RichKiller

Although Die Rise itself had very little story, it introduced concepts which have been used since Origins to begin solidifying the Aether storyline. While examples vary, I want to bring in two of the unexplained examples:

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Kronorium Excerpt 27101978
The life force from the dead world allows the bearer to flow with all creation.

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In these dark days, I find myself clinging to the belief that there may still be a way to set things right.

 

Though my understanding of the ethereal realm remains limited, I am convinced that the manipulation of the energy fields within all matter is vital to uncovering the dimensional gateway itself. It is my sincerest hope that somewhere in the realm beyond my beloved Samantha still lives.

 

I can only pray that Edward will have the courage to fulfill the vow he made all those years ago.

Now, since this post has inspired me to finally have a look into the Mahjong game, I thought I'll be sharing this:

Mahjong has different types of tiles. There are those who are referred to as "Honor Tiles", which consist of the four winds, as well 3 dragons. So since the Easter Egg revolves around the dragons, this seems to be a good reason as for why picking this game to be used in the Easter Egg (beyond it being a a traditional Chinese game).

20 hours ago, anonymous said:

Seal of God (also referred to in the books of Der Eisendrache: "Occultism in the court of Elizabeth I" and "The Evil Archon").

 

I love the John Dee references: 

Pretty sure that's the inspiration for the ring of skulls in the void bow:

A Painting of John Dee, Astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, Contains a Hidden Ring of Skulls

WWW.SMITHSONIANMAG.COM

---

The life and work of John Dee contained a strange mix of science and magic

Wish we had more information about the denizens to know what's going on there:

7 minutes ago, anonymous said:

@RichKiller didn't knew about that excerpt stating the Silverback escaped from Ascension, thank you for that. When and how do you think ithappened? As the newspaper is in Five (occuring simultaneous to Ascension), I assume it happens prior to the actual events of Ascension

My educated guess is that he was on one of Ascension Rockets, as we know monkeys were sent to space, specifically the Silverback himself by his uniform. He may as well escape with the "main" Ascension Rocket itself (Don't overthink what happens when you destroy the rocket lol).

14 hours ago, Jacob Vickers said:

the silverback is respectfully in the dead ops universe. there is no monster attacking anything! it's just the crawlers being let out of their idle position, breaking through the roof, and crawling down the walls, and as soon as this happens, there will be new spawn points for crawlers all around the map. remember, treyarch plans EVERYTHING in zombies. just like campaign, it's all coded and scripted depending on the players' position and actions. besides, if there was a giant king-kong, it would be revealed by treyarch. especially since TEN years after release

Dead Ops Arcade, by the very least its first iteration, is canon to Aether. Besides a magazine showcasing up in Five, it was recently confirmed that Silverback was in Ascension:

https://www.treyarch.com/game-intel/2020/12/Dead_Ops_Arcade_is_Back

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In the first Dead Ops Arcade, players squared off against the Cosmic Silverback, a mutant gorilla that escaped from the Black Ops Zombies map, “Ascension.”

I personally don't think Silverback has made it to Kino (at least when you open up the power). Turning out the power leads to the spawn of the Nova 6 crawlers and the ceiling gets slightly ruined, the same ceiling that the Nova 6 crawlers come from. 

3 hours ago, clueless said:

Might not even be a controller. Hell, the concept of a controller is vague as it is in the Aether story. The voice is clearly a male Russian, but that's as far as we know for the moment.

I think there is plenty of evidence for Samantha and Richtofen being controllers. Here are a few quotes on that matter, there are much more. 

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"Oh no, I do not like this game! It was more fun when I was in charge."- Samantha Maxis, Moon

"Crawl to me, minion" - Samantha Maxis, Moon

"Show me your sorrow, puppets" - Samantha Maxis, Moon

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"Sometimes my pretties need help. ATTACK!"- Richtofen, Green Run

"Here zombie let me help you"- Richtofen, Green Run

@PINNAZ

JDelgado is one of the astronaut names in Moon

6 hours ago, Tai Bolding Carrot said:

Yeah but in the Die Rise intro, it shows that the earth is broken into 4 sections so the rockets must of hit the earth 

This post is from 2012 my friend. It's outdated. Of course the earth is broken, shattered and scattered.

19 hours ago, anonymous said:

EDIT: Maybe the Conversion Generators in Origins convert this Ethereal Energy into perceivable, liquid 115

The conversion generators are tied again to the energy fields:

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Researching Element 115 continues to yield unforeseen results. The conversion process creates localized energy fields which appear to function as portals, bringing forth objects of indeterminate origin. It is my hypothesis, however outlandish, that this transferal of matter may actually be occurring through space and time. I believe the answer may lay with the broken rune stones located at the mound, perhaps channeling sufficient energy from the conversion generators to their location may prove fruitful.

My guess is that the conversion generators simply convert the 115 from solid to liquid, which connects again to the 115 flow. 

23 minutes ago, anonymous said:

@Rapt and @RichKiller I know you two have read Shooter's thread about Time Travel and the Aether, and I ask you, upon reading this thread, is there a connection between Ethereal Energy and Vril?

 

Ethereal Energy is described to be everywhere, omnipresent, while Vril seems to be only there at extremely high concentrations of energy. However, both are directly connected to 115, both become higher the more 115 there is. Could we conclude that Vril is a very high manifestation of Ethereal Energy?

I think this thread is a bit outdated but it does touch some interesting concepts, that were starring mostly in BO1. 

"The ancients found a way to breach the void ; Follow in their footsteps." - Samantha, Origins. 
 

Aether in the story is supposed to be the space in between matter (similarly to physics theories floating around, they even got support from Einstain). 

What keeps the universe in tact is Element 115, in the proper amounts.  

 

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Richtofen must understand that using these teleporters to jump between dimensions is both dangerous and imprecise. At any point, the fabric of space-time could collapse if the proper amounts of 115 are not maintained. l am also concerned about the unknown effects of trans-dimensional jumps. l have noticed even with my brief travels that new memories and emotions have flooded my mind, suddenly appearing from nowhere. l am also sure something is happening on a molecular level as well.

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Kronorium
Excerpt 27101978
The life force from the dead world allows the bearer to flow with all creation.

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Thanks to the sacrifice of Maxis and the contraption called Sophia all the 115 has been purged from the final universe. Thank fucking god. Time to get some rest. -M

115 flows all around creation, in the space at the void, i.e the Aether. Opening rifts and jumping between dimensions is super dangerous because it messes with the flow. 

This ties into another concept which is "energy fields". You can read more about fields in here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_field

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Though my understanding of the aethereal realm remains limited, I am convinced that the manipulation of the energy fields within all matter is vital to uncovering the dimensional gateway itself.

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Excellent! The Energy fields are changing, transforming, flowing... uh, you are on the right path.

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Vital energy flows through all things, living or dead. My power to manipulate these forces is fragile, and limited. That is why I need your help. Dummkopf

irl the term "energy fields" is meaningless because energy does not have a direction. However, it could very easily make sense with the zombies story,
as the Aether is not limited to our 3D world, and so technically the energy can be directed "in and out of reality itself". A field directly implies a flow when you have interactable matter.  

This is also tied to Agartha as well. 

The Casmir affect is directly tied into Aether, as it speaks about Vaccum, which is technically a space without matter, but as we know such places are occupied by the Aether. 

From wikipedia, you can once again this concept is connected to wormholes (i.e rifts):

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The Casimir effect shows that quantum field theory allows the energy density in certain regions of space to be negative relative to the ordinary vacuum energy, and it has been shown theoretically that quantum field theory allows states where the energy can be arbitrarily negative at a given point. Many physicists such as Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne, and others therefore argue that such effects might make it possible to stabilize a traversable wormhole.

19 minutes ago, anonymous said:

 

@RichKillerdo you mean your 'good forest ending' happens when Primis die in game and the paradox isn't resolved? How could that occur, as that essentially generates a Grandfather Paradox?

"Thank god we will all be gone because If Monty ever found this place, we would have been in a world of shit."
"Maybe now with us all gone, the children will truly be safe"

This seems to be the good ending:
Monty loses, the children are safe, and you're not in a world of shit.

Dempsey actually wants to die there, he knows what would happen if Monty found the place, and it doesn't seem to be any good. 

Meanwhile you have the other cipher:

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(cough)

Field Report...

(heavy cough)

I don't know why I'm doing this.
Is anyone even receiving me?

(cough)

If you are, then all hope is lost. I'm the last one. The others...
they're... gone. We failed.

(cough)

I don't know if there are multiple outcomes, or if this has always been the only one. No matter what we do, what we fix, we still end up here... this time travel shit, multiverses, shit fries your brain.

(cough)

I hope Richtofen established contact with the others.
Woke them up. It's the only way now. It's up to them.

(cough)

Damn it's cold... very cold...

(beat)

Not much time left now.

"If you are, then all hope is lost. I'm the last one. The others... they're... gone. We failed."

"No matter what we do, what we fix, we still end up here."

Clearly here you see Dempsey saying the situation is bad. 
But Dempsey actually has a last hope. And that hope is Richtofen: 

I hope Richtofen established contact with the others. Woke them up. It's the only way now. It's up to them.
 

Now this rises questions on their own. In particular, it means that some version of Richtofen survives. 
As I've said, the answers as I see them are in The Giant. 

I would say that the paradox isn't resolved at that point of time, but don't concern yourself with that just yet.

See if you can understand the rest of The Giant first. 

I love the original thread, it's so on point and it was written back in Origins. 
I wouldn't say the repeated insertions are cycle iteration, but just how maps work, as a part of the cycle. 

Thanks for resurfacing it  @Rapt
Seemingly the cycle resets Primis when some characters die in the forest:

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I am the last of us but I will be joining you soon my friends -cough, cough- death is near. I hope what we have done doesn't come back to bite this universe in the ass. Thank god we will all be gone because If Monty ever found this place, we would have been in a world of shit. Maybe now with us all gone, the children will truly be safe. -D

This seems to be the good ending, in which Monty does not find the forest. In this ending, everyone are gone. 
This may imply that in the bad ending, someone does not die in the forest and the cycle continues (kinda like Mob of the dead).
I'd argue it's Richtofen. It also lines very nicely with The Giant, in my opinion at least. 

4 hours ago, anonymous said:

A major thing remains unclear to me: What exactly happened to Samantha? How does the place she is trapped in now differs from the place she was during her time in the MPD? It reminds me of how we free Gersch in Ascension, how he describes it as a terrible place and yet a place where 'she' is in power. 
 

It's also curious how Samantha says that "we are trapped here", plural. What does she mean?

This is tied to another question I've been wondering about, which is when Origins actually start?
Similarly to The Giant, it seems like the crew again forgets how they really got there. 
"You don't even remember, how long this has been going on, how long we have been trapped here"
(Samantha to Richtofen in Origins)

Similarly, in the beginning cutscene you see Richtofen looking at his hands.

You may think this is because he is shocked he killed Maxis,
but what if he is just confused at what happened previously and where is he now, in the same way the characters from The Giant seem to get confused?
Food for thought.

1 minute ago, Lenne said:

Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaariiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Well you know where the giant is

Here are some ideas, which probably occurred to Treyarch in some points in time. Most of them are probably not original but still.
- A map near/within a volcano.
- Medieval map (I know we had DE but imagine a map that actually takes place in that era). 

- A map in a bank (shoutout to weasel for blowing himself up).

- Loch ness 

- Rio de Janeiro (#BrazilMap)
- Prehistoric era, dinosaurs and stuff.

- The louver museum.
- Atlantis of course

- Area 51, but completely expanded.
- Monty's factory (ft. Monty's chocolate bars)
- Aztec/Mayan map, expanding Shangri-la's background lore etc.
- The wild west
- The particle accelerator at CERN 
- Underground map (who remembers "Mind the gap"?)
- Antarctica 

etc.