What We Know Warframe Lore - Jade Shadows [SPOILERS]

Mostly a re-tread / explanation of the Jade Shadows quest lore with a fair deal of speculation as much of the specifics are left to interpretation.

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[StallordD]

Another commenter pointed out the Low Guardian badge on Stalker's chest in the intro, which would indicate Jade did indeed save Stalker shortly after the slaughter at the Terminus, so that gives a bit more clarity to that timeline of events at least.

Also, I changed something with the video encoding that seems to have really screwed up the quality when it uploaded to Youtube. Hopefully it isn't too noticeable, but I'm definitely going to undo that change in the future.

[youraveragechroma]

I have an Itching feeling that Jade’s death was by Ballas’ design. A warframe power to die to childbirth and to leave a child of impossibility as a symbol of the tragedy sounds so much like something Ballas would do out of spite for having Margulis taken by the Jade light for being a mother.

[slenderminion]

Here's something interesting to consider. During the Second Dream, killing the Tenno was clearly his goal. It wasn't the Warframe he was after, it was the actual Operator controlling it.
He plunged his blade into the Warframe's chest at the end of the quest, but he never stopped looking at the Tenno while doing it. They had his full attention.

However, he was clearly caught off-guard when he saw that the Operators were children all along. It not only brought up questions about his own nature, but he seemed hesitant to actually kill the Tenno later on. Jade Shadows reveals that the Stalker can infiltrate our Orbiter and attack us directly any time he wants, but doesn't. It's almost as if he was intentionally limiting himself to only hunting Warframes instead of the people he now knows are actually in control. He knows that killing the Warframes is just an inconvenience at best. Keeping that in mind and considering how protective he is of his own child, it seems to me that even with all of his fragmented memories and hate-filled heart, Stalker is unwilling to truly murder a child just to get his vengeance.

[euclxd]

Imagine instead of just starting the quest, we had to unlock it by almost defeating the stalker, only to be rescued by Jade. Which then unlocks the quest

[HinduKhajiit]

I personally think Jade saved Stalker during the slaughter at the Terminus, the Tenno probably respected her wishes and did not kill Stalker back then, and Jade had been with him ever since.

I also believe perhaps Jade, like Hunhow, wanted Stalker to make amends and be friends with the Tenno, since she knew she won't be alive and would want Stalker to not be alone.

[Havok]

I don't know exactly WHEN Jade rescued Sorren, but I suspect she's been in his care for quite some time, seeing as he still wears the Low Guardian symbol when she rescued him. That being said, they could have been separated after and only reunited by Jade's maternal instinct.

[zureSapphire]

If I do recall, The Stalker was there when the Orokin was betrayed by the Tenno. Even though he was a low rank protector, he failed to do what was tasked to him and sought revenge against the Tenno for killing his masters in a quest for revenge. Either it was from a devstream or an update page.

[redirmer]

I like how despite the revolutionary technologies, the sci-fi themes, digital sentientness that the game's universe has, it seems like the only thing that the whole entirety of warframe is centered around of are love, family, fighting for the right to live, closure, and the dangers of indifference.

[drvinylscratch]

The idea about the child being a key to beating the indifference is cool. Makes me think those leams about roamncing in 1999 make sense

[KategariYami]

My interpretation of the Stalkers Motives is that he's still very conflicted with his feelings towards the Tenno. Including the Kiddo. But he's not conflicted with The Drifter.
And that post New War, the Stalker is still in regular communication with HunHow. HunHow I feel has reconciled with the Tenno through his acceptance of the Drifter, who for all intents and purposes are one and the same. After all, it is through the efforts of the Drifter and to varying extents the Operator, that Lotus is rescued and revived to essentially full power. We brought his daughter back.
So HunHow may have helped in convincing Soren here to go easy on the Tenno. Stalker isn't 100% there, and will continue to hunt us regularly, but at least he's now (after a final push) looking to us for help...
And for the Operator - considering we can in-game swap between Tenno and Drifter at will, I feel like when we're in the chair we may have regular communication with our other self. So the Drifter may have helped convince the Operator that overall, the Stalker isn't someone to be immediately armed against. That we can give him a chance should he come to us not for battle, but for aid.
I dunno - this is just how I feel about what's happened.

[Geminanvaju]

With regards to what Jade's rank within the Orokin Empire might have been prior to her becoming a Warframe, a lot for the dialogue by Parvos during the ascension missions has led me to conclude that Jade might have been the one who discovered or created the Jade Light. So, she was either an Archimedean, or straight up an Executor. Needless to say, she was well above Sorren's rank.

Also, with regards to what their fate ended up being, I do have some thoughts on it. Mainly, I don't think their fates were the exact same. Jade was most definitely turned directly into a Warframe via the helminth, and managed to retain her humanity by holding on to a powerful memory, much like Umbra. For Sorren, however, I don't think that was the case. The reason why I believe that is quite simple: the Stalker can speak. And we know from Loid that Ballas designed every one of his Warframes to not be able to speak. They were able to scream, roar, and howl. But never speak. Even Jade and Umbra, Warframes that were made almost exclusively for experimentation and torture purposes, also followed that same design philosophy. The only times we actually hear a Warframe "speak" is when they are being transference operated, and their operator is talking through them. And so, I believe that Sorren wasn't directly turned into a Warframe, but rather, had his mind transferred into one, permanently. With his old body being either destroyed immediately after, or just wasting away over time.

[gailengigabyte]

One thing to note is that, during the quest, Ordis mentioned that Jade's records were essentially redacted, indicating that the elite wanted to make extra sure that the affair was dead and buried, as well as to keep their mobile Jade Light executioner under wraps. That would also explain why we get question marks when Stalker messages us after each assassination mission (as he might of had the same info treatment), and would explain why Jade was considered the boogie woman of the empire, by Granum's own words.

[youtubeisnotsocialmedia]

I hope it turns out that Sorren used trasferrence to become the Warframe that would be known as Stalker to us. It's very interesting to see non-Tenno utilizing a technique that is second nature to us, and suffering unique consequences from the strain it puts on normal people. It would help make his character more tragic, the dissolution of "Sorren" into "the Stalker".

[noahtemple]

I don’t know why but this quest almost brought me to tears. What an amazing quest. The amount of pain the Stalker has endured is crazy.

[cross]

"Dax; the elite immortal soldiers augmented with biological and cybernetic enchantments that granted them unparalleled strength."

*Shows clip of Dax soldiers getting absolutely clapped*

[leenara]

on the topic of the timeline of when jade and stalker come into contact, ordis mentions shes been missing since the orokin slaughter, meaning shes been with stalker since then and the entire time weve known him and not by some chance encounter from him hunting tenno

[youraveragechroma]

So, this is another example that warframe powers can change based on trauma dealt to it. Valkyr to the torture of Alad V’s testing, Dante morphing with a grimoire, Revenant in the sentient lake, and now either Sorren gaining this pseudo exalted blade or the child being born giving this result.

Maybe this is what the Mirage prime trailer meant by Mirage influencing Ballas’ work.

[zenerstorm]

Fun fact: If the Stalker spawns on you in a mission and you're playing as Jade, he'll simply say "Never." and leave immediately while dropping his loot.

[koboldman]

Low guardian is also referring to the fact that a lot of the tenno differ from the tip of the spear, also known, as the prime frames, which were the pride and joy of the orokin military at the time. The person who talks about primes the most, Varzia refers to normal warframes as the low guardians.

[youraveragechroma]

Jade had her own consciousness. But when we craft her, she doesn’t have Umbra’s passive or show of consciousness. In fact, neither does Stalker when he shows up in Duviri.

My theory is that original warframes are created off of a person, they keep most of their mind and sanity, then they are copied to be Tenno controlled or primed to also be controlled but with the person’s essence only being replicated. This would explain why warframes even have idle animations, original powersets, and can take other abilities when you take from other warframes.

This could also explain why Excalibur umbra is an umbra. It is designed to keep the entire Dax’s mind conscious to suffer at Ballas’ own gross will. So when we copy him, our copy isn’t just his mind’s essence.