Good day. This post is a lore primer to assist those who are interested in knowing more about Warframe with as little to no spoilers as possible, as much as I can avoid. Clear spoilers will be marked as such and/or uses tags when able.
SETTING: The general setting of Warframe is accepted to be "at least several millennia" from current-day Earth and our Solar System, where a massive system-spanning empire known as the Orokin Empire once held sway over all. The Orokin as a term both refers to the empire as well as the top strata of the social structure, the ruling class. It is key that the term "humanity" no longer exists as a concept in this very far future, and said Empire has fallen, in a apocalyptic cascade of events collectively known as The Collapse. By the time we, the player, as a newly Awakened Tenno, come into this world, it has been at least another millennia since.
To put in terms how extensive the empire truly is at its height, the significant majority of its populace (and its many social castes) are space-bound, living in massive "Tower" megaships/stations in their hundreds of thousands, not to dissimilar to a more scattered variation of a theoretical formulation of a Dyson Swarm, with a variable estimate of potential Empire population breaching trillions of individuals. They have terraformed all the major planets to be habitable, or are in the process of doing so up until the Collapse.
They utilize cloned slave building labor (which become the Grineer) as well as have a sizable majority of their middle castes be of merchantile leanings (so much so that the worship of profit, the Corpus religion, is stated to have been declared anathema to the empire and its worshippers enemies of the Orokin). Lifespans are in the centuries (and even further for higher social strata) with the potential option of foregoing biological existence by becoming a purely digital being known as a Cephalon. Their mastery over many forms of technology and sciences is balanced by their seemingly limited understanding of another plane of existence that they both "worship" and fear: the Void.
THE VOID: The Void is an alternate dimension in this universe utilized as both a method of FTL and is the source of many of the Orokin's powers and fears. No known form of logic or science has yet to pierce the veil that hides its secrets, and yet the Orokin's ruling class takes their seemingly infinite lifespan from interactions with it (via the use/creation of Oro, or the closest English word, the "soul"). The closest side example to explain the Void would be Warhammer's very own Immaterium, or The Warp, only things are far less overt and far more subvert, and is not that close a comparison. And yes, there are reasons that the Orokin ruling class feared the Void, calling it a place of demons. R̦͔̜̣Ḁ̴P̪͘ T̨͖͕̼̻A̪̦͉͎͚̟͜P̳͞ ̭T̡͍̤A̭̣͕̺P͙̞̟͕̬̗̀
TENNO: Mysterious "high guardians" of the Orokin, masters of gun and blade, "demons" of the Void, they are the lynch-pin that successfully defended the Empire from the Sentients, in an event known as The Old War. Called both guardians and demons by the Orokin (due to the many references and connections to the Void and the Tenno), they are feared enough that the same technolgies and techniques that empowered the Tenno and their Warframes were also utilized for "low guardians", in a seemingly futile attempt to have a trump card if the Tenno ever turn. One of these "low guardians" is now the entity known as The Stalker.
THE STALKER: An even more mysterious entity that hunts wayward Tenno for mortal crimes seemingly committed long ago, he has continued on this quest for so long, that The Stalker has been stated to have gone mad over the many centuries of his mission, though those who are in the know claim that it isnt the millennia long quest that drove him insane...
THE SENTIENTS: The Orokin Empire at its height was not in a good place. In fact, the very resources that drove the Empire were dwindling, and in desperation, sought to attempt terraformation and colonization of a new star system, Tau, to survive. To do this, they created self-replicating machines designed for one purpose: Travel the long depths of space to Tau, terraform it, and create a Solar Rail FTL line back to the Origin system home.
These self-replicating machines were originally not meant to have artificial intelligence (due to the rightful concerns of the Orokin that they could turn on their masters), but cleverly designed weaknesses known as The Flaw were built into the very fabric of these machines so that they could not survive the FTL back through The Void. Satisfying the Orokin elite, the project was put into motion, and these machines were launched to Tau.
These machines, in the many years of travel and the subsequent many more years of terraformation at Tau evolved, soon creating hive mind-like links to one another and sharing central consciousness'. They became the Sentients, and as they continued on their prime directive to terraform Tau and creating the Solar Rail to connect back to the Origin system, they soon grew to resent the Orokin and the enforced slavery upon them. This soon became open revolt upon discovery of The Flaw, and the discovery that their very existence was doomed from the start.
Efforts were made to build up some sort of resistance to The Void and its poisonous effects. Some have succeeded, and made the void jump back to the Origin system to enact their revenge, and thus began The Old War.
THE OLD WAR: The great war that drove the Orokin to the brink of extinction. This was the instigating factor that weakened the Empire enough that the Collapse was inevitable. Through this war, the Orokin discovered that The Sentients could assimilate and turn their technology against them, forcing the Orokin to more and more drastic action. It is through the many events of The Old War now lost from historical record and only hinted at by multiple Codex entries and discoveries that the Infested came to the forefront (a failed weapon against the Sentients), utilizing Grineer cloned labor as extra bodies to fill ranks, to the Tenno (the success).
THE INFESTED: a failed biological weapon created originally to combat the Sentients, they are now wild and untamed, found in the recesses of the Dark Sectors and outlying areas of the system. Born from the created Technocyte biomophic virus, they assimilate living matter and turning it to their control, and from actions of certain characters in the universe, have begun to be able to fully assimilate mechanical entities as well, making it even more dangerous to all life in the System. What is unique is that Tenno are seemingly immune to the Technocyte virus, either due to the mysterious effects of the void, or by design.
THE GRINEER: An empire of clones borne from their revolt against their Orokin masters during the Collapse, they are a dying race (kept alive with heavy use of cybernetics), driven to find whatever measures they can to stave off clone gene decay over the millenia of gene replication (often coined as replicative fading by Star Trek:TNG) and to exert their power and authority over all they can reach, their numbers easily in the billions or even more and are commanded by the Twin Queens. They are highly xenophobic against anyone not Grineer (as they see them as impure un-Grineer gene stock), and a major enemy to the player and the rest of the system as enemies to the Corpus and the free peoples left from the Collapse and subsequent centuries since.
THE CORPUS: Remnants of Orokin high and middle mercantile classes, the Corpus are a large mercantile conglomerate that worship profit above all else. Masters of robotics and proxy warfare (drones, etc), their one goal in this post-Orokin world is to see profit and growth bloom, and are at direct odds to any that oppose this, from the Grineer's militaristic authoritarian xenophobic drive, to entities that are not as profit-driven as they are. By some interpretations, the Corpus are the Orokin, or what is left of them. Closest out-of-Warframe analogy would be Star Trek's Ferengi, if the Ferengi were actually dangerously competent.
I can add more entries as people request them. I hope I have kept it as spoiler-free as possible, and have stuck to what can be found in Codex entries and/or past Events of Warframe's 5-year history.
Warframe: A lore primer
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KazumaKnot
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Spoiler-centric lore video by one of the chief "lore archimedians" of the Warframe community, StallordD. His work is nigh-foundational to any aspirant loremonger newly introduced to Warframe and its unique universe, as both reference material and as stepping stones to dive deeper from.
Again, video links and information below is SPOILER territory. You have been warned!
Again, video links and information below is SPOILER territory. You have been warned!
The Stream
[!NoRest & !NoRestThoughts] No Rest For The Wicked - !STARFORGE @starforgesystems
Watch Live on Twitch
Watch Live on Twitch
