I still believe the "feral" state that Ballas refers to is just them understanding their power and turning on their "masters" in rebellion before the tenno "fixes" them.
They're in great pain. Ever stub your toe and launch into an uncontrollable cussing fit? Imagine that pain a thousandfold and constant. And the orokin's response: Hurt them more. So, yeah...
I honestly believe that the Helminth was in a dormant state of hibernation conserving energy until we built the segment to convene with it. This is because the only times we interact with it before constructing the helminth segment is when our Warframe was infected with a helminth cyst. Therefore I the Helminth itself was already close to death and was barely surviving hence the need to feed.
The nanite itself cannot perish of hunger dince it isnt really alive on the xonventional sense but it would be innactive without the quantity or energy necessary after hibernation.
I mean at one point the helminth system and room didn't even exist so it just popped up out of nowhere on its last life and about to die? How? I mean I could understand that anology if the door ALWAYS had infested tumors or whatnot at the front of it and it was locked THEN they introduced it as a system. But for real the door has always been there but not the infested stuff growing. It would have been cool like for 1 or 2 weeks we see the outside of the door become more and more infested until we reach the capability to unlock it then we open it and see what's been growing or in this case what's been dying 🤔 I honestly didn't like how they introduced it tho it wasn't an introduction it was one day we don't have and one day we do just out of the blue nothing in game leads up to the helmnith system either. You do the deimos quest pretty early on and can get it really really quick by just leveling standing in deimos. There's not like a particular quest for it or missions for it that leads up to the infested chair you just do regular ass missions everybody else is doing on deimos and you rank up standing n bam you get it, I just don't feel like it was a "quest" but more of play for a certain amount of time or do a certain amount of things on this planet and BAM you got it. I mean the video we just watched on the infested told me more than the game or de ever has about the infested 😂
I swear DE needs to do more with the Infestation, the lore behind it is so fascinating. It’s the only example I know of a bio-nano chimera, a true fusion of biology and advanced nanotech into a greater whole. The fact that it can be grown/programmed/cultivated into weapons and tools, let alone advanced constructs such as Warframes, makes it incredibly versatile.
Back when Xaku won the community warframe thing, one of the other candidates was a "hive" frame. I would really love for them to circle back to that idea, I think it was a good one.
Exactly. Especially with Phorid. the poor lad has been completly forgotten and is one of the last bosses that is a reskin of a normal enemy. They announced a redesign of Phorid in 2016 if I remember and completly scraped it.
We might end up getting some more info from the infested liches mentioned as a question then quickly diverged to "Watch Tennocon" by Reb. What was said at least during the 178 Devstream.
very ironic, just yesterday i was looking everywhere to find a good video explaining the infested and whatnot… thankyou so much for taking the time to make this!
@@TheDsIEGEyou did and to the date I believe this is the most comprehensive look at the Helminth Strain to date. As for the infestation though the other strains are likely to be different.
With Albrecht taking Helminth into the past, it opens up the possibility that Helminth's origin is a temporal paradox. Albrecht takes it back to 1999, creates proto-frames. Later, the orokin find a piece of it, re-engineer Helminth from the pieces. Later, Albrecht takes Helminth back to 1999 and the cycle restarts
Yet another banger. I love the lore of this game. Never knew about that Nora call. If that one-two-three, one-two-three is rap-tap-tap, DE are better story tellers than I ever thought
@@TheDsIEGEYes! You blew my mind with that detail! Especially since Albrecht was the one who labeled Wally an adversary even though he called him a name that was supposed to be endearing (Little Bengal) and reached out a hand. Quite often I forget Albrecht is Orokin and they were all garbage to the universe. I trust him less and less the more I watch your deep dives.
During the whispers in the walls quest, Manny makes the walls disappear into sand, but he also says "tohk, tohk, tohk" and I'm telling you, the GOOSEBUMPS
So I made a post that turned out to be inaccurate, the Helminth Infirmary was there since the beginning, however the other rooms in the bottom of the Orbiter were not. And the Helminth proper wasn't formally added until the 19.5 update in late 2016 (which also shows I've been playing warframe for longer then I thought lmao) Wild how old this plot thread is.
Huh? None of the rooms in the bottom of the orbiter were there from the beginning. There was no bottom section to the orbiter when the orbiter and Ordis were first added to the game in update 14. There were no ramps there. Just walls. The ramps were added for The Second Dream, as well as the transference room. The other two doors weren't accessible at that point though.
@@YumLemmingKebabsthey were added for the second dream, but we're in the ship long before the quest launched tho right? Or am I losing it 😅 the timeline in my head is "waiting 7 days to use the gross chair every time I get a new frame" then child frame followed by bedroom decor
@@ryanmack99 From what I remember the ramps were added around the same time as The Second Dream. If it was before it wasn't very long before, but then again I took a hiatus for a while before Second Dream came out. Also, The Helminth door opened with the Nidus patch, and that was some time after The War Within, because at the end of The War Within Ordis talks about the Operator using their void stuff to clean up the infested door.
I feel like one thing about the helminth was obvious but left out. It doesnt attack us because it is a parasite. If its host dies, it dies. The regular infection hijacks the host but it is a lot of work. Helminth is living a nice life being fed and grown and in return strengthen the bond with its host in a win-win scenario.
Dark Sector took place near the end of the Cold War, and historically the Cold War ended Dec 25, 1991. Warframe 1999 taking place exactly 8 years later fits the timeline if this were a sequal to the original Dark Sector.
@@TheDsIEGE Honestly no idea, but in Dark Sector the virus was contained to a certain area so anything could have happened to turn it into a worldwide pandemic within those years. Either way if it were connected the virus could have mutated multiple times within a time frame like that not to mention whatever Entrati did to it. I think there are legal issues tied to it but I'm sure there will be tons of little Easter eggs hidden throughout for the players to make their own conclusions what they want to believe or not.
I didn’t play Dark Sector but having stumbled upon it when I looked at other DE games it occurred to me that perhaps the Orokin in their arrogance looked backwards into variant iterations of Earth in a way paralleling the eternalism lesson on the Zariman, saw a version of history where their precursors had made a different choice (one perhaps of fusion of the organic and nanotechnology as opposed to genetic engineering which the Orokin appear to be) and the infestation is the result. They then seeing this monstrosity and being over confident took a sample and at some point used it as a weapon which the underestimated and lost control of. At some point it grew large and conscious enough to realize that in order to continue to improve it needed to evolve and communicate with the life forms it sought to merge with, hence the failed attempt with Arlo.
I think the infestation isn't inherently malevolent. They genuinely seem to think that it's a good time. Different strains act differently but when they were left alone, all the did was goof around in the derelict with some cats. Almost every interaction comes because someone decided to use them and predictably lost control. For once I'd like them to explore the aspect where they think it's beauty and get where they're coming from. Almost every single zombie hive trope plays the same, but I think the infested have something else in them. I feel like the way they speak and such is like coming from a weird sense of not just consuming, but wanting to be consumed. It reminds me of an obsessive twisted love. I just kind of want it to be a little bit of a deconstruction of this a bit further than "hivemind bad". Hive minds have benefits. All their dialogue seems to imply that.
@lemniscatelogos7917 yeah and like Ballas usually calls tenno "devils" rather than "demons". The infested are scared of the void. I don't think it's anyone's overall plan with them. They just happened to be convenient for whatever someone was trying to do at the time. Making Helminth for Orokins, mutalist for Alad V (which is pretty much responsible for the jump to machines, but the timeline with that is weird) Albrecht doing something with the gray strain, whatever the Grineer failed to do with them? The infested weren't really doing much until the grineer started fucking with them in the once awake quest
@shiddter I dunno about that, remember Arlo? Fully infested but not showing, the truest definition of a carrier, sent in as a literal Trojan Horse to "convert."
With the Entrati, Son's also constantly mentioning the beauty of the Grey Strain's works and creations. As well ss chastising is whenever we unnecessarily slaughter the Infested lifeforms.
I would assume the reason why the infested is deeply afraid of the void is how it affects things based on age. From the Zarimon it seems like the mortality rates for adults is extremely high and for children it was non existent. We don't know how the infested work exactly but they are definitely very old, and if they are actually 1 being with all things derived from a single viral strain that just keeps replicating and even new variants of the virus still being offshoots of the same strain, time has essentially made them more and more susceptible to void energy on a molecular level. So while a handful of operators might not be that big of a deal on demios, a void god like the man in the wall can likely cause concern.
I think it’s rather simple especially when you check out the Warframe song “consume us”. The infestation needs to grow and nothing grows in the void. Hence why it’s afraid of the void. On the other side if there is anyone in or attached to the void, if they show anything that can be infected, it WILL be infected. No idea if there is any fight, conflict or connection between the two btw
The void didn't kill the adults though... it just drove them insane. It probably doesn't have anything to do with age, and more to do with simply the state of the mind. Adults had more experiences to fuck around with to make them lose their shit. The Infestation's mind/minds can't really be compared to those of human adults.
ehhhh, I'm not so certain the children survived the Zariman disaster. It seems plausible, if not likely, that the children of the Zariman are manifestations of the void. (literally: Void Demons)
@YumLemmingKebabs Alternatively, its because the void takes emotions and concepts and makes them real. The adults have more experience and know that monsters aren't real, they know it's impossible... and that causes the cracks. To a child, the moster is already real, so the void giving it form causes no issues.
Great editing and atmosphere on this one! Well done, as always! I like the theory that the Helminth is still serving the Orokin, it could make for some interesting scenarios down the line. Hopefully we will get more info on the Infested when Infested Liches come out
you know.. with different strains of the technocyte doing different things... it makes one wonder..... how did the uper echelon orokin become grey skinned gold eyed living grecoroman statues? what if they were infected with a different strain.. a secret one.
You never really know... DE has been slowly leaking orokin back into the system after largely insinuating and even saying they were all gone, so you never really know with them...
According to the lore of some of the infested ancients, they were orokin at one point- so they were always around- but yeah it’s likely a different strain could have been used at some point. Would need more dets though
@@Spekor there was a change from what I last remember in the wiki so maybe 🤔 DE wants to keep orokin away from the infestation and to just simply put them in the “destroyed” category as a whole. The entrati family and Ballas is about the only exception though
I actually blocked off the door with a wall that had a slit inside, so if you looked through it, the door would open and all you could see was the chair. It was like a horror movie, but then I had to install the invigoration segment and couldn't fast travel to the Helminth room ;~;
That will be a bit but... the existence of rell goes against everything margulis claimed the tenno required in order to function and... how would he get a warframe if not gathered with the rest of the children to be put into the warframe program in the first place? I'll let it at that but... I feel like something doesn't add up.
@@TheDsIEGE did you get my reply? I hope so- it seems it keeps on disappearing from here but I have thoughts to bridge this gap so to speak that well seems to not stay…. Oddly.
31:00 Honestly, it's more likely the case of, you don't bite the hand that feeds you, much like the name emboldening it's title. It wants our resources as a source of food and doesn't overtake everything in our orbiter is the way I see it personally. Things like how people can tame a dangerous animal, like an alligator or a tiger, I think reflects here on that sort've parallel. It just happens that both helminth and tenno require each other for various things.
Each strain of the infested can be viewed like siblings or cousins so not all behavour is universal to all strains. Like wolves, doles, foxes and most importantly in relation to helminth dogs are all very different but have alot of overlap The infested can feel emotion including the warframes. It wasnt that the infested is innately bad or even malicious just very driven by pain and its desire to consume more. Our helminth wasnt domesticated by the orokin it turned on them just as the sentients did ("but their minds were free of the infested madness or so we thought".) It isnt just the what grows at the back of the ship it is the warframes all of them and they it. I think when it refers to itself as "we" it means all your warframes what remains of their minds. Not as united into a singular dominating entity like its siblings that operates like a eusocial organism but more like a council hivemind. The infirmary is not driven to attack us or anyone else by the emotion of the warframes, either those that directly pretain to themselves "take away its pain" or those felt by fighting along side the tenno. So basically the orokin made a strain that struggles to subsume and alter brain tissue preserving most of it, this prevents true hive eusociality from appearing like in other strains. The tenno then influence the majority of the helminths decision making capabilities by interacting with the warframes especially nidus. (if we know ballas he probably had an archimedian researching this domestication and eh donated his body to science) Finally because of this retained knowledge from the warframes (and this may be true of the grey strain too) it has retained the distrust of the void/the other from the orokin as they did take their greatest, High ranking people with more direct interaction with the orokin not just the common ostron so they were much more ingrained in their culture and knowledgable in relation to the void and its dangers.
The infestation is the Chaos that equalizes with the void, since the void itself is also Chaos. Sentients was just made first because they are the pioneers in exploring the Tau system. Since the infestation failed to beat them, The Orokin refurbished the use of the infestation with the accidental creation of the Tenno. Isn't it curious how we, the Tenno, are in the middle of all these things? We are the literal connection/glue between these things, with the features and capabilities of each combined. This may be the catalyst Albrecht needed in 1999 so that he can "conquer" both the void and the man in the wall itself. Everything is within the Tenno and our role may be to balance everything in ourselves. Regardless, I need to know more about the amp NPC guy in Cetus. He's the most mysterious character in all of warframe imho
The Sentients being vulnerable to void damage is by design. Onkko is Saya's husband. Play Saya's Vigil and you'll learn about him. Talk to him and you'll learn why he disappeared. I'm only like rank 1 or 2 with the Quills and have gotten that dialogue.
When you go on about who the helminth serves and why it is subservient you overlook one of the first things Ordis says about it. He says it’s responsible for the Orbiter’s “biological functions”. Yes that includes Warframe maintenance but it also includes the biological functions OF THE ORBITER. Remember, it is not just a metal box that shuttles you around the solar system. It wiggles and writhes and moves in ways only biological creatures can. It even does this(and is most evident with the Mantis skin) on loading screen. The Orbiter and the lander are alive! What’s more, they were probably also born of the technocyte virus. Killing or excising the Helminth means permanently harming the Orbiter.
This is the point I agree with most. Helminth is a sentient, biological machine loyal to its own orbiter, and thus its frames and operator. Makes the most sense.
The question remains... who told it to do that? remember, the orokin made it. Did they create it with that directive or did it take it up on it's own? Even sentience... our own even is largely based off of what we are told and shown... Programmed, if you will by society. Where does it get it's programming and who decided that?
Other than the fact the liset is a detachable portion of our orbiter, my thoughts are while the helminth is a parasite, the symbiotic relationship it shares with us the operator keeps it safe, fed, and evolving for those using the subsume system. When you look at the current state of the origin system, and all the factions most likely fighting and killing strains of the infestation or exploiting them for resources and etc. the helminth has the best deal in the entire system sticking with us.
Your really getting better with these videos! keep up the great work! not many out there who actually explain the lore of warframe despite the game being so massive in popularity so this really is appreciated
Great video as always and you connect the dots in a way i haven t thought. I would like for you to have included the different brands of infestation that has been created in and exist in the system like the Zealot Herald and if there is something that links them all together. Other than that, as always great job keep it up!
Fascinating breakdown, as always, sir. Very interesting to learn the Infestation exists so purposefully. Reminded me of something... Not too long ago, I saw a Destiny video claiming that, despite the playerbase wanting SIVA back in the game, it was technically "already back." It discussed lore that came out that SIVA, as a nano-mechanical tool, was used to build Neomuna on Europa. Which is fine, except that Neomuna is mostly just a big, flashy cyberpunk cityscape, while beautiful, doesn't really hold much poignance in most Destiny players' minds or hearts. I've thought for a long time how sad it is that SIVA wasn't used by the devs in a more active way, to create moldable/randomized/procedural environments, either made by an NPC or even becomes sentient and an entire planet(oid) comes to exist made entirely of SIVA in its purest form. Despite tons of Destiny players knocking that idea in my replies when I suggest it, I'm positive the bulk of the players would go nuts for such an idea. And yet... Warframe literally already has that. Much as many Warframe players dislike open world bounties and Deimos' progression (even though the Entrati family is one of the smoothest syndicate progressions in the game, short of maybe the Holdfasts)...Warframe not only has its own version of SIVA, but the devs went and evolved it to build a whole planetoid MADE of the Infestation, with procedural caves and vaults underneath, taking biological form, and all of it plugs directly into the creation of the Warframes, the struggles of the Orokin civilization, as well as Albrecht Entrati who seems to connect to basically everything. Hell...after Destiny ditched its main worm god, Xol (and potentially others with The Great Vaultening)...Warframe picked them up in the form of Fass and Vome. Sad they haven't become world bosses yet, but...we still have them and they can still be something, especially now that New War and Duviri and most other promised content is complete and released...they seem to be hitting a great stride with releasing way more NEW content. "Infested Liches" being teased for Tennocon this year, and if they reveal that, BIG chance for Infested Railjack/Proxima regions...all that alongside a 1999 deep dive. We're eating good as Tenno. And there's lots of room at the table.
Destiny, in my opinion REALLY dropped the ball with the Witness. That was a really cool character but... it not having really any army, either means it's so over powered that beating it doesn't seem plausible or... it's just going to be a kind of overuse of other races to make up for the lack of another type of enemy. We really have it MUCH better, think of how many different enemy types there are? And... the story seems to be just getting better here, whereas it really does feel like the end is almost there in Destiny. Really glad I decided to stick with Warframe over Destiny.
@@TheDsIEGEOh for sure, the Witness is another whole thing entirely. The Infested examination here just reminded me of SIVA, but the Witness being just...thrown out there, very interesting concept but no follow through at all...I don't have any faith at all in Final Shape bringing the light/dark saga home. And like you said, this story is only amping up, only giving the lore folks like yourself MORE to dive into, it's all connecting things from the past of the game and making the whole package THAT much more poignant. Every major update, I can hardly believe a looter shooter/live service does what this game does to this scale.
Quick thought: Railjack mission above Deimos, and one of the worms rises far up above the stratosphere to attack you. Railjack boss battle. Maybe throw in some converted ships as seen with that one cephalon (name escapes me).
I swear DE gives the best stories on the most slept factions/characters ever, like infestation is just here but never explained openly, stalker is a mistery since the beginning of warframe and finally we are going to get a new adventure about him, and probably the most hated and loved character ordis has THE most badass backstory gatekept by the WHOLE codex (since i heard the ordis backstory i am a simp for him to get a short but fun adventure)
Maybe the more advanced the infestation is, the more sentience and the more control over its own intelligence it gains. This allows it to make its own decisions, showing how Helminth and Lephantis can communicate and have separate motives I don’t know how they gain their knowledge but it could just be absorbing knowledge
ive thought about about 31:55 for a long time and how we could very well drag our enemies into that chair and transform them into warframes (finally, the vor frame)
Ah yes, our favorite (not) Flood mouth wall! One thing I’m curious about is if the infestation (particularly the Helminth) has a deeper relation with the Sentients. Sentients (which were likely created after the Infestation, and are also immune to it as far as I know), are conductive to the void. It’s the reason they’re weak to it, burning them from the inside out, and also why we “use their bones to make weapons”. Similarly, would the Helminth be the thing that gives our Warframes their powers, channeling the void to perform godlike actions. The two of them also sort of share a hive-mind at times. I wonder if the Sentients or the material that comprises them could share developments made with the infestation. Great video as always!
Thanks for this. I never realise that all cysts tracked back to an original Nidus. I was a long time between 1st entering that room and finally obtaining him myself.
I'd say the motivation for the Helminth is to keep its host alive, being the orbiter and the warframes. If we talk about the Helminth calling the warframe "master" that is actually more loaded and problematic to me than calling the operator "demon", although both are perhaps more similar when it comes to understanding Helminth than appears. A famous theory of Hegel is the so called "lord-bondsman dialectic" which was also a troubling thing for philosophers such as Nietzsche who are more trendy right now. It is very complicated, but a conclusion of this might be that the Helminth is driven by fear of its own death and sees the Warframes as entities like it but without fear of death, and sees the Operators as "deathless" demons.
I believe every time we face the infested is different and under developed hivemind. Base of the collection of minds that bond and turn they tend to be more wild, hungery but stronger wills could shift and influence their hivemind like a body then the head being the core. Each hive is a different since so many don't have the same creatures being that very core like the bosses we face. This brings to our helminth, another hivemind bonded with our strong warframes or actually from the collective that is their core, their leader or master since they can only speak when you linked with Nidus which onto himself a growing, walking hivemind that heals itself and grows in mass and in power when fighting. Like symbiosis they work together but having a much more free collective they can speak and recall memories. Even now if you played with a squad with a Nidus you can get a growth on the neck from that collective of helminth which been noted to be their mark if you tend to remove it. A cool thing is the possible thing you can do with the growth and turn a Kubrow into a helminth charger which acts like other chargers but always remains loyal to you (there's even a mod set for it too which is pretty wicked). Nevertheless we have yet seen the more dangerous hiveminds yet and maybe we can learn about our helminth as we face this newer threat which could be infested Arch enemies that were hinted for the future.
@daydreamdirty A good possibility, I can only double down the fact if you played with a Nidus will give the neck growth. Helminth always claims such a mark while whenever Nidus links with Helminth without needing such a growth to enter the room. Even Nidus's body reacts being so close to Helminth and is the only frame to truly make a such special link.
I think that the helminth is, in some sense, sentient or has it's own free will, it would explain the original frames going mad, why it has a voice, and also why it serves us
I really hope they make a solid connection to dark sector. I always loved that game. I also like the idea of the orikin digging through old humanities closet to find new horrors to use.
As the game progressed i thought of it like this. When the operator was away the heleminth was locked in the room and any attempt to expand resulted in failure because ordis didnt allow it. When the operator came to the ship it was afraid to do anything because it feared the operator. When nidus came it was happier because the master came and became more compliant. Then we gave the heleminth more upgrades and fed him frames and minerals so he learned if it works with us more he will have a constant flow of food and a purpose instead of infesting the ship ending up as a derelict and hope to snack on passing looters once in a century
Personally it seems to me like they are rewriting Dark Sector to fit into Warframe's lore, with 1999. There wasn't direct connections, on top of a legal process they would have to go through to get the ip back and/or if they even _could_ get the ip in a way to deal with it nowadays. Or at least that's what they said. I assume it has to deal with something on the Publisher's end. But now, Hayden Tenno is Arthur and it seemed like Albrecht is Robert Mezner, at first. But quite possibly Abrecht knows about this universes "Robert Mezner" and went back in time to deal with him. That part I'm not so sure about. I was almost sure Abrecht was going to replace Robert Mezner, but now after playing Whispers and with the lore we've received from the labs it almost seems like Albrecht is going back in time to either collaborate or try to deal with them. Since he is basically mad after entering the void and coming into contact with Wally, I'm almost inclined to say he's going to back to help the person in question. If rewritten into canon, we would have an actual origin of the infested. But only time will tell. We are getting another cinematic quest and then 1999 later this year or early next year. So we shall see.
I know that the focus is on the void right now but I always felt like the infested were kind of slept on story-wise. They are treated more like vermin than something that still constantly threatens the system.
I’ve always found it rather weird that nidus can’t move on his own like umbra can. I get umbra was someone. But nidus is more or less “the ultimate infestation” and the infested are able to move on their own
With the continued and recurring theme of multiple instances of the same person existing at once or as continuations of their former iterations (Operator/Drifter, Lotus/Natah/Magilus, The Twin Queens', etc) and (as you said) the Helminth's particular name choice for us, I also have to ask: *How did Ballas get onto your ship when he took the lotus away?* That said... Helminth, to take care of our warframes so diligently, would need a particularly intimate knowledge of them. And we all know exact ONE(1) person who seems to be wrist-deep in most if not all warframe construction.
Im only 18 minutes in and one thing ive noticed is that Nidus Prime's mutated form is reminiscent of the infested from dark sector. With the black main and blue highlights. Similar can be seen on the excalibur proto skin, the blue lighting on the infested arm. I havent seen anybody talk about that detail and ive been dying to talk about it On a similar note, both Dark Sector and Warframe have had an event in the lore called "The Great Plague" (Mire description, and idk it was on the dark sector wiki). So i do definitely believe very early warframe lore did lift from dark sector at least a little bit
I'm hoping they cross over somehow... that would give us so much more to go off of when talking about older warframe lore. Good catch on that energy, I didn't think about that!
I pray that the helminth, and the infested as a whole gets more content. Imagine sentient infested hybrids, infested warframes. or even modular warframes. Made with the helminth
So in the new tile set you can smash some desks and papers with tenno language appear for a second. You can translate tenno language! Thought you might enjoy that.
The chair's quite clearly a repositioned dentist chair. Which pairs not only with the giant mouth in the room, but also the fish tank in the floor. It's something of a trope that dentists have fish tanks in the waiting rooms. As to Deimos: Note that there are the hostile infested, and the neutral infested, and that possibly Vome is a benevolent infested. The fact that when we create a Helminth Charger, it's our pet. Yet when it's created elsewhere, it's an enemy. While vulpaphylas and predasites and the other conservation targets will attack if you're too close, they'll just ignore you if you're not in their personal space. And if we rescue downed predasites and vulpaphylas that were injured by the hostile infested, we can make them our pets. Fass is at best neutral, as it's not sending the necramechs to kill us, and doesn't seem to care if we pilot those we run across. Vome is clearly more benevolent, activating the necramechs to help fight the hostile infested, reducing the amount of spawned hostile infested by half, and being the cycle to spawn Lobotriscid (common), Glutinox (uncommon), Aquapulmo (rare), and Myxostomata (very rare). And the entrati family, able to effectively overcome the infection, in spite of being fused with it. Also, we can control Warframes because they allow it. It's a trade-off. We numb their horrific pain and help set their minds at ease, and they provide us with outlets for our void powers. Perhaps this is what Helminth instinctively fears? A loss of ability to control itself and becoming almost completely reliant on us? Perhaps it knows that we probably won't turn against it. But, being of orokin origin, it may be unable to shake that fear. Like a dog that's been abused always flinching at first, then remembering that you are family. The orokin tried every brutal method they could think of to rein in the frames, including the jade light and erasure of those who they disapproved of from history. Ballas can't fathom the idea that all it really took was someone to take away the frame's pain, and be their friend. That concept is so alien to the orokin since the inception of warframes, all the way up until we spelled it out for him, the thought never entered his mind. Helminth then, probably has a fear (possibly pre-programmed) that we might become as cruel as the orokin, even if it can suppress that.
I have always thought of the infestation as a discordant hive mind, a million different voices pulling on all the strings of the constructs with the few independent operators like jordas and alad v existing outside the hive or others like phoroid or lephantis being common expressions of will across many minds
With my headcanon; Each strain has its own independent hive mind, and the Helminth Strain is pro-tenno since every other hive mind is scared of us or wants to kill us.
I actually believe that Kuva is a byproduct of infestation, considering the fact that its texture is similar to infested tissues or tumors. The roaming kuva clouds in Kuva siphon missions also look pretty similar to infested spores…
To be honest that would be a pretty cool game mechanic you can save ppl or corpus or grineer and when you do you can get a chance for them to volunteer to change into your personalized warframe but you can use them transformation into them and the. Can do missions like gather some resources for us and other stuff too like being a nice personal companion with has very own companion too etc but not like spectators though
Of course the helminth is afraid of the Void. It explains it itself: 'We are life , master. But also death.' Considering the Void embodies The opposite to both life and death, It must be to the helminth like antimatter. I'd be afraid if a being of antimatter were near me.
I think part of the reason the helminth is loyal to the Tenno is, because it recognizes them (as void entities) as the superior predators. The hivemind of Eris shows the very intelligent and cunning side of the Infestation, willing and able to experiment with subversive tactics and infiltration to propagate itself, see Nightwave 2.
I'd point out that the 'safeguard' for the Sentients was being unable to void-jump without being made sterile/unable to reproduce. Solid chance, if there was a programmed safeguard, the Infestation either disregarded it, or that is where they figured to add 'flaws' as safeguards, unless the Orokin class *specifically* had an immunity/resistance to the widely used strains.
Alternatively, the Helminth serves us for the same reason our Warframes do; our psychoc void power that allows us to connect to, and soothe, its infested madness.
I think it is less complicated than that. I believe Helminth has been designed to function this way genetically and has no desire to stray from what they know as it is its instinct. Much like how a dog follows our commands and is loyal to us through domestication, Helminth is much the same.
It's entirely possible that Helminth is nice just because the Orokin actually succeeded for a change. They failed a LOT, possibly even most of the time, but not always. I know it's kinda ironic to comment on your videos by implying I'm not going to speculate, but uh... I can't really think of anything to say, and comments help with the algorithm right? This is a bit off topic, but a virus is a very specific type of thing, and Technocyte definitely isn't that. Like, a lot of people seem to think that anything that causes zombie like properties is a virus. I blame 28 Days Later.
Here is an off the wall take. You know what a grey goo scenario is? Well it is a self replicating nanite swarm that ingests everything and moves to the next world rinse and repeat. Well what if there are multiple versions of that and one of them ran from the other swarms. Found Earth and also found The Man in the Wall? What if it made a version to infect certain individuals to create a super race like the Orikin and then gave the idea about the Sentients then about the warframes to combat the Sentients? Yes i know it is super far fetched but I have always wonder where did the Orikins come from? I know it is out there but it does fit some of what we know, also it would open up a new super bad guy once wally is defeated or recruited to fight the new bad guy grey strain. Yeah it might be stupid but it is a possibility. A 0.5% possibility but who knows.
Hey Siege, I don't know if you watched the most recent devstream but, they hinted at infested liches could be tied to the warframe 1999 update, which is heavily implied to be an infested update/mitw update which Steve hinted at a infested rework/refocus in the near future.
Wait so albretch was trying to combine multiple infestation strains to make giant weapons against Wally? Does that mean we’re getting giant mech frames at some point in the future? 😂
When asked if and how the infested are programmed, my mind goes back to the personality of the Warframes to a point. Warframes largely seem to be self aware, though not confirmed, which points me in the direction of symbiosis. Assuming this theoretical true, the helminth shows that it is largely capable of understanding that survival is capable through aiding other helminth strains. I wouldn't quite say programmed to think this way, but the Warframes go out and get food, and "Cephalon M'lmgthu" as I've named him heals and nourishes our Warframes in return, further supporting the idea that they work on a symbiotic relationship with most other things. I'd say it's more of intelligent survival instincts rather than programming or taught behavior. The helminth simply doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds, and respects tenno while nourishing frames, like a good fleshy walnut.
It's just weird it looks at survival in that regard... Not by eating but by... serving? That's a whole new method of survival that's pretty scary. What does it do if it doesn't need us and... does it look like the plant from little shop of horrors for that reason?
@@TheDsIEGE it does seem strange, but I'd say we see a few good examples of this with the infested in a few places. Warframes to tenno, helminth to Warframe, and possibly even Fass and Vome on Deimos, as their explosive deaths always leave behind residues that feed local infestation fauna, creating a fascinating cycle.
I really want to be able to make costume Warframe using the one we already have using the helminths,we could combine for different Warframes and if we do that we lose those frames and we can only do it once
For the infested liches update, I really wish we get a graphics overhaul for them. Reduce the comic style factor and mold them into some really ugly and really frightening species. Just can't vibe with them as much as I would like to with their current design. Thanks for the nice write up and presentation!
I want a story quest or anything infested lore related like a quest about arlo and what's happening on eris because the infested has a lot of wasted potential to be a big villain that affect the story but it seem in the 1999 quest seem that potential Is going to be used.
It's odd they haven't done much with the Infested, especially in a while but... I'm willing to bet even it will have a place in the whole man in the wall saga, especially with it's fear being specifically pointed out...
Just imagine that one day regular Infested can reach Helminth and copy its and Warframe powers. It will be total horror. Think about it, you are fighting with armies of chargers, drones, and other ancients but every one of them have Warframe's powers. For example you try to attack charger but suddenly he create a sphere of void where time is stoped and then he starts to attack you or starts to spin with Dance Macabre dealing huge dmg to everything near him
It maybe much simpler then we think. You know some Animals kill sick Counterparts? Its the same here. The Operator and Warframes offer it Protection from its more mindless Strains. Although created by the Orokin it has its own localized Mind. Tethered, tempered and restrained not by an outside Influence but by the notion of Survival. If it where to overgrow the Orbiter it would risk the millenia old Symbiosis, when Nidus first rescued it.
My best guess on the Helminth is that it is separate from the rest of the Infestation. It is, as previously mentioned or implied, just one of several engineered gene strands of the Infestation with the sole purpose of constructing or improving the Biodrones (or so-called Warframes) by consuming and evolving (as a secondary purpose). How else would you explain it helping to fight the Infestation or the various strands, like the one Alad V is infected with, Jordas, or the various infected bosses? It would be kind of self-defeating if all the strands were a single connected mind. Let's not forget that there are hybrids of infected, sentient machines and Humans whose common motivation is survival. And I think that is the purpose and (current) goal of the Helminth strand on each of our ships/orbiters. It could be that it was once just the infested spirit of a servant (like a Dax) or a tame pet, but each of us has fed it the DNA and spirits of many people, all of whom were more or less loyal to our operators. (Or were they? 😂) And since their spirits are consumed to become one, it can be argued that each of our various Helminth strands has special connections to each of us. Perhaps it fears being consumed again by another infested strain because it doesn't want to lose its individuality (the one that is friendly with or dependent on the operator) or it thinks we are its best chance for survival. Of course, there is always the possibility of a major deception, but it would be counterintuitive for the Helminth to actively fight its host or provider. However, if it were an agent of the other side, perhaps it is helping the Infestation as a whole to serve us while playing different sides to survive. We know from the Nora chapter and from Jordas and Alad V that the Infestation is capable of deception - and the Helminth may be a long-standing ruse that can be used as a weapon against the Tenno and the Orokin. Still, I'd like to believe my initial conclusion that the Helminth has (for now) kept its targets separate from the rest of the plague. Perhaps until it has to reconsider its loyalties one day.
A little cool detail about the Infested, in Infested survival missions, if your life support reaches 0% you can hear them talking to you
"One of us, one of us"
I have too many hours in this game and never knew that. That's awesome
That's awesome, I never knew that!
Same in infested salvage
That's really cool
I still believe the "feral" state that Ballas refers to is just them understanding their power and turning on their "masters" in rebellion before the tenno "fixes" them.
They're in great pain. Ever stub your toe and launch into an uncontrollable cussing fit? Imagine that pain a thousandfold and constant. And the orokin's response: Hurt them more. So, yeah...
I honestly believe that the Helminth was in a dormant state of hibernation conserving energy until we built the segment to convene with it. This is because the only times we interact with it before constructing the helminth segment is when our Warframe was infected with a helminth cyst. Therefore I the Helminth itself was already close to death and was barely surviving hence the need to feed.
I agree and in fact, I think nidus is the one to reawake him... and now we have a really creepy pet... sort of...
The nanite itself cannot perish of hunger dince it isnt really alive on the xonventional sense but it would be innactive without the quantity or energy necessary after hibernation.
I mean at one point the helminth system and room didn't even exist so it just popped up out of nowhere on its last life and about to die? How? I mean I could understand that anology if the door ALWAYS had infested tumors or whatnot at the front of it and it was locked THEN they introduced it as a system. But for real the door has always been there but not the infested stuff growing. It would have been cool like for 1 or 2 weeks we see the outside of the door become more and more infested until we reach the capability to unlock it then we open it and see what's been growing or in this case what's been dying 🤔 I honestly didn't like how they introduced it tho it wasn't an introduction it was one day we don't have and one day we do just out of the blue nothing in game leads up to the helmnith system either. You do the deimos quest pretty early on and can get it really really quick by just leveling standing in deimos. There's not like a particular quest for it or missions for it that leads up to the infested chair you just do regular ass missions everybody else is doing on deimos and you rank up standing n bam you get it, I just don't feel like it was a "quest" but more of play for a certain amount of time or do a certain amount of things on this planet and BAM you got it. I mean the video we just watched on the infested told me more than the game or de ever has about the infested 😂
Obviously, the Helminth is the one eating our Argon Crystals.
This "Argon Crystals have a half life" is a scam
I swear DE needs to do more with the Infestation, the lore behind it is so fascinating.
It’s the only example I know of a bio-nano chimera, a true fusion of biology and advanced nanotech into a greater whole.
The fact that it can be grown/programmed/cultivated into weapons and tools, let alone advanced constructs such as Warframes, makes it incredibly versatile.
Back when Xaku won the community warframe thing, one of the other candidates was a "hive" frame. I would really love for them to circle back to that idea, I think it was a good one.
Exactly. Especially with Phorid. the poor lad has been completly forgotten and is one of the last bosses that is a reskin of a normal enemy. They announced a redesign of Phorid in 2016 if I remember and completly scraped it.
We might end up getting some more info from the infested liches mentioned as a question then quickly diverged to "Watch Tennocon" by Reb. What was said at least during the 178 Devstream.
I guess we're gonna see more of the Infestation since 1999 is around the time the Infested appear in a more primitive state.
If you want more bio nano chimera, I'd recommend reading the last angel. Great series and one of the later factions is exactly that
very ironic, just yesterday i was looking everywhere to find a good video explaining the infested and whatnot… thankyou so much for taking the time to make this!
Perfect Timing!!! Glad I could help!
ruclips.net/video/wAcBsXEaMjU/видео.htmlsi=OynHzgagT3ROS5gf i just watched this yesterday
@@TheDsIEGEyou did and to the date I believe this is the most comprehensive look at the Helminth Strain to date. As for the infestation though the other strains are likely to be different.
With Albrecht taking Helminth into the past, it opens up the possibility that Helminth's origin is a temporal paradox. Albrecht takes it back to 1999, creates proto-frames. Later, the orokin find a piece of it, re-engineer Helminth from the pieces. Later, Albrecht takes Helminth back to 1999 and the cycle restarts
I was thinking that too... hopefully we'll see soon!
Terminator 2 plot. Haha
It begins as it ends and ends as it began.
The wait for this has been BRUTAL! Amazing as always
I know... I need to add in maybe some shorter vids between the big ones to tide the community over... I'm sorry.
@@TheDsIEGEif I may add a suggestion- why not cover some lore on infested areas and weapons? Nothing to crazy or time consuming of course
Yet another banger. I love the lore of this game. Never knew about that Nora call. If that one-two-three, one-two-three is rap-tap-tap, DE are better story tellers than I ever thought
Thank you and the Best part is it shows that wally is a product of Entrati's mind... the orokin waltz aspect being a huge part of the Indifference!
@@TheDsIEGEYes! You blew my mind with that detail! Especially since Albrecht was the one who labeled Wally an adversary even though he called him a name that was supposed to be endearing (Little Bengal) and reached out a hand. Quite often I forget Albrecht is Orokin and they were all garbage to the universe. I trust him less and less the more I watch your deep dives.
During the whispers in the walls quest, Manny makes the walls disappear into sand, but he also says "tohk, tohk, tohk" and I'm telling you, the GOOSEBUMPS
@@TheDsIEGEa possible unintended side consequence maybe….
@@QuietLunacyalbrecht is a scientist so some things can be trusted- just not his morals and morality
So I made a post that turned out to be inaccurate, the Helminth Infirmary was there since the beginning, however the other rooms in the bottom of the Orbiter were not. And the Helminth proper wasn't formally added until the 19.5 update in late 2016 (which also shows I've been playing warframe for longer then I thought lmao)
Wild how old this plot thread is.
Huh? None of the rooms in the bottom of the orbiter were there from the beginning. There was no bottom section to the orbiter when the orbiter and Ordis were first added to the game in update 14. There were no ramps there. Just walls. The ramps were added for The Second Dream, as well as the transference room. The other two doors weren't accessible at that point though.
@@YumLemmingKebabsthey were added for the second dream, but we're in the ship long before the quest launched tho right? Or am I losing it 😅 the timeline in my head is "waiting 7 days to use the gross chair every time I get a new frame" then child frame followed by bedroom decor
@@ryanmack99 From what I remember the ramps were added around the same time as The Second Dream. If it was before it wasn't very long before, but then again I took a hiatus for a while before Second Dream came out.
Also, The Helminth door opened with the Nidus patch, and that was some time after The War Within, because at the end of The War Within Ordis talks about the Operator using their void stuff to clean up the infested door.
I feel like one thing about the helminth was obvious but left out. It doesnt attack us because it is a parasite. If its host dies, it dies. The regular infection hijacks the host but it is a lot of work. Helminth is living a nice life being fed and grown and in return strengthen the bond with its host in a win-win scenario.
Dark Sector took place near the end of the Cold War, and historically the Cold War ended Dec 25, 1991. Warframe 1999 taking place exactly 8 years later fits the timeline if this were a sequal to the original Dark Sector.
True but.. I wonder how long the lore will go back in explaining how things came to be as they were...
DE has said multiple times that Dark Sector and Warframe are not connected
@@TheDsIEGE Honestly no idea, but in Dark Sector the virus was contained to a certain area so anything could have happened to turn it into a worldwide pandemic within those years. Either way if it were connected the virus could have mutated multiple times within a time frame like that not to mention whatever Entrati did to it. I think there are legal issues tied to it but I'm sure there will be tons of little Easter eggs hidden throughout for the players to make their own conclusions what they want to believe or not.
I didn’t play Dark Sector but having stumbled upon it when I looked at other DE games it occurred to me that perhaps the Orokin in their arrogance looked backwards into variant iterations of Earth in a way paralleling the eternalism lesson on the Zariman, saw a version of history where their precursors had made a different choice (one perhaps of fusion of the organic and nanotechnology as opposed to genetic engineering which the Orokin appear to be) and the infestation is the result. They then seeing this monstrosity and being over confident took a sample and at some point used it as a weapon which the underestimated and lost control of. At some point it grew large and conscious enough to realize that in order to continue to improve it needed to evolve and communicate with the life forms it sought to merge with, hence the failed attempt with Arlo.
Darksector starts in 1991, but there is a timeskip in it to about 2008, so 1999 can't be a sequel.
I think the infestation isn't inherently malevolent. They genuinely seem to think that it's a good time. Different strains act differently but when they were left alone, all the did was goof around in the derelict with some cats.
Almost every interaction comes because someone decided to use them and predictably lost control. For once I'd like them to explore the aspect where they think it's beauty and get where they're coming from. Almost every single zombie hive trope plays the same, but I think the infested have something else in them. I feel like the way they speak and such is like coming from a weird sense of not just consuming, but wanting to be consumed. It reminds me of an obsessive twisted love. I just kind of want it to be a little bit of a deconstruction of this a bit further than "hivemind bad". Hive minds have benefits. All their dialogue seems to imply that.
This is why I love the helminth dialogue so much why do you reject my beauty
@lemniscatelogos7917 yeah and like Ballas usually calls tenno "devils" rather than "demons". The infested are scared of the void. I don't think it's anyone's overall plan with them. They just happened to be convenient for whatever someone was trying to do at the time. Making Helminth for Orokins, mutalist for Alad V (which is pretty much responsible for the jump to machines, but the timeline with that is weird) Albrecht doing something with the gray strain, whatever the Grineer failed to do with them? The infested weren't really doing much until the grineer started fucking with them in the once awake quest
@shiddter I dunno about that, remember Arlo? Fully infested but not showing, the truest definition of a carrier, sent in as a literal Trojan Horse to "convert."
With the Entrati, Son's also constantly mentioning the beauty of the Grey Strain's works and creations. As well ss chastising is whenever we unnecessarily slaughter the Infested lifeforms.
@@alexanderchipman9571 hes literally me
Keep up the work man. Its nice to see a channel doing warframe lore videos your just as good as my name is byf with his d2 lore and stuff
Hey, thank you! Thats a serious compliment, I appreciate you.
I would assume the reason why the infested is deeply afraid of the void is how it affects things based on age. From the Zarimon it seems like the mortality rates for adults is extremely high and for children it was non existent. We don't know how the infested work exactly but they are definitely very old, and if they are actually 1 being with all things derived from a single viral strain that just keeps replicating and even new variants of the virus still being offshoots of the same strain, time has essentially made them more and more susceptible to void energy on a molecular level. So while a handful of operators might not be that big of a deal on demios, a void god like the man in the wall can likely cause concern.
I think it’s rather simple especially when you check out the Warframe song “consume us”. The infestation needs to grow and nothing grows in the void. Hence why it’s afraid of the void. On the other side if there is anyone in or attached to the void, if they show anything that can be infected, it WILL be infected.
No idea if there is any fight, conflict or connection between the two btw
The void didn't kill the adults though... it just drove them insane. It probably doesn't have anything to do with age, and more to do with simply the state of the mind. Adults had more experiences to fuck around with to make them lose their shit. The Infestation's mind/minds can't really be compared to those of human adults.
ehhhh, I'm not so certain the children survived the Zariman disaster. It seems plausible, if not likely, that the children of the Zariman are manifestations of the void. (literally: Void Demons)
@YumLemmingKebabs
Alternatively, its because the void takes emotions and concepts and makes them real.
The adults have more experience and know that monsters aren't real, they know it's impossible... and that causes the cracks.
To a child, the moster is already real, so the void giving it form causes no issues.
Great editing and atmosphere on this one! Well done, as always! I like the theory that the Helminth is still serving the Orokin, it could make for some interesting scenarios down the line. Hopefully we will get more info on the Infested when Infested Liches come out
you know.. with different strains of the technocyte doing different things... it makes one wonder..... how did the uper echelon orokin become grey skinned gold eyed living grecoroman statues?
what if they were infected with a different strain.. a secret one.
You never really know... DE has been slowly leaking orokin back into the system after largely insinuating and even saying they were all gone, so you never really know with them...
According to the lore of some of the infested ancients, they were orokin at one point- so they were always around- but yeah it’s likely a different strain could have been used at some point. Would need more dets though
@@daydreamdirty it was just a shower thought. but something happened to turn humans into that. some kind of genetic engineering and modification
@@Spekor there was a change from what I last remember in the wiki so maybe 🤔 DE wants to keep orokin away from the infestation and to just simply put them in the “destroyed” category as a whole. The entrati family and Ballas is about the only exception though
@@daydreamdirtywhat does that have to do with how the orokin got looking how they did?" that's what my thought was about.. not where they are now
I actually blocked off the door with a wall that had a slit inside, so if you looked through it, the door would open and all you could see was the chair. It was like a horror movie, but then I had to install the invigoration segment and couldn't fast travel to the Helminth room ;~;
good stuff my dude! my mind is still reeling about that Rell teaser you dropped during last video's premier 😳
That will be a bit but... the existence of rell goes against everything margulis claimed the tenno required in order to function and... how would he get a warframe if not gathered with the rest of the children to be put into the warframe program in the first place? I'll let it at that but... I feel like something doesn't add up.
@@TheDsIEGE did you get my reply? I hope so- it seems it keeps on disappearing from here but I have thoughts to bridge this gap so to speak that well seems to not stay…. Oddly.
31:00 Honestly, it's more likely the case of, you don't bite the hand that feeds you, much like the name emboldening it's title. It wants our resources as a source of food and doesn't overtake everything in our orbiter is the way I see it personally.
Things like how people can tame a dangerous animal, like an alligator or a tiger, I think reflects here on that sort've parallel. It just happens that both helminth and tenno require each other for various things.
Very good point
Each strain of the infested can be viewed like siblings or cousins so not all behavour is universal to all strains. Like wolves, doles, foxes and most importantly in relation to helminth dogs are all very different but have alot of overlap
The infested can feel emotion including the warframes. It wasnt that the infested is innately bad or even malicious just very driven by pain and its desire to consume more. Our helminth wasnt domesticated by the orokin it turned on them just as the sentients did ("but their minds were free of the infested madness or so we thought".)
It isnt just the what grows at the back of the ship it is the warframes all of them and they it. I think when it refers to itself as "we" it means all your warframes what remains of their minds. Not as united into a singular dominating entity like its siblings that operates like a eusocial organism but more like a council hivemind. The infirmary is not driven to attack us or anyone else by the emotion of the warframes, either those that directly pretain to themselves "take away its pain" or those felt by fighting along side the tenno.
So basically the orokin made a strain that struggles to subsume and alter brain tissue preserving most of it, this prevents true hive eusociality from appearing like in other strains. The tenno then influence the majority of the helminths decision making capabilities by interacting with the warframes especially nidus. (if we know ballas he probably had an archimedian researching this domestication and eh donated his body to science)
Finally because of this retained knowledge from the warframes (and this may be true of the grey strain too) it has retained the distrust of the void/the other from the orokin as they did take their greatest, High ranking people with more direct interaction with the orokin not just the common ostron so they were much more ingrained in their culture and knowledgable in relation to the void and its dangers.
This is precisely the content I’ve been looking for for years. Fantastic work!
I'm really glad you enjoyed!!!
The infestation is the Chaos that equalizes with the void, since the void itself is also Chaos. Sentients was just made first because they are the pioneers in exploring the Tau system. Since the infestation failed to beat them, The Orokin refurbished the use of the infestation with the accidental creation of the Tenno. Isn't it curious how we, the Tenno, are in the middle of all these things? We are the literal connection/glue between these things, with the features and capabilities of each combined. This may be the catalyst Albrecht needed in 1999 so that he can "conquer" both the void and the man in the wall itself.
Everything is within the Tenno and our role may be to balance everything in ourselves. Regardless, I need to know more about the amp NPC guy in Cetus. He's the most mysterious character in all of warframe imho
The Sentients being vulnerable to void damage is by design.
Onkko is Saya's husband. Play Saya's Vigil and you'll learn about him. Talk to him and you'll learn why he disappeared. I'm only like rank 1 or 2 with the Quills and have gotten that dialogue.
Really awesome dude! I love how you dissect the lore so thoroughly. Thanks for the vid! Can't wait for more!
When you go on about who the helminth serves and why it is subservient you overlook one of the first things Ordis says about it.
He says it’s responsible for the Orbiter’s “biological functions”. Yes that includes Warframe maintenance but it also includes the biological functions OF THE ORBITER.
Remember, it is not just a metal box that shuttles you around the solar system. It wiggles and writhes and moves in ways only biological creatures can. It even does this(and is most evident with the Mantis skin) on loading screen.
The Orbiter and the lander are alive! What’s more, they were probably also born of the technocyte virus.
Killing or excising the Helminth means permanently harming the Orbiter.
This is the point I agree with most. Helminth is a sentient, biological machine loyal to its own orbiter, and thus its frames and operator. Makes the most sense.
The question remains... who told it to do that? remember, the orokin made it. Did they create it with that directive or did it take it up on it's own? Even sentience... our own even is largely based off of what we are told and shown... Programmed, if you will by society. Where does it get it's programming and who decided that?
Other than the fact the liset is a detachable portion of our orbiter, my thoughts are while the helminth is a parasite, the symbiotic relationship it shares with us the operator keeps it safe, fed, and evolving for those using the subsume system.
When you look at the current state of the origin system, and all the factions most likely fighting and killing strains of the infestation or exploiting them for resources and etc. the helminth has the best deal in the entire system sticking with us.
Time to sacrifice a Warframe to the helminth BLOOD TO THE BLOOD GOD.
Your really getting better with these videos! keep up the great work! not many out there who actually explain the lore of warframe despite the game being so massive in popularity so this really is appreciated
Thank you!!! I appreciate that!!
1999 was anounced 7-10 months to a year ago, and here we are for a december update. I rewatch your vids frequently so yeah, the basis of my comment
I think you nailed it... End game might be a build your own Warframe thing
That would be quite the thing, especially if you could customize the look.
Great video as always and you connect the dots in a way i haven t thought. I would like for you to have included the different brands of infestation that has been created in and exist in the system like the Zealot Herald and if there is something that links them all together. Other than that, as always great job keep it up!
I'm going to do another vid in the future on the infested as a whole, it wouldn't all fit in one video with how I like to go into it.
I m looking forward to it!
Fascinating breakdown, as always, sir. Very interesting to learn the Infestation exists so purposefully. Reminded me of something...
Not too long ago, I saw a Destiny video claiming that, despite the playerbase wanting SIVA back in the game, it was technically "already back." It discussed lore that came out that SIVA, as a nano-mechanical tool, was used to build Neomuna on Europa. Which is fine, except that Neomuna is mostly just a big, flashy cyberpunk cityscape, while beautiful, doesn't really hold much poignance in most Destiny players' minds or hearts. I've thought for a long time how sad it is that SIVA wasn't used by the devs in a more active way, to create moldable/randomized/procedural environments, either made by an NPC or even becomes sentient and an entire planet(oid) comes to exist made entirely of SIVA in its purest form. Despite tons of Destiny players knocking that idea in my replies when I suggest it, I'm positive the bulk of the players would go nuts for such an idea. And yet...
Warframe literally already has that. Much as many Warframe players dislike open world bounties and Deimos' progression (even though the Entrati family is one of the smoothest syndicate progressions in the game, short of maybe the Holdfasts)...Warframe not only has its own version of SIVA, but the devs went and evolved it to build a whole planetoid MADE of the Infestation, with procedural caves and vaults underneath, taking biological form, and all of it plugs directly into the creation of the Warframes, the struggles of the Orokin civilization, as well as Albrecht Entrati who seems to connect to basically everything.
Hell...after Destiny ditched its main worm god, Xol (and potentially others with The Great Vaultening)...Warframe picked them up in the form of Fass and Vome. Sad they haven't become world bosses yet, but...we still have them and they can still be something, especially now that New War and Duviri and most other promised content is complete and released...they seem to be hitting a great stride with releasing way more NEW content. "Infested Liches" being teased for Tennocon this year, and if they reveal that, BIG chance for Infested Railjack/Proxima regions...all that alongside a 1999 deep dive.
We're eating good as Tenno. And there's lots of room at the table.
Destiny, in my opinion REALLY dropped the ball with the Witness. That was a really cool character but... it not having really any army, either means it's so over powered that beating it doesn't seem plausible or... it's just going to be a kind of overuse of other races to make up for the lack of another type of enemy. We really have it MUCH better, think of how many different enemy types there are? And... the story seems to be just getting better here, whereas it really does feel like the end is almost there in Destiny. Really glad I decided to stick with Warframe over Destiny.
@@TheDsIEGEOh for sure, the Witness is another whole thing entirely. The Infested examination here just reminded me of SIVA, but the Witness being just...thrown out there, very interesting concept but no follow through at all...I don't have any faith at all in Final Shape bringing the light/dark saga home.
And like you said, this story is only amping up, only giving the lore folks like yourself MORE to dive into, it's all connecting things from the past of the game and making the whole package THAT much more poignant.
Every major update, I can hardly believe a looter shooter/live service does what this game does to this scale.
Quick thought: Railjack mission above Deimos, and one of the worms rises far up above the stratosphere to attack you. Railjack boss battle. Maybe throw in some converted ships as seen with that one cephalon (name escapes me).
Remember a time the door was closed a while back
It was wild when the door was finally open
you're the best at covering the best part of this game! keep it up!
Hey, thank you I really appreciate that!
I swear DE gives the best stories on the most slept factions/characters ever, like infestation is just here but never explained openly, stalker is a mistery since the beginning of warframe and finally we are going to get a new adventure about him, and probably the most hated and loved character ordis has THE most badass backstory gatekept by the WHOLE codex (since i heard the ordis backstory i am a simp for him to get a short but fun adventure)
I couldn't agree more!!!
You should get the title of storyteller or information keeper. Love the video as always, thank you for this
Thank you!!! I'd love either of those titles!!!
12:05 Audrey 2 was it's name.
A 🍪 for anyone that gets the reference.
I was hoping someone would pick up on that!!! And... weirdly... it kinda fits whats going on.
Maybe the more advanced the infestation is, the more sentience and the more control over its own intelligence it gains. This allows it to make its own decisions, showing how Helminth and Lephantis can communicate and have separate motives
I don’t know how they gain their knowledge but it could just be absorbing knowledge
ive thought about about 31:55 for a long time and how we could very well drag our enemies into that chair and transform them into warframes (finally, the vor frame)
I"m here for that transformation all day long...
Ah yes, our favorite (not) Flood mouth wall!
One thing I’m curious about is if the infestation (particularly the Helminth) has a deeper relation with the Sentients. Sentients (which were likely created after the Infestation, and are also immune to it as far as I know), are conductive to the void. It’s the reason they’re weak to it, burning them from the inside out, and also why we “use their bones to make weapons”. Similarly, would the Helminth be the thing that gives our Warframes their powers, channeling the void to perform godlike actions. The two of them also sort of share a hive-mind at times. I wonder if the Sentients or the material that comprises them could share developments made with the infestation.
Great video as always!
Thanks for this.
I never realise that all cysts tracked back to an original Nidus.
I was a long time between 1st entering that room and finally obtaining him myself.
Nice touch with the fear and hunger ost 👌
I was hoping someone would pick up on that!!!
He’s a messy dorm mate but he is quite handy, thats all I need and wont ask about his other dealings
I also like Helminth's interactions with your Kavat and Kubrow companions.
Waiting patienly. 🎉🎉🎉
Thank you for checking it out!!!!
I still remember when it was the ship's garden. Wayyyyyy wayyyyy back
Memories are a bit fuzzy of the old room, but was there not a person in a cryopod of sorts in that room before it was fully overtaken?
This will be🔥💯🔥
Hope you enjoyed!!!
@@TheDsIEGEi definitely did. I admit originally I thought the fish was tied to Helminth myself. Oh it’s humorous now for sure.😂
I'd say the motivation for the Helminth is to keep its host alive, being the orbiter and the warframes. If we talk about the Helminth calling the warframe "master" that is actually more loaded and problematic to me than calling the operator "demon", although both are perhaps more similar when it comes to understanding Helminth than appears. A famous theory of Hegel is the so called "lord-bondsman dialectic" which was also a troubling thing for philosophers such as Nietzsche who are more trendy right now. It is very complicated, but a conclusion of this might be that the Helminth is driven by fear of its own death and sees the Warframes as entities like it but without fear of death, and sees the Operators as "deathless" demons.
It's a good day when TheDsIEGE posts 🙌
I believe every time we face the infested is different and under developed hivemind. Base of the collection of minds that bond and turn they tend to be more wild, hungery but stronger wills could shift and influence their hivemind like a body then the head being the core. Each hive is a different since so many don't have the same creatures being that very core like the bosses we face.
This brings to our helminth, another hivemind bonded with our strong warframes or actually from the collective that is their core, their leader or master since they can only speak when you linked with Nidus which onto himself a growing, walking hivemind that heals itself and grows in mass and in power when fighting. Like symbiosis they work together but having a much more free collective they can speak and recall memories. Even now if you played with a squad with a Nidus you can get a growth on the neck from that collective of helminth which been noted to be their mark if you tend to remove it. A cool thing is the possible thing you can do with the growth and turn a Kubrow into a helminth charger which acts like other chargers but always remains loyal to you (there's even a mod set for it too which is pretty wicked). Nevertheless we have yet seen the more dangerous hiveminds yet and maybe we can learn about our helminth as we face this newer threat which could be infested Arch enemies that were hinted for the future.
It’s possible that nidus could BE another strain entirely too
@daydreamdirty A good possibility, I can only double down the fact if you played with a Nidus will give the neck growth. Helminth always claims such a mark while whenever Nidus links with Helminth without needing such a growth to enter the room. Even Nidus's body reacts being so close to Helminth and is the only frame to truly make a such special link.
I think that the helminth is, in some sense, sentient or has it's own free will, it would explain the original frames going mad, why it has a voice, and also why it serves us
I really hope they make a solid connection to dark sector. I always loved that game. I also like the idea of the orikin digging through old humanities closet to find new horrors to use.
Me too
Would love to see more lore and information about infested
As the game progressed i thought of it like this.
When the operator was away the heleminth was locked in the room and any attempt to expand resulted in failure because ordis didnt allow it.
When the operator came to the ship it was afraid to do anything because it feared the operator.
When nidus came it was happier because the master came and became more compliant.
Then we gave the heleminth more upgrades and fed him frames and minerals so he learned if it works with us more he will have a constant flow of food and a purpose instead of infesting the ship ending up as a derelict and hope to snack on passing looters once in a century
Personally it seems to me like they are rewriting Dark Sector to fit into Warframe's lore, with 1999. There wasn't direct connections, on top of a legal process they would have to go through to get the ip back and/or if they even _could_ get the ip in a way to deal with it nowadays. Or at least that's what they said. I assume it has to deal with something on the Publisher's end. But now, Hayden Tenno is Arthur and it seemed like Albrecht is Robert Mezner, at first. But quite possibly Abrecht knows about this universes "Robert Mezner" and went back in time to deal with him. That part I'm not so sure about. I was almost sure Abrecht was going to replace Robert Mezner, but now after playing Whispers and with the lore we've received from the labs it almost seems like Albrecht is going back in time to either collaborate or try to deal with them. Since he is basically mad after entering the void and coming into contact with Wally, I'm almost inclined to say he's going to back to help the person in question. If rewritten into canon, we would have an actual origin of the infested. But only time will tell. We are getting another cinematic quest and then 1999 later this year or early next year. So we shall see.
I know that the focus is on the void right now but I always felt like the infested were kind of slept on story-wise. They are treated more like vermin than something that still constantly threatens the system.
Oh I couldn't agree more.
I’ve always found it rather weird that nidus can’t move on his own like umbra can. I get umbra was someone. But nidus is more or less “the ultimate infestation” and the infested are able to move on their own
Good point. I hope they revisit frames that can move on their own...
With the continued and recurring theme of multiple instances of the same person existing at once or as continuations of their former iterations (Operator/Drifter, Lotus/Natah/Magilus, The Twin Queens', etc) and (as you said) the Helminth's particular name choice for us, I also have to ask: *How did Ballas get onto your ship when he took the lotus away?*
That said... Helminth, to take care of our warframes so diligently, would need a particularly intimate knowledge of them. And we all know exact ONE(1) person who seems to be wrist-deep in most if not all warframe construction.
Im only 18 minutes in and one thing ive noticed is that Nidus Prime's mutated form is reminiscent of the infested from dark sector. With the black main and blue highlights. Similar can be seen on the excalibur proto skin, the blue lighting on the infested arm. I havent seen anybody talk about that detail and ive been dying to talk about it
On a similar note, both Dark Sector and Warframe have had an event in the lore called "The Great Plague" (Mire description, and idk it was on the dark sector wiki). So i do definitely believe very early warframe lore did lift from dark sector at least a little bit
I'm hoping they cross over somehow... that would give us so much more to go off of when talking about older warframe lore. Good catch on that energy, I didn't think about that!
Never have I ever been this invested in the infested. I would like to know more if possible.
Great video man.
Thank you!!!
omg yess i love ur warframe content keep it up bro 😄👍
Thank you!! I appreciate that!
I pray that the helminth, and the infested as a whole gets more content.
Imagine sentient infested hybrids, infested warframes.
or even modular warframes. Made with the helminth
So in the new tile set you can smash some desks and papers with tenno language appear for a second. You can translate tenno language! Thought you might enjoy that.
The chair's quite clearly a repositioned dentist chair. Which pairs not only with the giant mouth in the room, but also the fish tank in the floor. It's something of a trope that dentists have fish tanks in the waiting rooms. As to Deimos: Note that there are the hostile infested, and the neutral infested, and that possibly Vome is a benevolent infested. The fact that when we create a Helminth Charger, it's our pet. Yet when it's created elsewhere, it's an enemy. While vulpaphylas and predasites and the other conservation targets will attack if you're too close, they'll just ignore you if you're not in their personal space. And if we rescue downed predasites and vulpaphylas that were injured by the hostile infested, we can make them our pets. Fass is at best neutral, as it's not sending the necramechs to kill us, and doesn't seem to care if we pilot those we run across. Vome is clearly more benevolent, activating the necramechs to help fight the hostile infested, reducing the amount of spawned hostile infested by half, and being the cycle to spawn Lobotriscid (common), Glutinox (uncommon), Aquapulmo (rare), and Myxostomata (very rare). And the entrati family, able to effectively overcome the infection, in spite of being fused with it. Also, we can control Warframes because they allow it. It's a trade-off. We numb their horrific pain and help set their minds at ease, and they provide us with outlets for our void powers. Perhaps this is what Helminth instinctively fears? A loss of ability to control itself and becoming almost completely reliant on us? Perhaps it knows that we probably won't turn against it. But, being of orokin origin, it may be unable to shake that fear. Like a dog that's been abused always flinching at first, then remembering that you are family. The orokin tried every brutal method they could think of to rein in the frames, including the jade light and erasure of those who they disapproved of from history. Ballas can't fathom the idea that all it really took was someone to take away the frame's pain, and be their friend. That concept is so alien to the orokin since the inception of warframes, all the way up until we spelled it out for him, the thought never entered his mind. Helminth then, probably has a fear (possibly pre-programmed) that we might become as cruel as the orokin, even if it can suppress that.
Helmont you is in love with your warframe “I palpitate in your absences” maybe Deimos is shy too and corpus don’t understand
I have always thought of the infestation as a discordant hive mind, a million different voices pulling on all the strings of the constructs with the few independent operators like jordas and alad v existing outside the hive or others like phoroid or lephantis being common expressions of will across many minds
It's really creepy in that regard... only after making this video did I see it as more than just the typical trope like the flood...
The fear and hunger music gies hard in this vid
Great Video!
Thank you!!!
"Their bodies were primed."
Interesting mod, Albrecht.
I want primed arthur mods... Whoa, imagine if you will, that arthur turns out to be umbra. Then we would already have them.
i see you with the fear and hunger soundtrack lol
Helminttg is in love with your warframe “I palpitate in your absences” maybe Deimos is shy too and corpus don’t understand
With my headcanon; Each strain has its own independent hive mind, and the Helminth Strain is pro-tenno since every other hive mind is scared of us or wants to kill us.
I actually believe that Kuva is a byproduct of infestation, considering the fact that its texture is similar to infested tissues or tumors. The roaming kuva clouds in Kuva siphon missions also look pretty similar to infested spores…
Once we get infested liches i hope we get to learn what controls the hivemind
FEED THE WALNUT, PET THE WALNUT, LOVE THE WALNUT ❤
32:03
About that, we technically already have.
The Helminth Charger via applying our infested tumor to a Kubrow Egg.
To be honest that would be a pretty cool game mechanic you can save ppl or corpus or grineer and when you do you can get a chance for them to volunteer to change into your personalized warframe but you can use them transformation into them and the. Can do missions like gather some resources for us and other stuff too like being a nice personal companion with has very own companion too etc but not like spectators though
What would happen if the tenno/drifter went through the process of becoming a warframe?
Good question...
Of course the helminth is afraid of the Void. It explains it itself: 'We are life , master. But also death.'
Considering the Void embodies The opposite to both life and death, It must be to the helminth like antimatter. I'd be afraid if a being of antimatter were near me.
I think part of the reason the helminth is loyal to the Tenno is, because it recognizes them (as void entities) as the superior predators.
The hivemind of Eris shows the very intelligent and cunning side of the Infestation, willing and able to experiment with subversive tactics and infiltration to propagate itself, see Nightwave 2.
I'd point out that the 'safeguard' for the Sentients was being unable to void-jump without being made sterile/unable to reproduce. Solid chance, if there was a programmed safeguard, the Infestation either disregarded it, or that is where they figured to add 'flaws' as safeguards, unless the Orokin class *specifically* had an immunity/resistance to the widely used strains.
Agreed.
I think the hivemind of the infested is the man in the wall especially since the new song
The Infestation, Warframe's finest example of 'Fuck around and find out'.
You ain't kidding...
Alternatively, the Helminth serves us for the same reason our Warframes do; our psychoc void power that allows us to connect to, and soothe, its infested madness.
I think it is less complicated than that. I believe Helminth has been designed to function this way genetically and has no desire to stray from what they know as it is its instinct. Much like how a dog follows our commands and is loyal to us through domestication, Helminth is much the same.
It's entirely possible that Helminth is nice just because the Orokin actually succeeded for a change. They failed a LOT, possibly even most of the time, but not always. I know it's kinda ironic to comment on your videos by implying I'm not going to speculate, but uh... I can't really think of anything to say, and comments help with the algorithm right?
This is a bit off topic, but a virus is a very specific type of thing, and Technocyte definitely isn't that. Like, a lot of people seem to think that anything that causes zombie like properties is a virus. I blame 28 Days Later.
Here is an off the wall take. You know what a grey goo scenario is? Well it is a self replicating nanite swarm that ingests everything and moves to the next world rinse and repeat. Well what if there are multiple versions of that and one of them ran from the other swarms. Found Earth and also found The Man in the Wall? What if it made a version to infect certain individuals to create a super race like the Orikin and then gave the idea about the Sentients then about the warframes to combat the Sentients? Yes i know it is super far fetched but I have always wonder where did the Orikins come from?
I know it is out there but it does fit some of what we know, also it would open up a new super bad guy once wally is defeated or recruited to fight the new bad guy grey strain. Yeah it might be stupid but it is a possibility. A 0.5% possibility but who knows.
Hey Siege, I don't know if you watched the most recent devstream but, they hinted at infested liches could be tied to the warframe 1999 update, which is heavily implied to be an infested update/mitw update which Steve hinted at a infested rework/refocus in the near future.
Wait so albretch was trying to combine multiple infestation strains to make giant weapons against Wally? Does that mean we’re getting giant mech frames at some point in the future? 😂
There might a link between the infestation and the void.
I've thought the same thing for a long time now... hoping 1999 adds context there...
When asked if and how the infested are programmed, my mind goes back to the personality of the Warframes to a point.
Warframes largely seem to be self aware, though not confirmed, which points me in the direction of symbiosis. Assuming this theoretical true, the helminth shows that it is largely capable of understanding that survival is capable through aiding other helminth strains. I wouldn't quite say programmed to think this way, but the Warframes go out and get food, and "Cephalon M'lmgthu" as I've named him heals and nourishes our Warframes in return, further supporting the idea that they work on a symbiotic relationship with most other things.
I'd say it's more of intelligent survival instincts rather than programming or taught behavior. The helminth simply doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds, and respects tenno while nourishing frames, like a good fleshy walnut.
It's just weird it looks at survival in that regard... Not by eating but by... serving? That's a whole new method of survival that's pretty scary. What does it do if it doesn't need us and... does it look like the plant from little shop of horrors for that reason?
@@TheDsIEGE it does seem strange, but I'd say we see a few good examples of this with the infested in a few places. Warframes to tenno, helminth to Warframe, and possibly even Fass and Vome on Deimos, as their explosive deaths always leave behind residues that feed local infestation fauna, creating a fascinating cycle.
I really want to be able to make costume Warframe using the one we already have using the helminths,we could combine for different Warframes and if we do that we lose those frames and we can only do it once
For the infested liches update, I really wish we get a graphics overhaul for them. Reduce the comic style factor and mold them into some really ugly and really frightening species.
Just can't vibe with them as much as I would like to with their current design. Thanks for the nice write up and presentation!
I would be totally ok with that. The enemies in warframe can look a bit... dated at times. An update of that nature would be quite welcome...
Spike is that YOU
So Albrecht basically did the same thing as Arlo the emissary. Providing healing but actually was infesting them instead. Wonder about that.
check out my latest video, I think you'll appreciate this...
I want a story quest or anything infested lore related like a quest about arlo and what's happening on eris because the infested has a lot of wasted potential to be a big villain that affect the story but it seem in the 1999 quest seem that potential Is going to be used.
It's odd they haven't done much with the Infested, especially in a while but... I'm willing to bet even it will have a place in the whole man in the wall saga, especially with it's fear being specifically pointed out...
Just imagine that one day regular Infested can reach Helminth and copy its and Warframe powers. It will be total horror. Think about it, you are fighting with armies of chargers, drones, and other ancients but every one of them have Warframe's powers. For example you try to attack charger but suddenly he create a sphere of void where time is stoped and then he starts to attack you or starts to spin with Dance Macabre dealing huge dmg to everything near him
The one ancient just spawning golden instinct and chasing the guiding orb.
It maybe much simpler then we think. You know some Animals kill sick Counterparts? Its the same here. The Operator and Warframes offer it Protection from its more mindless Strains. Although created by the Orokin it has its own localized Mind. Tethered, tempered and restrained not by an outside Influence but by the notion of Survival. If it where to overgrow the Orbiter it would risk the millenia old Symbiosis, when Nidus first rescued it.
I am explicitly commenting that I want a video based on whatever content you wish to make a video about. :D
Well I can definitely do that, lol
My best guess on the Helminth is that it is separate from the rest of the Infestation.
It is, as previously mentioned or implied, just one of several engineered gene strands of the Infestation with the sole purpose of constructing or improving the Biodrones (or so-called Warframes) by consuming and evolving (as a secondary purpose).
How else would you explain it helping to fight the Infestation or the various strands, like the one Alad V is infected with, Jordas, or the various infected bosses? It would be kind of self-defeating if all the strands were a single connected mind.
Let's not forget that there are hybrids of infected, sentient machines and Humans whose common motivation is survival. And I think that is the purpose and (current) goal of the Helminth strand on each of our ships/orbiters.
It could be that it was once just the infested spirit of a servant (like a Dax) or a tame pet, but each of us has fed it the DNA and spirits of many people, all of whom were more or less loyal to our operators. (Or were they? 😂)
And since their spirits are consumed to become one, it can be argued that each of our various Helminth strands has special connections to each of us.
Perhaps it fears being consumed again by another infested strain because it doesn't want to lose its individuality (the one that is friendly with or dependent on the operator) or it thinks we are its best chance for survival.
Of course, there is always the possibility of a major deception, but it would be counterintuitive for the Helminth to actively fight its host or provider. However, if it were an agent of the other side, perhaps it is helping the Infestation as a whole to serve us while playing different sides to survive.
We know from the Nora chapter and from Jordas and Alad V that the Infestation is capable of deception - and the Helminth may be a long-standing ruse that can be used as a weapon against the Tenno and the Orokin.
Still, I'd like to believe my initial conclusion that the Helminth has (for now) kept its targets separate from the rest of the plague. Perhaps until it has to reconsider its loyalties one day.
I hope you enjoyed!!!
I think an infested hive queen has to exist at this point.