Maxis' endgame, Koschei and Moon's Vril Artifact

[Slade]

First of all it’d like to say that I wasn’t sure where to put this, Future Zombies? Asylum or General Zombies? Well, anyway, this theory is all about Maxis, because even though he plays a vital role in GR/Die Rise, I feel like we haven’t really discussed him enough yet, and I’m not a big fan of just waiting till the next map pack comes out, let’s take a look at Maxis and hopefully discover a few new things we might have missed up until this point.

A bit of history

Doctor Ludvig Maxis, perhaps one of the most interesting and important characters in the Zombie storyline, especially since the last few black ops 2 Side quests, yet despite all this, he has never made a physical appearance and we still are not certain whatever we should trust him or not, or even what his true intentions are.

By looking at the past and analyzing the stuff we might have missed, I think we can get a pretty clear picture of what’s in store for us.

Moon - "The Egg of Dishonor"

Remember the Black Egg from Moon? That thing you needed to toss around the station, put inside the Pyramid, only to toss it around some more before making it disappear. Big deal right? Not really important, or at least that’s what we thought.

It’s literally shrouded in mystery, our characters refer to it as a ‘black egg” of sorts and Takeo even goes as far as calling it “an Egg of the devil” / “the egg of dishonor, ”, in the radios/audio reels the egg is referred to as an artifact.

Now aside from being used as a bowling ball throughout the Easter Egg, what is the actual function of this mysterious artifact? There must be a reason it’s there, especially since it’s mentioned multiple times by different people throughout the map,

it must have some meaning. I believe I have the answer.

Let’s take a look at the various quotes where the Egg gets mentioned.

“Doctor Richtofen, I am aware of a project being run by Doctor Maxis at Der Riese concerning Vril” – dr Shushter in one of the radios when Richtofen is revealing the Piramid to a group of 935 scientists.

“This must be the artifact daddy was talking about” – Samantha when getting the egg to the launch platform.

“Ooowh wunderbar, I was wondering where that artifact went” – Richtofen after finding the Egg.

This tells us three things: that Maxis was working on some sort of vril artifact, that he told Samantha about it, and that Richtofen knows of the artifact but it somehow, at some point, disappeared.

Now this is just a theory but I believe the Egg functions as a sort of gateway that allows two souls to swap bodies with each other (or two bodies swapping souls), exactly what happened on Moon.

You could see the Pyramid as a three-layered structure we have:

The pyramid itself, which is a gateway to the Aeather and allows whoever’s in it to control the Undead.

The artifact which allows someone from the outside to swap souls with whoever’s in the Pyramid at that time.

And finally the Vrill-device, which is used as a battery of sorts to power the Artifact.

Maxis the Immortal

So how does this tie-in with Maxis you say?

Well first some mythical history, enter Koschei the Immortal. An “archetypal male antagonist, none of the tales about him describes his appearance, the spelling of his name in Russian and other Slavic languages suggests that his name may be drived from the word kost meaning ‘bone’, implying a skeletal appearance”

Skeletal appearance, reminds you of someone? indeed the Avogadro, but it gets a lot more interesting.

According to the tales, Koschei cannot be killed by conventional means targeting his body, because his soul is hidden separate from his body inside a needle, which is in an egg (inside four other things hidden inside a tree).

Now as you can guess Koschei was the inspiration for legendary villains like Lord Voldemort and Davy Jones, among others. They all locked away their own souls so that, in the event that they lost their body, they could still live on.

And that’s where Maxis ties in, even if he’s not shot in the last radio (I really think he was) he must have died by the time our crew meets in Green Run right? How is he able to communicate to the crew, not only in America but also in China. How IS he still ‘alive’? If he’s in the Aether, how comes he can only communicate via electronics?

The Artifact's true power

Well here comes the second, and most important feature of the Artifact, the ability to capture and hold someone’s own soul inside it, then allowing the soul to manipulate electronic-powered devices nearby.

Now how did Maxis’ soul get inside the Artifact? I have two explanations for that,

A:

let’s go back to the event of Samantha stepping out of the Pyramid.

The artifact was in the Pyramid, Samantha stepped out because she heard her Father.

After Maxis told her to “kill everyone” Shuster or Groph in fear shot Maxis, resulting in an enraged Samantha closing the Pyramid yet again, Maxis his soul was pulled out of his body by the Pyramid , but because there weren’t any canisters to fill, his soul got trapped inside the only place it could go to: the artifact, which somehow, probably because of the shock waves from the Pyramid closing and amidst all the chaos, got stuck inside the ceiling.

..or B:

We know that Maxis studied the Artifact, and somehow he realized its full potential, he managed to put his own soul inside, that way he was still able to live on when he was killed by Shushter/Groph.

Either way, Maxis his soul is trapped inside this vril artifact called the Egg which he worked on while being at Der Riese.

The crew found the egg in one of the tunnels inside the station, Richtofen remembered that it was a vital piece to opening the Pyramid so they took it with them and put the Artifact inside the Pyramid, what they didn’t know however was that by doing so, Maxis gained control of all the electronic-powered devices on the station.

So when Richtofen tried to power up the Vril-Device, Maxis quickly took control of the computer in an attempt to stop Richtofen from enacting his plan, however Richtofen managed to sever Maxis’ link with the computer and powered the Vril-Device nonetheless.

(During all this Maxis probably told Samantha about his plans, as she is heard saying “The Earth’s destruction will lay in your hands Edward, your fault! “)

Then when Richtofen swapped souls with Samantha, Maxis noticed the other three, Tank, Nikolai and Takeo.

He greeted them saying “if you are receiving this message, it means that Richtofen has entered the device.

If you free me, I will help you minimize the damage, that he will inevitably cause” tricking the Group into thinking that he was just a pre-recorded voice.

They did as he asked, they retrieved the Artifact (which again, holds Maxis’ soul) and brought it to the launch platform, where they diverted Maxis’ coordinations to the rockets, and threw a Gersch Device next to the Artifact.

Causing it to disappear into the Aeather.

This was Maxis’ his plan, by having his Soul now in the Aether, he can communicate and manipulate (to a certain degree) all electronic objects on Earth.

Much like how Richotfen can manipulate and control the Undead on earth,

this is how we’re able to hear him in Green Run and Die Rise.

Maxis' true Intentions, good or evil?

Is Maxis truly evil? Yes, Maxis is very evil and only uses those around him for his own personal agenda, while manipulating them into thinking that they’re actually helping him save mankind.

Remember how the Artifact/Pyramid needed tremendous power to allow the soul change?

And how Maxis wants us to power up all the Pylons/Spires, then activate them with the navcards, so that all that power can be used to make him either:

Swap souls with Richtofen (who is also in the Aether with him) or

Swap souls with One of our OWN Characters, so that he can finally “be free”.

I am hoping for the latter, after witnessing the MoTD Easter Egg, I think in our final map we again have to make a choice, help Richtofen or Maxis.

If we help Maxis he will at some point, force us to turn against one of our own, as we kill him or her, Maxis utilizes all the power of the Spires to force himself out of the Aether, back into the real world like Gersch but going even further, and force himself into that person’s body, or somehow come back to life as a Avogadro-like creature with its own body.

Much like Samantha, the final map could have Maxis finally becoming a playable character,

his quotes alone would be worth it, like Samantha he could reveal and clear up a lot of the unanswered questions in his various quotes.

Why Maxis is Evil

But the other reason I think his intentions are nothing more than bringing him back to life, or freeing him, is hidden inside the lovely audio files.

Vox_maxi_turbine_terminal (maxi meaning, maxis, turbine_terminal meaning putting a turbine near the so-called terminal)

‘You have constructed a control mechanism, but to program the computer, you will need to secure an application navcard. You will have to seek it out, then return here and activate the spire. To save mankind!”

Now correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Maxis ever talks when you construct the control mechanism, which we only can assume is the Navcard table.

Vox_maxi_terminal_on (terminal being the navcard table)

“Yes! The Spire is online! Now if the other sites can only be likewise empowered then perhaps there is still a chance we can complete that which was begun so many years ago! Your help has been invaluable, farewell!”

Now to my knowledge Maxis never actually says those two lines, the first one for unknown reasons and the second one because we haven’t actually put the spire online, we have powered it that’s for sure but only when we insert the right navcard, we can actually bring it online as Maxis wants us to do.

The ‘complete that which was begun so many years ago’ I think he’s referring back to Moon where he wanted us to free him, yet we never actually got to the point of freeing him.

Of course, Maxis can only return through the rift that has been created, hence why Richtofen wants us to mend the rift. That way Maxis will have no way of ever escaping Aether, resulting in him being stuck there forever.

So Maxis goes back to his usual tactics, lying and manipulating whoever is foolish enough to listen to him, first saying that he will minimize the damage, then claiming that the only way to save mankind is by helping him, I think it’s pretty clear he is only using those as excuses to get the Crew to cooperate with him.

Well that’s just my theory on how Maxis became sort-of immortal and what his true intentions might be, so what do you think? Please, discuss!

[Vyhl]

Loved it! This seems very plausible.

[itsallagame]

Well thought out man, great theories! Although I agree with your ideas on maxis' intentions, I still feel richtofen is the lesser ofntwo (or 3) evils. There have been some quotes from maxis in black ops 1 that reveal him to be rather sinister and he seems to has his own agenda. He always seemed to know more than he was letting on. And he just sound evil lol as opposes to happy go lucky maniac richtofen who is playful and demented lol

also is like to propose two contraditive ideas to you ..what makes you think Samantha and richtofen 'control' the zombies? And what makes you think maxis was shot by anyone other than himself?

If richtofen and Samantha could control the undead they could basically tell them to stay away from the groups so the eggs can be completed, that's too easy.instead, I believe that this realm that they inherit grants them so much power that they are able to materialize help for their group to survive against the undead which are being controlled by an as of yet undiscovered source. If you look closely at the die rise loading screen in the panel with the dragon there are two zombies seemingly ignoring a shadowy man in a suit on a floor above. This is the same figure from the nacht loading screen..make connections yet?

Mob of the dead holds more secrets to the story line than anyone thinksbit does (in theory). Bringing the devil and help into this really adds more room for crazyness.but is it really all that crazy to think that the rift is a between the dimension of hell and earth dimension? Even crazier that this rift grows larger with each person infected with 115? Who knows

And now, maxis...esearching the vril artifacts and he's a genius so its not a far stretch to say he figured something out.I think the stone does what you said in the 'B' segment of your ideas, but what isn't discussed is what the artifact was holding BEFORE. It was found.I've got theory that the shadow man was inside and maxis struck a deal for knowledge of.immortality or something similar and was fleeced . Mob of the dead introduces after life mode as you know, in this mode portals exists ..its not a stretch to think maxis figured out the portal system in 20+ years of ghost mode lol now it seems maxis wants to get revenge on richtofen for causing the loss of his body and daughter.

I wish treyarch could put out a 15 minute clip of info ..again though, great theory man!

[GamingAndStories]

Maxis is indeed evil, great findings, I agree with them, but this is what basically showed me that Maxis is evil:

- On Moon, Maxis sends the rockets to the earth at 3 specific locations, with the intent to hit the 3 base locations where zombies emerged, thus, stopping Richtofen.

- The rockets malfunction and the locations are changed, hitting 3 different places.

- Maxis knows this, yet, when the rockets hit, he laughs maniacally.

Richtofen is evil, but Maxis is manipulative, and thus, is the greater of the evils.

On another note, TranZit (Green Run) was basically Ground Zero of the rockets (I think), which means that as a final easter egg (the NAV cards and all that) could reveal some secret about TranZit - and Maxis and Richtofen will probably enact their final plan there. In any case, the Moon's Vril Artifact and all things that were in BO1 will most probably play a large part in the enactment of the two's plans.