Talk:Helminth/@comment-121.211.119.200-20180712125419/@comment-29580146-20180917023244

The original warframes, i.e. umbra excalibur and such, were originally people, that much we know.

As for the primes, they were the Orokin mass-produced versions of the warframes, I'm not sure if there's anything official stating whether all primes were originally people or not, but I suspect they weren't due the fact that they're supposed to be the warframes used en masse by the orokin and converting that many people into warframes would simply be less efficient than "growing" them.

You've also got to consider that, as excalibur umbra showed us, the warframes that were originally people still somewhat retain their sentience, or at least can continue to act on their own with or without an operator. The Orokin had already made the mistake of giving their tools sentience once before, that mistake being the Sentient, I don't think they'd do it a second time.

The "modern" warframes we see today are the tennos attempt at recreating the Prime warframes and are most definitely cloned/grown.