuable time to develop countermeasures before the full might of the fleet was unleashed.
Operation: Specters of Liberty
- Available: 2-8 May 2014 (World Event, alongside Update 13.2)
Specters of Liberty introduced "Rescue 2.0" missions into the game, along with more dedicated tiles for rescue missions.
It is a short interlude in Tenno operating history. Cantis of the human resistance group Red Veil has requested the Tenno to help rescue their comrades held hostages by the Corpus and the Grineer. The Tenno have to get past tight security measures and the tough Warden units. In return, the Red Veil awarded the Tenno with a badge and decorative Syandana alongside Specter helpers that the Tenno can deploy inside their missions.
The Red Veil went on to become a Syndicate, offering mods and weapons to the Tenno for their cooperation.
Operation: Breeding Grounds
- Available: June 2014 (World event)
Breeding Grounds introduce several new Infested enemies, the Hive mission type and the corresponding tile-set into the game.
Alad V had discovered a way to direct the spread of the Infestation, but is starting to succumb to it himself. Not only that, he managed to give it the ability to Infest non-organic beings such as Corpus proxies, using specially-engineered "Hive" organisms. The Lotus received word of a massive outbreak on a Corpus fleet in orbit above Eris, and deduced that something must be stopped lest it run rampant over the Origin System.
The Tenno stopped the outbreak only to be contacted by Alad V, who revealed that thanks to the Tenno's relentless assault, he now controls the most fierce and evolved Infested in the System.
Operation: Gate Crash
- Available: September 2014
Gate Crash introduced the Orokin Sabotage mission type into the game.
The Tenno have collaborated with Baro Ki'Teer, to find the location of Archwing technology in Orokin Void in order to combat the Fomorian threat. The Grineer under Councilor Vay Hek have learned of the project, and, determined to destroy all traces of it, use Torsion Beam Devices and void keys to force open void portals. The Tenno overloaded the Torsion Beam Devices, preventing the Grineer from destroying the Archwing schematics.
"Operation: The Mutalist Incursions" and Patient Zero
- Available: November-December 2014 (Mutalist Incursions only)
Mutalist Incursions introduced the Mutalist Moa, Brood Mother, and Boiler enemies into the game.
Alad V's experiments with the Infestation have progressed even further, and his new army has launched a full-scale attack on the system. Under the Lotus's command, the Tenno fought back against the outbreak, driving the Infestation back to the corners of the solar system.
Patient Zero sends the Tenno to sabotage Alad V's ships, preventing him from creating more of his monstrosities, giving a key to track down the mad scientist for a final showdown.
Operation: Eyes of Blight
- Available: December 2014
Despite previous setbacks, Vay Hek was able to complete construction on a fleet of Balor Fomorians, and he has sent them after the Tenno relays orbiting each planet as revenge. The Tenno were forced to ready their Archwings and infiltrate the ships to defend the relays. The fleet was successfully destroyed, and Vay Hek fell from grace with the Twin Queens, letting Tyl Regor to rise in prominence.
Despite the ultimate success of the mission, the Tenno still suffered heavy losses. At the end of the event, each platform had managed to save only three of the seven relays: Larunda, Kronia, and Orcus for PC; Strata, Kronia, and Kuiper for PS4; and Vesper, Leonov, and Orcus for Xbox.
Operations: False Profit and The Tubemen of Regor
Thousands of innocent colonists were being tricked out of their savings thanks to the machinations of Nef Anyo, a cunning Corpus conman who claims to be a prophet of the Void. Worse, the sinister televangelist was using the scheme to bankroll his own private army of Bursa proxies. Disgusted at the his dirty scheme and fearing an upsurge in Corpus weapons development, the Lotus sends the Tenno to once again maintain the balance. Using fraudulent credit accounts the Lotus begins siphoning off Anyo's liquid assets, leaving nothing but the scattered remains of smashed robots.
Shortly afterwards, the Tenno receive a distress call from the partially-infested Alad V, still somehow very much alive even after his second death. Grineer researcher Tyl Regor, a new favored servant of the Queens, is about to make a breakthrough in genetic engineering that could reverse centuries of genetic degradation. Alad V, The Lotus and the Tenno all agree that Tyl must be stopped, though Alad is offering a hefty reward to access a copy of Tyl's work after the Tenno trash the labs, believing Tyl's notes can free the former Corpus from the Infested. Complicating the situation further, Nef Anyo promises the Tenno a hefty reward to destroy the data and leave Alad V with nothing.
Though all of Tyl Regor's "tubemen" were destroyed, the outcome of the event differed depending on the console. On the PC and Xbox One, the Tenno decided to give the research data to Alad V, while on the PS4 the Tenno sided with Nef Anyo and destroyed all the data. Since two out of the three platforms chose to cure Alad V, Digital Extremes decided that the story would proceed as if he had been cured on all three platforms.
Natah
Some time after the Tenno's attempts to sabotage Tyl Regor's experiments, a new type of autonomous drone was be sighted at various areas of the system. Too advanced to be Grineer, yet not of Corpus design, and lacking the tell-tale signs of Technocyte infection, they scanned various people and objects throughout the system, gathering data for some unknown purpose.
After working through the drones' signal masking, the Lotus quickly realized exactly what and whom the drone was serving: Hunhow, her own father, a Sentient spy who had thought to have been vanquished by the Tenno. The Lotus, fearing what might happen, panics and attempts to flee the system. Curious as to why the doting mother would be so spooked, Teshin requests the Tenno to start digging into the operations of Tyl Regor, who'd also been tracking the drones. The search proves fruitful, as Tyl's right-hand Grineer Sergeant Scur spills the beans to the whole operation and the dig site deep below the waters. The Lotus senses the Tenno on Uranus and begs them to stop their quest, but by then it's too late; Tyl Regor has breached the tomb and roused Hunhow from his slumber.
Refusing to be swayed by her father's threats, the Lotus and the Tenno quickly rig the magma-filled caverns to explode, collapsing Hunhow's tomb again, leaving him very much alive but completely stranded once more.
The Second Dream
Undeterred by his daughter's rejection, Hunhow recruits the Stalker to destroy the Tenno. Lotus, having noticed Hunhow's attempts to infiltrate her mind, sends the Tenno to recover all the data the Grineer have discovered on Hunhow and the Sentients. The data includes a message to Lotus from Alad V, offering his help in exchange for a favor in the future. Alad V leads the Tenno to a Sentient relic, which Lotus believes she can use to read Hunhow's mind the same way he's been trying to read hers. Unfortunately, Hunhow uses the mental link to learn the location of the Reservoir, the source of the Tenno's power and their one true vulnerability, and sends the Stalker to destroy it. The Reservoir is located on Earth's former moon, which Lotus hid in the Void long ago to protect it from the Sentients. After pursuing Stalker to the moon, the Tenno discover that the Stalker has triggered a Void collapse, threatening to destroy the moon - and the Reservoir with it. With no other option, the Tenno are forced to extract the moon from the Void. The Tenno then rush to the Reservoir to defend it from Stalker; the Reservoir turns out to be a series of stasis pods holding people. One of these people is released from their pod, causing the player's Warframe to collapse. The person crawls over to the Warframe and reanimates it with their touch, making it carry them back to the player's ship. Once inside, Lotus urges the player to head to the depths of the Orbiter to find the Somatic Link. However, the Stalker ambushes the player and separates the Warframe and person, impaling the Warframe with his greatsword before choking the person. To everyone's surprise, the Warframe spontaneously starts moving again and shatters the greatsword, driving Stalker off but knocking the person unconscious.
Lotus appears in person to carry the person to the Somatic Link before revealing the truth about all of these events: the person is one of the true Tenno, who has been remotely piloting Warframes while slumbering on the moon. The Tenno were the survivors of the Zariman Ten-Zero, turned into child soldiers to fight against the Sentients. Lotus then instructs the Tenno on how to unleash the Operator's power during missions using the Focus system.
Operation: Shadow Debt
- Available: January-February 2016
After the events of the Second Dream, the Stalker has managed to attract followers. Calling themselves Acolytes, these six rogue Tenno have set out to exact vengeance upon Alad V. Ever the survivor, Alad V decides to call in his favor from the Second Dream, noting that the Acolytes will probably try to hunt down the Tenno next, so it's also in the Tenno's best interest to help out. After hunting down and defeating the first five, the leader, Misery, reveals himself and resolves to kill Alad personally. Using Alad as bait, the Tenno draw Misery out to the battlefield and put an end to the Acolyte threat.
Sands of Inaros
The Tenno is contacted by Baro Ki'Teer, the Void Trader, who requests them to undertake an expedition to a tomb that was created by an old colony on Mars. Baro believes that the tomb contains valuable relics left behind by the old colony, attracting treasure hunters such as himself.
Upon reaching the tomb, Baro mentions stories of a "God King" named Inaros, which he passes off as superstition. Suddenly, a disembodied female voice begins talking, as if recounting a story. Baro can also hear this voice, and is unsettled. After the voice disappears, the Tenno takes a sacred vessel and leaves. The vessel instructs the Tenno to kill a specific enemy, and then return to the tomb. The Tenno does three of these challenges, with each return to the tomb uncovering more of the story from the disembodied voice, and Baro gradually shaking off his disbelief. After completing the third challenge, the Tenno visits the tomb for the fourth time. At this point the whole story has been revealed: The colonists were visited by "Golden Skymen," who would take people from the colony, until Inaros showed up. He was once a warrior of the Skymen, until he grew upset with the abductions taking place, and ultimately killed the Skymen after they took a child. Inaros returned the child and swore himself to watch over the colony as their king. After several years, the Infested attacked the colony, nearly destroying it, until Inaros sacrificed himself in a massive sandstorm. The colonists took the pieces of Inaros and hid them in the vessels that the Tenno had been finding. It's then revealed that the voice in fact belonged to Baro's mother, speaking to him as a child, before the Grineer showed up and killed everyone, leaving Baro as the only survivor. Baro reveals he never really was in the whole expedition for the money, and instructs the Tenno to rebuild the Inaros Warframe, so he could "rise again."
Operation: Rathuum
- Available: April-May 2016
The leader of the Steel Meridian syndicate, Cressa Tal, sends a transmission to the Tenno telling them that a group of Grineer defectors have been captured by Kela De Thaym and are sentenced trail by combat in a arena called Rathuum. Cressa Tal then asks the Tenno to take the defector's place in the arena.
After the Tenno fight through the arena, Kela claims that the Tenno cheated during the fights and won't release the defects. The Tenno are now tasked to fight Kela and claim the coordinates of the defects. The Tenno defeat Kela and take the coordinates of the defects, and are given the choice to give the coordinate to one of the six Syndicates.
The Silver Grove
The Tenno goes to a Relay and talks with Amaryn, leader of New Loka. She states that the Grineer are burning the forests of Earth, and are putting a location known as the Silver Grove under threat. New Loka sees the grove as the purest spot on Earth, and wishes to awaken its defenses so that is not destroyed by the Grineer.
The Tenno must gather plants found throughout the system in order to create three different Apothics, which are key to awakening the grove. The blueprints also contain voice logs from an unknown Orokin female. When the first Apothic is made and anointed upon the grove, a disembodied voice suddenly speaks, and a Loki specter appears to try and kill the Tenno. Once the second Apothic is used, the voice appears again, demanding that the Tenno leave and sending a Saryn specter to kill them, before crying out for someone known as Titania. This event disturbs Amaryn, who believes the voice belongs to a human.
The third Apothic blueprint reveals that the female voice belongs to an Orokin Archimedian, who was sent by the Executors to work with Margulis to perfect Transference and create the Warframes. The project disgusted the Archimedian, who hated violence and war, as well as her creation: the Warframe Titania. So in secret, she stole resources from the project and tested Transference on herself, and resolved to "seed a mighty forest" and "use it to bring life."
The revelation horrifies Amaryn, who now sees the Silver Grove as corrupted by Orokin influence. She decides to let the grove burn, but Ordis is having none of it, urging the Tenno to go back to the grove. The Tenno uses the final Apothic, and the voice in the grove realizes that the Tenno is not Titania, but another like her. The voice also gives Amaryn a stern conversation, asking if Amaryn would rather have the grove she swore to protect burn in spite of the Orokin. An Oberon Specter attacks, and after the Tenno defeats it, Grineer units descend upon the Grove. Amaryn tells the Tenno to stay and fight, having changed her mind. After they are defeated, the voice refers to itself as Silvana, and says how she is bound to the grove by Transference. Once the Orokin learned of Silvana's secret endeavor, they sent soldiers to destroy the grove, but Titania killed all of them, which claimed her own life. Hearing this, Amaryn vows that New Loka will be more lenient in the future, and asks the Tenno to let Titania fly once more.
The War Within
The quest opens with the Twin Queens discussing something called "Continuity," and how the Tenno have awoken and are coming for them. While the younger sister, the Worm, is clearly worried, the Elder queen instead sees the situation as "the answer to a prayer."
The Tenno is requested by the Lotus to investigate an incident on Lua. Upon arriving, the Lotus tells the Tenno about how Margulis placed them into the Second Dream as the Orokin did everything they could to erase evidence of the Zariman Ten-Zero accident. The Tenno spots a figure heading towards a reservoir, who turns out to be Teshin. Upon catching up, they hear a disembodied voice telling someone to bring "them" to her. Teshin reveals the voice as belonging to the Queens, piquing the Tenno's interest. Teshin warns the Tenno not to follow him, and vanishes, leaving only a specter. The Tenno then tracks down other specters across the system, in an attempt to find out where Teshin is going.
Eventually, they track Teshin to an asteroid field. The Lotus detects unusual readings coming from the base, requesting the Tenno to investigate. After navigating the field in their Archwing, the Tenno, as well as the Lotus, see the Grineer Fortress for the first time: a massive asteroid with engines attached to it, allowing the Grineer to move it at will. When the Tenno is ready, they move into the fortress to investigate.
Inside, they navigate through the base, making their way to the Queens' throne room. They notice that it's not of Grineer design: it's Orokin. Teshin and the Queens appear and confront the Tenno, where its revealed that Teshin's true name is Teshin Dax. The Queens are disappointed that Teshin did not bring "the child," but its "Infested puppet." Regardless, they restrain the Warframe, and the Elder Queen begins using her scepter to try and infiltrate the Tenno's mind. The Tenno is unable to sever their connection the their Warframe, and is rendered unconscious from the mental assault.
The Tenno wakes up in their Orbiter, where Ordis is frantically trying to fix things. After being told by the Tenno that they no longer have access to their Warframe, Ordis suddenly goes berserk, attempting to kill the Tenno. They run to the solar map and set a course for a "mountain pass." Once the Tenno arrives, they navigate the mountain before confronting Teshin once more. Furious, the Tenno tries to attack Teshin, only to be knocked into a corridor, which Teshin promptly seals. Teshin tells the Tenno that he is going to make them learn the truth about their past, while revealing their true power. After venturing further, the Tenno attempts to use their Void abilities to power up a mechanism, only for their power to backfire, knocking them unconscious once again and sending them into a pit. Waking up after this fall, the Tenno navigates several pits filled with bones while avoiding a Golden Maw that would kill them.
While these events transpire, new information is revealed about the history of the Tenno and the Zariman Ten-Zero accident, through communication with the Elder Queen. It's revealed that in early moments of the accident, several people had gotten desperate and sabotaged the ship, while others were overtaken with paranoia and fear. The current Tenno's father in particular said "something's out there, kiddo...watching us." Eventually, all of the adults were driven insane by the Void. The children, however, were altered and given newfound powers, becoming the Tenno. Some of the Tenno, using this power, hunted and killed the adults, and others tried to avoid the fighting either by hiding away or building a makeshift brig to hold the rampaging adults within.
Later on, Teshin tells the Tenno that he is a Dax soldier, created as a superior combatant by the Orokin, but made completely subservient to them. He reveals that the Queens are, in fact, Orokin, who use the symbols of the Kuva and the Scepter to control him. The Tenno then comes across a Yuvan theater, as Teshin talks about what Continuity is: it's the method of Orokin immortality, where the aged Orokin would transfer their minds into a new host - volunteers or otherwise - gradually taking over until only the consciousness of the Orokin was present in the new body. Teshin says that this is what the Queen wants, to transfer herself into the body of the Tenno. After one last conversation with the Elder Queen, the Tenno discharges their power into the manifestation of the Queen.
The Tenno wakes up in their Orbiter, revealing that the whole ordeal on the mountain pass turned out to be a dream, as the Tenno fought against the Queen's attempt at Continuity. They then retake control of their Warframe without the Somatic Link, demonstrating their newfound power. Back in the throne room, after the Queen berates Teshin on the Tenno rejecting Continuity, their Warframe reappears after having fallen into a pool. The Tenno steps out of their Warframe, surprising the Queens and Teshin, who is shocked at the Tenno returning for him. After a battle with the Queens Guardians, the Tenno takes the Elder's scepter, giving Teshin the ability to kill her once and for all. The Tenno and Teshin leave the fortress after dealing with the Queen, and the Tenno reestablishes their connection with the Lotus, having lost it upon first entering the fortress. After returning to the Orbiter, the Lotus and the Tenno have an argument about Margulis' intentions by wiping the Tenno's memory, as well as what the Tenno did on the Zariman Ten-Zero.
Afterward, the Tenno heads back to the mountain pass by way of a beacon. After using their power to activate the mechanism that the Tenno failed to activate earlier, the Tenno meets Teshin at the top of the mountain. There, they discuss the nature of the substance known as Kuva, which supposedly gives the Orokin immortality. After choosing what to do with the Kuva, the Tenno is suddenly spoken to by some being, which refers to the Tenno as "kiddo." Teshin snaps the Tenno out of it, and ends the quest telling the Tenno that they now have greater power, but greater responsibility than before.
The Glast Gambit
The Tenno visits the Perrin Sequence room on a relay and speaks with Ergo Glast, their leader. Glast says that Nef Anyo had gone to a colony that lives off of the Infested, known as the Myconians. Anyo had taken their resources, as well as the children. Because of this, the colony has been left defenseless, and the Tenno must venture to the colony and help secure it. After doing so, Glast states that Anyo has rejected his ransom for the children and something called the Triuna, and proposes that the Tenno instead compete in the Index, the Corpus equivalent of Rathuum. Each victory will give the Tenno and Glast more of the kidnapped children, except one: a young girl named Neewa. During the third match, the Tenno's Warframe dies from an unknown circumstance, but the match continues on as normal. Afterward, Neewa sends a message stating that she herself is the Triuna, who has special powers that were hidden to keep her safe from outsiders.
In the fifth match, Anyo wagers Neewa and the Triuna, but says that Glast must wager everything of significant vale in his possession. In this match, the anomaly from the third match will repeatedly kill the Tenno's Warframe, until the match is lost. Lotus, not too happy with this act, locates the cheats Anyo has been using, and has the Tenno take them. After the cheats are stolen and deactivated by the Lotus, another message is received by Neewa, explaining what the Triuna is. It's a genetic immunity to the Infestation, which allows the Myconians to harvest resources without fear. However, this immunity kills its host, and must be passed down to new carriers.
Glast offers one last match, wagering an Old War relic for Neewa. Anyo, falling for the bait, accepts. The Tenno wins the match, winning back Neewa for the Myconians. Afterward, the Tenno decides on what should be done with Neewa. The Tenno either chooses to cure Neewa, prolonging her lifespan, or to send her back, allowing the colony to survive. Regardless, the Myconians send their Old War relic to the Tenno, which is a blueprint for Nidus.
The Pacifism Defect
- Avaliable: March 2017
The Pacifism Defect introduced the Endless mission type known as "Defection" to the game.
The Lotus receives a message from Steel Meridian concerning a convoy of Grineer ships that have been overrun with the Infestation. These ships, crewed by Pacifistic Grineer called "Kavor", have bundled themselves into safe rooms throughout their ships and need help to evacuate to safety, as Infested Nanospores are propagating throughout their ships' atmospheres and are threatening to kill the crew. In response, the Lotus sends the Tenno to provide cover for the surviving Kavor and get them to safety. As the Kavor were former soldiers under General Sargas Ruk, this evacuation prompts him to send Manics to murder the evacuees on top of the Tenno having to deal with ever-increasingly vicious and aggressive Infested entities. Against all odds, the Tenno are able to evacuate most of the Kavor to safety, and the Steel Meridian gratefully rewards the Tenno with the blueprints to their Ignis Wraith flamethrower.
Octavia's Anthem
The Tenno is summoned to an audience with Cephalon Suda but as they go in to meet her, they are abruptly informed by Cephalon Simaris that they should disregard anything that she says; complaining specifically about her obsession with music, something he dismisses as "inconsequential". Suda rebuffs his assertions, but calls him "Irmis", presumably the name he used as a human, rather than Simaris, and proceeds to forget why she summoned the Tenno. Proceeding to assume that the Tenno are as curious about music as she is, Suda sends the Tenno to assemble an instrument called a "Mandachord", whose pieces are scattered throughout various Corpus facilities. Simaris, meanwhile, declares that Suda's erratic behavior is a sign of faulty and corrupted precepts, and demands that she be decommissioned and disconnected from the Cephalon Weave.
After the Mandachord is assembled, Suda sends the Tenno off to gather pieces of a song called "Octavia's Anthem", using an Orokin instrument called a "Hydraulus" to gather the song's fragments. As she does this, her behavior becomes more erratic and forgetful, prompting Simaris to declare that her strand of Data-Alzheimer's is dangerous not only to herself, but the entire Cephalon Weave, and demands that the Tenno and Cephalon Ordis abort their mission and disconnect Suda from the Weave; prompting Ordis to tear Simaris a new one. Unfortunately, Suda's erratic behavior and memory loss have a more sinister explanation to them than just being the result of data corruption: the Sentient Hunhow is subverting Suda, and is using her to infiltrate the rest of the Weave. Using some of his Battalyst and Conculyst fragments, Hunhow-Suda attempts to stop the Tenno from assembling the rest of Octavia's Anthem.
With this revelation, Simaris re-asserts that the best course of action would be to give Suda a Mercy Kill and stop Hunhow from subverting the rest of the Cephalon Weave, while Ordis maintains that they can use Octavia's Anthem to save her from the Sentient's subversion. Frustrated with Simaris' stubbornness on the matter, Ordis instructs the Tenno to head into the Void and gather the last piece of Octavia's Anthem. While there, Hunhow proceeds to attack the Tenno using decaying fragments of himself, shielded using energy siphoned off of Cephalon Suda. He also taunts the Tenno and Ordis about the futility of their mission, then reveals to Ordis that he knows about the Cephalon's past as the Beast of the Bones, Ordan Karris. After the last piece of the Anthem is secured, Ordis realizes that they need to boost it in order to break Suda free of Hunhow's corruption, and directs the Tenno to a set of power generators within the Void Tower they are aboard, instructing them to use these generators to boost Octavia's Anthem "to Eleven" in order to save Suda. Unfortunately, a now very pissed-off Hunhow proceeds to No-Sell this attempt at bringing Suda back, forcing Ordis to directly engage Hunhow from within the Cephalon Weave in a Heroic Sacrifice. In a letter, Ordis bids his Operator goodbye, and admits that Simaris was right about mercy killing Suda before Hunhow could fully subvert her. In a last bid at saving her, Ordis then instructs the Tenno to talk with Simaris about entering Suda's "Datascape" to contain the Sentient that has eaten her mind and save the rest of the Weave.
At the Relay, Simaris explains to the Tenno that a Datascape is a portion of the Weave that Cephalons can use for their own interests, ranging from training simulations to reviewing and revisiting old memories to projects as vast and incredible as Simaris' own Sanctuary, then wonders if the music Suda obsessed over could be something that Hunhow is afraid of. After learning what the Tenno intends to do regarding Hunhow and Suda's Datascape, Simaris tells them that he can link them up to that part of the Weave, but that such an endeavor would be tantamount to suicide. As such, he would not risk the Sanctuary to help the Tenno in their task and tells them that they would take on their task alone. Within Suda's Datascape, Suda herself has been replaced by an icon of Hunhow, while Ordis is trapped within a jail-like part of Hunhow's "Body". While Ordis initially begs his Operator to get out of there, he ultimately instructs the Tenno to play Octavia's Anthem using the gigantic note array found within Suda's Datascape. As the Tenno does this, Hunhow attacks the Tenno with data-based "Eradycysts" while continuing to boast about the futility of their mission, declaring that the Tenno's harmony would be replaced with "Sentient Dissonance" before ruminating on the beat of the Naga Drum, the instrument the Tenno murdered the Orokin to. As the Tenno assembles more of Octavia's Anthem, Ordis is able to break free of his prison cell, and begins to aid the Tenno in battle; and when Ordis is about to be overwhelmed, Cephalon Simaris shows up with his Sanctuary Beasts in tow, making short work of Hunhow's forces as the Tenno completes the Anthem, freeing Suda. In gratitude for the Tenno's aid, Cephalon Suda gifts them with the blueprint for the Octavia Warframe, which uses the Mandachord as an Instrument of Murder. Simaris, meanwhile, not-too-convincingly dismisses his willingness to help the Tenno out at the end of the day as a mere "Loyalty-Glitch".
Operation: Ambulas Reborn
- Available: May 2017
Operation: Ambulas Reborn introduced the reworked Boss Battle against the Corpus Super-MOA Proxy known as "Ambulas".
The Tenno receives a Communique from Perrin Sequence leader Ergo Glast about the latest venture from Corpus head honcho Frohd Bek: an advertisement featuring Bek spewing corporate buzzwords like "Synergize" and "Grofit" before segueing into him pitching the Ambulas Reborn project to his fellow Corpus, boasting about how data secured from their Animo Project has made Ambulas even more deadly than it ever was before. Glast tells the Tenno that Animo is a linked, self-learning intelligence network and that by connecting it with a combat proxy like Ambulas, the Corpus risk wreaking the same havoc on the Origin System that the Orokin did with the Sentients during the Old War - except worse because of the impending threat of the Sentients' return; and in order to counteract this threat, the Perrin Sequence has helped to fully fund Ambulas Reborn. Working together with Glast, the Tenno disable Ambulas Proxies from Corpus facilities throughout the Origin System, using their Animo Beacons to determine the location of the Animo mainframe itself. Using this information, the Tenno proceed to the main facility where Animo is housed and hijack multiple Ambulas Proxies while learning that Animo was initially Glast's invention, stolen by Bek, his Mentor, when Glast defected from the Corpus and formed the Sequence. In the end, Animo's threat is disabled permanently and Glast gratefully rewards the Tenno with the blueprint for the Supra Vandal weapon.
Chains of Harrow
Cephalon Ordis alerts the Tenno to a Red Veil transmission that he's intercepted and is calling "haunted"; the transmission includes coordinates to a derelict Steel Meridian ship in orbit around Earth and a mysterious dialogue between two people, an unnamed woman and a child who reveals himself to be Rell. As the screen darkens under a Red Filter of Doom, Rell tells the mysterious woman that he can't tell her where he is, as something is listening in to their conversation. Boarding the Steel Meridian vessel, the Tenno discovers a grisly scene: a pitch-black ship essentially running on fumes with only Life Support having any power, dead Steel Meridian Grineer, and a Red Veil insignia smeared in blood on a bulkhead, along with a similarly gruesome message:
- YOU CAST HIM OUT
Now safe from the mad Red Veil agents, Palladino explains that she is the leader of the Red Veil, and that she and her ancestors hold the responsibility of communing with Rell, the Sacred Muse of the Red Veil, making her the source of the woman's voice in the transmission Ordis intercepted earlier. With Rell gone from his "Sacred Vessel", Palladino is unable to commune with him and much of the Veil has gone insane as a result. In a bid to calm him, Palladino instructs the Tenno to head to a Corpus ship to recover an artifact related to Rell. While the Lotus is suspicious of Palladino's motives, she lets the Tenno proceed with the mission she has given them.
On board the Corpus ship, the Tenno finds a scene similar to the Steel Meridian ship: a pitch-dark vessel devoid of crew, and another message smeared in blood on a bulkhead:
- HE SUFFERS WHILE YOU DREAM
Back at Iron Wake, Palladino uses a Prayer of Invocation and the Donda to commune with Rell, who then gives the Tenno a vision: of happier times with his mother, Kay, as they use a form of therapy using flash cards to help the autistic child better cope with and identify his emotions. After this vision ends, the Lotus tells the Tenno that she has a theory as to what's going on with Rell, explaining that the manifestations may be a form of corrupted Transference energy caused by Rell's mind fracturing under stress, and asks if there might be a way to capture them. Palladino doesn't know, but Ordis proposes using Cephalon Simaris' Kinetic Siphon Traps to help them in their mission.
As the Tenno goes about securing fragments of Rell's mind, manifesting as various emotions from his flash card therapy, Rell himself wonders why the Tenno is helping him, since Tenno like the young girl from the tie-in comic were in the minority among the Zariman Children and the majority considered him "weird" like the older boy, while the Lotus and Palladino discuss the nature of The Man in the Wall. The Lotus believes that it's a symptom of long-term Void Exposure, while Palladino insists on it being a manifestation of the Void itself - a Genius Loci that's as old as the stars. Meanwhile the Tenno encounters more blood-stained messages:
- BLINDED
SHE CAST HIM OUT
- WHAT IS EVIL BUT INDIFFERENCE
Once the last of Rell's fragments have been captured, Palladino declares that Rell has returned to his Warframe, Harrow, and that the Tenno needs to go to the Red Veil's Temple to complete one last task for her, while the Lotus muses that The Man in the Wall's manifestations are the result of a "Transference Loop" caused by Rell being stuck in Transference within the Void for so long.
Upon entering the Red Veil's temple within an Orokin Derelict, Palladino tells the Tenno that they are to free Rell from his suffering by going to the chamber where Harrow is located and give him a Mercy Kill, much to Lotus' grief. Having to do so without the aid of their Warframe, the Tenno is able to destroy the chains binding Harrow - and Rell - to this mortal plane, while The Man in the Wall manifests yet again and begins to rant about how Rell was mistreated in life. All the while, the Tenno fights additional Red Veil agents sent by The Man in the Wall to kill them and experiences Rell's final moments as a normal child aboard Zariman Ten-Zero, namely a moment with him bonding with Kay, a moment where Kay calls out a group of future Tenno for their bullying Rell, and the last time Rell saw Kay before her death at his hands: moments after Zariman Ten-Zero misjumped and was left listing in the Void. After this, Rell is able to finally suppress The Man in the Wall's Demonic Possession to ask Palladino who will ward off The Man in the Wall once he's gone, to which Palladino comforts him by saying that that will be the responsibility of all Tenno now. After Rell's death, the Tenno returns to their Orbiter and reviews a letter from Palladino, who gifts them Harrow's blueprint in gratitude for what they did for the Red Veil. Afterwards, the Tenno notices their Operator sitting happily on one of the consoles in their Orbiter... Except the Tenno can still control their Warframe, meaning that their Operator should still be in their Somatic Link; plus, this guy's got deathly-black eyes, just like when their Operator was possessed at the mountain pass -
- The Man in the Wall: Hey, Kiddo.
Plains of Eidolon
The Tenno are invited to visit the town of Cetus and become familiar with it and its Ostron inhabitants, as the Grineer's harassment of the town is becoming more than what the local militia can handle. The settlement, located in a region of Earth untouched by the planet's massive forests, is home to a still-living Orokin Tower and its prophetic, feminine intelligence, known as the "Unum", that Cetus lives in the shadow of. Beyond Cetus lies the titular "Plains of Eidolon", the site of a massive battle between Orokin forces and an enormous Sentient, so-called due to ghost-like Sentient fragments rising up at night to mournfully patrol the remains of their once whole form, ranging from small Eidolon Vomvalysts that serve as support units for larger fragments, to the colossal Eidolon Teralyst, Gantulyst, and Hydrolyst. Upon entering Cetus, the Tenno introduces themselves to the most prominent members of the Ostrons' merchant community: Hai-Luk, a wistful fisherwoman who sometimes wishes she had taken a different career path, Master Teasonai, a weary old beastmaster specializing in rearing Kubrows and Kavats as well as more "exotic" beasts, Hok, a master blacksmith and head of the local militia who is constantly annoyed by his Lazy Bum assistant Pedlek, Nakak, a kindly young girl who specializes in masks and ship decorations and who is never seen without a mask on, Old Man Sumbaat, a no-nonsense prospector and purveyor of rare goods, and the chief of the Ostrons himself, Konzu. In order to prove themselves, the Tenno must go out onto the Plains and complete some tasks that Konzu has need for them to complete as dictated by the mysterious Quills, a secretive guild of Seers that the Tenno might be able to accrue favor from...
Saya's Vigil
After completing some tasks for Konzu, the Tenno talks with him and learns about his oldest friends: Onkko, quiet, bookish, and brilliant, and Saya, stubborn, headstrong, and vigilant. Despite these two being complete polar opposites, Onkko and Saya were Happily Married, and everything was as good and jolly with the three of them as it could be... until Onkko disappeared, five years prior to the Tenno's arrival in Cetus. Now, Saya lives on the outskirts of town, and her attitude toward Konzu could not be any colder. Konzu's worried that the Grineer have found evidence of Onkko still being alive, and he wants the Tenno to make sure that she doesn't go out and get herself killed.
Upon meeting with Saya, she confirms Konzu's suspicions to the Tenno: that the Grineer have found evidence on the Plains of Eidolon that Onkko may still be alive and well somewhere. She's been demanding an answer about Onkko's status from the Quills ever since he disappeared without success, and she's not going to let Konzu tell her not to go looking for her husband if he's still alive. However, since the Tenno is asking, she decides to ask for their assistance, leading to the Tenno venturing out onto the Plains of Eidolon, looking for clues to Onkko's whereabouts.
As the Tenno searches for hints to Onkko's location, they are accosted by Grineer, specifically Vay Hek's elite battalion of "Tusk" Grineer. The Lotus notes that only Vay Hek would be so brazen and stupid to lead Grineer soldiers to death against something as unkillable as the Sentient Eidolon, to which Hek says that he would gladly sacrifice all of his Tusk units if it meant killing the Lotus.note After dispatching the Grineer unit sent after them, the Lotus notes that there are some unusual energy readings coming from a nearby cave, and Konzu and Saya note that it was a cave that the former and Onkko would hide in when they were younger, until a landslide covered it up. After uncovering it, the Tenno discovers an unusual Ostron Coffer, locked by a mechanism the Lotus doesn't immediately recognize. She initially suggests forcing the lock, only to be rebuffed by Saya who says that the coffer was Onkko's, and that he locked it with a special "shatter lock" that used a Glass key. Forcing the lock would destroy the contents of the coffer, so the Tenno needs to locate the glass fragments that the key was made from.
Going back out onto the Plains with some Codex Scanners supplied by the Lotus, the Tenno is able to locate a few Glass fragments before Vay Hek rears his ugly head and orders his soldiers to locate as much Glass as they can, believing that they hold the key to killing a Sentient. Meanwhile, Konzu tries to offer some succor to Saya, only to be rebuffed by her for supposedly being involved in Onkko's initial disappearance, leading to her accusing Konzu of trying to kill Onkko out of spite for her rejecting his Iron Rosenote , something Konzu denies. The Lotus then asks what Vay Hek meant by the power to kill a Sentient, and Konzu explains that Onkko discovered the remains of Gara, the Unum's Glass Champion, while out on the Plains and studied it only to be sworn to secrecy by the Quills. Only now, Hek has managed to get his hands on a Quill and force that knowledge out of them, and he's been seeking out glass ever since. With this knowledge in hand, Lotus instructs the Tenno to board a Grineer ship that has recently left Earth Orbit with some cargo in tow, leading to them facing off against a vicious Grineer Nox before securing a fourth Glass shard.
The search for pieces of Onkko's glass key has managed to defrost Konzu and Saya's relationship some, and as they reminisce on some good times that they and Onkko had, Saya realizes where the final Glass shard might be located, and directs the Tenno to travel there under the cover of night, so that they won't be happened upon by patrolling Grineer. Travelling to a lake on the Plains late at night, the Tenno comes face-to-face with the Eidolon Teralyst, which is currently engaged in a fight against an army of Grineer. Making a mad dash for the cave Saya mentioned earlier, the Tenno is able to locate and recover the final Glass shard, fully reconstructing the key to Onkko's Shatter Lock (much to Vay Hek's rage... Well, bigger rage) and opening up his Ostron Coffer to reveal... An Iron Rose, specifically the one Konzu offered Saya so many years ago. Tearfully, Saya realizes that this was meant to be Onkko's final wish: for her to go and be happy with the one her heart desires, Konzu. Accepting that her husband is well and very dead, she thanks the Tenno for their help, and the Lotus sends the Tenno the blueprints for the Gara Warframe that she replicated while studying Onkko's Glass key.
Thing is, though, Onkko's not dead. Instead, he faked his own death in order to save Cetus (and, by extension, Saya) from some grisly fate foretold by the Quills. Once both Saya's Vigil and The War Within have been completed, the Tenno Operator can access a mysterious door hidden in an alcove within Cetus, wherein they will discover an operating base of the Quills. There, Onkko will greet the Tenno, explaining that after faking his death he became a member of the Quills. Calling himself "Quill Onkko Primary", he gifts the Tenno with a Mote Amp and explains that the Unum knows them as a terror to the Sentient Eidolons in a past that has yet to be. Onkko then goes on to explain that he and the Tenno have had, and will have, a long association, and from that point onwards, the Tenno will be able to go in and meet with Onkko as a representative of the Quills Syndicate.
Operation: Plague Star
- Available: November 2017 and April 2018
About a month after the Tenno arrived in Cetus, a mysterious meteor was spotted in the skies above the Plains. Ultimately determined to be a massive, festering Infested boil, the meteor crashed into the heart of the Plains and brought the horrors of the Technocyte Plague to the Plains of Eidolon. Vay Hek wanted to use this boil to wipe Cetus off of the face of the Earth before killing the Infestation with the powerful Thrax Toxin, something the Quills saw nothing but doom within, for Grineer and Ostron alike. Explaining that his uncle, Imun, was consumed by the Infestation when they attacked his market out near Eris, Konzu notes that he's got all sorts of personal beefs with the Infestation, and wants to make sure that Cetus doesn't fall to the same fate Imun did, instructing the Tenno to steal the Thrax Toxin and mix it with concoctions like Eidolon Phylaxis and Infested Catalysts to increase its potency. After depositing the toxin into the boil on the Plains, the Tenno faced off against Infested Hemocytes - clones of the Lephantis boss that were just as vicious as it - in order to take down the boil. In the end, the Tenno were successful in stopping the Infestation both times it appeared on the Plains.
Operation: Ghoul Purge
Whenever Ghoul activity within the Plains of Eidolon exceeds normal parameters, Konzu will initiate a Ghoul Purge, an initiative to have the Tenno cut down the Ghoul population enough that they don't pose a serious threat to Cetus. This initiative includes tasks as cutting down Ghouls either by cleaning out concentrations of smaller burial sites or pumping massive burial sites full of the chemical Grokdrul, rescuing Expired Ghoul Defectors on behalf of Steel Meridian, capturing Ghouls for study by the Lotus, or assassinating a Ghoul Alpha; a Ghoul that is just as brutish and vile as his fellows, but is far smarter and intelligent than them.
Apostasy Prologue
The Tenno receives a message from Palladino about a gift that she has left in their personal quarters. This gift, a glowing, purple hologram of Lua, proceeds to teleport the Tenno to a landing pad outside of an Orokin facility on Earth's Moon.
Upon entering the facility, the Tenno encounters a glowing orb similar to the one they encountered in their personal quarters earlier, that plays a distant and hollow-sounding One-Woman Wail as well as dialogue between Margulis and Ballas, presumably in their final moments together. Margulis implores Ballas to free her, though Ballas says that he can't, to which Margulis responds, "Can't... or won't?"
Proceeding deeper into the facility, the orbs continue to tell of Margulis and Ballas' final moments together, Ballas imploring Margulis to recant her earlier statements and possibly be spared, only for Margulis to tell Ballas that no matter how noble he may be, he is still no better than his fellow Executors - beautiful on the outside, but twisted and ugly within. After that, the Tenno winds up at a Reservoir - presumably the very Reservoir their Operator came out of, now completely drained of water.
Falling down a hole in the center of the Reservoir, the Tenno - now in their Operator form - winds up at the end of a long corridor seemingly within the Void, while Ballas reads out the final sentencing of Archemedian Marguils, shortly before she is executed by the "Jade Light". Instead of recanting her earlier statements, Margulis states that her final thoughts are of the Tenno sons and daughters she loved and cared for. At the end of the corridor, the Tenno enters a large, open area with a lavender pod coming out of a hole in the floor. The pod opens up to reveal the Lotus, who asks the Tenno, "How long have we waited for this moment?" Before the Tenno can answer, however, this tender reunion between surrogate mother and child is horrifically interrupted by an unwelcome guest...
Though Lotus protests that she isn't Margulis, Ballas states that indeed she is, imprisoned just like her. With a wave of his hand, he disconnects the cables connecting her helmet to the pod, causing the Lotus to begin to act like Margulis rather than both Margulis and Natah. Declaring that "I will not abandon you again", Ballas and a now-helmetless Lotus disappear into a Jade-colored portal, leaving the Tenno Operator to clutch at the Lotus' helmet in fear and desperation.
Back aboard the Orbiter, Ordis panics once he realizes that the Lotus is gone, and synthesizes a holographic copy of her to direct the Tenno until he can figure out her location.
The Sacrifice
Some time after the incident between Ballas and the Lotus, the Tenno hears a familiar voice calling out to them. Looking for the source, the find that the Lotus is speaking through her helmet. They interact with the helmet, only to be met with something far different from the Lotus.
The Tenno sees a vision, taking place on Earth in a courtyard with a single tree. Then, a darkly-colored Warframe appears, falling on its knees before howling into the sky. Suddenly, another familiar, but much less friendly voice, makes its presence known.
- "Howl all you want."
As the vision ends, the Lotus' helmet shocks the Tenno making contact with it. Ordis tries to comfort the Tenno regarding what happened to the Lotus, but the Tenno instead decides to take immediate action, beginning their search on Earth. After finding the courtyard from the vision, they locate the remains of Umbra, as well as their sword. Upon recovery, Ordis concludes they need more data in order to perform a reconstruction. The Tenno then travels back to Lua where they encounter the Mimics: Sentient drones capable of shape-shifting into inanimate objects. Ordis is shocked, stating they haven't been seen in the Origin System since the Old War.
After some investigation, the Tenno finds a Vitruvian, an Orokin device capable of recording messages. Here, the Tenno finds that Ballas has stored several recordings, with the first one stating he intends to reveal the secret of the Warframes to the "enemy which most fears them". Returning to the Orbiter, the Tenno decides to install the Vitruvian into Ordis' systems. Ordis is reluctant, but yields to the pleas of the Tenno. After experiencing what seems like a power surge, Ordis reappears as an "upgraded" form, now referring to the Tenno as the Star-Child. At this point, Umbra can now be built. The Tenno does so, and proceeds to equip it, but things do not go smoothly...
The Warframe howls and throws the Tenno out of itself, before grabbing them by the throat. As the Tenno is struggling, they look up to see a horrifying sight: part of Umbra's face is missing, revealing a single human eye. The Tenno is thrown against and pinned to the wall by Umbra, who appears ready to finish them off. Fortunately, they distract Umbra, and attempt Transference once again.
The Tenno is sent into the mind of Umbra, finding themselves seeing from the eyes of a man in a bed. They're currently located in a medical ward. Nearby sits Ballas, and a Dax soldier stands idly by. Ballas greets the man, but the man is unable to respond vocally. Ballas remarks that they've lost their voice to the Infestation, but that the Orokin are ready to cure him. Suddenly, there is the sound of a device switching on, followed by Ballas speaking telepathically to the man. He states that he's fitted the man with a Transference bolt. Switching back to physical speech, Ballas then points out the Dax soldier, who turns out to be the man's son, Isaah. Ballas then says to the man, without a break in his calm demeanor, that the reunion will be made "all the more tragic, when you watch him die".
The vision ends, cutting back to the Tenno struggling to breathe. They explain to Ordis that Umbra had a memory of some sort, to which Ordis replies that Warframes are merely proxies and do not have memories. The Tenno looks at the Vitruvian again, and learns that Ballas had allied himself with the Sentients, whilst revealing that the reason the Sentients made war upon the Orokin is because the Sentients had realized how much damage the Orokin would bring to the Tau system with their greed.
The Tenno then tracks Umbra to Ceres, where they disable him and attempt Transference once again. This time, Ballas challenges the man to a game of Komi. After several games, Ballas starts speaking telepathically again, casually declaring how he will murder Isaah and the rest of the man's family, as retribution for the man spying on Ballas and his plans to defect to the Sentients. The Tenno leaves the memory, struggling to breathe once again. Afterwards, they listen to the next Vitruvian message, which tells of the Warframes and their origins. Among the many details, the one that stands out is this:
Warframes are made from humans.
The Orokin cultured a special strain of Infestation, and infected Dax soldiers, willing or not. This morphed them into powerful and resilient super-soldiers, but left their minds tortured by the Infestation and Orokin treatment. They eventually turned on the Orokin (as you would probably expect at this point), and forced to Orokin to decommission them. That is, until they found their solution in the Void...
The Tenno tracks Umbra to Neptune, and once again attempts Transference. This time the man is in deteriorating condition, and has lost several Komi stones to Ballas. Or, as Ballas puts it, "a brother and his three children". Ballas eventually states why he turned on the Orokin: he had to sacrifice his love, Margulis, to maintain his Orokin faith. He could never get over her death, and grew incredibly resentful towards the Orokin. Ballas then reveals his full plan for the man. The serums he previously said would cure the man were really Infested samples, and the man has begun to transform into a Warframe. One with "a single. Burning. Memory". Ballas clearly means the death of his son, and wants the man to feel the same pain that he does. It also shows who these memories belong to: Umbra's former human self.
After returning to the Orbiter, the Tenno listens to the last Vitruvian recording. Ballas describes the secret from the Void as the Tenno. He explains that humans formerly believed in duality, that everything consisted of mind and body, but using the Tenno as minds, the Orokin fnally managed to control the Warframe bodies. He then warns the Sentient he is addressing-none other than Hunhow-that the Tenno are not to be trifled with. However he is cut off when the Tenno decides on a rather bold action: confront Umbra themselves. Ordis warns them that being in Operator form will leave them vulnerable, and remarks that its why they bring Warframes to missions. The Tenno simply responds:
- "My Warframe is here. I just have to find it."
The Tenno arrives in a black-and-gold place, representing Umbra's mind, finding a manifestation of the tree as well as Umbra himself. The Tenno kneels to comfort Umbra, who slowly gets up and kneels himself. Meanwhile, Ballas continues his monologue about the Tenno, perfectly illustrating the relationship between them and the Warframes:
- "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."
The Tenno finally confronts Ballas to find out where the Lotus is. Several Sentients arrive to defend him, but the Tenno and Umbra destroy them all. Afterward, Ballas tells Umbra to "STOP", freezing him. He smugly walks up to Umbra taunting him about how he could never defy him.
Except he gets stabbed in the gut mid-sentence.
Ballas, shocked, weakly says "I... created... you", and seemingly manages to get Umbra to release the grip on his sword. The Tenno, however, has other ideas, closes Umbra's fist around the handle, and helps him finish the job, pushing the blade all the way through Ballas. Ballas stumbles backwards before falling on the ground, before eventually (seemingly) expiring. The Tenno demands to know where the Lotus has gone, and is met with an object falling out of the sky. It's the large Sentient from the vision. But not just any Sentient...
The Tenno is horrified, asking what the Sentients did to her. The Lotus responds "Nothing. This is what I am." The terrible reality has set in. This is no longer the Lotus. Natah has returned. Umbra jumps in to save the Tenno from being blasted by other Sentients, before they and Natah leave for the Tau system.
The Tenno, still shaken by this revelation, declares they will find out what happened to turn the Lotus into Natah, before being visited by an unlikely guest.
- "Feelin' better kiddo?"
Mask of the Revenant
As the Tenno gradually rebuild the lost one, Nakak confirms that this frame was the warden of the Eidolon, and that one day, he hesitated in striking down the Sentient, allowing it to use the frame as an anchor to try and escape its prison. When the final piece is completed, and the Tenno once again stares at the spectral hand, Nakak reveals that the warframe allowed itself to be puled into Eidolon's prison, trapping the Sentient forever. Suddenly, a spectral warframe appears and begins attacking the Tenno — it is a mask worn by Eidolon, who now seeks to use the Tenno to escape. The specter is soon bested, though, and the escap attempt foiled.
Their quest complete, the Tenno assemble the warden, now carrying the name Revenant. Nakak congratulates them, but warns that a new Sentient is stirring ,and that Revenant's powers may soon be needed to oppose this creature.
The Pyrus Project
In the aftermath of Vay Hek's Balor Fomorians going on a rampage throughout the Origin System, several of the Tenno's Relays were left destroyed. Two years after Operation: Eyes of Blight, Cressa Tal of the Steel Meridian approaches the Tenno, offering to help them rebuild Earth's Strata Relay as a way of thanking them for giving her and her followers a home. Working alonside Steel Meridian, the Tenno begin collecting a special material called Pyrus in order to rebuild the Relay. This ends up drawing the ire of Sargas Ruk, who is revealed to have been Cressa's commanding officer back when she served the Empire and never forgave her for betraying him.
Eventually, with the Tennos' help, Steel Meridian is able to successfully rebuild the Strata Relay, finally beginning to heal from the damage Hek caused. Infuriated, Sargas Ruk personally leads a massive Grineer assault force to take over the Relay and destroy Steel Meridian once and for all, but are successfully driven back by the Tenno.
Chimera Prologue
Fortuna and Vox Solaris
Meeting with Thursby, the Tenno learn that Eudico once led the people of Fortuna as Vox Solaris, leader of the resistance group Solaris United, until something happened at Deck 12 that broke her will to fight. After providing some elaboration on the nature of the debts the Solaris face, Thursby asks a favor — since the scrap he sells is practically worthless, he wants the Tenno to take the lift up to the Orb Vallis and steal Corpus supplies for him to sell.
The Tenno comply, with Thursby directing them to a Corpus supply drop while doing his best to mislead Eudico as to the nature of his actions. Unfortunately, when the Tenno get the last of the goods, he has an outburst recorded on a Corpus spy drone. Eudico forces the Tenno to disable the drone and defend it while she erases the data on the machine, before directing the Tenno back to Fortuna. She briefly muses on better times before sending the Tenno to aid the Business, better known as Biz, who used to be involved in wetwork before deciding to focus on wildlife conservation. Biz, however, still remembers the old days of Solaris United, and refuses to back down from opposing the Corpus. He initially wants to use a K-bomb to blow up a Repo Man, but Eudico manages to talk him down and asks the Tenno to simply steal the repossession list before the Corpus can act on it. While the Tenno work to collect the list, Biz and Eudico argue, with Biz pointing out that Eudico's efforts to appease Nef are failing to do anything besides make him even greedier.
The Tenno succeed in retrieving the list, only to discover that the names on it are members of one of Biz's conservation teams — who missed their last check-in. Going to their last known location, the Tenno find only corpses, but it soon becomes apparent that not all of the team were killed. Hastily examining the team's remains, the Tenno manage to locate and free the survivors. As they head back to Fortuna, though, Nef Anyo reveals that he found out about the stunt with Thursby, and has the boy repossessed.
Barely able to keep Thursby alive, Eudico blames the Tenno, before ordering them to help her attempt to appease Nef. She needs them to gather a small amount of Amaryst, as the ore is needed to stabilize the cooling tower, lest it overheat and destroy Fortuna. Nef, however, decides to run a test on the tower, causing it to malfunction. When Eudico tries to take blame for the situation, hoping that Nef will direct his wrath solely upon her, Nef instead demands that she give him the fifty least productive Solaris for repossession.
Finally realizing that Nef's greed will never be satisfied, Eudico recalls the Tenno to Fortuna and admits that her methods are wrong, and that someone needs to take a stand against Anyo. After asking for and receiving the Tenno's support, Eudi sends them back up to the Vallis, enraging Biz, who then realizes that his K-bomb is missing. On the surface, the Tenno use the K-bomb to wipe out the repo team, at which point Vox Solaris makes their return. Though initially surprised, Anyo refuses to back down, and eventually forces the Tenno to retreat when he sicks an Orb Mother on them. Back in Fortuna, Biz apologizes to Eudico and subtly asks her to send "Vox" his thanks as well.
Despite their victory, Eudico notes that this is just one battle, and that they need to act before Nef gets the chance to deal with them permanently. Providing the Tenno with a K-Drive to speed past the Orb with, Eudico instructs them to head to the Coolant Tower and hack its systems, causing the tower to go into overdrive. Nef sends in security teams to regain control of the tower, but the Tenno wipes them out. Seeming unimpressed, Nef warns Vox that if the tower overheats, it will destroy Fortuna, but Vox calls his bluff, as the loss of the tower will also destroy Nef's finances, something a Corpus plutocrat like him fears more than death. Eventually, Nef yields to Vox's demands, after which she instructs the Tenno to use the Amaryst they got earlier to fix the tower. Nef attempts to play the situation to his advantage, but his investors leave, unimpressed by how he allowed a group of workers to dictate terms to him.
Returning to Fortuna, the Tenno have a conversation with Biz, who reveals that he was the one who called them to the colony, and Thursby is still alive. Feeling responsible for the boy's fate, Biz resolves to make it up to the boy. Meeting with Thursby reveals that his body has been salvaged from MOA parts, which the newly christened "Legs" sells to create MOA companions. Additionally, Eudico thanks the Tenno for their actions in a message and gives them the blueprint for the warframe Garuda as compensation.
