[2021] [New War Spoilers] Weirdly wholesome buddy comedy

I loved Stalker and Hunhow in this quest.

I love that, with all the Tenno gone, Stalker is just hanging out at Uranus with Hunhow. And Hunhow’s cynical, judgmental sarcasm plays really well next to Stalker’s brooding, judgmental silence. It feels innately funny - like a great premise for a bachelor roommates sitcom.

On another level, it feels weirdly wholesome that they’re sticking together.

The lore for Stalker says that he was originally a low-rank Orokin guard who took his responsibilities seriously. But he doesn't look like an Orokin or a human - he looks like a warframe, and has warframe-like powers. Based on what we know about how warframes are created, it seems reasonable to guess that, after we killed the Orokin, he decided that his best chance for vengeance was to become a Warframe - that he somehow found a working Helminth system and used it on himself, on purpose.

That is, it seems like Stalker used to be a person, but has been reduced to an animalistic state, endlessly reliving a single, burning memory ... just like Umbra.

If this speculation is accurate, then he’s just as pitiable as Umbra was. The Tenno could take away his pain, but his pain is focused on the Tenno themselves, so he hunts us instead. But seeing him with Hunhow, it feels like he’s found the next best thing - he hasn’t found relief, but at least he’s found companionship.

It’s easy to imagine that after Stalker failed to kill us, Hunhow might have discarded him - might have been all, “you failed, get out of my sight.” But he didn’t, and his stubborn determination to see Lotus freed gives me a theory as to why. It feels like Hunhow is fiercely loyal - he will give up life itself for his family, and has done so repeatedly. He’s still a genocidal monster, but he has some morals, at least.

To draw an analogy, Stalker is like a feral dog, and Hunhow is like a serial killer who adopted that dog. They’re both still objectively awful people, but seeing the way they help each other is weirdly heartwarming.

Given how the rest of the quest goes, I feel like we could be friends with Hunhow now. I would love to see a new faction of sentient allies in the game, a hope for peace in the aftermath of the New War, with Hunhow as the leader.

And this also feels like a great opportunity for DE to finally release Stalker Mode. We just need a story explanation, something about rogue Tenno causing problems, and then we could team up with him to hunt down these “rogues”.