The Order of Forgotten Mysteries #10: Between Kino and Ascension

[anonymous]

Guten abend everyone, it is that time again for our weekly discussions in the Order of the Forgotten Mysteries. As you might see, this is episode 10 already, which is why I'd be proud to celebrate! How? In honour of @RadZakpak, who did an awesome job helping me with the Order, I'll devote this thread to one of his first discussion posts, debating the subject of the time between Kino der Toten and Ascension. Let the old school theorizing continue!

 

Why Ascension is an important map

Quote

 

October 21st, 1945 - SHI NO NUMA

Ultimis travels to the Rising Sun Facility to recover Richtofen’s diary. Upon reading it, Richtofen begins to form his plan to defeat Samantha.

 

October 28th, 1945 - DER RIESE

Ultimis returns to Der Riese. With his diary, Richtofen plans to use the teleporter to return to the moon and confront Samantha. Unfortunately, the wunderwaffe DG-2 overloads the teleporter and sends them through time - causing Richtofen to drop his diary.

 

Reading the Timeline scraps of Shi no Numa and Der Riese, we read that upon getting his diary back, Richthofen's plan is to simply teleporting back to the Moon and confronting Samantha, not that long after she entered the MPD, in 1945. From this I conclude that his diary didn't summarized his entire Grand Scheme of first obtaining the Focussing Stone and Vril Rod, and he might have needed his diary for simpler things such as the exact coordinates of Griffin Station, the PC terminal code or whatever. However, at Der Riese something goes wrong that affects everything.

Quote

 

October 28th, 1963 - KINO DER TOTEN

From Der Riese, ultimis is teleports to Kino. This marks the first time ultimis travels across space and time. Temporal Rifts occur across dimensions. In light of these developments, Monty feels obligated to step in, and begins to make changes in the background across time. He helps Group 935 invent Perk Machines. He adds chalk drawings to walls. Little nudges. Ultimis locates a Lunar Landar and fly to the Ascension Facility.

 

November 6th, 1963 - ASCENSION

Ultimis arrives at the Soviet Cosmodrome and free Gersh from the Casimir Mechanism. Richtofen recovers his diary and learns that they need the Vril Device from the Siberian Facility for his plan. Maintaining his ethereal form, Gersh sends them into a rift to their next destination before beginning his travels across space and time.

 

Dropping his Diary caused Richthofen and his obedient crew to travel to the research facility of the Ascension Group in order to retrieve it. According to the Timeline, it is here where Richthofen formulated his Grand Scheme including the artifacts. This might have something to do with the following: In the intro radio of Kino, Richthofen questionizes himself where Samantha is, which was a quote most of us never really seemed to understand, since he very well knows about the fact that she is inside the MPD. However, I think Richthofen underestimated the powers of the Pyramid Device, and now he's hearing the demonic Samantha laughing and talking, he wonders where she really "is". While he knew about the MPD being linked with the Aether, he might not have known the occupant would gain an ethereal form and enter this extradimensional plane. Only thanks to the knowledge he gained from Gersch ("She is coming") and the repairing of the Casimir Mechanism, he learned about Samantha's presence in the Aether. He learned that he couldn't merely confront her on the Moon, like he initially wanted to do, but he had to formulate a plan, later known as his Grand Scheme. 

 

It involved the Rod, the Stone and the Casimir Mechanism (which he also builds in Griffin Station during the Moon Quest). This Mechanism creates the Casimir Effect: When two metal plates are placed parallel from each other in a vacuum at a specific distance apart will create a pressure in the middle of these plates. This pressure is caused from a small difference in wavelengths from between and outside the metal plates. In real life, this effect is difficult to harness as the calculations are impossible because of an infinite amount of smaller wavelengths. However, if the certain numbers of wave lengths and calculations would be known, the Casimir Effect could be harnessed as energy. And because the source of energy is a vacuum, the vacuum of space could be an incomprehensible source of energy. I think this peak of energy in the ethereal field might be used to literally blast Gersch out of the Dark Aether, and Richthofen saw the potential of doing something similar to Samantha.

Quote

 

"This Casimir Mechanism sounds intriguing!" - Richthofen, Ascension

 

"Fascinating! A dimensional rift! Goodbye Gersh! It would have been good to know you!" - Richthofen, Ascension

 

"Ah Gersch, the builder of the Casimir Mechanism prototype, I will show you how to build a REAL one" - Richthofen, Moon

 

This is why Ascension is such an important map, and possibly also why it is the first map that gets a complete Comic Book page (as the WaW maps received merely small frames, and Kino even none): From this map on Richthofen knew what was really going on. And he learned how to get Samantha out of the Vril Pyramid. @Lenne noted in this thread that Takeo ever since Ascension might have known what Richthofen's plan was. This would fit by this idea Richthofen's plan actually began in Ascension.

 

A word about Kino's Pentagon Room

 

So now we have two issues: The first being how Richthofen in Kino knew his diary was in the Ascension Cosmodrome, the second one being how he travelled there. We all know the Pentagon Room the characters can teleport to in Kino der Toten. This room includes a small Soviet rocket, similar to the one encountered in Ascension, that can be launched upon interacting with it. A television screen can be seen as well, featuring images of Operation 40 (the invasion of the Bay of Pigs) and a Soviet Cosmodrome: Ascension! This picture is identical to the Ascension Main Menu picture. What is interesting as well, is that this menu picture has changed one time.

It changed from a normal picture of the Cosmodrome to the one seen on what seems like a TV screen. Why? Could this be a blink to the television encountered in Kino der Toten, or the Pentagon technically? Maybe this room holds any significance. From Classified, we know the CIA acquired a copy of Richthofen's diary via a spy in the Ascension Group. Could Richthofen, after he teleported to the Pentagon, have stumbled upon a letter talking about this, so he now knew his diary was in the Cosmodrome. This could be why he knew he had to travel there from Kino der Toten.

 

How did they travel to the Cosmodrome?

 

We've reached the main mystery: What happened in the time between Kino and Ascension? All we know is that upon arriving, Ultimis find theirselves in a Lunar Lander. The Timeline also states this:

Quote

"Ultimis locates a Lunar Landar and fly to the Ascension Facility."

However, if Treyarch is going to convince me that they flew all the way from Berlin to the Cosmodrome, which is a rough 4000 kilometers, they will definitely fail. Reason one is that the fuel tank of a Lander, which is seen to be needed to refuel every small flight of a few meters in Ascension, way too small for this. The second reason is that it took Ultimis 9 days to fly to there. With a small calculation, they'd fly 20 km/h, which, even if fuel wouldn't be a problem, wouldn't go unnoticed for the Soviet Union in times of a Cold War. The idea, though, would be funny: 9 days of peace for Ultimis, slowly floating through the air, chatting, eating, sleeping and pissing together. 

So what did happen? Well, let's first notice that while it is said that they localize a Lunar Lander, that doesn't mean that happened in Kino. What we know is that the very first moment we land in Ascension with the Lander, there still is power and colour. Upon arrival, however, power is deactivated. I think this could be due to Gersch's call for help. His reach out from the Dark Aether, even while it was merely one message, yielded so much energy that the facility's electrical circuits shut down. 

 

Developers have said that Ascension originally was meant to be even larger, with the

area seen from the sky also to be able to enter. Could this part of the facility be the location Ultimis got their lander from, which was still activatable because initially, the power wás on. As they searched and found the diary and stepped inside the Lander, Gersch noticed them and called for help, deactivating the power and beginning the game. 

 

How did they reach the Cosmodrome Complex from Berlin, then? My own thought is that they simply used the teleporter in Kino, either with Richthofen entering the right coordinates or by change teleporting to the right area. You see, throughout all of our teleportations, it seems like we are somehow appealed to locations where 115 is present/experimented upon: der Riese, Kino, Shangri La, the Pentagon, you name it. Perhaps the places where the element is located, the global electromagnetic energy field is heavier, like a blanket with a rock laying on top of it, causing the teleporting atoms of Ultimis to be sucked towards this point like trapped in a maelstrom.

 

Keep in mind, this is all merely my own theory. How do you feel about it? How did Richthofen locate his diary? What happened between Kino der Toten and Ascension? A pocket teleporter perhaps? Secret underground tunnels maybe? Did they actually found the Soviet Lunar Lander in the Theatre of the Damned? Blundell once said that everything happening between maps is just as important as happing during maps, and this Ascension issue remains a big questionmark. Share you ideas, cheers!

 

More Order of Forgotten Mysteries:

• Alien skull in Shangri La
• Maya Calendar in CotD
• FS ER letters in DR, Kino, Five, CotD and Classified
• Belinski Square in GK
• Group 601
• Icarus
• Zombie eye colour
• NDU's connection with HAARP and Broken Arrow
• Involvement of the Bible

 

[caljitsu]

A few leads:

The Richtofen Quote about the Cassimir Mechanism on moon is really cool, because you actually build what resembles a real life Cassimir Mechanism (google "Cassimir Effect to see")

In Chronicles Ascension, Monty says: "Do you remember Gersh? Bald guy, he fought alongside you for a while. I think Richtofen was off somewhere at the time.". In my eyes, this could explain Richtofen's space-suit at the beginning of Ascension, as he was "off" as Monty said.

[RadZakpak]

Regarding Kino der Toten, it's not always been clear if the map is on the East or West side of the Berlin Wall, as was debated back in the day in for example, this thread: 

But I think it is safe to say it is on the West side due to the tower built on the other side. Note: This evidence is dubious since this tower didn't start construction until 1965, but Kino is in 1963. Maybe they built it earlier for conspiracy-related reasons or what have you, ya da ya da ya da, hand wave... Another piece of evidence in my eyes is the presence of Nova Crawlers. While the Soviets did have plenty of Nova Gas as seen in the campaign, the Americans seem to be the creators of these crawlers, creating them using Capitalist Pig DNA.

 

How does that answer any of your questions? Well it really doesn't, it more complicates things due to the presence of the Thunder Gun, created by the Ascension Group, and this Soviet lander situation. However, it seems strange to me that the Americans would just leave a working teleporter and several pods with undead just lying around in this abandoned theater filled with Group 935 perk machines, film reels, a pack-a-punch machine, and a bunch of Nazi flags. I don't believe the Kino facility was fully abandoned, and was being watched over by the Americans.

 

There are images on the screens in Classified showing Kino, and it is mentioned as the location of one of Samantha's attacks (the events of Kino der Toten). Also the presence of Nova Crawlers suggests a more recent experiment performed there. Why was there no one around? Could be Ultimis arrived in the morning with pretty much no one around.

 

ANYWAY, all that aside, whichever side is present at the Kino facility, Richtofen must have located mentions of his diary by either the Americans or the Soviets at the facility which is still under watch, leading to them either having to find a way across the wall to get to the East Side to find this lander, or more likely I believe, Richtofen programs the teleporter to send them to somewhere much closer to Ascension, where they complete their journey via lander. Like you mentioned, whenever we teleport, even by accident, it is usually to places with a lot of 115. Most likely wherever the Soviet Union was keeping their supply had a teleporter in use which Ultimis utilized to get closer to the Cosmodrome.

 

About the space suit, I originally thought that Richtofen's plan before acquiring the diary was to take one of the Ascension Group's rockets to the Moon. But this just begs the question of why he doesn't just reprogram a teleporter to take him there. Rockets just seem so barbaric for the Doctor...

 

We may unfortunately never get a true answer, but I like to think it involves their trip to this other Soviet facility to acquire the lander. It amuses me that Ultimis probably had a plan that involved Nikolai drunkenly explaining to some Russian scientists that Richtofen is a Cosmonaut on a mission to do some training at the Cosmodrome and they need a ride in the lander. And Dempsey and Takeo are helpers... Cosmonaut helpers.

[anonymous]

13 hours ago, caljitsu said:

In Chronicles Ascension, Monty says: "Do you remember Gersh? Bald guy, he fought alongside you for a while. I think Richtofen was off somewhere at the time.". In my eyes, this could explain Richtofen's space-suit at the beginning of Ascension, as he was "off" as Monty said.

I've never heard that before, that's certainly interesting. Bald could also be bold, but said in a British accent. However, if it is truly bold, it must refer to the not-ethereal form of Gersch.

The second picture was leaked in the Ascension ITunes Album. The bald guy is seen in the Ascension Facility, with oddly enough, the word 'Five' written underneath it. The upper picture would confirm it would be Gersch as he fights along Ultimis minus Richthofen. The odd thing is that Gersch lost his physical body the day before Ascension takes place, and he maintained his ethereal form after Ascension which means these odd events Monty refers to must be between Kino and Ascension, taking place at/near the Soviet Cosmodrome.  Also, them fighting together? Was there an undead outbreak before Yuri trapped Gersch? Any ideas?

10 hours ago, RadZakpak said:

How does that answer any of your questions? Well it really doesn't, it more complicates things due to the presence of the Thunder Gun, created by the Ascension Group, and this Soviet lander situation.

Hahaha, I love you, I truly love you. I've given my thoughts about the Kino Facility as well, and it being located in the American Zone would fit, since the Wittenau Sanatorium is in the French/British Zone as well, though it remains abandoned/zombie infected during the Cold War too (however, I'm not sure if in September 1945 the Red Army already handed over Berlin to the West. Dutch Wikipedia lacks info once again). So did the West really overlook these facilities, or did they use them theirselves? 

 

Concerning the Thundergun, I believe Maxis himself already started developing it so it would make sense being present at Kino. The Thundergun in Kino even differs a bit to the Ascension Group one, with a different loading system. The Nova-6 Crawlers could be a Group 935 invention as well, with the Americans merely copying and continuing it. But yes, I think the Soviets started the whole Space Race (to Griffin Station) rocket developing program after WW2, possibly thanks to the discovery of Nazi V2's, so a Soviet Lunar Lander being left there during the war, later to be occupied by the West, to be found in 1963 wouldn't make sense.

 

 

[RadZakpak]

Okay so I may have just cracked this thing back wide open again, as I totally forgot this document from Classified:

 

Quote

"CLASSIFIED

18th July 1957

MEMORANDUM FOR COLONEL SAWYER

SUBJECT: REPORT FROM CHIEF OPERATIVE - OPERATION DESCENSION

1. New drop from the operative inside THE ASCENSION GROUP confirms DoD and CIA suspicions. THE ASCENSION GROUP has successfully completed work on a functional matter transference device. Operative confirms Doctor Gersh oversaw the project.

2. As of now, their teleportation tests have been limited in scope. No human testing currently. Furthest they've gone thus far is trials involving monkeys, which were successful.

3. In addition: operative confirms another suspicion. Recovered documents prove that Doctor Richtofen did in fact make a deal with the Soviets in 1945. We have not nailed the exact date, but we can confirm it to be around the time we made the deal for OPERATION STAPLER. Looks like your were right - Richtofen played both of us.

4. One of the documents seized detailed Richtofen's Provisions, a list of materials he desired, expressly stipulated in his agreement with the Soviets. A few on this list match the one he delivered to us, however there were a few unique standouts of interest: "one pet monkey", "one recording of Igor Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring'", "one cosmonaut space suit and one lunar lander - coordinates to be specified", "one miniature replica of St. Basil's Cathedral", "one Faberge egg yolk", and "one bottle of Stalin's Vodka to see what all the fuss is about". Not sure what to make of all that.

Pernell"

 

"one cosmonaut space suit and one lunar lander - coordinates to be specified"

 

So the reason they just so happen to find a lunar lander in Kino is because Richtofen TOLD THEM to put it there. Now, his deal with the Americans was around August of 1945, still well before Operation Shield and teleporting Maxis. I have many questions...

 

1. How did he know he would end up at the theater?

 

2. How did he know he would then need to go to Ascension to get his diary back? Surely if he knew in advance he would accidentally go to the future and lose his diary, he would just, you know, not lose the diary?

 

3. The Soviet space program did not begin until 1956, so how in the fuck would the Soviets know how to make a lander or cosmonaut suit to place at the theater? Surely they didn't wait over 10 years after Richtofen made his demands and they had collected their scientists and research, then go back to look at his demands and think, "Oh, that's what he meant.", and then proceed to go through the trouble of placing a lunar lander and suit in a precise location near a theater in Berlin?

 

4. Does this suggest Kino actually is in East Germany? Or did they somehow sneak this stuff into West Germany, again, on the demands of a missing man from ten years ago in a deal that you already got your benefits from?

 

It's also possible he specified they place the lander and suit somewhere in their own territory, and after Kino Ultimis goes through some wacky hijinks crossing the Berlin wall to get to it. That still doesn't answer how the Soviets would fullfill that request or how Richtofen would know he would need it. 

 

The only logical explanation that does not involve dumb luck is that Richtofen somehow had access to the Kronorium, and with information from the future he decided to go through with the normal timeline of events, to potentially try and break the cycle with Victis and get them on his side. This only brings up more questions, like how Richtofen would acquire the Kronorium.

 

This is all hurting my head.

[NaBrZHunter]

Your head hurts from all the brains you're getting.

I never read that stuff before. I am mindblown. And amused. That is a hilarious list.

[RadZakpak]

25 minutes ago, NaBrZHunter said:

Your head hurts from all the brains you're getting.

I never read that stuff before. I am mindblown. And amused. That is a hilarious list.

This single line from this document is making me question my very sanity... and it was probably only put in as a quick nod without thought put in.

[anonymous]

I find the following stuff I wanted to say a bit too unimportant to make an entire thread about it, so I decided it might fit into this post. It is concerning the Casimir Effect and the Gersch device:

On 8/7/2019 at 6:29 PM, anonymous said:

This Mechanism creates the Casimir Effect: When two metal plates are placed parallel from each other in a vacuum at a specific distance apart will create a pressure in the middle of these plates. This pressure is caused from a small difference in wavelengths from between and outside the metal plates. In real life, this effect is difficult to harness as the calculations are impossible because of an infinite amount of smaller wavelengths. However, if the certain numbers of wave lengths and calculations would be known, the Casimir Effect could be harnessed as energy. And because the source of energy is a vacuum, the vacuum of space could be an incomprehensible source of energy. I think this peak of energy in the ethereal field might be used to literally blast Gersch out of the Dark Aether, and Richthofen saw the potential of doing something similar to Samantha.

We see this in Moon:

Something I realized just now is that the Gersch device, possibly Gersch's magnus opus, has applied this technology as well:

Look at that shape: I think that solid disk has two plates on the inside, which are just like the plates in the Moon Quest able to generate a massive amount of energy due to the Casimir Effect. This 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 is therefore believed to possibly stabilize a traversable wormhole, a tunnel in space-time if you will. This could explain that once the Gersch device went offline, the tunnel was closed and Gersch was stuck, losing his physical body. It also explains why the Casimir Mechanism was needed to reopen this dimensional tear. I wonder, however, when a Gersch device teleports to a random location in our 3D dimension, and when it leviates one's soul to the higher ethereal plane.

 

[DescentIntoDarkness]

On 8/20/2019 at 9:11 PM, RadZakpak said:

Okay so I may have just cracked this thing back wide open again, as I totally forgot this document from Classified:

 

 

"one cosmonaut space suit and one lunar lander - coordinates to be specified"

 

So the reason they just so happen to find a lunar lander in Kino is because Richtofen TOLD THEM to put it there. Now, his deal with the Americans was around August of 1945, still well before Operation Shield and teleporting Maxis. I have many questions...

 

1. How did he know he would end up at the theater?

 

2. How did he know he would then need to go to Ascension to get his diary back? Surely if he knew in advance he would accidentally go to the future and lose his diary, he would just, you know, not lose the diary?

 

3. The Soviet space program did not begin until 1956, so how in the fuck would the Soviets know how to make a lander or cosmonaut suit to place at the theater? Surely they didn't wait over 10 years after Richtofen made his demands and they had collected their scientists and research, then go back to look at his demands and think, "Oh, that's what he meant.", and then proceed to go through the trouble of placing a lunar lander and suit in a precise location near a theater in Berlin?

 

4. Does this suggest Kino actually is in East Germany? Or did they somehow sneak this stuff into West Germany, again, on the demands of a missing man from ten years ago in a deal that you already got your benefits from?

 

It's also possible he specified they place the lander and suit somewhere in their own territory, and after Kino Ultimis goes through some wacky hijinks crossing the Berlin wall to get to it. That still doesn't answer how the Soviets would fullfill that request or how Richtofen would know he would need it. 

 

The only logical explanation that does not involve dumb luck is that Richtofen somehow had access to the Kronorium, and with information from the future he decided to go through with the normal timeline of events, to potentially try and break the cycle with Victis and get them on his side. This only brings up more questions, like how Richtofen would acquire the Kronorium.

 

This is all hurting my head.

Let's not forget:

 

After Ascension, Richtofen is back in his normal outfit for Shangri-La and Classified. After Classified and into Moon, he's suddenly in the cosmonaut suit again.

 

Where did Richtofen keep the cosmonaut suit inbetween Ascension and Moon?

[RadZakpak]

2 minutes ago, DescentIntoDarkness said:

Let's not forget:

 

After Ascension, Richtofen is back in his normal outfit for Shangri-La and Classified. After Classified and into Moon, he's suddenly in the cosmonaut suit again.

 

Where did Richtofen keep the cosmonaut suit inbetween Ascension and Moon?

It should be noted, he is still in his normal clothes at the beginning of Moon when you start in Area 51, and acquires a suit with the rest of Ultimis upon arriving at Griffin Station. And also worth noting the suit he has in Ascension is a different design than the Griffin Station suit, implying he acquired it while in the Soviet Union:

 

Thinking back on it, though, I remember now that in the Zombies Chronicles version of Ascension, Richtofen is in his normal attire, as you can see in this shitty youtuber thumbnail:

 

I don't wanna say retcon, but, I feel the suit may have been retconned and we just didn't really think about it. A similar thing happened with the color of 115 rocks, which was changed from red to blue, and the meteor in Chronicles Shi No Numa is updated to show that. It's obviously not as fun to say it has been retconned out, but that may have been the intention. Who knows what the devs in 2010 were thinking as they developed the map, though. It may simply be a holdover from a different direction they were planning, and they left it in as a little "mystery".

[DescentIntoDarkness]

9 minutes ago, RadZakpak said:

It should be noted, he is still in his normal clothes at the beginning of Moon when you start in Area 51, and acquires a suit with the rest of Ultimis upon arriving at Griffin Station.

No? Pretty sure that was a BO3 thing. Just looked it up, he does indeed wear the cosmonaut suit at the beginning of Moon.

[anonymous]

I looked it up in Black Ops 1: Richthofen does wear a spacesuit at the beginning of a Moon match: the Soviet Cosmonaut suit. It changes immediately after equiping the much brighter, whiter P.E.S. at Griffin Station. So interesting enough, Richthofen wears two different spacesuits in total.

 

Coming back on this later, gtg rn

 

 

 

 

[RadZakpak]

23 minutes ago, anonymous said:

I looked it up in Black Ops 1: Richthofen does wear a spacesuit at the beginning of a Moon match: the Soviet Cosmonaut suit. It changes immediately after equiping the much brighter, whiter P.E.S. at Griffin Station. So interesting enough, Richthofen wears two different spacesuits in total.

 

Coming back on this later, gtg rn

 

 

 

 

Wow, I actually somehow forgot this. Here's a pic of him with the hacker:

 

So yeah that is pretty baffling, and possibly retconned out. 

[anonymous]

I know his Cosmonaut suit in Black Ops III Ascension has changed to a regular Richthofen outfit, and I agree that it is very likely to consider this as it being retconned out, but remember we still got that Classified cipher about RIchthofen demanding a cosmonaut suit and Lunar Lander from the Soviet Union. Of course, this could be about the Doctor just being weird and crazy, just like he demanded a pet monkey and Stalin's wodka, but the fact that the Lunar Lander and the suit have to be delivered to a location - coordinates to be specified - kinda makes me feel like this is important. Therefore, I think the suit not being in BO3 is rather the other way around: the developers were simply too lazy (or more likely underpaid and mistreated) to redesign the suit.

 

But yeah, it is weird that he switches the spacesuit with his regular Nazi uniform during Shangri La and Classified. It could be that Richthofen wanted to use the Ascension rockets to travel to Griffin Station (we've got that LUNAR step in the map's quest, as well as Russian symbols in Griffin Station. It is possible that the Ascension Group was actually able to reach the Moon in 1963). That or he is just a maniac doing what he likes: He saw the cosmonaut suit and simply wore it because he liked it, possibly the same reason why he wears the Nazi uniform all the time (while he dislikes Nazis).

[DescentIntoDarkness]

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention how we don't see what Richtofen looks like while Ultimis is trapped behind the door in CoTD, which happens inbetween Ascension and Shangri-La.

 

Does he change out of it at Ascension or at CoTD?

[anonymous]

2 minutes ago, DescentIntoDarkness said:

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention how we don't see what Richtofen looks like while Ultimis is trapped behind the door in CoTD, which happens inbetween Ascension and Shangri-La.

 

Does he change out of it at Ascension or at CoTD?

Good point: We do not know where Richthofen obtains his cosmonaut suit but we do know it was at the same location as the lunar lander (possibly at Ascension while the rest of Ultimis was fighting alongside Gersch or something?). I could see him very well putting out his suit while they were trapped in the Lighthouse. However, we still have the mystery where Richthofen kept his suit during Shangri La and Classified, and where he dressed himself into it again. Perhaps at No Mans Land, where he didnt knew about the current environment of Griffin Station, nor if the PES was still there. He might have kept it all the time as an insurance because he knew he would eventually go to the Moon.

[Intelligence Quotient]

It is interesting that the "bald man" in the First Strike poster was retconned as being Gersh, and that he wears the same space suit as Richtofen does in Ascension - the same one he stipulated as needing to be delivered with the Lunar Lander.

His old uniform is interesting, why does he ever wear it? It seems like for all his mania, Richtofen was a good person who was always trying to save the day right from the start. He planned it all out meticulously too. So was he wearing the uniform so that he would appear evil, despite his disdain for what it represents? Who would that even be for? The only observers who the uniform would even matter to are the Players, Dr. Monty, and the Shadowman. Dr. Monty does say he doesn't understand Richtofen at all, and I can see why. If Dr. Monty thinks he's just some crazy dude who wants to rule the world, he won't see him as a tangible threat who right from the get-go is working toward breaking the Cycle.

So in the same way, we know Monty mentions Gersh in Ascension and says Ultimus fought with him whilst Richtofen was off somewhere at the time. But Richtofen, as far as we know, is always with the others. And Gersh seems accounted for right up until he loses his body. Theoretically, between leaving Kino, travelling to Russia, and locating the Lunar Lander (with the space suit) that brings them to the Cosmodrome, some meeting with Gersh could have occurred. But maybe it was a case of confusing Monty? If he thinks Richtofen is off somewhere else, he'll focus his efforts on trying to find him and what he is doing, and ignore "Gersh" and Ultimis fighting together. Monty has no souls so can't directly watch Ultimus, so if he isn't even slightly observing, maybe Richtofen is free to go speak with a certain Shadowman who appears at Ascension? It's all very odd.

[anonymous]

I've always considered it impossible to travel from Kino to Kazakhstan by a Lunar Lander. Add to this that there is a week in-between, what if the Lunar Lander they took was located near the Cosmodrome. They may have teleported from Kino to there, a week goes by and the whole Gersh/Richtofen thing, then they find the Lander and Ascension begins. I also feel like Richtofen's plan took form at Ascension, while freeing Gersh. Before it, he simply wanted to confront Sam on the Moon, without understanding the Aether exactly. Perhaps he wore the suit because he wanted to take a rocket to Moon?

[Intelligence Quotient]

Well didn't Richtofen plan things out all the way up until Tag? He gave that list of items to the Americans that Rushmore asked for (though he didn't end up needing them, but he had them on his list). He also planned the Lunar Lander and Spires. Unless he just knew the broad strokes and thought he would get to Moon a lot earlier than he did. But I agree about the Lander, I think they travelled to Russia and then found the Lander near the Cosmodrome, rather than having found it at Kino. Although, the original intent was that it was from Kino before it was cut from the map, and there's one in Shangri-La too so maybe there's a way to fuel them further somehow?

[anonymous]

On 5/2/2021 at 12:05 AM, Intelligence Quotient said:

Well didn't Richtofen plan things out all the way up until Tag? He gave that list of items to the Americans that Rushmore asked for (though he didn't end up needing them, but he had them on his list). He also planned the Lunar Lander and Spires. Unless he just knew the broad strokes and thought he would get to Moon a lot earlier than he did. But I agree about the Lander, I think they travelled to Russia and then found the Lander near the Cosmodrome, rather than having found it at Kino. Although, the original intent was that it was from Kino before it was cut from the map, and there's one in Shangri-La too so maybe there's a way to fuel them further somehow?

Yep, it's a pain in the ass yet fun to theorize about how much Richtofen actually knew. Black Ops IV even threw fuel on the mystery by revealing him to have travelled to Alcatraz at some point, as the Weasel drew him alongside the words "Who is this?". Yet it is so weird that the Timeline states at Der Riese that Richtofen wanted to teleport to Moon to simply confront Samantha, whereas he forms his "Grand Scheme" after Ascension. Maybe it was not saving Gersh that made him change his mind, but rather reading his diary once again? @caljitsu wrote a thread on how the diary may be possessed, driving people insane. Perhaps Richtofen could only see the future and the Cycle and all while looking at his diary? So he could plan all this, the lander, Alcatraz, the Spires, but he required his diary. Without it, he was lost.

 

But it is certainly odd. You would think, if Richtofen already knew he had to travel to Ascension to retrieve his diary, he wouldn't drop his diary in the first place eh? Maybe there were fragments he knew, fragments that were told to him by either his diary or the Apothicons, while other things (e.g. he would drop his diary) weren't told him. This way, the diary would lead him to Ascension to learn more about the Aether (as we know via the Kino intro that Richtofen initially wasn't that knowledgable about the Aether or Samantha's residence. He seemed to have learned about all this Casimir mechanism and soul stuff during the Ascension Easter Egg).

[anonymous]

I should say, by the way, reading through this thread I'm really curious how you will do this in the Storybook @RadZakpak. I must say I'm really fund on how Book 1 did the WW2 theme quite well, and hope Book 2 will give the reader real Cold War vibes.

[Intelligence Quotient]

I suppose the Kronorium is tailored for Richtofen by Monty, so that adds another level of obscurity because Monty doesn't understand Richtofen's motivations and intentions. The Kronorium is basically Monty speculating what has happened based on what he can see, but I think it might be useful if we start questioning the legitimacy of it. Obviously the broad strokes are correct, but there are glaring issues and missing pieces of information. There's no Classified, no Gersh with Ultimus and lots of ambiguity.

Maybe Richtofen's Diary is actually a facade and it is in fact an "Anti-Kronorium". That would explain why Richtofen even needs it: he doesn't know what is in it because it changes, it is the Apothicons way of communicating with him, so he needs to refer to it and is just going off of what it all says. And it directs him to do all these actions that seem random but actually cause ripples through time. Richtofen is clever, but not to the point where he could know the effects of intentionally dropping his Diary through time, or to know about Nikolai's Grand Scheme - and assist in it at the endgame.

That would explain his presence at Alcatraz (I think he had to have built the Dark Mechanism), his compliance with Primis Richtofen's Insurance Policy, and why he slightly deviates from it to goad Stuhlinger into acquiring the Kronorium alone. Primis Richtofen isn't actually sure if the Insurance Policy was his own idea or his evil counterpart's because of that whole hive mind thing. It was Ultimis Richtofen's, or rather the Shadowman's.

The Shadowman's goal is to break the Cycle, and he uses Ultimis Richtofen to this end. But, as we learn in Tag der Toten, Richtofen had realized that he needed to help Primis Nikolai instead. Just like Nikolai, Richtofen read the information in his "Anti-Kronorium" - but decided to do with that information what he decided, not what the Shadowman wanted.

So to end this off-topic tangent: Richtofen's Diary is an Anti-Kronorium which the Shadowman uses to communicate and direct him. It drives people "mad" reading it. It did so in Ascension, and potentially had adverse effects with Stuhlinger (who I presume does have it judging by his comments).

"Voices in his head are words on a page he read."