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This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
| “ | Hey, kiddo. | „ |
| ~ The Man in the Wall's standard greeting to the player Tenno. |
| “ | We had a deal. The deal was shook. A little handshake, all it took! Though from the deal the wee child ran... Yet still, WE END AS WE BEGAN. | „ |
| ~ The Man in the Wall in response to the Tenno's defiance. |
The Man in the Wall, also known as the Indifference, is one of the two overarching antagonists (alongside Ballas) of the MMO third person shooter Warframe, as well as the archenemy of Albrecht Entrati.
A mysterious entity living inside the Void, a realm where the laws of science and logic don't apply, the Man in the Wall is the true source of the Tenno's power and the Void technology that allowed the Orokin Empire to achieve complete dominance over the Origin System.
While he has remained trapped within the Void for eons, the full awakening of the Tenno has allowed him to manifest himself to them. As their power grows, so does his influence over them.
The Man in the Wall is voiced by either Scott Whyte, Emily Wold, Maya Aoki Tuttle or Griffin Puatu, using the same voice chosen for the player Tenno.
Appearance[]
The Man in the Wall takes the form of an exact copy of whomever is looking at him, the only difference being eyes with black scalera and yellow-orange energy as irises. His true form is that of a colossal humanoid literally fused into a wall, with both consisting of the same white stone-like material. He lacks the upper half of his face, has four arms and four legs and is missing his index finger on his upper right hand, the same finger that Albrecht Entrati accidentally cut off when escaping from him.
Personality[]
| “ | You mad at me, kiddo? Did you forget? You owe me. | „ |
| ~ The Man in the Wall's warning. |
Just like his appearance, the Man in the Wall's motives and goals are a complete mystery. However, his relaxed and personal way of speaking barely hides his more sinister and manipulative personality that does not take anyone seriously, calling those he interacts with by the nicknames their parents gave them such as "Little Bengel" and "kiddo" regardless of their current age. This not only shows that he can either peer into the minds of others or has omniscience, but also that he considers them to be nothing more than children.
The Man in the Wall's actions and words contradict each other, making it even more difficult to figure out his true goals. He claims that the Tenno "owe" him for saving them and giving them their powers, but there is just as much evidence that he was the one who put them in danger in the first place. He leads the Tenno to the key to stopping the Sentients from destroying the Origin System, but takes the time to mock them by forcing them to fight shadows of their disappeared mother figure.
Biography[]
Albrecht Entrati's Story[]
Long before the Orokin Empire colonized the Origin System there was a scientist by the name of Albrecht Entrati. No ocean, no mountain and no sky could contain the Orokin and Earth had been explored in its entirety, and so the Orokin longed for the stars. Albrecht was convinced an alternate dimension they called the Void was key to extending their reach into the infinite. Unfortunately, his studies yielded little if any results. Repeated failures and formulations that made no sense had long casued the others to lose interest in his project and considered the Void and him alike just that: nothing, a dead end not worth investing in. With only his trusted feline companion Kalymos and his daughter remaining by his side, bitterness and humiliation pushed Albrechts determination to prove the naysayers wrong.
And on one fated day, Albrecht's attempt at exploring the Void would revolutionize the world. Within a large bell made of a special glass to protect him from exposure, his daughter opened the gate and set in motion events that no one could have foreseen. As the bell slowly made its way through the gate, Albrecht was overcome with awe at the impossible nature of this strange realm and stumbled against the glass, changing the bell's path ever so slightly and grazing it against the edge of the door. Sharper than any blade could ever be, the door shredded open the bell and he fell into the Void unprotected.
He was certain of his death, but realized he was still alive when he felt a painful sting in his arm. He laid on top of the broken glass of the bell and the floor of his laboratory beneath, to which he concluded he had never left. Another failure. Shame filled his eyes when someone stepped onto the shattered glass towards him and he forced himself to look upwards into the face of his daughter, only to find himself face to face with himself smiling down at him. His twin reached out his hand and called out to him: "Little Bengel", a name only Albrecht's mother had called him by in days long past. Confusion and euphoria filled Albrecht's mind, but his sanity brought him to his feet, made him turn around and run for his life. Yet as much as he ran, he got no closer to the door. It was as if the world compressed around him and pulled the door towards him instead. When it was close enough, he hurled himself through it and landed back in his laboratory. His body crippled and bloodied he tried to scream, but his voice was gone. He tried to see, but his sight had faded in an instant. And yet he could still feel his double reaching out from the other side. Quickly, Albrecht wrote "Close it!" with his own blood onto the floor.
The closing door severed the copy's fingers, the study of which put the stars within reach. Numerous others ventured into the Void after Albrecht, but none of them ever encountered the strange entity. And so over the years paranoia grew within Albrecht. When age started to break down his body, he could have easily moved into a new body and continued his endless life like the other Orokin, but he decided against it. He could never be sure who it was that escaped the Void that day. Him or his copy?
The War Within[]
The Man in the Wall only made a brief appearance at the very end of the quest, being briefly mentioned beforehand. After Albrecht Entrati's fated voyage into the Void, the Orokin Empire made many experiments at utilizing the Void. One such experiment was the attempt to jump the gap between Saturn and a place called the "Outer gates" (likely the far edge of Orokin dominion around the solar system) with the large military vessel Zariman Ten-Zero by traveling through the Void. However, the ship ended up stranded within the Void. The player Tenno's father stared out into the emptiness and worried that something is watching them from outside. The energies of the Void had a profound effect on everyone on-board the ship. While the adults were driven insane and went into a feral frenzy, the children were granted supernatural powers.
After the horrors of the Zeriman Ten-Zero incident, the children's memories of the event were suppressed and they were given the collective name "Tenno". With the Elder Queen trying to burrow into the mind of the player Tenno and take over their body, Teshin, a former soldier of the Orokin Empire and ally of the Tenno, was forced to undo the treatment so that they may unlock their full strength and escape the Queen's grasp. At the end of the quest, the player Tenno was confronted with a choice on what to do with the Kuva adorning the Queen's scepter, a liquid that gave the Orokin of old their immortality via body transfer. Regardless of choice, the Man in the Wall briefly took over the Tenno's body and gave them a short message.
If the Kuva was consumed, the Man in the Wall was pleased and asked them what took them so long. If the Kuva was given to Teshin, the Man in the Wall reminded the Tenno that they are nothing without him. And if the Kuva was rejected and thrown away, the Man in the Wall was angered and warned them that they owed him.
Chains of Harrow[]
During the events of the Zariman Ten-Zero incident, the Tenno were forced to abandon their families and start to rely only on each other, as the madness that befell their parents and the crew had turned them into bloodthirsty savages, eventually regarding each other as their new family. But even among the Tenno there was an outcast, a child named Rell. Rell was the only one who recognized that their parents' affliction wasn't ordinary madness, but rather had become something else entirely. Left to fend for himself, Rell turned his attention to figuring out what this entity is.
When the Tenno were finally rescued by the Orokin, Rell was cast out once again. He was eventually taken in by others and began to teach them about the dangerous entity he called the Man in the Wall, forming a group called the Red Veil to keep him at bay.
In the present day, the Red Veil have become a powerful syndicate allied with the Grineer resistance group Steel Meridian and known for their extremely violent methods. But when the Lotus, motherly leader of the Tenno, sent them to investigate a distress call from a Steel Meridian ship, they discovered that the Red Veil had inexplicably turned on their allies and slaughtered everyone on-board. Only one of them was not hostile to the Tenno: the Holy Speaker of the Red Veil Palladino. The Tenno protect her and her cat-like pet Rook from strange, humanoid shadows and escort her to Steel Meridian's secret base of operations on Earth, where she would be safe from the apparitions and her own people.
During their next mission to reclaim a relic that helped Rell focus, which Palladino could use to call out to him, they encountered a shadowy, invincible entity chasing after them. Palladino quickly realizes that this entity is not Rell and screams at the Tenno to run. Back at Iron Wake,
Palladino asked the Tenno to destroy the chains binding Rell's vessel to the temple and put him to his well-earned rest. The Tenno could only enter the temple as their true self and was once again confronted by the Man in the Wall. The Tenno managed to avoid his attacks, defeat the Red Veil fanatics he called and destroy Rell's chains. The Warframe crumbled to ash and Rell was finally released. When Rell asked what they would do about the Man in the Wall, Palladino assured him that they would take care of him.
With Rell gone, the only defense the Tenno had against the entity's influence had disappeared. Back on their ship, the Man in the Wall greeted them, sitting on top of one of the ship consoles.
The Sacrifice[]
The Man in the Wall's involvement in The Sacrifice is minimal, though he plays an important part in what follows after. After the player Tenno defeated Ballas and freed the intelligent Warframe Umbra from Ballas's psychological torture, which involved him reliving the memory of being transformed into a Warframe and forced to kill his own son over and over again, the Man in the Wall visits them back on their ship. He asks the Tenno if they are feeling better now, upon which the Tenno responds that they believe that they were the ones that killed Umbra's son. The Man in the Wall is pleased to hear this.
Prelude to War[]
Chimera Prologue[]
Following this, the Man in the Wall disappeared and reappeared in the Tenno's personal quarters while wearing the Lotus's helmet, their former motherly leader. When the Tenno interacted with it they were transported to Lua, Earth's moon. He guided them back to the place where the Lotus was taken by Ballas and reverted to her previous identity, Natah, taking the time to mock them along the way and force them to fight shadowy apparitions of her. At their destination they found the portal that Ballas and Lotus left through opened once more, taking them to the base of the Sentients. There they met a still living Ballas, having been rescued by Natah and turned into a half-Sentient hybrid after Umbra and the Tenno mortally wounded him.
Erra[]
Although the Man in the Wall isn't seen, his influence is still hinted at. When the Lotus confronted her brother Erra during the Old War she was accompanied by a group of Tenno floating around her, among them the player Tenno. They simply watched her and Erra's conversation with emotionless expressions, their eyes identical to those of the Man in the Wall. When Lotus gave the command, they wordlessly attacked Erra in unison.
The New War[]
A flashback to the catastrophic Void jump of the Zariman Ten-Zero showed the first interaction between the Man in the Wall and a Tenno. After they barricated themselves and other students in their classroom aboard the ship, the player Tenno went around the room to try and comfort the other children as the adults had all gone murderously mad. They eventually got to another student facing a wall, knocking on the window with the back of their finger. The player Tenno offered the child their lamp, who turned around and accepted their gift with a thanks, grinning to them with their own face. While the madmen started to tear down their barricade, the Man in the Wall told the Tenno that he can save them and all the other children on the condition that they need to really want it, offering his hand with a smug grin.
When the player accepted the Man in the Wall's deal, it was shown that this had severe consequences for several instances of the player Tenno across multiple timelines, all of whom collapsed in pain.
In the present day, the Man in the Wall saved the player after Ballas stabbed them and threw them and Natah into the Void. He replaced them with an adult version of themselves called the Drifter, who didn't accept his deal and was left stranded on the Zariman 10-0, leaving them to fight Ballas and Erra's new regime Narmer and nurse a dying Natah back to health. He later connected both the young and adult version into the main timeline, allowing them to take each other's place at will. This gave them a fighting chance to stop Ballas's plan to use Praghasa to destroy the Sun for his voyage to the Tau System, which the Sentients hade made habitable before their rebellion against the Orokin.
During the confrontation with Ballas in his throne room on Praghasa, a Void portal opened due to his actions and started to break it apart. Following Ballas's defeat and Natah being restored to her full power, the Man in the Wall's true form appeared out of the portal and grinned at her and the player Tenno. Natah tried to fight back against him with all her strength, but he simply continued to grin as his mimicked form sat and laughed on top of his head. Then, suddenly, the Man in the Wall rushed forwards and disappeared, causing Natah to collapse exhausted onto the floor.
Angels of the Zariman[]
Following the conclusion of Narmer's reign, the Zariman Ten Zero reappeared out of a massive rift in the outer regions of the Origin System for reasons unknown. Wedged in-between dimensions, the Worm Queen and Parvos Granum immediately sent their subordinates to take control of the legendary vessel, but the Tenno were called to the ship by a strange song coming from within. Investigating the Zariman showed that the walls were covered with a strange metallic substance that took the shape of sharp edges, swirling tendrils and humanoid figures. Further into the ship, the player Tenno was attacked by one of those humanoid creatures and knocked out.
They were saved by the four Holdfasts, former crewmembers of the Zariman that have been stuck in limbo ever since the failed Void jump. The creature that attacked the Tenno was a so-called "Void Angel" and used to be a friend of theirs called Kira. Kira succumbed to the influence of the Void and drank from the Reliquary Drive, which turned her and the other crewmembers into the Void Angels. Most of them lay dormant within the halls of the ship, but Kira was very much active and aggressively trying to convert the others with her song as well.
With the help of the Holdfasts the Tenno managed to put Kira to rest and save the Zariman from being overrun by Void manifestations, but the Zariman remains stuck in place and both Grineer and Corpus will continue to fight for dominance over the ship, their conflict always risking to unleash Hell once more.
The Void War Saga[]
The Duviri Paradox[]
To be added.
Whispers in the Wall[]
To be added.
The Lotus Eaters[]
To be added.
The Hex[]
To be added.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The Railjack-class ships that the Tenno use for larger scale space combat are powered by a device called the "Reliquary Drive". Upon closer inspection, the swirling Void energy inside the device shows what appears to be a mummified human finger the size of a person. It is likely that this is one of the fingers that were cut off and when Albrecht Entrati's daughter closed the Void gate after his first encounter with the Man in the Wall.
- The Man in the Wall's true form resembles a Vitruvian Man.
- Fittingly, the Man in the Wall is credited as "Evil Twin" in the official The New War and Whispers in the Walls voice cast.
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 Villains
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Grineer | ||