Chell_N7

I have been wanting to write all this out for a while but its a long thread to follow because I am a lunatic and can't stop thinking about Warframe lore. This is very long... kind of thought it might be easier to just make a video will me talking about it. But whatever, get your tin foil hat!

Note: I DID NOT INTENT FOR THIS TO BE THIS LONG! In this over 2000 word essay I will write.... I think I honestly think I should have just made a video.

Mainly, the fact that Rebel Alliance cannot even dream of the highly concentrated chaos and number of extraordinary characters that follow the Outlander, and how mind-blowing their discipline in serious situation is.

Not even multi-class aus where two and more PCs join EA, just the canon one is such a disaster in the making, but it never (LS Commander) blows.

We know Arcann and Vaylin and Valkorion bever stood a chance at beating these gremlins, they literally sent the two least stealthy parties on a stealth mission of top priority while their commander is yelling at voices in his head out in the woods (and is scolded by mother jedi and darth dad). Mon Mothma thought Rogue One was too uncontrollable by going after Death Star plans? One of Commander's closest allies just stole the main and most important ship in the fleet. There's a part rakhgoul and a Hutt designing our weapons. There's a Jedi sitting in the swamp; a jawa on the loose.

[Spoilers!]

The houses obviously are just wall parts of the Zariman, arranged to look like settlements/towns. The same goes for many of the harvestable plants, that also mimic Zariman design elements (especially noticeable with the cactus-like Ueymag, that has an unnaturally symmetrical shape, mimicking the often repeated tuning fork-shape).

Duviri has multiple bioms, plains, snowy mountains, a desert, but they are all way too small to exist naturally.

All this paints the picture of a world created by the mind of a child, who might have never seen anything else but the inside of a spaceship. They might have never seen other architecture, so all houses have to look like they were ripped straight out of the Zariman's structure. They know that mountains and deserts exist, but they do not understand their scale, so they become just one more small piece of Duviri. Just like cartographs back in history they fill the unknown of their world with set pieces and the skeletal structures found all over Duviri lend themselves for a comparison to this "Here there be dragons" mindset.

Children build and recreate what they know all the time to learn and better understand it, but also to express their wishes and creativity. This gives the idea of a child, confined in space, wishing to get to be somewhere else, visiting the places they have heard of.

We get to see quite a few rather large settlements in Duviri, but the amount of houses and people does not seem to match. In general, only very few people seem to be roaming the streets. This is not an adult doing extensive worldbuilding, this is a child with a lot of building blocks but very few dolls building a world on which they can project their emotions and memories onto.

Most of Duviris normal inhabitants are just decorations, not existing to be characters, but because a town "needs to have people in it". They are not defined by who they are, but by what they do- and what they do is react to the player, sit around, talk and cower in fear when enemies approach.

The simple shapes of the buildings are very close to the concept of real life building blocks. Paedagogic toys often are simple, to allow for easy handling and more creative freedom.

The theme of death is also omnipresent. Every animal resembles a carcass build from metal plating and even the Dax enemies are skeleton-like, the Gladius' helmets lower part even resembling a rabbit skull. We obviously know how the story of the Zariman ended and the skulls and bones might be just an indicator of potential danger, but what if the skeletal design of Duviri's inhabitants are not supposed to indicate not (just) death, but an infinished state? They are walking skeletons, yet missing a skin, their shape, just like the fractured bodies of the townspeople, not fully formed out in the child's head. Since the townspeople are humanoid though, they look more finished, while all the child might have ever seen of sheep, cats, dogs, horses and owls could have very well been just pictures in a school book, maybe next to a diagram of their underlying anatomy (after all, one of the few things we get to experience of the daily life on the Zariman, is school).

Two simps with similar faces are arguing about who is the bigger simp

depends on the art style you're going for! in general i like to simplify the design for myself first to get the feel of a warframe's shapes/silhouette and aesthetics then add more to it when i feel comfortable :) i literally do this by making a low-effort scribble based on what are the most obvious things i see at first glance. using lavos as an example because i'm most familiar with him + he's one of the more complicated designs

first row: find the obvious shapes, ignoring anatomical accuracy or details just whatever sticks out the most. trace the shapes, become familiar with them, and draw your simplified version! for simpler frames like excalibur, you can prod a bit further and go to actual line details like his "mouth" if they're obvious

second row: recognise the silhouette. people call lavos a bulky frame and to an extent that's true - he has gloves, boots, a lab coat, vials on his shoulders and hips, and the snakes on his arms. but if you take his silhouette you realise that he's actually quite lean! a lot of warframes due to their detail can come off as having weird shapes but silhouettes help point out further key features. for example, when i first drew lavos i didn't notice at first that he had two flaps on the back of his head! negative space also helps to recognise a warframe - the tubes behind his head helps define his shape more so whenever i draw lavos' head i try to make his tubes stand out.

when you have the above down, then you can stretch and skew the warframe's proportions to your liking :D

i find painting warframes easier than lining them for obvious reasons lol, easier to get away with messy scribbles and adding/erasing lines until they fit rather than drawing every detail accurately

YES ABSOLUTELY!! the bodies of warframes are usually the busiest because the fact is there's a lot of room to play around, whereas the heads have to be simpler in detail but also distinct in shape so we can still recognise that part AS a head/face to identify.

chances are if you're rushing a doodle or chibi or whatever of a warframe, you'll probably detail their head and can get away with keeping the rest of their body as an empty blob. but the reverse won't work, especially with earlier frames. someone could easily mistake mag and nova's bodies, or excalibur and loki's, but you wouldn't be able to confuse their helmets with each other, especially excalibur who famously has his horn in almost all his helmets.

That man thanks he is Jesus on mount Golgotha about to suffer for all of humanity. Literally everything he does is because he's fighting a war that's in his head.

I don't know if he fears that the Indifference will get to anyone who knows about it or he thinks he's the only one who's strong enough to fight it.

It's so intriguing to me that it deftly implies such a long, bloody argument between them. And Albrecht seems to have shut down Loid's take completely, which raises the question--is Albrecht just that fucking dense, or does he have knowledge the player doesn't about why it can only be him? Feel like it's gonna be a little bit of both.

I think the knowledge he has is not what we don't know - it's that the mitw torments and haunts him but he can't do or say anything about it. In the og Albrecht notes he talks how everyone who has void traveled has NOT seen the "other" like he has and I think that's at the crux of his bizarre actions. He is haunted by his own creation and now he is the only one who can tame it.

First was grief. Regret. Feeling ashamed and monstrous and wicked. Crying at night because they had loved their parents and now they were gone, and it was their fault. Directly. That's a lot for a kid to handle.

But with Scleritas whispering in their ear, and the threat of Bhaal hanging over their head, the grief becomes fear. Terror, that it might happen again. They stay away from people they knew before, kids or adults who knew them in Baldur's Gate. Maybe they can't resist the urge but they can at least ensure they don't hurt anyone they love. Maybe they can control themselves. Maybe they can keep their wretched body still. Maybe they will not be the instrument of pure death and chaos and evil incarnate.

But then the only companionship they have is Scleritas Fel, and he's a wicked little creature, constantly bringing the worst out of them. And as time passes and they live their life in isolation, that terror starts to fade, as do memories of love and friendship and kindness. And the urge is impossible to totally ignore. So where before they felt intense guilt or fear, now there's no feeling at all. And since they're so distant from other living beings, people start looking like meat puppets to them. Empty dolls of blood and viscera and mucus. No longer the feeling of home, but carcasses in the making.

And you know, I don't think leading the Temple of Bhaal would help. I can see the Dark Urge completely forgetting about their old life, and the warm feelings of intimacy and affection. How long can you go through life feeling afraid or numb? Maybe the only joy they could find was in embracing their urge. In dedicating their life to Daddy, to the point where they had a crippling fear of disappointing him. If they couldn't be happy, then they could at least be perfect. They could at least have purpose. They were once afraid of how monstrous they could be. Now, they aren't.

But then.

they meet Gortash.

and it's like... well.

Durgetash is, at its core, love spun on its edge and ripped open with fangs.

It is two vicious creatures, being soft with one another, but not soft like the fur of a puppy or the heads of dandelions, but soft like carrion, like the lining of a coffin, like the whisper of the morgue.

But it is still love.

And how would the Dark Urge react? Well, unloved beast that they are, I would imagine it would sneak up on them. Neither they, nor Gortash, seem as though they have even an ounce of love or compassion in their bodies. So they can be at ease with one another, surely? Nothing about Gortash is soft or gentle the way they vaguely remember love being. So they think they're safe.

And that was a mistake. Because they haven't felt safe since they were a child. So he became their first step backwards. After years of constantly moving forward (because if they stop moving, they fear that they might die).

And it gets worse, because the more they admire him, the more they enjoy their time together, the stronger their alliance becomes... the more dangerous it feels.

Hence the prayer of forgiveness.

The Dark Urge would have to reassure father that they were still strong and obedient. They would tell him that it wasn't love, because they are not capable of it, not anymore. Gortash is just... an ally. Just an asset. A pawn, like everyone else. A meat sack.

But they're lying.

Gortash was the first crack in their armor. They had no one for so long. They needed him. Wanted him. Could only be with him at all because he had the same goals as them, and they could use them as an excuse, a shield, against the idea that they were in love or attached.

And then we get to the amnesia... the reset... the rebirth. And...

The Dark Urge starts again. They unlearned all of their pain, their agony, their sadomasochism. They find friends. And lovers. And they find comrades in arms. They find a hero within themselves, one that could not live alongside the evil built into their very blood.

And they embrace love, even though it means death.

Even if it means being obliterated, they welcome the end of all things, over returning to the loneliness of before.

And it's lovely. It's a fascinating idea to me, the dark urge and their relationship with love.

I am obsessed with the idea of a character who is not saved by love, but destroyed by it.

Someone who cannot embrace love and become stronger like all the other protagonists of the world. Someone who does the exact opposite. They want to love, but have learned it will only hurt those who could love a wretched creature like themselves. And it will only break them in the end.

But when given the chance to start all over... this time, they are not alone. This time, they have the strength to do what is necessary. The bonds that hold them together just as they pull them apart.

Friends, I'm sorry for the rambling.

Because I've always felt both are incredibly intelligent but in different ways, the Operator knows all these Orokin mannerisms and ideals, they're calm, collected, they have emotional outbursts when in serious situations but are normally incredibly calm and they in the end never get so pissed it causes problems, they understand their weapons perfectly, they are probably more comfortable piloting a warframe then they are walking around themselves

The drifter while less intelligent in fields of study they make up for it in something the Operator does not have, being far more willing to take risks and being physically stronger and also extremely quick on their feet, still incredibly intelligent and even grasp many ideas the Operator cant, such as how Durviri works, how the Zariman can be a meeting point for the two, then theres also their ability to survive, they Survived Durviri and set up camp in the woods and Survived there for a long time, alone, outside of Ordis and a near dead Lotus, they crafted their own weapons, own gear, own tools, they didn't have magic void powers but they were absolutely going nuts and dropping grineer, corpus, even killed off two sentient prime warframe hybrids with a bow and arrow and their own wits to stay alive

The Operator is a more classic intelligence, this proper and well mannered void child and the Drifter is a more survival smarts person, sure they cant do all the fancy stuff or fully understand a warframe like the Operator but they don't need the Warframe to survive, they're a capable fighter without and with the warframe

Why thank you so much <3 I am absolutely not normal about these two and I’m always glad to hear that people enjoy that lol

You are absolutely right, they are both intelligent in those, different ways and yet still somewhat manage to seem like the same original person due to subtle personality ques. The reason behind the differences is likely due to their upbringing. Like the whole nature & nurture instead of the “or” argument.

Like you said the operator lends a lot of their calmness and manners to the orokin’s rule. Their training during the old war would have demanded them to be so as well as discipline towards combat. Their difficulties with managing their void powers as well as their youth could contribute to those outbursts you mentioned. The fact that they are more skilled and comfortable in the warframes is cause of the sheer amount of time they were in them as well as the time spent in the second dream after their re-awakening. And personally, I believe that part of it is also an escape from their trauma as well as someone to share and heal from the pain with (the warframes themselves as who they used to be).

As for the drifter, they were all alone with nothing more than books and videos and whatever was left on the zariman as they were never rescued. Without much to answer to discipline would take time to acquire and would have mostly been from their survival. They learned a lot of those skills you mentioned on the job and in a similar way it was their situation that demanded that of them. And they took of the mantle insanely well.

But without any real people to answer to, (only ever having people they brought to life from a book) they would not have needed to adopt the same manners. They could just be themselves in any situation and still get the job done which made them a lot more carefree in the end.

I absolutely love these characters more than I ever thought I would and I love trying to get inside their heads (and there is no short of subtleties to sort through for that) and based on what I’ve noticed from them, I think you got them down pact.