Sentient

"The Sentients had won. They had turned our weapons, our technology, against us. The more advanced we became, the greater our losses."

- Orokin 'Warframe' Archive (from Excalibur Codex) Not to be confused with Sentinels. The Sentients are a race of machines that the chief enemies of the Orokin's during the Old War. Originally suspected to be a truly alien race from another star system (whereas the Orokin, Grineer, Corpus and Tenno all seem to be human or post-human variations originating from Earth), memory imprints revealed by Cephalon Simaris seem to indicate they were originally created as terraforming drones bound for a distant star system. As their name suggests, they inadvertently gained Sentience, which coupled with their own innate abilites made them a dangerous threat to the Orokin Empire.

History


According to the Detron Crewman's Synthesis entry, the Sentients were originally developed as tools of terraforming bound for the Tau system. To survive, they were given the ability to adapt to any sort of damage that they would encounter as well as the ability to replicate from damaged components. This came with its costs however; the Void was "poison" to them and they could not travel through it safely. Thus, once the drones reached their destination they were effectively stranded there, with no safe means of returning to the Origin System.

At some point the Sentients had evolved, gaining the ability to subvert any advanced technology they could come across, and decided to return to the Origin system to wage war on their former masters. As the Orokin were a technologically-advanced civilization, the Sentients were easily able to turn their weapons against them. Thus, the Orokin were forced to use more primitive weapons such as  percussion rifles, "s plinter ships ", bladed melee weapons and even developing the Technocyte Virus, none of which proved effective against the Sentients. In desperation the Orokin utilized the survivors of the Zariman Ten Zero incident -who had gained immense power from the Void- trained them in the art of the Old Ways and created a conduit that could withstand and channel their power -thus, the first Tenno were created. With their new soldiers ready for combat, the Orokin managed to turn the tide of battle.

With the odds stacked against them, a Sentient by the name of Hunhow hatched a plan to destroy the Tenno. He disguised his youngest child Natah as one of the Orokin to serve as a mole, with the intent of undermining the Orokin empire and destroying the Tenno. Natah decided to spare the Tenno however, as in order to get to the Origin System Natah had to sacrifice her ability to bear children of her own, choosing to adopt the Tenno instead. Natah decided to transfer the Tenno to the Reservoir and hide the Reservoir in the Void, keeping it safe from Sentient attacks. Discarding her old identity, Natah became the Lotus, watching over the Tenno and awakening them when the time was right.

Enemies

 * -|Oculyst=


 * -|Battalyst=


 * -|Conculyst=

Trivia

 * Although the Sentients were mentioned occasionally in earlier builds of the game, it wasn't until Update 17 where more detailed information about them was revealed.
 * While it's never specified which Tau system that the Sentients were destined to go, the most likely candidate would be the Tau Ceti system, as it is a major candidate for extraterrestrial life to develop and possibly thrive, making it a reasonable candidate for colonization.
 * One of the earlier Sentinel Cosmetics is called the "Hunhow Sentinel Mask" and not only does it share Hunhow's name, but its overall design is similar to the faces of the Battalyst and the Conculyst. It remains to be seen if this was a deliberate piece of foreshadowing however.