The origins of the Pack-a-Punch machine

[anonymous]

The Pack-a-Punch machine, an essence in almost every zombies map ever since it's first appearance in the Der Riese Waffenfabrik, released in 2008. Stick your weapons in the device and it will almost magically be upgraded to bring even more undead maggot scum to peace. Yet it is not merely a game element. Though the presence of the Pack-a-Punch has become normal to us, few people ever question where the hell that machine comes from. And maybe that's the correct answer.....Hell.

 

 

So far we came across three different types of Pack-a-Punches: The classic machine design, the Skull Stone in Origins and Der Eisendrache and the Apothican Rift Stone in Shadows of Evil. Let's discuss them.

 

 

The Pack-a-Punch machine

 

So this was the very first Pack-a-Punch ever seen, and seen as the 'normal’ Pack-a-Punch. We used to think the machine was created only by Group 935, and that the technology behind it was merely something mechanic and scientific, like any other normal device. @carbonfibah's reveal of the entire lyrics of the PaP song changed our mind: There might be something magic, extraterrestrial or even extradimensional behind the process of upgrading a weapon. For those who haven't seen it yet, here are the lyrics:

 

Spoiler

“AREEBA!

Here, there, seems like everywhere
Nasty things are happening, now everyone is scared
Old Jeb Brown the Blacksmith, he saw his mother die
A critter took a bite from her and now she's in the sky
The angels came down to Old Jeb and told him what to do
Build yourself a great machine, its punch will see it through
When you pack-a-punch, the whole damn bunch will not last very long
And while you put yourself to work, sing a country western song

Now Jeb didn't know much about engineering so he just put his trust in the angels and set to work. After many days and many nights. A lot of blood, sweat and tears. And a little help from the angels of course. He was ready to show his machine to the whole damn town.

Friends, neighbors, ladies, gentlemen.  
If you're feeling under powered, I'll help you make amends
Stick your weapon in the slot and let it change your luck
Few things in life are guaranteed but I promise this won't suck

Punch your fist into the air and raise a rebel yell
There's lots of baddies out there, you need to send to hell
With Pack-A-Punch, I have a hunch, your problems will be gone
But if you end up on the ground, sing a country western song

Pack-a-Punch, Pack-a-Punch, Pack-a-Punch, Pack-a-Punch, Pack-a-Punch, Pack-a-Punch, Pack-a-Punch , Pack-a-Punch  

Punch your fist into the air and raise a rebel yell
There's lots of baddies out there, you need to send to hell
With Pack-A-Punch, I have a hunch, your problems will be gone
But if you end up on the ground, sing a country western song

WAAAHOOO!”

 

First of all: Jeb Brown. He appears to be the real creator of the Pack-a-Punch machine, and not Group 935. The latter merely improved and finished Jeb’s design. This is also accurate when looking at the Timeline.

 

Quote

 

June 28th, 1942

Group 935 continues development of a Weapons Upgrade Machine.

 

 

Group 935 didn't start this development, the blacksmith Jeb Brown in the Old West did. They merely continued this development. This all also fits with Richthofen’s mysterious quote in The Giant about a certain blacksmith who had invented the Pack-a-Punch. So let's take a look at Jeb: Who exactly was he?

 

Jeb Brown was a blacksmith in a small town in the Old West. I know I am not the first one who says it, but could it be the Buried town? After all, it is an Old Western town with alot of oddities and mysteries. And a blacksmith! So let's say mister Brown lived his simple yet tough life in this town, day in day out he created the things blacksmiths do. But one day his life takes an unexpected turn: He gets in contact with the so-called 'angels’. First of all: How? A possibility could be that it were extraterrestrials, using their flying saucers to land in the middle of no where and stumbled upon Jeb (after all, the American MidWest has alot of conspiracies and tales about aliens and UFO’s). Another possibility is that Jeb came in contact with extradimensional creatures: beings from the Aether or Agartha. While these beings could teleport themselves to Earth and reveal themselves to a person, as they did with Samantha, it could also be Jeb who unintended made contact with these beings, instead of reversed. What if the Buried town used to lay in Groom Lake? We know that Broken Arrow mined to Element 115 here, and Jeb could have stumbled on this mysterious element as well, just 100 years earlier. I can imagine that he, as a blacksmith, would be interested in strange and unknown types of metal, especially those that emit energy. Have you ever seen a photo of Area 51 taken from the air? It lays next to a huge salt flat, almost looking like a big chunk of dirt plus everything laying on top of it has been...disappeared. Have you ever heard of the Philadelphia experiment? It's a conspiracy theory about the American navy secretly performing a scientific experiment that resulted in teleporting a large destroyer ship away, resulting in the crew being 'molted' into the ships interior and other mysterious and unbelievable things. Imagine the US continuing this kind  of experiments, later performing it on a Old Western ghost town at Groom Lake. A possibility is that the Buried town laid on top of the salt-chunk at Area 51, and that the Temporal Rifts simply teleported this landscape away to a mine in the futuristic Angola.

 

I'm getting to far of my point: Jeb might've encountered Element 115 near his town, which enabled him to came into contact with an Aetherial species of some sort: Were it the Keepers or Apothicans, I don't know. Jeb calls them the angels. Did you know that in the lyrics of 'Always Running’, the Easter egg song of Buried, there is also something said about angels?

 

Quote

“Always unsuspecting.

So easy to lure them away from...

All the angels within.”

 

The angels. The angels within….what? Within the world within the world? Within Agartha? Within the Aether? Within the Element? Maybe I have a tunnel vision.

 

We are coming back later on the identity of these angels. Thing that bothers me is why they helped Jeb to create the Pack-a-Punch. Of course they have to have an agenda behind that as well…

 

 

The Apothican Rift Stone

 

The origins of the Apothican Rift Stone, an ancient stone tablet filled with Apothican symbols and with a Lovecraft/Chtulu-style tentacle coming out of it, is no big secret: it's Apothican. And yet this is the Pack-a-Punch type that holds the most mysteries. Why, for example, is it located in a Keeper undercroft underneath Morg City? Why can it only be activated with four gateworms, harvested by rituals? And how can this create a tear in space-time that allows the enormous Apothican 'World Eater’ to enter that dimension? Is it, as some say, the MTD of this dimension? Questions that are discussions worthy, my friends.

 

 

The Skull Stone

 

This type of Weapons Upgrading 'Machine’ appeared for the first time in Origins, Dimension 63, and later in Der Eisendrache, Deceptio Fracture. So in what way are those two maps connected?

 

Both maps are created in a Medieval style: Origins takes place in the excavation of a medieval tomb, built to honour the fallen soldiers in the Great War against at the Demons: the Apothicans. The location is also house to the single largest 115 deposit of that dimension. Der Eisendrache takes place in Group 935’s 'Eagle Nest’: a rocket station built in a 1200’s castle, which has been built by the Wolf King, a noble knight who has fought in the Great War as well.

 

Here must lay the connection: the two Skull Stones must be some kind of medieval type of the Pack-a-Punch machine, possibly built to assist the Keepers and humanity in the Great War against the Apothicans, upgrading their weaponry. After all, the original Pack-a-Punch machine is built with the help of 'angels’. Maybe this Skull Stone 'Pack-a-Punch’ is the ancient weapon upgrade 'machine’ of the Keepers.

 

 

So if we follow these theories, both the Apothicans and the Keepers have their own type of weapon upgrade artifacts. But which one inspired old Jeb Brown to create the original Pack-a-Punch machine? In other words, who are the angels? My own hypothesis:

 

The Apothicans try to create chaos with Element 115, let humanity doing experiments involving it and fuck up their universe, opening gateways for the Apothicans to consume it. Because that is, as Monty says it so simple, just their thing. In fact I think it has everything to do with the Apothicans wanting to set all positive matter and energy to negative matter and energy -the Dark Aether- , spread their influence and to enlarge the change of survival, one of the universal laws of nature, but 'because it's just their thing’ summarises everything correctly. Thing is, it wouldn't make sense for the Apothicans providing help to Jeb in the process of creating a wondermachine. After all, it were the matter transference devices that created tears in space-time though the Aether and started messing up the multiverse. The Pack-a-Punch is a pretty innocent utility concerning the chaos-spreading of the dark Apothicans. The Keepers, or possibly merely the one who calls himself Doctor Monty, have/has a better motive for wanting the Pack-a-Punch to exist: to help Ultimis, Victis and Primis surviving the living dead during their voyage through time and space and let things pack out the way they should pack out. Think of it: without the Pack-a-Punch Ultimis might've died already in Der Riese, even before they could start their Reise and set the basic of the events that Victis and Primis will follow, eventually saving the universe and enprison the Apothicans back to their infinite Hell underneath existence. The Keepers and Monty knew that, since time for them is merely a manipulative thing and they could see everything either in the Kronorium or from Argartha. They knew assisting Jeb Brown would result in a Keepers victory. Possible prove for this theory is @RadZakpak's remark of one day that the Blacksmith in Buried, possibly Jeb, is also home to customisable weapon chalks. We know Monty placed the weapon chalks in most other maps, so could he have been the one who helped mister Brown in this as well? At least, thats how I see this. Other perspectives and discussions, perhaps? Likely.

 

 

Oh and friendos (please let me steal that word one more time, @InfestLithium, I adore it) sorry for my inactivity. The last three months I've been to Greece, Aruba, Mallorca and Portugal. And work to fund it. Gah, I sound like a spoiled beat, which I probably also am. Just enjoying my life. Thing is, I've also been busy with finding a room for my study, and over two weeks my introduction week already starts. It's all busy in the good way, but still busy. Hope you can understand that. But it caused my activity to heavily decrease. Just keep in mind that even in these inactive times for me, I will never disappear from this great place. Dont even dare to think such things. And that I LUV YOU ALL

[Lenne]

Nice read. (As always.)

 

I have one question that is a tiny bit off topic, but still in regards to it. About the skull stone: Why is it that in Origins we get a fancy box along with the new PAP design, but not in Der Eisendrache in which we are stuck with the normal box?

 

ily 2

[anonymous]

Just now, Lenne said:

Nice read. (As always.)

 

I have one question that is a tiny bit off topic, but still in regards to it. About the skull stone: Why is it that in Origins we get a fancy box along with the new PAP design, but not in Der Eisendrache in which we are stuck with the normal box?

 

ily 2

Tough question. The only explanation I can think of right now is coincidence, though that it the worst kind of explanation.

 

Following this theory, the origins box is, just as the origins PaP, a device that assists the Keepers, the Knights Templar and the Crusader Knights -in short: the Ancient Order of the Keepers (I think?)- in their battle against the Apothicans. They had one at the tomb in France. They had none at the Wolf's King castle in Austria. Maybe it's that simple. The Pack-a-Punch was simply present at both places.

 

While typing this I know how stupid this sounds. Maybe there, indeed, is another 'real' reason.

 

Ily more

[RadZakpak]

5 hours ago, anonymous said:

Tough question. The only explanation I can think of right now is coincidence, though that it the worst kind of explanation.

 

Following this theory, the origins box is, just as the origins PaP, a device that assists the Keepers, the Knights Templar and the Crusader Knights -in short: the Ancient Order of the Keepers (I think?)- in their battle against the Apothicans. They had one at the tomb in France. They had none at the Wolf's King castle in Austria. Maybe it's that simple. The Pack-a-Punch was simply present at both places.

 

While typing this I know how stupid this sounds. Maybe there, indeed, is another 'real' reason.

 

Ily more

My personal theory is the Keeper/Apothicon PaP and box designs were only present at Origins from the great battle. But perhaps near the end of the battle the PaP was destroyed, and its pieces were taken to the King’s new castle and left there. I believe this since in Der Eisendrache to acquire the PaP you have to go to 2 of the 3 pads and teleport the pieces back together. So the pieces were taken to the castle after the Great War, and when 935 took over they used teleporter technology to create a device to reassemble the pieces in their original form. In Origins in 1918 we even see the PaP is broken when you start, but with enough power from all the generators, it can reassemble itself, while the box is fully intact and may have never left the dig site. 

[anonymous]

28 minutes ago, RadZakpak said:

My personal theory is the Keeper/Apothicon PaP and box designs were only present at Origins from the great battle. But perhaps near the end of the battle the PaP was destroyed, and its pieces were taken to the King’s new castle and left there. I believe this since in Der Eisendrache to acquire the PaP you have to go to 2 of the 3 pads and teleport the pieces back together. So the pieces were taken to the castle after the Great War, and when 935 took over they used teleporter technology to create a device to reassemble the pieces in their original form. In Origins in 1918 we even see the PaP is broken when you start, but with enough power from all the generators, it can reassemble itself, while the box is fully intact and may have never left the dig site. 

This sounds much more plausible. I personally didn't even knew that you had to build the PaP in DE. Though I have played that map at a friend's place a few times, I'm more that type of player who is looking at Samantha's drawings in her room and then get backstabbed by a zombie.

 

It would make sense. In dimension 63 the Skull Stone was left broken at the French tomb. In the original universe, it was taken to the Wolf's King after the Great Battle. What's more, the Timeline doesn't even speak of an amount of 115 and a tomb in Northern France in the original universe. Only in dimension 63.