We’re floating through space, Venus in sight. There’s a quick cut. Two war frames stand across from each other, a fiery chasm apart. They ignite, one a brilliant green, the other an angry red, and launch back into the heavens, clashing to the tempo of Erra’s “Crawl Backwards Out of Heaven,”swirling like a helix of jade and crimson strands, into the stars for their final battle. 

But it’s cut short as the Great and Terrible Hunhow appears between the blazing twin sons. Time freezes, then reverses. And we’re back to where we began. 

These are scenes from the anime-inspired trailer for Warframe’s next major narrative update Jade Shadows: Constellations, revealed last Friday during Digital Extreme’s Devstream 195, and the debut of the next two warframes, Orion and Sirius, two new protoframes, and tons of possible new lore implications to unpack.  

But today, I’d like to focus on just Orion and Sirius, and my theory for how their kits will work. 

And so, it goes without saying, but if anything I just wrote sounds like utter babble to you, then please pause a beat and come back to read this when you’ve completed all of Warframe’s narrative quests, as you’ve now been warned, from this point forward there be spoilers. 

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*Deep breath* 

Let’s begin. 

Lore-wise, we know these frames are special. The first ever child born as a warframe, from a warframe, Orion/Sirius are unlike anything DE has ever revealed to us before. The community has been speculating for almost two years now around what their implications to the lore are, mechanically how they might be played, if we were ever to get to play them, and when we might see them again in the story. It looks like we’ll be getting some answers soon, and as early as May’s Devstream 196. 

Orion and Sirius are frames that are more than a couple years in the making. Rarely, if ever, have we had the seeds for something like this planted so early, teasing future warframes a couple years out. So while lore-wise these frames are unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, I think they are also going to be unlike anything we’ve ever played before as well. And while we might be picking sides in the narrative (although I even have my doubts about that as well), Rebb confirmed during the devstream that we will be able to build and play as both of them. 

Given this, there doesn’t have to be a lore reason to justify why we can build both of them, but I think there still will be, and that’s the catalyst for this theory. 

The trailer for the next update shows Sirius and Orion facing off against each other, clashing into the stars, leading us to believe this will be a story of two bitter rivals in an all-out smackdown where only one will merge victorious, but then Hunhow appears, and the action halts, even rewinds, just before the culmination of their final battle. I don’t think this battle is going to play out like we think. I’m not even sure it will end up being a battle at all. 

And that brings to mind what has possibly become one of the most singular core theses of Warframe’s narrative, best embodied in a quote from Ballas. 

“It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing-- And take away its pain”

For some time now in Warframe, we've taken broken ugly things and fixed them. And this idea carries forward during Whispers in the Walls and 1999, where we see love as the solution, an ultimate weapon against the Indifference. Sure, there’s plenty of conflict and this game I think has earned the “War” at the beginning of its name, but time and time again, we’ve wielded love and empathy to heal the pain of the ugly and broken, sometimes even bringing our mortal enemies around to our side. 

We see this happen in the first Jade Shadows quest, where Stalker, as explicitly stated in the text of the game, hates the Tenno, but finds it within himself to allow some semblance of a truce, so we can aid him in his attempts to restore Jade. And while we are unable to save her, it is during this brief peace, we work a miracle and bring a warframe child into the world of the Origin System for the first time. And that child is Orion/Sirius

So given the themes of love and empathy we see in Warframe, and especially how that is carried forward into the Jade Shadows quest line, I think Constellations is ultimately going to end with Orion and Sirius being allies, healing their ugly hate, much like the Tenno with Soren, and they will have to come together for some greater purpose, providing a narrative backbone for why we’ll be able to build both Orion and Sirius for our arsenal. And because of this, I think their warframe kits are going to mirror this kind of narrative. 

I see it going one of two ways: 

1. Fusion - probably more simple to execute - they have their own unique kits, but their 4 is very similar for each of them. Their 4 summons the other warframe and they merge into each other for some kind of channeled state, ala Sevagoth. They’re essentially exalted frames to each other. 
2. Tag-team - probably more difficult to execute from a technical standpoint, but I think possibly the cooler option. Each ability in their kit is some sort of tag-team ability that summons the other frame in to do cool synergized abilities. Perhaps their 4 is still a fusion like the above example. Or, maybe they have a set of non-tag team abilities, and their 4 activates some kind of channeled ability that converts 1-3 into tag team abilities. 

I think either of these options bring a lot of cool possibilities. And while building both Orion and Sirius is what most of us will probably do, I don’t think these kits need to depend on having built both frames. They can just summon in a default version (think specter) of the other frame. But if you have both built, perhaps it would incorporate your customizations for each, which would also be cool. 

We’ve been building to this mechanically, and not just narratively, for years. 

Equinox - the same frame, with two different states, and two different sets of abilities. 

Sevagoth - a frame that has an exalted form it summons, with its own set of abilities. 

Both of the above lead me to believe the Fusion path is probably more likely, given it’s just a more advanced version of how Equinox and Sevagoth work. 

But here’s the evidence for the tag team approach. 

Gemini skins and transformation emotes - This is the first time DE introduces in game tech that allows you to essentially switch to a different cosmetic load out of your frame during a mission. It’s more similar to Equinox than it is to true tag teaming, but it’s allowing two separate versions of the same frame to exist at once. Base cosmetic load out -> Gemini cosmetic load out and in reverse. 

Which then brings us to Nokko - One of Nokko’s animation sets summons Yareli to dance with him as an idle. Tech-wise, I believe this is the first time we see two frames existing at once on screen and interacting with each other. This excludes specters, who do exist, but don’t really have unique interactions with your character in a mechanical sense, other than acting as a simple AI companion. From what I recall, the version of Yareli that comes in for the animation is always the default skin, not one of your customizations. I believe this changes with Gauss and Grendel’s deluxe animations, but we aren’t there yet. 

Tauron Strikes - During the Old Peace, our Operator unlocks a new ability for the first time in years, and it’s something that resembles a tag team-type ultimate move. Now we’re seeing your operator/drifter cast an ability that requires, at least animation-wise, a team up with your Warframe, which also serves an in-game mechanical purpose, and even switches back to your Warframe state instead of operator/drifter. This is the first time we see tech in the game resembling some sort of tag-team mechanic, albeit between Operator and Warframe and perhaps much more distilled down than what I’m proposing for Orion/Sirius. 

And now, finally, the Gauss and Grendel deluxe animations - The first time we see two frames interacting with each other, performing animations that resemble a tag team move, granted it’s just cosmetic and not anything functional for gameplay, unlike what we’ve seen above during the Tauron Strikes.

But I think all of these examples build upon each other, possibly leading to new tech at DE that allows for tag-team mechanics. And who better to debut these abilities than Orion and Sirius. The two frames, who through eternalism, are two sides of the same coin, mirror reflections of each other.

As I mentioned before, these are special frames, more than two years in the making, with special narrative implications. So, to me, it stands to reason that they must have special mechanics too.

So what do you think? Maybe this is just all cope on my part. I’ve wanted tag-team mechanics in this game for some time now, at least between operator and Warframes, so I’m willing to admit I’m just connecting dots in a constellation out of some kind of confirmation bias, reading what I want to read in the stars. 

But I think there’s something to it. And even if this isn’t the route DE goes, I had a blast thinking through all of the possibilities, and hopefully it was at least an enjoyable read for you too in the process.