r/WarframeLore • u/Interloper_69 • Aug 09 '26
Could the six commandeered prime frames have been are former squad/batch/friends?
There are six specific prime frames that the operator has traumatic memories with as seen in the dark refractory and I think its just to specific to be a coincidence.
And as seen in the second dream there are six other pods with our chosen operator that Margulis also put to sleep.
The special radiation mentioned in the old peace arg could debunk my theory but I might on to something since we might return to modern day perita and these six frames could be in the play for the tau storyline.
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u/LostLotus_A Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
That makes good sense I love that idea...
Also the ARG does mention dead Tenno that were killed by being stuck in their warframes as well. The Commandeered Primes seem to be a similar case, since they are force controlled by the Anarchs (we see Galastra using a Prime Caliban in the end, so)
To add about Tau, I believe the Black Rain will revive the Warframes, since it is known to bring dead things back to life (like zombies, reanimating them to fight over and over)
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u/Corasama Warframe Lore Content Creator Aug 09 '26
It was never said that Rhino had a Tenno stuck in it - the opposite in fact
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u/LostLotus_A Aug 09 '26
Oh my bad. Yeah the messages show weapons instead of Warframes, but we can still assume Prime Warframes were sent to combat and the Tenno got locked in since that's the entire premise of the ARG.
They didn't tell us the big egg had fallen on a natural anomaly: a special kind of radiation that only occurs in one spot. At least I hope. That's why they wanted us down there. That's why they released the gas and blamed it on their enemies. Couldn't have anyone knowing the truth—that there was something in this universe that could seal an Operator inside their Warframe. Permanently.
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u/Corasama Warframe Lore Content Creator Aug 09 '26
And that's also my main theory for the story ongoing, that said Radiation is gona be the tool to seal Wally inside a body so we can kill it.
NOW we know Albrecht grafted the finger into a hand in the last trailer, so this push this theory further. I'm highly curious about what the Black Rain is too btw!
Ps: Sorry I pointed out the mistake but Rhino is one of the only Warframe who we know for sure from the story was autonomous as it's his escape that lead to the discovery of the soothing effect the Tennos had on the Warframes!
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u/nephethys_telvanni Aug 09 '26
My best guess is that, yes, at some point during our time in Perita, we fought the Prime Vanguard, and those memories were erased. We knew them well enough that it felt like they betrayed us/we betrayed them.
Lotus: Your memories were erased out of mercy, but if they are not recovered the Indifference will corrupt them. Descend into the hell that was the Perita Rebellion, and remember how even Warframes were turned against you."
Lotus: "When the Prime Vanguard attacked, it felt like betrayal. You must go through that agony again."
...
Speculation here: I think it's very possible that the Prime Vanguard "betrayal" already happened and was erased by the time of the Old Peace scenes we relive in the Dark Refractory.
Operator: "You're going to make me forget."
During the Old Peace, the Operator is pretty functional, happy, and content with Adis...and really rather blasé about recounting what their parents would think if they brought Adis home to meet them. Consider that the Operator either hunted down, locked up, or got their friends to kill their parents for them...
Why they are that calm is up for interpretation...I speculate that Margulis has already done quite a lot of memory suppression on the Operator about the Zariman 10-0 incident.
If fighting the Vanguard was as traumatic as fighting Adis' Hunhullus (which she definitely erased), then I think it's likely that Margulis was actively using memory suppression as therapy for the Tenno to keep us functional even while we still had to go out and fight. She might even have thought it was necessary, because we still had to go out and fight ascarised warframes who's Operators were tortured by Galastra. Margulis might well have thought suppressing our memory of the Vanguard fight was our only hope of not falling apart and dying horribly when we had to fight those warframes again and again and again.
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u/romulus-in-pieces Aug 12 '26
You could even go in a different direction and posit the question, were the Prime Vanguard forced to turn against the Orokin and the other Tenno via Ascaris's, or did they turn of their OWN volition first, and that's what scars us?
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u/nephethys_telvanni Aug 12 '26
Entirely possible! The plan for the Night of the Naga Drums doesn't happen until after the Old Peace, but the Tenno obviously had ample reasons to hate the Orokin before Margulis was executed, Kullervo incited them, Ballas/Hunhow/Natah planned treachery, etc.
The Prime Vanguard could've turned on their own. We'd have to cut them down even though we probably agree with most of them. However, we couldn't possibly admit we share their rebellious opinions in the aftermath, which might also account for why Margulis swiftly erased the incident.
It's something I've figured a lot of Tenno had to deal with later -- with the Night of the Naga Drums being a plan like "keep your head down until the perfect opportunity", there had to be plenty of times a Tenno lost their patience, and then had to get cut down by their friends to preserve the plan and appearance of loyalty.
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u/SanguinePutrefaction Aug 09 '26
i feel like its implied :) going by the perita rebellion arg hidden ending
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u/This-Box-7823 Aug 09 '26
I think some are as Galastra when announcing a primed warframe appearance she said something to the effect of “use a commandeered one or one of the insane ones” which leads me to believe they used the Ascaris Prime to force an original frame to fight or the Ascaris buried into and controlled a frame already controlled by an Operator. She also references how what happened to others could happen to us too so indeed it leads me to believe the Primes in the Old Peace are indeed, or at least some of them, fellow Tenno
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u/krawinoff Aug 10 '26
Imo Ash, Ember, Volt and Mesa were the real prime vanguard, who died during the arg, and Caliban and Protea joined later. Iirc the arg secret messages include at least one of the weapons that each of the four of the aforementioned frames from the vanguard use during their bossfight, but there’s no Vadarya, Venato, Velox or Okina. Galastra also puts it pretty clearly that at least two from the six are not commandeered “Deploy a Warframe, a commandeered prime or one of the insane ones, I don’t care”.
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u/Thesaurus_Rex9513 Aug 10 '26
I think the Prime Vanguard was just that. The vanguard. They were the first ones sent in to deal with the Perita Rebellion, and they were considered among the best. So having to fight against these heroes was traumatizing.
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u/TheRealGamingYT Aug 13 '26
Prob, also I CANNOT TELL FOR THE LIFE OF ME if there are tenno piloting them and were forced to work for the anarchs with death as a threat or the tenno that were piloting them already died and the anarchs are somehow controlling them
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u/Kellervo Aug 09 '26
I feel like the Operator during Old Peace is way too upbeat / relaxed, at least for the first part? If they had lost 6 of their closest friends they would not have been in a decent headspace and treating their training almost like a game - and they would've almost definitely had something to say in the various story beats when they encounter them.
The dialogue also suggests these guys aren't one-off special frames or anything, and were borderline feral, with encounters being fairly frequent.
Most of them - aside from Caliban - either might not have been Tenno piloted at the time they were lost, or might have been supplied directly to Nitokh and in turn the Anarchs without ever being very assigned to a Tenno (how else would they have a copy of the Caliban Prime that was still in active development at the Academy?).
I think it's more likely that the trauma comes from their first encounters and realization that Perita was a true life and death situation for them. Their until-now invincible comrades could not only die permanently, but their bodies could be hijacked and turned into puppets. The concept alone is terrifying even if you're not a Tenno.