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The new content brings me questions and interpretations I will write down here to remember and eventually to correct.
Is it me or Ordis is out of character? Ordis is going to hide from the Operator the fact that Stalker came to the orbiter and left with Umbra? Iâm not sure⊠the whole over explanation of that scene was awful too.
Whatâs the reason we have protoframes here? I only played the main quest, and nothing more, so I have no idea about the new protoframes, their lore [beside Ash leverian], or why they need to be with Orion and Sirus. And donât get me wrong, I love the protoframes as a concept, but I can only see the 1999 ones being the good ones. The Triad felt super disconnected, and in here⊠I donât even know why they are present. The obvious thing for me is that they exist to âspeakâ, because the kids cannot [although in the whole quest the baby screams and makes sounds, so⊠I donât know]. Another question that naturally comes to me is who made them? Is this Entratiâs work again? Or what? Why these kids need these protoframes? And how they communicate? I can understand Ash and Sirus relationship as mentor-student somehow⊠but Vena with Orion? They are lovers? And never shared a word? XD
The âdoomed futureâ. We are told that these kids came from doomed futures because âthe tennoâ, if I donât remember wrongly. So it could imply that every world that had tennos was meant to have a âdoomed futureâ, aka the kids will be fighting each other eternally. Somehow the protoframes are also locked in an eternal fight. Why? With what reason? Why this is a fault of the tenno? Nothing makes much sense. Did the tenno go extinct and the warframes got mad and massacred the whole human race in all the systems? The Man in the Wall took control of everything and only 2 warframes and 2 protoframes remained? Why is this future a âdoomed oneâ? We are talking about Warframe, warframe is a very fucked up world, âdoomed futureâ is its bread and butter.
Hunhow sacrifice: I donât know, man. On one hand I see they tried to make Hunhow lose his personality, which lore-wise made sense: we donât have the xenoflora anymore; he should have been lost his individuality long time ago. The same can be said about Lotus, but she has a line that may imply that she endures her individuality [and her war against Wally] thanks to the tenno; her purpose and her desire to protect them is enough to keep her still herself. This cannot be said about Hunhow, who feels defeated: his daughter left, betrayed his kind, and fought him in more than one opportunity. His son is dead and his body is used as an outfit by Pazuul. Hunhow lost all what he could grasp to stay himself without the xenoflora. So we see he returns to his old self, the one previous to the world, the âfarmerâ [but I have the impression they made him the Carpenter mixing up the information Natah gave us in Ropalolyst: Her mother was the carpenter, her father the farmer]. In any case, Hunhow returns to a terraforming servant sentient âcrafterâ of the worlds who was happy to see humans populate the homes he made.
Why did he sacrifice? In the beginning I was understanding he sacrificed himself because the kids of Stalker. Which makes no sense, why would he do such a thing for these guys? Stalker was always a convenient ally, not his son, so why? This made me remember the first minutes of the quest: if I donât remember wrongly, he says all the info in this quest cannot be known by Operator or Natah. Thatâs why the PoV on this quest is 99% Stalker and 1% Umbra [poor humiliated guy]. Hunhow explains that âNatah cannot know there is no other future but doomed onesâ because she has to believe in a good future [I suppose to keep being herself? It is part of what keeps Natahâs individuality, I guess]. In another line Hunhow said that these futures are doomed âbecause the tennoâ. No more explanation. So my interpretation is that, as long as we live in an alternative future where the tenno exist, itâs a doomed future, therefore: all doomed futures are a direct consequence of Natahâs actions. And knowing this will destroy Natah, because all her efforts and all her silent fights, and her betrayal, all would have been for nothing. And that may end up with Natah losing her personality or maybe just giving up to Wally. So, I assume [and Iâm being very kind with the quest because itâs not exactly written in a way that brings this conclusion easily] is that Hunhow is sacrificing himself to craft a timeline where these kids can exist in a future that is not doomed: a future that will keep his daughter still herself.
Itâs very confusing because the âfutureâ that we see in this dream of Stalker is not a future per se, itâs â peaceâ, but impossible to get it by now and full of nonsense: we have several paradoxical creatures in the same space and time: the 4 kids. You have nonsense of âwarframes eating and drinking teaâ when we KNOW they cannot because they have no mouth [detail highlighted in Loid conversation]. We have all this cooking bullshit. All this is a dream, itâs a possibility of what could have been if war never happened, if Tau could have been a success, and Sorren and Jade never were warframed, and could have a family like that. Itâs a future that is not a possibility, but it brings âpeaceâ. So, more than a âfutureâ it is, in fact, a whole symbol dreamt in Stalkerâs mind [this reminds me the golden gardens Operator can walk inside Umbraâs mind to finally calm him down]. So, whatâs the point of this nonsensical scene without any potentiality to become true? Is hunhow âcalmingâ down stalker and his kids as Operator did in The Sacrifice? Ughhhh I donât know man, I feel all that is so out of the blue; only chars with transference abilities can do that, and sure Hunhow was exposed to the Void in his travel from Tau, but⊠câmon. Lotus should be able to do transference as well, then. Since Triad, we had these bullshit situations where other ppl with no Transference abilities [Lyon and Marie] could walk inside the mind of another protoframe [Roathe]. So Iâm more inclined to think this interpretation is not entirely correct.
But returning to the point: the sacrifice is for Stalkerâs kids, but it may have the hidden intention of saving Natah. Again, would have cost much cinematic to add a line that will imply at the end of his cheap pre-sacrifice monologue to hint this was his intention? Because honestly, it makes NO sense for Hunhow to exclusively sacrifice himself, his personality, all what he became due to the war, for his allyâs kids. Why would he care? Sure he claims he carry regrets with his people and children, but câmon.
The Sacrifice as a Deal. This is one of the most shocking implications for me. Hunhow needs the 3 kids [2 adults from the doomed future and the one we picked in the game as a baby], Stalker and Umbra [????? why him?] together to use a âspark of Voidâ. When we pick the Spark of Void, we see a series of situations where the kids are beating each other. We KNOW these cinematic. Itâs what we saw with the operator, and itâs what Red Baro implied: all the alternatives, all the possibilities are joined into one. All the options are destroyed so one, and only one remains. Therefore, what I assume itâs happening here is that the Spark of Void merged all those doomed futures into one, and itâs the one we are going to play. The only one that Natah needs to believe in. A non-doomed future, that is not the crap we dreamt. What bothered me is that the asset they used is a Sentient Core. Are they telling us that the Void Spark, the ability to merge all the alternatives into one is a Sentience core? Sentient cores are made of Void but The sentients cannot cross the Void without being deeply hurt by it? Sentients were always creatures which essence is Void itself? And Lotus is trying to hybridise humans with Void-based creatures? Someone is thinking that Void-based creatures are a problem if we want to fight Wally?
And what shocked me the most: Hunhow implies this sacrifice is a Deal, a Bargain, with Wally, implying THIS is what allowed Lotus to hide the moon in the Void: a bargain, a deal, with the Man in the Wall, and she paid it with⊠a sentient core? Her sentient core? Something of great cost.
Paradoxical inconsistency: This is something I personally hate with all my heart and so far I didnât see an explanation in the quest; why Orion and Sirus can exist in the same place at the same time, without having paradox issues, while the operator and the Drifter cannot unless they are close to the Void [Sanctum Anatomica] or in the Void itself [Zariman]?
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This is why Pride is not just a party. It's a joyful celebration, but it's also a pointed and colourful two-finger salute to a world that stood back whilst so many of us died. And we'll never go quietly, never again.
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tragic when a thing gets hate for being 'woke trash' and you look into it and its not even that woke. like cmon man i was promised monacle popping gay commie propaganda. this is just a video game with a woman in it.
i DO believe that a good writer can make mischaracterization work. oh there's a character who doesn't normally cry? figure it out!! disect the character. make the situation cryable for them. make that character cry ugly tears even if it goes against their very nature. YOU CAN MAKE IT WORK!!!
A great piece of advice I've seen is "Don't fixate about what the character would never do. Think about the circumstances that would drive them to do this, even if they wouldn't normally."
My gosh, you are so right... I forgot that humilliating moment... Poor Umbra! A fantasy/dream of an alternative future that never existed, that may exist, and had no Umbra in it, trying to heal his broken fatherly heart with a new family, since he worked like an uncle or something in this quest, lol.
Joke aside, I still wonder WHAT made Stalker to ask for help to Umbra. Let's think for a moment as if this quest were serious and went serious onto the lore. So far I remember, Umbra was a high rank Dax warrior. Sorren was a "low guardian" [so, non-Dax?]. Orokin society always gave the impression of being very "caste"-based, so how did they know each other? Was Jade a Dax warrior? So maybe through her they knew each other? A missed oportunity to see Jade in another light since I scrap from all what I could read ingame that she was very Paladin-coded [she is related after all with the Jade Light: a death sentence judgement for only the highest of the orokin society], I would have loved to see her in action before the warframe process].
Two years ago, I made a forum post critiquing the handling and implementation of Jade's character in the original Jade Shadows quest. With the sequel quest now out, I have... a lot of thoughts. This is a more detailed and thought-out critique in regards to my last post.
TL;DR: I wanted to like this quest. I truly did. I was incredibly hyped to see a continuation of the Jade Shadows plotline - My many critiques of it in the past have come from a place of love for these characters and the story. Unfortunately, this quest has seemingly doubled-down on a lot of the issues I raised in my first post. I have come away from this quest feeling very much the same as I did for the original: A mixture of confusion, sadness and anger, and not in the ways the quest intended.
This post will not be a discussion of the actual gameplay, bugs, or the new modes. This discussion pertains solely to the actual story content of Jade Shadows: Constellations, and is not intended as an attack on the developers, despite the heavy subject matter I will be diving into. I aim to discuss the execution of the story, as well as examining the intended themes and how they are ultimately implemented. With this disclaimer out of the way...
Heavy spoilers for Jade Shadows: Constellations below!
1. The Pacing
The pacing of Warframe has, unfortunately, been an ongoing issue for the last few quests. Particularly in the case of these smaller updates, the limitation of the quest length and updates are really doing a disservice to the stories being told here. Quests like Jade Shadows, Constellations and the Old Peace are attempting to tackle very interesting and very complex subject matter. This is admirable, and I think diving into these story themes are actually super interesting places to take Warframe's story beyond the end of The New War. There has always been space within Warframe's story for explorations of interpersonal conflicts - Umbra and The Sacrifice, as well as the whole deal with Lotus' identity and her relationship to the Tenno. However, I've noticed there being an increased focused on... More personal storytelling, I suppose? I point to things such as the relationship between Loid and Albrecht, as well as the continued use of protoframes as a vector to explore more interpersonal themes amidst the framing of a wider conflict. Whilst this has been contentious amongst some players, this is not the aim of the post or this section - I generally like this idea of utilising a wider conflict to tell personalised stories. This applies to Jade Shadows, as well as Constellations. The setup of navigating grief, parenthood, love and sacrifice are all themes I think are worthy of exploration.
Unfortunately, however, these themes are not given room to breathe within the story.
The pacing of Jade Shadows: Constellations, does a heavy disservice to what DE is seemingly trying to do here. I can see the intentions clearly throughout the quest, but the limitation of this being a 30-40 minute quest unfortunately hamper a lot of the impact this could have had. The quest moves at what feels like a million miles per hour, and this breakneck pace means story moments do not have much time to sit with the player, or allow us to really think about what we're experiencing. The whole quest feels heavily railroaded as a result, and it feels rather unsatisfying to play through. To highlight a few points:
The Jade Spectre. We get little time to really process the Void Manifestation of Jade, or see Stalker's reaction to it. The void has taken the form of someone he loved and grieves for, and is attempting to lure him in, yet... We're given no real time to let the weight of that sink in. She appears, and we're immediately launched into a bossfight with what is essentially just a Jade Spectre whilst voicelines play over the fight. We kill the Spectre, grab the item we came for, and are rushed to leave by Hunhow. This is a moment that could have had a lot of impact, and would have been a good place to really highlight Stalker's lingering grief over the loss of his lover, but we simply don't get it.
The mentors. In terms of the quest itself... I do not get the inclusion of the protoframes as mentors. We get very little information in the quest as to why the protoframes are involved, their motives, etc, and they actively rob the two brothers of agency as characters. They act as vectors speaking on behalf of the brothers, but ultimately give very little in terms of fleshing out the personality of the two and their distinctive motivations. I think the story would have been served better if their inclusion had been relegated to purely post-quest content, in the way the Devil's Triad are mostly divorced from the content of The Old Peace, and the brothers being allowed to speak for themselves. Establish their personalities and motives, the way their upbringings have shaped them, etc.
The stand-off between Umbra and the Brothers. Leading off from the above, Hunhow's urgency about Stalker retrieving the Void item leads directly into this moment. We are told directly that directing the Stalker to abandon the hideout and seek the item, leaving Umbra to babysit (I will discuss Umbra's inclusion later because I have a lot to say about it), was a grave decision, and now Umbra and the child are in danger. I think an actual story mission here would have served the overall quest better than what we got. A quick perspective shift, such as a defense mission (as a quick, off the top of my head suggestion), would help further establish the stakes of Sirius and Orion actively hunting them down, and justify Hunhow's urgency in the preceding mission.
2. The continued underutilisation of Umbra
And... onto Umbra. I think the fact Umbra is here is actually really cool. Pretty much from the instant Ordis mentioned him back in the original quest, I, and a lot of other players, have been interested to see more of Umbra. His inclusion here, unfortunately, does not do enough to really explore his character. The fact he is in this quest is a genuinely interesting setup, and I'm not going to claim he was merely included as fanservice. His position as a father, and a fully autonomous unit of his own right, makes him a really good fit for this quest. However, as it currently stands, he continues to be woefully underutilised by the story. I was incredibly excited to see him being the individual Stalker was seeking help from, but was left thoroughly disappointed to see his role in the quest was to remain mostly off-screen, taking care of the baby whilst Stalker goes on the hunt. We get to control him for less than a minute of actual gameplay, after which he remains mostly as a prop in the background. The implications of Stalker seeking him out specifically go unaddressed, despite the potential that carries - Umbra was a father in his previous life, and was himself a victim of Ballas' particular cruelty. There are parallels between his fate, and that of Jade and the Stalker, and I think it was a missed opportunity (and another victim of the quest's heavily truncated length) that these implications were not explored.Â
3. The implications of Jade's story
This part is where I admit my own biases: I love Jade. She is by far my favourite Warframe, and has been since she was introduced. She was actually what brought me back to the game after a years-long hiatus, and I find her character and theming incredibly interesting. That being said, however... I have also been rather uncomfortable with her implementation in the story from the word go, and Constellations has done little to assuage my discomfort with how she was handled. Whilst I'm not intending to repeat everything I've previously said about her implementation, I think it's important to discuss the ongoing issues with her implementation, and the implications of how she was utilised.
Put simply, Constellations has not resolved the lingering issue of Jade being mostly devoid of agency, existing as a vector through which the characters around her develop. Her role in the story is reduced simply to a woman who gave birth and died, imparting trauma and leaving Stalker with a child to raise on his lonesome. Jade is continually denied her own personhood and character outside of the tiny snippets she is given in Constellations and Jade's Promise, and exists as (now quite literally) a spectre to haunt the narrative, which I cannot see as anything other than a rather upsetting squandering of her character at best, and playing right into some rather upsetting storytelling tropes at worst. The story continues to treat Jade as almost an afterthought, with the final nail in the coffin being the ending of this quest. This entire quest is predicated on Eternalism, the idea that any and all opportunities are equally true - Hunhow's sacrifice is framed as a way to protect the brothers, to save both the child we chose from death, and the one we didn't from being born into a broken future. It is the entire framework of the quest: We must keep the peace and save the brothers from suffering. Yet, this leaves me with one question: Why is Jade excluded from this? Why can't we protect her? Why must her fate always be to die?Â
Her story, however unintentionally, falls into the very same trope that DE attempted to use Parvos to critique: A woman's purpose is to provide a child, and once that is done, there is no use for her. She is put aside and pulled out as shock factor (the Spectre fight) or as a memory to drive the development of the male main character. It's a, frankly, baffling decision to double down on this idea, whilst simultaneously granting Stalker and the brothers a happ(ier) ending, emphasising the need for unity and love. This leads me into...
4. The themes of Sacrifice
It's clear that a key theme in this story is sacrifice. I don't necessarily disagree with having sacrifice as a core theme of this plot, but the way in which the story goes about exploring this theme is something I feel massively contributes to the problems outlined above. This section will mostly focus on the ways Jade, Hunhow and the Stalker embody the themes of sacrifice. This is more of my own personal opinion regarding the themes and how they were handled, so take this with a grain of salt.
Jade
I've gone into it above already, so I'll spare an exhaustive repeat of everything. Jade's character can essentially be boiled down to a mother dying for the sake of ensuring her child will live. She was, for all intents and purposes, fridged for the sake of developing other characters. Her sacrifice plays into outdated storytelling tropes, and she isn't given enough screentime or character development of her own right to make her sacrifice carry significant amount of weight. She gave the child the gift of herself, but all we have to know Jade by are a few memory feathers and lines of dialogue. This undermines the impact of her sacrifice, and makes it all seem rather hollow. She really just needed a little bit more time to be herself, not just a memory of Stalker's perfect wife.Â
Hunhow
Hunhow's sacrifice is... bittersweet to me. I'm not sure how I feel about it. In theory, I think it works... But the memory loss is a double-edged sword. It represents his growth beyond self-serving needs, the very thing that led him to make the mistakes he did with Natah and Erra, yet... It effectively wipes the slate clean, and this essentially removes the memory of his wrongdoing and resets him to a past save point. Time will tell here, I think, to see just how much he remembers of his children, the war, everything to do. I think it's a conceptually neat idea of having him finally break the cycle and prioritise unity after what he did to his own kin, but I can't lie and say the nature of his sacrifice here doesn't worry me somewhat.
Stalker
Out of everyone I think should have embodied the theme of sacrifice, it should have been Stalker. Stalker's character and situation would serve as a great vector to highlight a form of sacrifice that doesn't come with the same drastic consequences of Jade and Hunhow's. Here, I'm referring to his hatred of the Tenno, and how it interacts with his newly-found fatherhood. To an extent, he has already been forced into a situation where he's had to choose to put aside his hatred in the original quest... Yet it isn't followed through. He still hunts the Tenno, despite now having a child to take care of. He still hates the Tenno and vehemently rejects the idea of reaching out for their help in Constellations. The only concession we get with his hatred is that he spares any Tenno using Jade as their chosen Warframe. I think focusing the story harder on his internal struggle to let go of his grudges and focus on his family would suit the theme of sacrifice better, and potentially dodge the more troubling implications imparted on the characters around him. His sacrifice is one of his convictions - Does he continue to hunt the Tenno and seek revenge for what happened before? Or does he choose to let go of that, even though he hasn't satisfied his grudge, in order to focus on taking care of the family he didn't know he had? As it currently stands, the quests do not do an adequate job in addressing this part of Stalker's story, despite his focal point as the main character of these quests. This is also in part due to the truncated length of the quest, but I do also think the writing itself is opting to shift the idea of sacrifice onto the surrounding characters, rather than using it as a personal vector to inspire Stalker's growth.Â
Concluding Thoughts
I realise here that my points about these characters and their roles in embodying themes are, in a sense, jumping the gun. It's obvious from how the story left off, that this is not a concluded plotline. We will likely be revisiting the plot points of this quest at a later date. Hunhow's new dialogue referencing Tau seems to be setting up for our eventual return to it. As it stands, though, Constellations is unfortunately a rather substantial miss for me. It had the potential to reiterate on some of the flaws of the original quest, but has missed the mark in some places, and doubled-down on said flaws in others. Some of these flaws, namely that of the pacing, pervade other story quests in Warframe, but it is the sheer scope that Constellations tries to aim for that really draws attention to them in this particular scenario.
I'd like to re-emphasise that I mean none of this as a personal attack on the developers. I care very deeply about this particular story and these particular characters, and I was genuinely looking forward to the continuation of the Jade Shadows storyline. This post is intended purely as constructive criticism and analysis of the story's themes and pacing. If you've made it this far: Thank you for putting up with my yapping.
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i think my issue with a lot of newer warframe content is that it all wants to be the new war in terms of scope, or like 1999 in the number of likeable new cast members it adds. but liek in chasing that impact it falls short because 1999 only really succeeded due to how whispers in the wall set it up.
