RadZakpak

For Shadows, I've gone between thinking it is a pocket and not a pocket, but I think I lean towards it not being a pocket dimension. The Mob and Tag ones were both formed around the deaths of the Mobsters and Pablo respectively, with neither able to die or escape. The Shadows characters don't seem to die but are drugged and transformed into beasts to serve the Shadowman. I think what is different about Morg City is that it is fully corrupted by the Apothicons coming from the rift stone. Our goal intially in the map is freeing the Apothicons who then proceed to corrupt and destroy Dimension 63. I don't see how they could do that if we only free them in a pocket dimension. As for the Crazy Place zombies, perhaps it is that Agarthan/Keeper influence, and they are simply "programmed" to defend the gateway from any intruders.

Bringing this topic up again because I am an insane person. I think I have a more consistent answer for the eye colors of zombies, and it centers around the MPD. By default, zombies seem to just have Apothicon influence with red eyes. When the MPD is present on the Moon, however, the eyes by default are orange-yellow. When Richtofen takes over, he changes them to blue. The APD overrides the MPD in the local area in Alpha Omega to be white. Why are the eyes red in Mob of the Dead and Blood of the Dead? They are in a pocket dimension consisting entirely of Alcatraz Island and the unfinished bridge. No MPD. Why are the eyes red in Tag der Toten? Is is also a pocket dimension consisting of the Siberian Facility. No MPD. Why are the eyes red in Revelations? It takes place in Agartha where the Apothicons have brought their influence, but no Moon and no MPD. Why are the eyes red in Gorod Krovi? This I think is the crux of the wider answer. At the end of Der Eisendrache we teleport the MPD to Earth, remove its controller, and blow up the Moon on November 5th, 1945. The way fractures seem to work is that they build off of each other, so by blowing up the Moon on November 5th, 1945 in the Deceptio fracture, the Moon blows up at the same time in the Proditione and Agonia fractures. Gorod Krovi takes place on November 6th, 1945, so the Moon is now blown up and there is no MPD to influence the zombies, hence the red eyes. Why aren't they red in Zetsubou No Shima? Because ZNS takes place on October 18th, 1945, before the Moon is blown up. The MPD is still there. In Origins and Shadows of Evil, the Moon and MPD are still there, planted by the Apothicons ages ago, so the eyes are orange. I think this theory aligns with what Blundell said about the eyes mattering sometimes and something they don't matter. With this theory it doesn't really change anything that the eyes in Gorod are red, it's just that way because of when it takes place. Same with where Blood and Mob take place. But it does matter in certain cases where we need to know who is in the MPD.

House of Dust

I always assumed that they did because of the Monty trailer seeming to be the finale of all of them: Though, I don't think it should be taken entirely literally. What he says in the trailer is just reused lines from Revelations itself. However, I think it does still imply that Primis all met up in the forest before meeting Monty in Revelations.

Had a bit of an epiphany just now in relation to the denizens of the forest, and I think they could be related to Nacht being at the location. I think this relates to Nacht being the center of the multiverse and the closest place on earth to the Aether, a theory I discussed here: In this theory I also said that the Frozen Forest, at least as seen in Tag der Toten, is just outside of Nacht in Morasko. Perhaps the experiment that spawned these Denizen of The Forest also incidentally teleported the bunker from Morasko to Hanford. Maybe they were originally inhabitants of Morasko, or maybe they were residents of Hanford mutated into what they are now by creating a connection to Morasko. The green lights used for teleportation around Hanford could be a byproduct of this transition as well.

Great catch with the dark woods being a parallel of the frozen forest! He could be referencing Primis between Gorod Krovi and Revelations being in the Frozen Forest, as seen in the memories trailers, with that light over the hill being their salvation, Agartha.

Incredible thread, it's going to take some re-reads to full grasp everything, because there are so many moving parts and other factors to consider. But excellent work putting it into words!

This topic sort of came to me out of nowhere, and I wanted to share my thoughts because I don't think I've seen really any discussion on the topic. In Revelations, there are two stand out radios in which Dr. Monty simply recites lines from famous literature: From Shakespeare's The Tempest: From Dante's Inferno (The Divine Comedy): Because of the old fashioned language and seeming randomness of these references, I don't think they were given much thought before. But I got curious recently about the origins of these quotes and what they could mean from Monty's point of view. What do they say about his situation in Revelations? Let's start with the lines from The Tempest, one of Shakespeare's last plays. The Tempest is about a group of people shipwrecked on an island led by a magical person known as Prospero. Prospero was formerly the Duke of Milan, and fled to this island years ago after a coup. One of the leaders of the coup was on the wrecked ship, and Prospero wants to make amends and return home. One of the passengers from the shipwreck is the son of a King, and he falls in love with Prospero's daughter. Meanwhile, a plot is going on to overthrow Prospero and take his position on the island. The text that Monty quoted is near the end of the marriage of Prospero's daughter and the King's son, after a celebration. Prospero remembers the plot against him and realizes he will have to give up the power he has come to know. "Our revels are now ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air" The spirits Prospero conjured for entertainment are now gone, and their celebration comes to an end. "and, like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little lives are rounded with a sleep." In essence, despite how grand it all appears, Prospero's magic and the life he has created on the island will soon be gone. The themes of the play seem to be about the insignificance of our little lives despite how much we place importance on ourselves. Now, the lines from Dante's Divine Comedy are actually the beginning of the first of three sections, called Inferno. In summary, The Divine Comedy is about Dante travelling through Hell, Purgatory, and then Heaven. Inferno begins with Dante in the middle of his life, feeling as though he has gone down a path of sin. The dark woods represent that sin and he feels as though he is doomed. However, there is a glimmer of hope as he approaches a hill and sees the sun's rays cast overhead. They will lead him down a more righteous path. With the explanation out of the way, why is Monty fixated on these works, and these passages in particular? One interpretation of his reference to The Tempest is that he places himself in the shoes of Prospero when it comes to the cycle that Monty has created. Perhaps he even realizes that inevitably he will fail and the cycle will be broken. It would be interesting if he was already aware of the fact he was delaying the inevitable. In this viewpoint, Monty understands the folly of his actions and knows that someday, the House and Agartha will be gone and there will be nothing more of his life. In this case, his reference to Inferno is perhaps him feeling that despite the negative connotations of his actions, there is still redemption to come for him. What that redemption could be, I don't know. There is some speculation we will see more of Monty in the future, and that could further tie into this interpretation of the text. On the other hand, another interpretation could be that Monty is ascribing The Tempest's passage to humanity as a whole. Unlike he and the Keepers, our lives are small and temporary. Every empire that is created will fall, and as individuals we will be forgotten. His reference to Inferno could be a metaphor for Richtofen's journey, finding himself surrounded in darkness, a forest of bad deeds committed by his other selves. Richtofen, like Dante, sees hope through the forest and a path to redemption in following the plan up to Revelations. What do you think is the proper interpretation of these references? Also, BONUS LORE TIDBIT: The Tempest was also referenced in Black Ops's campaign. The clearance codes inside the Pentagon that McNamara uses are Prospero, Ariel, and Sycorax. Prospero being the protagonist of The Tempest, Sycorax being a witch who previously inhabited the island, and Ariel being a spirit imprisoned by Sycorax and later serving Prospero. Interestingly, as McNamara says these sequences, Mason seems to hear them as number sequences (discussed more in this thread). Is there something to this literary reference? Is Kennedy Prospero, with a plot to overthrow him coming from inside the government? Anyway, thanks for reading.

Supply Run

So many years on, and still there is a lot about Black Ops III's zombies iteration that we do not fully understand. Specifically, there are several radios from some version of Maxis speaking about a timeline full of radiation, where his children are destroyed before his eyes. Maybe it's a fool's errand, but I want to crack this and figure out the truth of the matter. I think I have some leads as to what might truly be going on. Let's start after Buried. As the timeline states: A key detail in the wording here is that Samantha only reaches out to the Dimension 63 version of her father after a rift opens. This leaves an opening for more to be going on between Buried and Origins. Here is where some uncertainty comes in: I believe that Sam reached out to a Maxis before the Origins version. For simplicity's sake, let's call this new Maxis "Punished Maxis". In Punished Maxis's timeline, he is living his best life married to a Sophia and has children inside his dream home on the countryside. But he is still a scientist at heart, continuing experiments in his basement. With the help of this dimension's Richtofen, he creates a working teleporter. This event, however, changed the lives of them all for the worse. By creating the teleporter, the break the seal between their own dimension and the Aether. A rift opens, allowing for Samantha to reach out. In doing so, however, she spreads her corruption as well as her true father's, unleashing the Apothicons upon this dimension. From here, something causes the earth to become irradiated. It may be the Apothicons bringing with them copious amounts of 115. It could be humanity nuking itself to try and wipe out the Apothicons. But Punished Maxis had a plan. "The Plan" is something we still don't quite understand. But I think it has to do with the other most baffling mystery of Aether: Things start to get very fuzzy. I believe that Maxis and Richtofen tried using the teleporter in the basement to search other dimensions for solutions to fix their own. I believe that this Maxis is the one who created Zero Base, a reality residing in the Empty Earth, somewhere safe from the Apothicon scourge. He collected artifacts from across the multiverse, searching for answers to potentially bring his children back, perhaps even to fix the corrupted Samantha residing in Agartha who brought this upon them in the first place. In his travels, he began to understand parts of the nature of the universe, finding the Kronorium, and learning of Primis and Ultimis. What we are seeing in the comic panel above may be part of Punished Maxis' plan. He enlisted Richtofen from his own dimension to track down the three men who could help him in the plan. This plan may very well have been the one that Primis Richtofen would later attempt, in collecting the eternal souls of the four of them. The comic panel may be them returning to a version of the house with a teleporter after collecting Nikolai's soul in Stalingrad. But still, the plan did not seem to work. A rift opened in Dimension 63, allowing Samantha to reach out to the version of her father from Origins. Dimension 63 Maxis arrives in Agartha to find himself in a new body, in a House on the countryside with a laboratory in the basement. The timeline entry says that Monty "recreated a physical manifestation of his Dimension 63 form." The body was not simply an illusion: It was physical. Just like the House. It's a physical place within Agartha that mortals like us can occupy. Monty could not have created this matter from thin air, surely. Instead, it was plucked from elsewhere. The House is potentially the version from the comic we saw earlier, or it is pulled from an earlier point in time in Punished Maxis' timeline. The body IS Punished Maxis' body. Punished Maxis was old and decrepit from years in isolation with limited supplies and radiation sickness in his home dimension. The wrinkles, stains, and liver spots fade as though he is becoming younger. Time for him is unraveling, and his body becomes a vessel for Origins Maxis to occupy in Agartha. Now that Monty has decided to intervene, he takes Samantha away to remove her corruption, leaving Origins Maxis alone in the House in Agartha. But it was not his to begin with, and memories slip in of this previous life. Being in Punished Maxis' body presented him with memories of this hellish version of reality, and it also may be what led him to using the basement teleporter to explore dimensions and relocate the Empty Earth, where Punished Maxis had collected the Kronorium. The plan continued, even after Punished Maxis was wiped from existence. Some other evidence to support this is the fact that at the end of Revelations Maxis and Sophia come together, expressing their love to one another before using the Summoning Key to close the rift which brought the Apothicons to Agartha in the first place. Origins Maxis never gave any indication of having a family in his home dimension. Samantha reached out to him, showing him the life he could have, and so he loved her like a daughter. But why should he love Sophia, someone who he never knew? His memories from Punished Maxis' life may be what caused him to remember having a family with Sophia, and thus he loved her as much as she loved him. That's a lot to unpack, and it still leaves some unanswered questions. Like, what exactly was Punished Maxis' plan? Does it have to do with the radios from Primis in The Giant and the paradox visualizations? What about the beacon? The beacon was shown to be radioactive as it caused Dempsey to lose his hair; Is the beacon what Punished Maxis used to try and stop the Apothicons? There's still a lot more to figure out, but I feel a little closer to the answer after writing this.

Excellent work collecting all of these images! Very interesting to see the design philosophy.

Chapter 9: "Land of Confusion"

Your Nature

Ascension