Talk:The Second Dream/@comment-108.87.117.137-20151206233208/@comment-17703786-20151209061913

The way I see it based on how the Warframes have been portrayed, the situation is essentially like The Matrix (for those who haven't seen it, why haven't you?): they're not simply remote controlling the Warframes, as long as they're "jacked in" so to speak they are the Warframes, with their thoughts and essence being inside the Warframes themselves, which they move like their own bodies.

Due to the amnesia the Tenno suffered though upon waking up from cryostasis (either through the effects of the long cryosleep or something Lotus did), they did not remember the fact that they had an actual flesh and blood body, so from their perspective the Warframes were their bodies. They probably treated changing Warframes as casually as changing clothes without realizing just how strange such a thing might be, at least from our perspective. Basically, using the Matrix example, none of them realized that they were still living in a dream world, the virtual world. Only when they get "jacked out" like Neo did upon taking the Red Pill did they realize and remember their original selves.

Now the analogy goes one step further: in the Matrix, a person's mind was inextricably linked to their virtual selves, such that any pain or trauma they experience in the Matrix would be felt by the mind in the real world, to the point that dying in the Matrix was death in the real world. And I believe the same can be said of Tenno and their Warframe: as long as they haven't returned to their Arsenal to "jack out", their minds are still "trapped" inside their Warframes, and thus trauma and death become very definitive possibilities for Tenno, even if their bodies are actually somewhere else. And since before the events of the Second Dream the Tenno didn't even know that they had real bodies somewhere else, you can imagine what that'll do to their psyche knowing that they're gonna experience very painful torture with no way out.