The Operator is the 
Tenno represented by the player, a young human with the ability to channel the
Void. Operators control Warframes through a process known as Transference, allowing them to transfer their consciousness and power into a Warframe as a surrogate body, even over long distances.
A player first gains control over their Operator at the conclusion of The Second Dream quest, and obtains more direct control at the conclusion of The War Within. Operators gain access to weapons and Arcanes through The Quills and Vox Solaris factions. Finally, operators can learn and specialize in the Tenno's five Focus Schools.
Functions related to the Operator can be accessed in the Orbiter's Transference Room by interacting with the Somatic Link inside the ship, by entering Transference, or by accessing the Operator option under the player's Settings or in the Fast Travel Wheel (default Q ).
Lore & History[]
The human children that would become the Operators met their fate before the Old War, as passengers of the Zariman Ten Zero, a ship used as an Orokin attempt to travel through the Void in order to reach the Tau System. The jump failed, however, leaving the ship and its passengers stranded in the Void. All adults on board eventually lost their minds due to the corrupting influence of the Man in the Wall, but the Indifference chose to gift the children with the ability to control Void energy, granting them the power to protect themselves. As shown in the New War Quest, the player's character accepted this deal, becoming the Operator. An alternate version of the child, which was the only one not granted Void powers by the entity, remained a human stuck in the Zariman, eventually becoming the Drifter.
With their new powers, the children were forced to kill their now-insane and bloodthirsty parents, and banded together for survival until the Orokin found and retrieved the Zariman. Only one of them, Rell, was ostracized by the group -and later by Margulis- for his oddities. The children were then locked away, feared and studied by the Orokin, with only Archimedian Margulis growing to care for them, becoming a second mother until her execution by the Seven.
The children would remain locked away until the Old War, when Ballas used Margulis' research to develop Transference: the children's empathy and their power to bond with another's mind allowed them to control Warframes, which were otherwise doomed to be feral and ultimately flawed creations. Now fully become Operators, the children formed the Tenno, defeating the Sentients and bringing an end to the Old War. Their final act was revenge on the Orokin for their execution of Margulis, betraying them and destroying the Empire at the behest of Natah. Having grown to care for the children as Margulis did, Natah rebranded herself as the Lotus, and hid the Operators on the Lua Reservoir, casting the Moon into the Void to protect it from her kind.
The Operator makes their return during the Second Dream quest, where their true nature as children and controllers of the Warframes is revealed to the player. Forced to leave the Reservoir due to Hunhow and the Stalker's attack, the Tenno manages to defeat them, and takes residence in the player's Orbiter afterwards. During the War Within, helped by Teshin, the Operator fights the mental intrusion of the Grineer Queen, as she attempts to take over their body in her ritual of Continuity- the Orokin method of immortality. This allows them to regain the memories that Margulis had erased to protect them from their trauma- the horrors of the Zariman, their forced killing of their parents, and the full extent of their Void powers.
In later quests, the Operator becomes increasingly aware of the Man in the Wall's existence and nature, starting with learning of Rell and his mission to hold the entity at bay in Chains of Harrow. The Operator fully recollects their deal with the being and learns of the Drifter's existence during the New War, with the latter helping to save the Lotus and defeat Ballas. The pair then continues cooperating to protect the Origin System, including against the increasing threat of the Indifference, with the Operator most recently seeing the Drifter off to 1999.
Notes[]
- Mods of any kind equipped on a Warframe or its weapons do not affect the Operator in any way. Similarly, Warframe abilities have no effect on Operators, such as healing.
- Operators can use certain Gear items, which do not share a cooldown with a Warframe.
- Unlike Warframes, Operators can receive
Impact damage from falling from high heights. Falling from the top of Landscapes can potentially deplete all of an unupgraded Operator's health. - Players can switch to their Operators while inside the Orbiter and interact with all segments inside.
- Operators are capable of Hacking, opening lockers, reviving allies, picking up items and Mods on the ground, and picking up and carrying solid pickups like Datamasses and Power Cells, which will be dropped upon switching.
- They can also pick up Health and Energy pickups, which will restore the Operator's health and Void energy respectively, but they cannot pick up Affinity pickups.
- Energy Orbs collected by the Operator will also restore their Warframe's energy.
- If Void Mode is activated before Hacking, opening lockers, or reviving allies has begun, the Operator will remain in Void Mode for its duration, unless they run out of energy to maintain it. This allows for the Operator to rescue would-be doomed allies in otherwise lethal situations, or hack things that would be too dangerous to hack in their Warframe.
- They can also pick up Health and Energy pickups, which will restore the Operator's health and Void energy respectively, but they cannot pick up Affinity pickups.
- Operators can gain energy from the Arboretum room in the Orokin Moon tileset.
- The Operator's health does not recover by going in and out of Transference, they retain whatever amount of Health they had before returning to their Warframe.
- Operators can be healed by various sources, including their own Focus passives and Health Orbs.
- If reduced to zero health, the Operator will be forced back into their Warframe, have their health restored to full, and their Warframe will receive Transference Static.
- The effects of Volt's Electric Shield apply to Void Beam.
- The electricity damage will not apply to shields of the larger Eidolons.
- The Operator cannot be summoned in a Relay or in the Conclave, but can be summoned in a Dojo, in Cetus, Fortuna and Necralisk.
- Operators can use Emotes.
- Operators can use Handshake-emote to interact with another Operator, but not with a Warframe. The area in which the emote will 'lock on' to another Operator is also far smaller than it is with two Warframes.
- The Operator can not play the Shawzin.
- Sentinels and Syndicate Operatives will not follow the Operator, and will instead stay behind with the Warframe. They will still remain active however and will stand their ground and use abilities.
- However, Companions, Specters, Rescue Targets and Operatives, and Eidolon Lures that have been deployed and hacked by the Operator will follow them.
- The Operator has their own Stealth Affinity Bonus counter, which is independent of the Warframe's own Stealth Affinity counter. This counter is maintained and will continue to count down even when the Operator returns to the Warframe. As the counters are independent, it is possible to kill an alerted enemy with the Operator without losing the Stealth Affinity Bonus on one's Warframe.
- Replaying The Second Dream quest will disable the player's ability to perform Transference when playing any mission in the quest. Players will be given access to Transcendence during the quest, however.
- While in Operator mode, Sentinels and Companions will continue to attack enemies and take damage.
- Sentinels hover above the Warframe instead of following the Operator, making them vulnerable to damage.
- The Operator can carry a different Amp and set of Arcanes to their Drifter counterpart, making for a convenient way of quickly switching to an alternate build when necessary (i.e. a specific build for Eidolon hunts for the Operator, another specific build for Zariman missions for the Drifter).
- Due to story reasons, the Operator cannot appear in Höllvania. While the Operator can still be selected and customized in the Backroom, initiating Transference still forces control of the Drifter.
Tips[]
- The Operator can be used as a complementary stealth kit for Warframes without stealth capabilities, as Void Mode allows them to remain undetected from enemy vision.
- Additionally, all of the Operator's Void powers are silent, making them ideal for performing stealthy actions.
- Note that the Warframe will still draw aggro if seen, and non-sentinel companions will continue following the Operator.
- Passing through Corpus and Grineer energy defenses like Laser Barriers and Sensor Bars in Spy Data Vaults while in Void Mode will still activate the Vault's alarms. Void Sling, despite its appearance, will also trigger the alarms.
- Under Void Mode, it is possible to capture a target, hack a console, and revive an ally, while remaining invulnerable from all sources of damage including auras and Status Effects.
- Void Beam can destroy Magnetic anomalies in Reactor Sabotage missions, though destroying it will emit Electricity damage in a large radius, potentially dealing damage to the Operator.
- The Operator counts as a separate entity from the Warframe for the purposes of mechanics like pressure plates. This can be used for various situations requiring a player to hold two different locations at once, such as the Collaboration Test on the Orokin Moon.
- While the Operator can capture Interception points, their inactive Warframe will not.
- The damage resistance gained by a Warframe during Transference can be used to survive damage that would otherwise be fatal, such as Toxin status effects.
- The Operator's Shwaak Prism Amp part can be used to quickly dispel Arctic Eximus Unit Ice Bubbles, enemy shields, or even Nullifier Crewman weak spots thanks to the Shwaak's high innate Impact damage.
- The Operator's brief second period of invulnerability can be used to body block otherwise fatal Bombard rocket damage if timed correctly.
Trivia[]
- In Digital Extremes's script of The War Within, they refer to their own Operator used for story purposes as Mara.[1]
- The term Operator was first used by Ordis to refer to the Tenno during the events of the Vor's Prize quest, which was first introduced in Update 14.0 (2014-07-18).
- Transference employs a device known as a Somatic Link.
- The Transference ability extends beyond controlling Warframes. During The War Within and within Duviri, transference is used to possess an Orokin creature known as the Golden Maw. It can also be used to control Necramechs and Orowyrms.
- Before Update 22.0 (2017-10-12), the Operator was capable of using Ground Finishers on downed enemies with their fists by using Quick Melee (default E ) while standing over and aiming at the target. This action requires significant amounts of Void energy to perform however, otherwise, the Operator will simply use Void Blast instead.
- During Infested mission the Operator may be heard saying "We are immune to the Infestation, but they're still trying to kill us." This suggests the Tenno are directly immune to the Infestation, though it is unknown how or why. However, the Operator may also be referring to immunity by proxy, as the Warframes, being already infested, are immune to Infestation.
Bugs[]
- Removing parts of the Zariman Suit may sometimes not update correctly after changing color options on the Operator.
- A bug may happen on the Grineer Sealab tileset where the Warframe will float in the air.
- In some situations, switching between the Operator and the Warframe may be erratic position-wise, including recalling older positions and glitching the player out of the map. This occurs most often when attempting to switch forms while inside an extraction zone or falling into out-of-bounds pits.
- There is a rendering bug in the Orbiter that allows players to see inside the Warframe when walking through it as the Operator.
- Placing a Warframe within the interaction proximity of consoles interferes with using them by the Operator (the action prompt may not show up at some positions) until the Warframe is relocated.
- In a high-latency match, it is possible to switch to the Operator just before their Warframe is downed, effectively allowing the player to revive their own Warframe.
- If a player experiences an out-of-bounds glitch with their Warframe while in Operator form during a mission and is killed afterward, the player will be stuck in Operator form after reviving. In this state, the Operator cannot be killed despite retaining the ability to receive incoming damage.
- While Void Beam will activate the effect counters of conditional Rifle mods like Argon Scope when their conditions are met, the mod's effects will not actually apply to the Void Beam, conferring no benefit.
- When switching to the operator in The Jordas Precept after killing the Juggernaut Behemoth and before the cutscene, the player will be sucked into space without their Warframe. The player will not be able to move until they switch back to their Warframe, and will then be stuck inside the infested corpus ship for the remainder of the mission.
- When in void mode, the physical hitbox of the Cryopod does not apply, making it possible to walk through. When walking in and leaving the void mode, the Operator is stuck inside the Cryopod. Entering the void mode again makes it possible to walk out again.
- During The War Within quest, beginning Return To The Mountain Pass: Earth as Operator instead of the Warframe will cause the game to break. This bug will persist, even if the player attempts to restart the game. It cannot be fixed unless the player re-installs the game.
- On the Nintendo Switch version, however, simply closing and reopening the game will put you back in the Orbiter, allowing you to restart the mission as your Warframe.
References[]
See Also[]
