Die Rise's Background: Unit 100 and the Great Leap Forward

[anonymous]

realized that almost every map has a background. A 115-mine, a Group 935 station or a place where experiments has gone wrong. Most of the time it’s the last one. There is, however, one map which has no clear background: Die Rise. There is very little talked about this map, only few Easter eggs has been found and there are almost no theories about the place it takes place in. Just a collapsed skyscraper, huh? Maybe, but maybe there's more. This topic is not a real theory, but more a source that gives you brain food of where Die Rise takes place and what happened here.

 

First of all, on the loading screen we see three words: Great Leap Forward, Province 22 and Die Rise. The last is of course just the name of the map, so let we take a took at the first two. You may know what the Great Leap Forward is: A Chinese campaign in the Cold War in which is aimed to quickly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a socialist society and economical superpower through rapid industrialization, which had national famine and death as result.

 

Now the second thing: Province 22, also known Jilin. Jilin is a province in the northeast of China, just above Korea. In the Second World War, this part of China was annexed by Japan and was given the name Manchuria. Perhaps this rings a bell if you have read this thread: http://www.callofdutyzombies.com/topic/158884-shi-no-numa-and-takeo-the-entwined-history/
In that thread @Tac explains why the Rising Sun Facility, a.k.a. Shi No Numa is in Manchuria instead of Japan. It is just a theory, but he uses some real life information in it. This information includes that Unit 731, the Unit of which Division 9 is part, had bases in Manchuria. But it isn't only Unit 731. A much more unknown Japanese unit was Unit 100. It was a smaller organization than Unit 731, but still a large group. Their main purpose was to conduct research to biological weapons and diseases of animals. As most armies were still heavily dependent on horses, the Imperial Japanese Army hoped to find ways to kill them and therefore to weaken military power.
Former members of Unit 100, however, claim that experiments were also done with human testsubjects. Their base was located in Changchung. This is where we get at Die Rise. Changchung is the capital of Jilin. Looking at every zombie map in the Nacht-Buried universe, each map takes place in or near a place where experiments with 115 are done or where 115 is mined. Could Die Rise take place in or near Changchung, and then specific near the Unit 100 base?

 

Unit 100 could get Element 115 from the nearby swamp, Shi No Numa, where a 115 meteor has impacted. With this they might have made the creatures we know as Jumping Jacks. An argument against this is that Richthofen yells at the beginning of a Jumping Jack round "Fetch me their souls". That is the same as what happens when a Hellhound round starts, so its like Richthofen sents these creatures from the Aether to Earth. But do you remember where the Hellhounds originate from? A failed experiment with Fluffy. Perhaps Unit 100 has done experiments with a Matter Transphere Device and Nova-6 Crawlers, and so created the Jumping Jacks. Could this be the reason of the "cages" on many locations in the map.

 

Now lets go back to The Great Leap Forward. This campaign had the most impact in the northeast of China, so also on Jilin. Heavy industry was replacing the peacefull ricefields. Also on the cities and civilians in Jilin this had a huge effect:  Famine and death by exhausted work in the hazardous factories. The Great Leap Forward took millions of lives. Im not going to discuss how this fits in the zombie story, but take a look at this thread, made by @PINNAZ, if you're interested. http://www.callofdutyzombies.com/topic/151716-chinas-great-leap-forward/

 

When playing as Stuhlinger, a former member of the Flesh who had eaten 115, you hear moaning and groans other characters can't hear. When the other characters are downed however, they can hear them too. Are these the soals of the causalities of the Great Leap Forward? Are these the victims of Unit 100? There has happened some pretty grimmy things in Province 22. Perhaps we will once find more hints to the backstory of Die Rise. What do you think?

 

[Slade]

On 10-9-2016 at 3:30 PM, anonymous said:

When playing as Stuhlinger, a former member of the Flesh who had eaten 115, you hear moaning and groans other characters can't hear.

I remember looking into this, looking at the raw audio files + the in-game code to get a better grasp of what exactly this was meant to be.
The sounds are only played when killing Zombies as Stu, and once after Maxis' greeting quote when spawing.
They aren't just random moans, if you listen closely you can make out the words: 'pain' 'help me' 'kill me' and just a bunch of 'no' s,.

As for the location, yeah we never got anything on it. Die Rise as a whole added pretty much nothing to the overall story. Easily the worst written map ever.

Spoiler

Do what I say Samuel or I'll tell your friends about your secret even though you are the only one who can hear me.

t. Richtofen

I like to think that it was somehow connected to Broken Arrow, as they are pretty much the only thing that's mentioned more than once in the map. But yeah, hotel next to a sweatshop. What a waste of a setting if you ask me.

 

[Doppelgänger]

Great work Anon, keep it up! Brains to you.

Unfortunately, this is why the story from Black Ops 2 seems incredibly tacked on. Honestly, they should really pull a Days of Future Past and get rid of this monstrosity. Take this for an example:

On 9/10/2016 at 11:30 PM, anonymous said:

Unit 100 could get Element 115 from the nearby swamp, Shi No Numa, where a 115 meteor has impacted. With this they might have made the creatures we know as Jumping Jacks. An argument against this is that Richthofen yells at the beginning of a Jumping Jack round "Fetch me their souls". That is the same as what happens when a Hellhound round starts, so its like Richthofen sents these creatures from the Aether to Earth. But do you remember where the Hellhounds originate from? A failed experiment with Fluffy. Perhaps Unit 100 has done experiments with a Matter Transphere Device and Nova-6 Crawlers, and so created the Jumping Jacks.

It makes perfect sense for the Jumping Jacks to have been created via 115 experimentation, yet they throw the original boss starting noise into the mix and the plot is ruined. It doesn't make any sense for Richtofen to send the Jumping Jacks, let alone the Zombies after the Tranzit crew. If he needs their help, shouldn't he be keeping them safe? This has always confused me. But hopefully, and I'm reaching here, the comic book will clear things up. Might even let you add to this.

[anonymous]

That is exactly where I always wondered about. Why would Richthofen sent his meatsacks and jumping jacks on the N4? I always guessed it were the Evil spirits in the MPD (which now seems to be the Apothicans) that made Richthofen do this: His strategy to be full omnipotent was replaced for a short time for his sadism. I hope the BO2 maps will be explained more in the comic.

[Rissole25]

Is it possible Richtofen didn't have full control of the zombies? He is fighting to gain full control of the Aether (or Agartha now, that doesn't sound right), same with Maxis. There were zombies before anyone was in the MPD, which acted just a like a zombie should. Or maybe he sent zombies after them to motivate them (I know, lame reason haha).

Good post anon. Die Rise is easily the worst map in terms of story, so it's nice to get some backstory on it.

[anonymous]

I just played Die Rise again. So many Chinese (news)papers, signs, calendars and more. I wonder if there is a topic where these are translated?

[MysteryMachineX]

Many of them yes. Contact DragonGJY. He was our resident Chinese translator. If you do find the thread, mind posting a link to it? I'd like to check it out again.

[Schrödinger]

11 hours ago, anonymous said:

I just played Die Rise again. So many Chinese (news)papers, signs, calendars and more. I wonder if there is a topic where these are translated?

It's the topic just below this one.

Personally, it's what is written in Knockout that intrigues me. There is a message of Dempsey in Outlaw therefore there may have for the 3 other characters in other maps.

[MysteryMachineX]

Oh okay, thank you. Sorry, I haven't actually checked the Die Rise forum in about a year. Sorry about that.

[anonymous]

Ah, thank you. Aside of the 2 small Easter eggs nothing important found yet.

[anonymous]

Looking at the Broken Arrow map closely, it appears that Die Rise takes place in Changchun after all, which would fit with Province 22 being the Jilin Province. Honestly, I would've prefered it to take place in Shanghai, because of the Jin Mao Tower and the seemingly neverending skyline of giant skyscrapers. Changchun isn't like that, you know. I mean it does have 2 million citizens but that is still far from the metropolis we tend to see in Die Rise.

 

 

Anyway, this might mean there is more behind the Unit 100 story, because, as I said in the OP, Chanchun was the city that housed Unit 100's HQ during it's time it was being occupied by Japan. While their main purpose was developing bioweapons for the Russian and Chinese livestock, they were notorious for experimenting on human test subjects as well. 

 

Wikipedia: "Some died during the experimentation. When survivors were determined to no longer be useful for experimentation and were complaining of illness, staff told them they would receive a shot of medicine, but instead executed them with potassium cyanide injections. Unit 100 could produce 1,000 kilograms of anthrax germs, 500 kilograms of glanders germs, and 100 kilograms of redrust germs in a single year."

 

Unit 100 had six sections:

Bacteriological section

Pathological section

Animal Experimentation

Organic chemistry

Botanical, and plant pathology. Poisoning, or infecting, plants with the help of bacteria.

Preparations for bacteriological warfare

 

It sounds plausible to me that this Unit 100 might have cooperated with Unit 731's Division 9. Or perhaps was Unit 100's laboratories still usefull after WW2 for Chinese scientists and later Broken Arrow.

 

Chanchun, as the whole Manchuria area, has an interesting background. Over the years, it has been Russian, then Japanese, then Soviet, and finally Chinese. It lays in the area of China that where the Soviets have attacked Japanese forces during the final days of WW2. Manchuria is also known to be China's 'Industrial Belt', being home to the nation's main deposits of coal and iron. With most people working in the industrial sector, Manchuria is also one of the poorest areas of China. Perhaps did Broken Arrow see them as easy test subjects?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changchun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_100

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchuria