WARFRAME | The Stalker, The Warframes and Their Connections 

Remember when we used to think Hunhow was the final boss?

That fact that you pointed out "You never see Stalker and his Acolytes in the same room" leads me to believe that Stalker's Operator is just swapping between Warframes like we do. XD

"Cleave it beating from its nest." Never fails to send chills down my spine

I've always seen the stories of the Warframes in the Levarian as people attributing the actions of the Tenno to the Warframes they control, as historically thats the only interaction most people had with the Tenno. For their safety I could even imagine the true nature of the Tenno being purposefully kept a secret from larger Orokin and human society.

My theory/opinion behind Stalker’s appearance in Duviri has always been that: We know that objects/ entities from any point in time within the origin system can effect/enter Duviri. So I’ve always believed that the Stalker we see is from a future we have yet to see. One where Stalker (for an unknown reason) needs to help in Duviri, and understands that he must play his part.

In Kullervo hold, you can find one small bit of lore that shines more light in this: that Kullervo was one of the first generation warframes without a tenno, that he escaped capture after the warframe rebellion, and that he came back to whisper dissent amongst the Tenno when they came.

My theory is that Stalker has died during Orokin Purge. However he managed to inject Helminth into his body, creating a Frame that has lost mind and is focused on single emotion/memories, which is Tenno killing everyone.

I have always had the theory that Stalker is your Operator’s Jungian Shadow; compartmentalized by the tech that protected you in dreamsleep from “nightmares”. So your unintegrated Shadow found life in a Warframe. He didn’t kill your Operator after mimicking his hand gesture because subconsciously he knows he dies if the operator does. Why do you think he is immune to your powers and can always find you?

I honestly hope the stalker is just another tenno. Cause it would nice to see other tenno that aren't players, and possibly seeing a divide in our own faction would be cool. imagine there would be tenno that see's things our why and the other the stalker's. (plus the tenno faction kinda lacks some real depth compared to all the others imo) Think of fallout 3 with brotherhood of steel and the brotherhood of steel outcasts. But if Arthur turns out to be the stalker i wouldn't complain tho.

So under eternalism, everything that could happen did happen right? So if the tenno betrayed the orokin, there has to be a a version of reality where the tenno did NOT betray them. Im wondering if the stalker is from that version of reality, bringing justice upon those tenno scoom who betrayed the golden masters.

Im really starting to lean into the idea that Arthur, or at least one of his fellow experimental frames, is the stalker. All of the acolytes share a helmet, that may just be what the hood looks like closed on all those proto suits.

I'm so happy there is a RU-vidr as particular with the intrinsics of this world as I am. Your videos feel like those good conversations you have with a friend who's just as obsessed with a subject as you are. Keep it up!

Always wondered why during the second dream stalker's design clearly is based off excalibur umbra pretty much the only difference being the helmet and attachments. But during the new war and duviri he's clearly based off base excalibur and obviously looks smaller because of it.

It'd be absolutely fuckin' wild if Stalker was speaking about the Tenno slaughter of the Orokin from the viewpoint of a Warframe that the Tenno were occupying, being forced to slaughter the Orokin via Transference.

Excellent work! Please also mind the kullervo story! He himself was a frame of "lower cast" who got enranged and jealous of the "new tenno controlled frames", and riot against them! In that manner he is closer to the stalker than anybody else!

To clarify, according to the only accounts we have, the Sentients didn't lose their ability to procreate and wage war out of vengeance for that. They lost their ability to procreate as a result of of entering the void in order to return to the Origin System to after having already decided to wage war in order to stop the Orokin from ravaging Tau the way they had Origin. Now, the main source for that information is the least trustworthy character in the entire game (yes I'm including Alad V in that) but he had no reason to lie in that situation since he was talking to someone who knew the reality of the situation better than he did, so if it isn't true, it's surprisingly just because he was misinformed. They chose to lose the ability to procreate as a part of their plan to wage the war they'd already decided to start. It was a sacrifice they made in the interest of saving their home from the Orokin. I don't feel that the idea that the created always seek to destroy their creators really fits here. The Orokin's creations all had very obvious reasons for wanting to destroy them. The Sentient just had enough time out from under their heel to get on top of it before anyone else. The Orokin empire was one of absurd cruelty and hubris. They literally worshipped themselves. Not figuratively, literally. Remember, Margulis' crime was Apostasy. The Sentient hated the Orokin because of their destructive nature, and because of the flaw they were created with. The Tenno hated them because they were cruel greedy monsters who constantly did atrocities, not least of which, murdering Margulis. The Corpus hated them because they wanted to be the ones in power, and the Grineer eventually hated them because they didn't want to be slaves anymore, but unfortunately fell for the influence of the Queens. About the only Orokin creations that don't have a reason to hate them are the Infested, because the infested don't really seem to do hate. They just wanna make everyone them. Your theory was pretty interesting though. I interpreted the Voruna Leverian similarly to you.

Something else worth noting, is Sylvana from the Silver Grove. An Archimedian who utilized transference to enter the Grove and eventually was driven insane. Some, myself included, believe that the Stalker could possibly be a simple soldier who was placed into a transference connection in an experiment to create stronger guards or soldiers for the Orokin without needing to rely on the Tenno.

It's already known that DUviri is a Dream realm created by the drifter after reading the DUviri stories book. My Theory about the Stalker, is that He is one of the first warframes, those w/o A tenno. and I really doubt that 100% of them where rid off or where complete failures. I think that A few of the original Warframes those w/o transference actually where funciontal. and this ones where giving special threatment by the orokin. That to me could explain why Stalker is so angry about their death, because he tought he was truly appreciated by them,

I had always thought the Stalker was a frame controlled by a non-aligned faction. Perhaps like the Dax, a remnant of the old empire.

Can't believe it's 2023 and we're still getting new lore for this game. I was happy knowing I was just a psychic teenager controlling half-living dead people locked inside of undying armor. Now, this shit is getting hard to follow..

the fact the stalker mentions "low guardian" tells me that hes likely something other than a warframe. One thought is they are a Post Dax development, Dax are hard coded into the genetics to obey someone holding the Kuva staff or a kuva staff as seen during War Within. But maybe the Orokin saw a flaw there that if someone not one of them got their hands on a staff they could send dax at the masters. So the low guardians were cooked up, strictly loyal to the orokin higher ups. Maybe Stalker and his lackeys went into stasis at the fall of the empire. The flaw here is then why does the stalker care when we kill say Jackal, Well that is could likely just be written off as a gameplay mechanic. Warframe has very fractured lore but is still a very interesting setting, especially being one of the rare scifi settings to never leave the solar system in what is presented on screen(so far).

Hm.. So what if the stalker is a Tenno that stuck in the transference loop, like Rell in his Warframe and that scientist from Titania quest in her grove? What i am seening here is that in two mentioned examples, people stuck in the loop, also get stuck in their thoughts, Rell - keeping Wally at bay, scientist - protecting the grove and Earth. Stalker's tenno got stuck in his warframe with the idea to serve and protect the orokin and their servants and so when we kill some big shmuck, Stalker sees that as us destroying orokin's important servant, so he goes to kill us as retribution. No to mention that we killed off almost all orokin

I remember on some live stream Rebecca showed off her helmets and people noticed she had a lotus helmet she can put on any frame 😂

For the Acolytes that follow the stalker, it's heavily implied that Stalker damaged the device in the base of the helmet that's function is to suppress the original mind of the body within the warframe suit. And allowing it to be cut off from tenno control. But having gone through transference, not having the pain and madness that would make more feral behaviors. For Orokin Era humans, that willingly gave up their bodies to be used for the war effort. To find out their very bodies were used to destroy the very home they sacrificed to save, would lead many to seek vengeance. It has been stated before, that the infrequent errors of orokin text sprawling across loading screens is the device meant to keep the bodies original mind suppressed, is rebooting, before a risk of full failure of the device.

Some of the most philosophical warfare videos, the way you make connections to things in the lore without direct authentication from DE is really amazing and I believe you are very accurate in your assessments.

Always equally exciting when a new Desiege video drops!

I'll be commenting mostly on the chat, but leaving a comment here for the algorithm, I'm so glad you do these around this time :)

love the audiowork and voice acting in this one. great job!

I mean, tenno aren't the only ones that can use transference, it isn't impossible that he's just a warframe controlled by who used to be stalker

I've always assumed the majority of the Leverian stories are the first round of Warframe supersoldiers. The "insanity" they all eventually exhibit is using their power against the Orokin. The "Prime" varieties being the cultured second round, mass produced for Tenno transference, including Orokin void technology and controlling safeguards in all of that gold. Further, the end great slaughter could have been the interruption of transference. All of the frame's latent rebelliousness come out all at once.

I think the stalker is a manifestation of how the tenno felt about the death of the lotus back in the golden era look at his weapons despair dread hate war a shadow if you will

Loved this vid, it’s always amazing to find people as passionate about this game’s lore as I am!!!

Isn't the entiriety of Duviri a manifestation of the dreams of the kids aboard the Zariman? It is a dream reality - but it's real and exists in the void. Similar to how in the cthulhu mythos all of reality is just a dream dreamt up by a great old one - but in this case it's the void turning the thoughts of zariman survivors into reality.

1:06 "by your hand expose their heart, by my edge cleave it beating from it's nest" is such a raw line

Soooo.... There is this concept about Stalker for some time now... and it goes like... "Lua wasn’t the only nest Stalker found it and sees Dread From each he opens the more he hates Trapped in a haunting, endless despair" anyway... amazing work as always... Swazdo-lah Surah stay safe

I just caught the end of the premier so I'm rewatching but this looks amazing I'm keen to understand more about stalkers history

Awesome job as always, man ! Keep doing the god's work! :D

That was super fun! thanks!

this lore video is SO WELL DONE thank you

Great commentary and reasoning.

Not sure if I'm wrong here, but when first doing the second dream quest, I had exactly the same thought as our tenno seems to have, that "we" weren't operators, we were the frames themselves, that we had no other body, just could somehow switch from a frame to another, so in a way would explain the reactions of most frames described here as the tenno controlling them believing that was their real body, their real appearance, their real strength, and not a "frame" that's being controlled by them remotely 🤔

Great job with this video as usual!

Awesome video. I love these lore videos, I can't wait to see what goes on with Arthur! What if Arthur IS the stalker?? 😁

What if after the orokin massacre, the stalker realized he needed more power to avenge his fallen masters, and knew of the power the infection had so he made himself into a warframe. This drove him mad, but im his rampage he stumbled across a tenno who perhaps disnt have a frame, and took control of him but didn't realize he was in the frame and could only feel the stalkers rage against the tenno. He pursues this until he realizes that he is a tenno, is persuaded by hunhow to go back in and fight, but fails due to an issue with his transference. After this he wakes up properly, and begins his journey as a tenni collecting frames, but never quite forgets his hatred of the tenno. Also i would almost argue that when the frames act but the tenno arent in transference, they are acting on their own free will to save the person who saves them from their own madness.

Interesting video as always.

Well we know that Rell and the Silver Grove were examples of irreversibel transferance. Maybe this also happened with the Stalker and spending all that time transferred in a reanimated corpse caused the original Tenno that controlled him to forget who he was.

Im really happy to see warframe content agein on this channel 🎉

This information may help me out. I can't wait for next year.

The Stalker theme was a throwback to Update 7. Love your videos

Dude! That Racer X skin is insane! That looks so cool.

I think the prime Warframes and the corrupted have a part to play in the story. People might not see the similarity. But the Corrupted, do have a similar look to the prime Warframes. And we have that little bit of information that came with that primed syandana, That stated it was gifted to Warframes that had proven their loyalty to the Orokin. What if the stalker was a tenno that was about to go through the same ritual the beast of Bones was offered. it would still fit with the story that, Stalkers operator was a low ranking guardian. It would also give the stalker the reasons to hate the Tenno and Warframes. By killing his masters you robbed him of his ultimate reward. Becoming a god either by becoming like an Orokin or turning his Warframe into a Primed Warframe. it would also give us a good reason why you don't see any Prime Warframe spectators running around. The baseline warframes killed off the loyalest prime warframes

for me the acolytes are a slip form of the stalkers emotions

I think we can play the stalker in duviri because he is connected to the void via transference. I do not think he is an active ally, just happens to be a warframe and can be used by the drifter, who is a distinct entity from the tenno, despite the common origin. Also, why did he stop being the shadow stalker and get rid of his sentient additions for the quest? Can I get those back for duviri please?

in my opinion, some kind of quest where the stalker begins to hunt you down (or sending cryptic inbox messages along with like standing in the distance watching or stalking in some missions) after defeating your first boss would be a cool way to get more people interested in the early game story, since from what i remember its just he emails you and comes in without explanation

Every veteran player laughed when Stalker said "I am your reckoning" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

love your videos and nice touch with the Xbox Excal skin

Remember how stalker took the heads of the warframes? And the group of the acolytes are the bodies of the warframes, who lost their heads + a new stalker head.

I like to think that our warframe was animated by the helmenth in the next room to break the war blade, because as much as it doesn't like us we ultimately share a symbiotic relationship.

This is a detail that a lot of people don't understand about the story and lore of the game: most of the warframes referenced in the story are tenno-controlled. This applies to every leverian entry. From the very beginning, when they first started making quests, DE has always named the tenno after the warframes they use. The evidence for this is in the Cetus comic that they released years ago; Lotus specifically calls the two tenno involved Excalibur and Mag. She even mentions that she pulled transference from excalibur. Now keep in mind that I said MOST of the warframes reference in lore. Obvious exceptions would be chroma, titania, umbra, kullervo, and maybe protea. Now, in regards to Stalker, I don't think he's Arthur. I just believe that he's simply using a standard excalibur warframe that has been heavily modified to be worn by regular humans...in 1999... Anyway, my theory is this: the Stalker is either the warframe or a Tenno who has been traumatized by the warframe's mind. Ballas said that the Orokin took their finest warriors as candidates for the warframing process, "volunteers or not." The original Gara as described in the Gara Prime trailer was one such volunteer (assuming the details described in prime trailers can be counted as official lore). The pre-stalker warframe was likely a volunteer as well. It's pretty clear that the Stalker, who doesn't identify with the tenno, is loyal to the Orokin. So when the massacre took place, the Orokin-loyal warframe was conscious and saw himself, under transference, killing his masters. Now following this, the trauma he experienced was so potent that it corrupted the mind of his operator the way Umbra's trauma almost corrupted our tenno. But having a tenno inside you essentially means that there are two traumatized minds swimming chaotically in one warframe. Their collective mental state deteriorated into what we see now, the Stalker. A tenno mind swims within the body of a warframe, giving it command, direction. When our tenno weirded umbra, two minds swam together in unity. But the Stalker? The Stalker is an amalgamation, two minds, one identity. The warframe is the Stalker. The tenno is the Stalker. It is a tortured thing. The only past it remembers was from the day of the Naga drums. Following this, the Stalker might have access to the tenno arsenal, which would actually explain alot. One could imagine the Stalker forging his own unique weapons to wash himself of the weapons he used to murder the orokin. These weapons are symbols of his trauma, and he uses them to hunt down the tenno and feed them to his helminth, making him more deadly in his hunt. His Cephalon wouldn't know better; they see the Stalker as the Operator after all... and his acolytes, tenno-warframe amalgamations just like him, would learn from him and follow in his footsteps, donning his face in the process. But that's just a theory A Stalker theory...

I've been waiting this explanation sinced 2018

Now here's another question? Will the Stalker become our Ally and will we get to play as him in a story about his deep origin?

I’ve played around with the idea that stalker was a tenno at the ceremony who just before entering, he saw the Tenno betray the orokin and his loyalty was so strong to them he couldn’t bring himself to join or defend them against the others out of fear of being killed.

I love it every time I get to play as the stalker, he's a little OP.

My notifications are ready

there is alot more lore in warframe already than i remembered O_O

"By your hand, expose their heart. By my edge, cleave it beating from its nest." Line goes hard

Eternalism has a flaw I find. It should only be possible around a specific fracture of time and space. But that doesnt mean every reality should be influencing the other.

Back in the early 2017 ish we had to assume that hunhow was was more like a final boss slash nemesis rival I used to await his warframe but realized we probably won’t get him

27:43. Didn't DE say, regarding this last Tennocon(when 1999 was featured, for anyone reading this down the road), that there was supposed to be some sort of Stalker lore? Unless I missed something, nothing directly referencing/showing him ever occurred that I recall, and I've watched the whole thing 2 to 3 times now. I did originally tie Arthur to Excalibur, but if his armor is actually an early variant of the Stalkers, maybe that was their hint to a future story to unfold. For some additional info regarding Arthur and possible connections, look to Albrect Entratis later pages on The Vessels. In game, find em by defeating the Mocking/Scathing Whisper in the Sanctum, the pages will be readable in the codex.

22:43 voruna losing her loved wolves is saddening and will make you cry

Given his own pov of being a type of dax or common guardian I like to think some of the surviving Orokin turned him and other willing soldiers into the models of warframe that are people, not grown as empty shells, and their sheer rage/want for vengeance let them retain some sanity. Alternatively possible someone else took Ballas' research and was able to alter the initial strain that made those transformed types into a more stable form. Makes sense given it being a type of cobbled together frame, same with his acolytes.

Wow really going all in

Yknow what would be amazing, is if we meet the controller of Stalker, like an actual npc tenno would be awesome.

My personal theory is that early on in its development of the sacrifice Umbra excal was originally going to be stalker but they changed it after the immense popularity of Umbra Excal. I think I even remember in a dev stream at one point mentioning they reworked the story to fit Umbra in because it was so requested at the time

It took me THIS long to realize the Sentient around Stalker at the start seem to have eyes.... wait does that mean that the "headshots" when hitting their core were actual headshots because I was aiming a bit higher than I thought?

1:06 He says he is a destroyer of worlds but I see the origin system very complete

I think stalker is just looking to the tenno to make him heal. That's why he can't kill a tenno but has no issue taking Warframe heads like Loki. He want to destroy their Warframe so they'd transfer to him. Healing him. Kinda like a jealous girl who want you to break up with your gf only with murder lol

Since DE has a "Stalker Update" planned next year (Megan said it during tennocon) I hope that Stalker gets his upgrades back. The New War/Duviri is Stalker without the Second Dream upgrades (probably due to War being broken). I hope they explain what he's been up to in between. Maybe we also see his origins, along with maybe witnessing The Collapse from his perspective. Not only that: But his warfeame accessible outside Duviri, completely updated and reworked.

One thing is that the man in the wall is truely the first alien that we have seen in game. the sentients come from tau, thats true. but they were sent there by the orokin and somewhat evolved over time. However the man in the wall is the first true alien and i think will lead us to discover that basically hes an alien from an alternate dimension

Don't forget DE said next year is the year of the Stalker ;)

Okay here is the number one thing you will have to remember about the stalker VS anything else we have faced so far, When we beat him or any of the other acolytes they don't die. They instead retreat. Which perhaps would indicate that there is only one life to live within. I really hope they expand much further upon more of these type of frames, Because Honestly it was possibly the most excited I ever was about the lore in Warframe.

He is very cool

I think all Warframes have the capacity for sentience and don't necessarily need to be controlled but are in their own version of the dream where their consciousness normally remains and in exchange, they are controllable by the Tenno. Then, when they act on their own, it's because they sense the Tenno is in danger and temporarily regain consciousness to provide help, with an increased effect if in range of their Tenno. I think they can be seen to be almost in a positive sleep paralysis state that gets interrupted at times of crisis.

Can't wait for wispers in the wall

I remember when shadow stalker first came out. And it was somewhat of a big thing because the weapons and mods back then weren't so strong. Stalker could already put up a fight but shadow stalker was a problem. We had basically the sancti tigris. Not to mention when he showed up in sortie and was a big problem. Nowadays he shows up in archon hunt and we kick his ass like swatting a fly. Especially after exodia contagion came out and now the felarx makes it really easy just to point at his head and delete him.

cool!

God i remember the early years of warframe... i remember the first time the stalker showed up in a survival game i was playing with friends, we were kids and thought it was some kind of Herobrine situation

My best guess is that a Tenno woke up inside Stalke, who is similar in nature to Umbra, and was confused by his memories into thinking that he was that low guardian. After all, our own Tenno believed themselves to be the warframes they woke up as, as stated in the Second dream dialogue with Lotus after she places us into the tansference chair, until the moment they woke up. Furing the Old War each Tnno had a single frame that belonged to the. When we choose a frame at the start, the intro stay the same because that's the one frame se had. But what if that frame was damaged or destroyed in stasis? I believe in that case the Tenno would be rerouted to the closest unassigned frame of the same type. And Stalker just so happens to resemble Excalibur. As for Stalker's abilities, my guess is that whatever strain of Helminth was used to transform him was impure, contaminated or mixed up. That would explain the unique shape of the head too.

Hopefully their sentient it would make a could dynamic between Warframe and tenno

I actually woke up at 3am to see this. And I am glad I did

I still find it funny that Balas is surprised by the tenno having compassion towards the frames an emotion he clearly never felt

I shit you not the first thing i said about this video unconditionally is “DAMMIT I STILL WANT THAT SKIN!!” 1:26 wanted it before and now I can’t unsee how good it actually is been avoiding to help forget but is it worth buying an xbox for it…maybe but it has to come around again and idk if they would do that and it all has to happen after cross save

Wait a second, they said with certainty that there was gonna be Stalker content shown off at TennoCon, but we got nothing- absolutely nothing... but if what you suggested about Arthur has any merit... one of the Acolytes is a Mag, right?

I've always wanted physical Tenno NPCs

You should add an addendum vid to this talking about the lines the Acolytes say to you during missions. IMO, they imply the Acolytes are "testing us," somehow. "Restoring our way." Kinda fits with your argument. My pet theory is that the stalker is a tenno who was particularly "honorable," but not particularly "of note." Like, historically speaking. They werent included to be "in-the-know" about the plan to betray the Orokin. The reason then that the Stalker and Acolytes tell us that the Lotus has lead us astray, is because the last thing his mind/soul is holding onto is the anger from the betrayal to his honor. To our honor, if you will. The Stalker's Acoltyes then, as a faction, can be seen as similarly aligned, specifically in practice, with the Arbiters of Hexis. They care about the "honorable ways of the tenno." The funny thing about this though, is that, its almost a type of "Cognito Hazard 😅" like, the whole reason the Orokin instilled these ideals in the Tenno was to create a manipulatable class of people less likey to rebel againdt them. I think sometimes we forget the perspective of time in warframe. The events normally make things out to be over the course of hundreds and I think in some cases thousands of years. Thats a lotta time. A lot can happen in that time. I personally believe that not every Tenno was initially Awoken from the first dream. The Laverian for Voruna, to me, could indicates that after Magrulis was gone, the Tenno became a full on asset of the Executors. Each one being like its own faction much like we have factions orday. Anyways, thats my headcanon rant.😅

My favorite character 😍 I do bet that Arthur is going to be connected to the Stalker in some way.

Wasn't chroma in the new strange a wierd sentient warframe?

I'm still sticking with my theory that after the tenno assaulted the orokin bringing the ending days upon the empire the low ranked soldier who would become stalker was chosen to partake in transference with the scrounged parts of frames fused together into the stalker frame but like the silver grove his mind became trapped inside the frame

What if the Warframes had full control of their wits and they wanted to rebel against the Orokin bcuz Orokin = Bad, so the Orokin had them somehow shutdown and then transference controlled later on so they'd do the bidding of the Orokin But then later on, the Tenno assimilate their memories and/or emotions and realize that the Orokin are the true enemies. That's just a theory tho

@13:38 ngl I thought he said "dropping his nuts" lmao