Life on Mars?

[anonymous]

This thread is dedicated to the one and only @Tac who discovered the link between Mars and CoDZ eight years ago, igniting a discussion that has yet never ended. First of all, I ask you to play this music while reading this thread.

 

 

The mystery began with the Shangri-La mountains, something Jimmy Zielinski, the head Zombies developer at that time, started tweeting about one day.

There is one mountain in Shangri La that is especially striking, seen from the rope bridge above the waterfall. This mountain range seems to resemble the mountain in the map’s loading screen as well, where we see it behind the Vimaña ascending from the planet’s surface.

Admitted, this mountain looks a bit out of place, no? It is placed there in so striking in an open landscape, forcing the player to look to it. Next to that, the mountain range has no vegetation on it, in opposition to sheer amount of tropical foliage the map in general has. Shangri-La is said to be a very green location, a paradise. However, it is located so oddly in a deep canyon or valley that looks not so green and lush, but almost more desert-like.

 

In the meantime, more mysterious tweets were coming from Jimmy Zielinski

 

 

Tacolai discovered that one of the largest canyons in the entire solar system is the Valles Marineris rift on Mars, being 2,500 miles long. He concluded that this may be the valley where the tropical Shangri La is in located, somewhere. On top of this, the loading screen canyon and Shangri-La mountain both have reddish tints to them resembling the colour of the ‘Red Planet’ (look back to the earlier posted images for this).

The most important discovery was when somebody found this image in the gamefiles of Shangri-La:

A mountain with a fairly Martian appearance resembling the mountain range we see in-game. But the most important thing about this was the actual name of this file: gp_ztem_mars_vista_card. Do I need to say more?

 

Mars’s importance may lay in the Vril-Ya mythos, which were a very prominent inspiration for the Zombies story during the Black Ops I era. In the mythos, there were two inhabitable planets revolving around the star Aldebaran, populated by the highly advanced extraterrestial civilization known as the Vril-Ya. As their sun expanded and the planets became uninhabitable, they left.  They visited many places in the Universe, with their first stop at planet named Marduk, in what is now the asteroid belt, followed by Mars, and subsequently they came to Earth and settled in Sumeria. They split into two factions, some migrating towards the East, the Himalayas and the Gobi Desert, and the other heading North, landing in the mythical Hyperborea, which some say is modern day Siberia.

 

The Vril-Ya are now revealed to be the ancestors of the Keepers, still wearing the symbol of the Black Sun on their torso. There was a moment, before they reached Earth, that they settled on Mars. The temples we encounter in Shangri-La, in case it does indeed take place on Mars, may be remnants of this ancient civilization. The fact the site has an Earth-like environment where our characters can breathe remains a pain in the ass, but keep in mind that other Vril-Ya tech (the Moon Pyramid Device) is capable of providing a ‘bubble’ of oxygen. This implies that these ancient aliens were certainly capable of altering the atmosphere of specific locations and may have ‘terraformed’ this hidden canyon on Mars, allowing flora and fauna from Earth to survive and thrive in the red desert.

 

But how did our nature made its way to Mars? How did Brock and Gary reach another planet? Why are there local humans with Tibetan tattoos and why is Shangri-La pointed out as being in the Himalayas on the Alpha Omega map? There seems to be no question possible: Shangri-La is in the Himalayas. But all these hints to Mars, what do they mean? Upon activating the temple mechanism and entering ‘Eclipse mode’, we see the sky full of stars moving in lines, almost like we are in hyperspace. I think that activating the temple teleporter doesn’t merely transfer through time, but also through space! Thus, Shangri-La may have been at Earth at one time, but at Mars at another time, with the city itself functioning as a massive ancient teleporter. Not weird that it is sometimes referred to as ‘the Lost City’, and it remained undiscovered until Brock and Gary’s arrival and activation of the mechanism.

 

Now you must know that Mars has two Moons: Deimos and Phobos (called after the Hellenic gods of panic and fear). During the ‘Eclipse mode’, we see a Moon standing in front of the sun, and also another celestial object floating in the sky.

 

 

It is not exactly a circle, it is elongated and narrower at the top side and rounder at the bottom, and I think it actually resembles the shape of Deimos (see the right image above). That would mean that at least during the Eclipse mode, we are actually on Mars. The Moon blocking the sunlight would be Phobos. This may be confirmed by comparing Shangri-La’s Eclipse with that of Der Riese that features Earth’s Moon. Notice how the Der Riese Moon is much more circular (meaning larger) than the Shangri La Moon, that has a shape almost more appearing like an asteroid rather than our Moon. This is because our Moon has a diameter of almost 3500 km, while that of Phobos is merely 22 km (just like Deimos).

The fact we see an Eclipse upon activating the temple mechanism is no coincidence. In fact, the loading screen of Shangri-La told us all: The Eclipse is necessary for the teleportation of the city to occur. What we see on the loading screen is in line with the Samarangana Sutradhara, an old Hindu manuscript aging of approximately 1000 years A.D.. According to this script, gods and demons descended upon Earth with their flying cities, which worked by means of the power latent present in a metal very similar to mercury, which would set a driving whirlwind in motion. The spark that ignited this mechanical process was a special type of Solar Energy. There is no mention of an Eclipse, but I imagine that in the Zombieverse, this ‘special solar energy’ was that of the Eclipse. And this is what we see in the loading screen: An eclipse, a whirlwind and a flying city. The ancient Hindus described a process they couldn’t comprehend: What they called ‘gods’ and ‘flying cities’ were in fact Vril-Ya/(proto-)Keepers and a massive teleporter device.

 

This teleport mechanism is what the Keepers, our characters, Brock and Gary and likely also the native Tibetans used to bridge the gap between Earth and Mars. The Eclipse mode is the teleporting state, I think.

 

Shangri-La probably doesn’t take place on Earth. In fact, the city itself likely doesn’t even originate from Earth but actually are the ruins of an ancient alien empire that once resided on Mars. But the references to the Red Planet do not stop at Shangri-La. One indirect story we may include is something that happened to Nikola Tesla in 1899. As you may know, Brian Tuey and Chris Cowell, two Treyarch developers, heavily influenced the Zombies story during World at War and Black Ops I, as they were totally into the conspiracy genre and also big Nikola Tesla fans. They made aspects like mindcontrol, HAARP, and the Death Ray get included in the story. I think there is no doubt they stumbled upon one of the most mysterious claims the scientist did. While Tesla was conducting experiments with his Magnifying Transmitter at Colorado Springs, he detected coherent signals which he determined had originated on Mars. In his words:

Quote

“It was sometime afterward when the thought flashed upon my mind that the disturbances I had observed might be due to an intelligent control. Although I could not decipher their meaning, it was impossible for me to think of them as having been entirely accidental. The feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another. A purpose was behind these electrical signals...." - Nikola Tesla

Were there still extraterrestials living on the surface of Mars, lurking to our planet? Were the Keepers still active and observing our actions, there in the far distance?

 

It wasn’t until Zetsubou no Shima when we got another direct reference to Mars. I made a more elaborate thread about it here, but the Spider rounds are in-game called “spiders_from_mars_round”.

This is a reference to a rock band called like that, which was the backing band of David Bowie in the 70s (you know, the singer of ‘Life on Mars’ I linked earlier). But I bet the developers didn’t called the Spider round like this for now reason. As Black Ops III was heavily Lovecraft influenced, it has been theorized that the Spiders in Zetsubou are in fact the Lovecraftian ‘Spiders of Leng’ which inhabited a “dimensional anomaly, a place where different realities converge”. They are the offspring of Atlach-Nacha, a massive extraterrestial Spider God that spins a web between Earth and the Underworld (or Dreamworld, as it is called in Lovecraftian tales). I think this sounds very much related to the Apothicons, Keepers and the Aether. Do they really come from Mars? I’m unsure, but I found the coding line particular.

After all these years ever since the release of Shangri-La, the idea of Mars’ significance was abandoned or forgotten. But then Tag der Toten was released as the last map of Black Ops IV, along with “the Secret”.

With this it was revealed that not merely Shangri-La took place at another celestial body; Tag der Toten and likely also Call of the Dead did so as well. Notice how ‘Paraphony’, the music of Shang’s loading screen, is playing upon discovering “the Secret”, and we are directly looking at the Valles Marineris rift, the canyon Tac theorized the Lost City to be located in all those years ago.

 

As we look on the surface of Mars from out of space, the Siberian facility is located on either one of Mars’ Moons, Deimos or Phobos. This may also explain why every attempt Pablo makes to escape the site, it leads him right to the facility. Remember how both Deimos and Phobos have merely a small diameter? I think that in the right conditions, one could walk either moon around in just one day. Pablo is stuck there, and he sails in circles all the time.

 

I also think the fact that these two sites, Shangri-La, located in the Himalayas, and the Siberian Outpost in Siberia, is particular. Remember how the Vril-Ya split into two factions, one migrating to the Himalayas and one to Hyperborea, which is by some said to be modern day Siberia. So there was an alien civilization in both the Himalayas and Siberia, that sounds like too much coincidence to me. In Shangri-La, we can actually see the ancient city, but how would it work for Call of the Dead/Tag der Toten? Perhaps is what we see literally merely the tip of the iceberg, and there may be ancient ruins hidden under the frozen lake. With both cities being built like Vimañas, massive alien spaceships/teleporters, the two sites are able to shift between location. Shangri-La between the Himalayas and Mars, the Siberian Outpost between Siberia and Deimos/Phobos.

But why teleporting between different planetoids? Keep in mind that astronomy has always been part of the Zombies story, ranging from the ‘Vril map’ in Call of the Dead, Origins’ archaeoastronomy, the planetary system of Shadows of Evil’s scrap paper, the Aztec cardinals on the Moon loading screen and the weird circles that can be observed on various Keeper-related areas. With the whole theme of the Eclipses and travel through time and space, I have the idea that the aligning of celestial bodies has some importance. One hypothesis is that it is about gravity, as gravity is the result of the wrapping of space-time. A large object in space has a mass generating gravity. What if when planets align, a ‘line of gravity’, a ‘ditch in space-time’ is created, folding space-time in such way that we are teleported to another planet.

 

 

Another hypothesis could be that it is about the planets’ magnetic fields aligning. Here’s an article by NASA on how a planet’s magnetic field may generate hidden portals, wormholes if you will. Keeping in mind that Earth’s magnetic field causes the Aurora Borealis, and Peter McCain saw something similar right before he was teleporter, this may not be such a weird idea.

 

 

How the locations are teleported remains debatable, as well as a lot of other stuff regarding this subject. Honestly, this whole conclusion raises more questions than it brings answers. But one thing is certain: David Bowie was right. There is life on Mars…

[Loredude]

This was a great read, the correlation between the Vrill going to Siberia and the himalayas, and call of the dead/Shangri-la was mind-blowing!

[RichKiller]

Nice thread.

 

Don't forget Icarus from Mars! 

[anonymous]

21 hours ago, RichKiller said:

Nice thread.

 

Don't forget Icarus from Mars! 

Entschüldigung, but what do you mean? Is Icarus related to Mars? That's unknown to me

[RichKiller]

2 hours ago, anonymous said:

Entschüldigung, but what do you mean? Is Icarus related to Mars? That's unknown to me

It's a cipher from Mob:

Quote

"Enclosed are some more recent illustrations from my proposed comic strip Icarus from Mars. While I understand that you were less than enthusiastic about my previous submissions, I would urge you to look again with fresh eyes. Laid up in the hospital means I've had more time than even to devote to my craft, and my artwork is improving by leaps and bounds. Eagerly waiting your response, Albert Arlington."

 

The timeline further confirms it:

[caljitsu]

The real "biggest secret in zombies" was the friends we made along the way.

 

Excellent thread, Anon, I'm really glad someone finally cataloged and expounded upon the new information we had on this, taking it from a mere conspiracy to an incredibly important bit of storyline.

 

One thing I'd like to add, that whilst is somewhat tangential to Mars itself, is definitely related:

 

Within Tag's Radios, Gersch and Yena explain that, through studying the Apothicon Blood, they've discovered that Aetherial Energy enters our dimension through "negative space" between molecules, calling them "gateways" to a different reality. This is obviously the founding principle for the Gersch Device, but lets take it a little further. The idea of the Hollow Earth being the location of Agartha was ubiquitous with the old story(tm) understanding of Shangri-La, but this line essentially recanonises it, as a dense enough object would, by simple physics, have enough molecules for far larger quantities of Aetherial Energy to be transmitted - in effect, a "gateway to Agartha" - what's interesting is if Earth is dense enough for one, Mars would be too - as would any planet with solid ground of that size.

 

Furthermore, Phobos is a tiny moon - far smaller than our own - and so would be nowhere near dense enough for a gateway to Agartha, however if we assume that a size of a dimension is proportional to the amount of AE required for the gateway to be possible, then it makes sense that a Pocket Dimension - one such as that of Tag Der Toten - would work perfectly well. In that sense, The Secret is a demonstration that it isn't "hollow earth", it's "hollow everything", literally showing you both Mars and Phobos.

[anonymous]

5 hours ago, caljitsu said:

The real "biggest secret in zombies" was the friends we made along the way.

Oh wow, that sounds like something that should be my status. It's crazy to think so, right? How this gamemode and forum platform brought us all so together, making new friends one would never had the chance to know otherwise.

 

I must say that I really like your idea of Hollow Earth. Remember how Monty mentions "the world within the world"? Agartha could be within the world as in the 'matter' meaning of that word. It may also explain why Tibetans regarded Shamballah - considered a synonyme for Agartha - to be spiritually accessible within anyone's mind. The same would go for any Shaman or priest worldwide: the Underworld, Heaven, Hades, Paradise or whatever. Please let me know if you would be on board with this idea or if you'd rather see Agartha as something only present and accessible in an object with enough gravity and negative space (like a planet).

 

In all honesty, I must confess that the part about 'negative space' in our story really confused me. When could aethereal energy be transmitted through these molecules? And why only at certain molecules?

[caljitsu]

3 hours ago, anonymous said:

In all honesty, I must confess that the part about 'negative space' in our story really confused me. When could aethereal energy be transmitted through these molecules? And why only at certain molecules?

Frankly, I think "molecules" is a misnomer and they actually meant "atoms". Essentially, the Aether is just like the real life Luminiferous Aether - it's everywhere that "stuff" isn't.