Speculation on the current status, and possible destinations

[Guest MegaAfroMan]

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]Hello all! I am MegaAfroMan, and I would like to share with you all my thoughts on where the story of Zombies might go from the Climax of the Moon Event. So here it goes!

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]We left off with the story reaching its breaking point in action as Richtofen's evil plans finally come to fruition, when he replaces Samantha as the controller of the Zombies. Other changes include Takeo seemingly regaining a good portion of his memory, Samantha becoming human (sort of), and Maxis being 'deleted', and of course the Earth being blown up, or at least shot at by three fairly large rockets. So this leaves the following questions in my mind:

Will Richtofen be destroyed?

Will Samantha regain her power?

Will Takeo fulfill his promise to destroy 935?

Will Tank, and Nikolai ever fully regain their memories?

Is Maxis really gone?

What really happened to the Earth?

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]I will try to give my own interpretations on these questions and their answers one by one. Be gentle I haven't tried any theorizing before.

[center:2kqmnibq]Will Richtofen be destroyed?[/center:2kqmnibq]

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]Edward Richtofen has been a key element to our story since the very beginning, and although the web of characters Treyarch has provided us with is intricate, I think we can safely assume that Richtofen can be declared (at least thus far) as the games main Antagonist. Although he did not seem to appear that way at first, his actions from the very beginning just spell out villain. Villains in stories are often shot down by their peers or superiors (Maxis rejected Edwards teleporter work as useless) and then begin to build up a degree of hatred, a motivation to do harm. As a scientist, he continued his research, and two things began happening that gave him the means to exact his revenge. The teleporter, which I believe was the device that had the highest 115 exposure rate (therefore creating the most saturated bodies, which upon death from the teleporting failure would reanimate, and seeing as they were heavily saturated, anyone they killed would likely be turned too just from exposure to the saturated corpse) and therefore created the most zombies, and his teleporter sent him to the MPD ( by some odd twist of fate that always seems to occur to the Villain right before he becomes officially evil...) where he is changed. He suddenly has the means to show his superiors that he never should have been suppressed. He begins construction of Griffin Station, and figures out how to power the MPD.

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]Through some undetermined means (the best candidate seems to be the poor Vril-Ya) he fills up the souls canisters, and charges the Vril generator to prepare the process of putting his soul into the machine. Due to yet another twist of fate (seems to happen to him a lot...) Samantha (after being presumed dead) is teleported to Griffin Station and runs into the MPD in a panic, and accidentally triggers the soul transfer sequence. Richtofen does not leave it there though, as Samantha begins to hunt down everyone she associates with Richtofen (anywhere that has experimented with 115, perhaps?)

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]Richtofen decides that he will use his test subjects to help him achieve his goals. He plays innocent and helpful, trying to stop what seems like the common enemy, Samantha, when in reality he is rebuilding his power, so he can take her place and establish himself in the position he had intended. He indeed recovers all of the necessary equipment and places himself in the position of Power! I think this means we have not reached the fall action of the story yet, but are actually working towards a second climax. We have only just established the main villain for what he truly is, it would not make sense to just start conclusions now, there needs to be a fight against Richtofen. However, as in all classical tales, the villain almost never wins so there are three possible scenarios from here:

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]The most likely is that the crew, or some new crew, will step up and begin to collect new forms of equipment and artifacts to take the fight to Richtofen and destroy him, and sever the connection to Aether. As in most classic stories, not only is the villain destroyed, but preventative means are taken to stop similar events from occurring. This is why I believe that the MPD and the connection that the Aether has with the Regular plane must be severed for the story to conclude. As long as the connection still exists there is always that open ended possibility of more zombies some how appearing, or someone else taking over the Aether.

Even if Richtofen is not killed, and the zombies still exist, as long as the Aetheric connection is severed, then there is no more antagonist. The remaining threats can be dealt with simply.

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]Another possibility (if Treyarch wants to milk this out for sequels...) is for someone to replace Richtofen in the Aether, and for him to just be put back in his own body and killed or imprisoned. The reason I do not like this, is it leaves the opportunity for the Aether to be used for destruction again, and therefore resume the story as it had been going.

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]Or of course Treyarch could go against the norm and have the bad guy win, in which case the only where that zombies can go is downhill. There really would not be anything left for our crew, and they would probably slowly disappear, and we would only see various maps showing the after effect of his control, and then eventually his "final solution" which could be anything really. I think it is possible as a direction, but it does not feel very concluded. It feels like you lost, like there was something that could have been done differently. Very few stories can make the villain winning seem like a good ending.

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]So out of those three possible direction, I think the first one is the most likely, in the end Richtofen will lose, and the Aetheric connection to the normal plane will be severed.

[center:2kqmnibq]Will Samantha regain her power?[/center:2kqmnibq]

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]As you can assume from above, my answer is probably not. Her resuming her power essentially restarts the story, and creates this loop of events that never really has to end. This does not really make the best story, but it certainly promises at least a few sequels. It could be possible that she gains a different power as our new protagonist, and decides that the best thing to do would be to take down Richtofen in some suicide mission, or perhaps briefly regain her abilities in order to properly destroy the connection between the two planes. However I do not think it would be the best choice if they want the story to stick, and to be great. Who knows, maybe they could pull it off?

[center:2kqmnibq]Will Takeo fulfill his promise to destroy 935?[/center:2kqmnibq]

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]Although I cannot answer this for certain, I do think it presents a very clear opportunity for Treyarch to designate a true protagonist in this twisted tale that we have. In destroying 935 and all of its connections, he would deal with the zombie problem, the 115 problem, the Aether problem, and the Richtofen problem. It is a very clean way to set the path to the conclusion of the story, and would seemingly make sense. It could lead to some interesting twists as well, for example, would Samantha have to be killed too? How about the crew? They were test subjects after all, they are associated now, whether they like it or not. I believe either Takeo, or Samantha will step up to become the Protagonist in our story.

[center:2kqmnibq]Will Tank, and Nikolai ever fully regain their memories?[/center:2kqmnibq]

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]This is completely speculation, but it seems that if Takeo could eventually lose the loss of memory that seems to have affected them all, then the other two might begin to remember more as time goes on as well. How this will affect the story I do not know, but it could bring up some new conflicts between the characters themselves, when they figure out who they are, they no longer need the support of their current 'team', because now they know they have something, somewhere, someone, to go to. However, if the memory loss is fading away, could this mean that something else is changing? Could other effects be fading too? It is no myth that these 4 are well above human health standards. They can directly ingest 115 and be perfectly fine, pass through electrical arcs, fall from at least 1 story up, jump on top of a grenade, and heal remarkably fast. Could we begin to see those effects disappear as well? Perhaps our characters will soon start disappearing one by one, as time fights against them...

[center:2kqmnibq]Is Maxis really gone?[/center:2kqmnibq]

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]Honestly I am not sure. He was supposedly deleted, however the "voice recording" seemed a little too "alive" when it was laughing maniacally after the rockets were launched. Some how this man seems to be more tied into all of this than we realize, but as far as what I can speculate, I do not see how he could continue to be involved in the story. He could perhaps serve as a guide to the new crew to find a way to dethrone Richtofen (and maybe put himself in power?), through more "recorded messages". All I know for sure is he should have been dead at least twice now... something tells me killing him is not an easy task.

[center:2kqmnibq]What really happened to the Earth?[/center:2kqmnibq]

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]There is much speculation about the state of the Earth after the explosions, I believe the rockets did hit, and did cause damage, however, based on your return to NML, the atmosphere is still intact, and therefore the explosion could not have been ridiculously powerful. The intent behind launching the rockets is questionable, some say it was to kill the zombies, others say it was to make more, some others say it was just because he was a sociopath. All could be true or false. However for the continuation of the story, a fair amount of places would still have to be intact and still have to have zombies, unless we never went to present day/slightly future Earth. Time travel could occur, or other dimensions, but that seems like a lot of work on Treyarchs end, so I feel like we will go to Earth, and see it in its newly apocalyptic state. This works perfectly with the story, as the destroyed wastleland, with no inhabitants other than zombies (seemingly) portrays the mood of our story very well at this point. Richtofen just took over, and now the hard times begin. Stories often have the environments tell you just as much about the mood as the actual events and dialogue does. It sets the mood for what is and what is yet to come.

Conclusions

[tab:2kqmnibq][/tab:2kqmnibq]So based on my answers to the above questions, and a little speculation, I believe our story will unfold with the crew finding a way off of the Moon (either with our watching or with out) and will end up on the post-apocalyptic wastelands. They could be lead by various voice recordings provided by Maxis, or Takeo's newly recovered memories and drives to destroy group 935. Along the way we will eventually find ourselves collecting artifacts of some sort, or powering up or disabling various machines in several 935 bases, in order to weaken Richtofen, or strengthen one of the crew, in order to bring the fight directly to Richtofen, and in a grand finale (probably a suicide mission), the Aether and its connection to the Earth will be severed, and the Antagonist will no longer exist, therefore ending the story.

I suppose that is about it. I suppose I would like to give thanks to all of CoDz, and everyone who has published a theory of theirs here, as I have probably read it, and it likely has contributed towards my view of what we call the twisted story behind the Zombies.

Also Major credit to Eye for this thread viewtopic.php?f=53&t=19406& I didnt necessarily notice it as I was writing but it drives at some of the points I was trying to make about the Antagonist, and Protagonist very very well, and probably contributed to my views above.

[Guest wunderpancake]

[brains] for this. Although I just think its a Q&A not the story. But great post

[Guest Alter72]

I think the group time travelled so much it created a separate earth (the black ops one) with a different series of events, the group could've gone to the new earth and killed Richtofen before all the zombies happened, that's what my theory is.