EnkerZan

People seem to be interested in this theory I came up with over the years, so I'll post it here for everyone to see. The theory is about linking every old ID Software shooter storyline into a singular lore plot. The game franchises involved in this theory:

Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Quake, Rise of The Triad.

I know what you're thinking, "What is Rise of The Triad doing on this list?" This game was originally intended to be Wolfenstein 2, however with the way I have theorized the plot line, it can remain irrelevant if you choose.

TL:DR at the bottom for those who don't care for details.

Everything has a beginning, so where does all of this start? It starts with Heretic. Corvus the Heretic and the Serpent Riders are the catalyst for this plot. In far ancient times of planet Earth (yes, Earth, you read that right) existed 3 major provinces; Parthoris, Cronos, and Thyrion. The 3 Serpent Riders (D'Sparil, Korax, and Eidolon) arrived to conquer this dimension by dabbling in powerful ancient magics and in so doing possessed the seven kings of Parthoris turning them into mindless puppets and corrupting their armies. However this magic didn't work on the Sidhe Elves within this province and thus the serpent riders waged war on them to secure their hold. After the discovery of this hideous plot the elders of the Sidhe sacrificed their powers in order to sever the possession of the kings and their armies. After the Serpent Riders lost their control of the armies, they resorted to finishing the job by summoning demons and undead. While the remaining Sidhe retreat from the horde of monsters, Corvus stays behind and sets forth on his mission of vengeance to destroy the Serpent Rider D'sparil who commanded the legion of monsters against his people.

Through unimaginable odds, Corvus succeeds in killing D'sparil and returns to his homeland only to find that the entire province has been swept away by a mysterious plague. Corvus eventually finds the root of the problem; an ancient seraph named Morcalavin tries to achieve immortality by using a fake Tomb of Power and in so doing causes him to go completely insane and wipe out civilization with a magic plague. During Corvus' quest to destroy D'sparil, he encountered the real Tomb of Power and in order to reverse everything that went wrong he must swap out the fake tomb with the real tomb. After a fierce battle with Morcalavin, he is restored to his former self with the Tomb of Power and ascends into immortality leaving the ruined world behind with Corvus.

During the events of Parthoris, also happened the events that took place in Cronos. While Parthoris was being besieged by D'sparil and his legion of monsters, Korax is laying waste to Cronos with the use of reality warping magic from his newly created Chaos Sphere; gained from the stolen and forbidden knowledge of Morcalavin and the Elder Sidhe. Three of the mightiest champions of Cronos; Baratus, Parias, and Daedolon were gathered to destroy Korax and put an end to the destruction and they succeed and discover the Chaos Sphere. The three champions examine the arcane device, and upon a single touch their minds were warped to a vision of a future timeline, a timeline where the Chaos Sphere had corrupted their forms like it did to Korax from sheer usage. Their corrupted forms have destroyed the entire world and sought to conquer more beyond their realm with the use of the Chaos Sphere. Having discovered this, the three champions fight through the legions of darkness through the twisted dreamscape and kill their corrupted selves to destroy the power tethering the world in corruption. After the vision ended and the champions return to their senses, they sense the sphere corrupting their minds and they all agreed that the sphere must be destroyed. As they destroy the sphere, reality bends around them and portals begin rapidly opening and closing in the area; and after it ends the champions vanish never to be seen again but the remnants of the Chaos Sphere remain.

After sensing the fall of the other two Serpent Riders, Eidolon halts his advance on Thyrion to find out what happened. He discovers the remains of D'sparil and his journal describing the power discovered by the Sidhe Elves and Morcalavin then follows the trail left by Korax as written. He then finds Korax's dead and twisted body along with the ruined chamber containing the broken Chaos Sphere. Following Korax's research and the stolen tombs of the Sidhe, Eidolon reconstructs the Chaos Sphere and in so doing it instantly corrupts Eidolon's form into that of a demon with powers from Hell itself. With his newfound power, Eidolon summons the Four Horseman of The Apocalypse as his generals to aid him in his conquest of Thyrion and soon the world. During the halted advance, this gathered time for the province of Thyrion to assemble a team of it's best champions to seek out and destroy Eidolon and his generals behind enemy lines. Over time these heroes manage to defeat The Four Horseman and confront Eidolon in his sanctum. Eidolon's power was not enough to face this team of heroes, so he summons the Chaos Sphere to him to draw more power from it. Seeing that the sphere was fueling Eidolon with limitless power, the heroes focused their power to destroy the sphere and eventually Eidolon. As Eidolon falls so do his minions of darkness, but many monsters and dark evils remain as the world freezes over from the destruction of the Chaos Sphere.

Having observed these events from afar, The wizard known as Praevus, captivated by the ancient magics is compelled to study and harness this power for his own gain. Before Eidolon's demise, his prized creation that would aid him in his conquest was manifesting nearby. Unable to assist her master at the time, a Demoness he created vowed to return to harness his power to exact her revenge on the heroes and conquer the world. However her plans were thwarted when she discovered that Praevus had already captured the souls of the Serpent Riders and plans to gain their powers. This put her into an unholy state of rage and she hunted down Praevus to claim what was rightfully hers. After tracking him down through various parts of the frozen world, she succeeds in finding and killing Praevus, but at a cost; The souls and power of the Serpent Riders were thrust back into the void from which they were pulled from. Overwhelmed by the sheer loss of everything, the Demoness gave up her quest for conquest and vengeance.

As time goes on the broken Chaos Sphere destroys the known world, opening random pocket rifts and freezing the planet's surface until nothing was left, not even a spec of magic. Unable to locate the source of this destruction, many took to entering the pocket rifts to escape the inevitable death that awaited them leaving everything they knew behind to start a new life.

Fast forward many years into the future where life begins again to the modern age of man. During this time period World War 2 is underway, started by a man known as Adolf Hitler. However before the events of WW2, Hitler was always fascinated by the told tales of the paranormal and discoveries found in archeology and studied them in depth. During his campaign to defeat the Allied Powers of the world, Hitler took to mythology and the paranormal as a means to defeat his enemies and win the war. He sent various battalions and regiments of soldiers commanded by his top minds to pursue this research and development. Previous dig sites were funded and reopened by the Nazi regime, one of which produced promising results. The chamber to the first Chaos Sphere was discovered, bits and pieces of the artifact were scattered all over the room, but larger pieces are missing. Upon further inspection, someone had been here before and not too recently. The pieces collected from the broken Chaos Sphere yielded special compounds and reagents that spearheaded development within multiple sectors of the SS. The power source contained within these shards allowed the Nazis to produce advanced weaponry and even reanimate the dead. However all of this came to a crashing halt when an American prisoner of war by the name of B.J. Blazkowicz discovered Hitler's plans; he escapes and returns to put an end to it all. After Hitler's demise, B.J. was assigned to reclaim the artifacts discovered and seized by the SS Paranormal R&D division. One item in particular the Nazis went through great lengths to retrieve from enemy territory, was the fabled Spear of Destiny. The Nazis discovered that the chamber of the Chaos Sphere had been looted almost 2000 years ago, and that the larger metallic pieces were sold and re-forged into the Spear of Destiny. Following the trail of clues, BJ eventually found the regiment responsible for the abduction of these artifacts. He destroys them and all of their research and takes the artifacts to a secure place where they can never be tampered with again.

World War 2 ends, but various Nazi affiliated groups still remain. In the year 1950, A researcher of Hitler's SS Paranormal by the name of El Oscuro, fascinated by Hitler's research assignment went rogue after his death and formed his own research team to continue his work. This research eventually led him to San Nicholas Island, a tiny remote island off the coast of southern California where he formed an archeology research site where he discovered the buried Sanctum of Eidolon. While excavating this site, the excavation team finds the destroyed Chaos Sphere in the middle of the sanctum and calls El Oscuro down to view their findings. Excited about the news he quickly heads to the sanctum to inspect the findings. But upon touching a piece of the broken sphere he was engulfed in a coil of red energy and his body was corrupted. Time ground to a halt within his sub conscious, he was now given a new mission and new purpose by the Chaos Sphere to continue where the Serpent Riders left off. Appearing to still be normal and in need of assistance, the workers rushed to help him. Upon making physical contact they were bewitched to follow his every command, and soon after corrupted the rest of his team. El Oscuro went to form the cult Order of The Triad with his newfound powers. Ships within the shipping lanes of the west coast of the United States started to disappear along with it's crew and passengers. A United States task force known as The Hunt were formed to eliminate these Nazi splinter groups and destroy them and any and all resources they have. They tracked down El Oscuro to San Nicholas Island and shortly after landing there by boat, their boat is destroyed while doing recon of the island. Since their presence has been alerted they attempt to radio in their findings only to discover their signal is jammed. Left with no other choice for survival, The Hunt goes in guns blazing to eradicate this splinter group. Discovering that El Oscuro is no longer human and had dug up some evil ancient artifact and is now compelled to destroy the world with his mind-enslaving power, The Hunt must destroy every trace of this evil magic. They eventually succeed and sabotage the main power source of the island along with the radio jammer, causing it to self destruct and destroy everything on the island.

The year is now 2008, The UAC was founded 8 years prior and new research had begun on the artifacts humanity tried to silence. The Chaos Sphere sites have been reopened, and research commenced on the energy emanating from the metallic shards of the destroyed spheres. Channeling these energy emissions in a specific way allowed humanity to open dimensional rifts, these rift portals were dubbed the name Slipgates. Overwhelmed by curiosity, humanity needed to know what was on the other side of these portals. Drones proved to be ineffective as the connections were instantly severed upon entering, so they resorted to volunteers to traverse the slipgate and return with their findings. The research team was only able to make the rift portal open and stable at 15 inches diameter, but this wouldn't do if they were to fit a human through. They managed to make the portal bigger, but it was unstable and randomly shut off. Convinced that if a shut off occurred, they could just re-open the gate and get their volunteer back through. A former Vietnam war veteran and army ranger was given an offer he couldn't refuse if he assisted in the research by entering the slipgate. He was armed and provisioned with a week's worth of resources should he get stuck on the other side. As soon as he stepped into the portal something went wrong with the equipment and the connection was lost thus the portal closed behind him immediately. Unable to wait any longer for the portal to come back the Ranger set out to find food and materials to maintain his site. Wandering through what seemed to be a tomb he finds a stable portal in a wall. Thinking that maybe it will lead him back home he steps in to find that its a one-way trip to another set of halls with portals.

The Ranger is left with no choice but to keep traversing these portals if he wanted to survive. Entering the first portal gave him a glimpse of hope as the scenery went from being eerie and cryptic to something that resembled modern civilization. That hope was quickly crushed when he discovered that this modern-looking army base was plagued with possessed soldiers, animals, and cyborgs straight out of nightmares. Quickly finding an exit through that madness which appeared to be another Slipgate, the Ranger leaped into it. Now his surroundings turned into that of a medieval chapel, with even more nightmarish monstrosities. Traversing through these portals he finds tablets written in Old English that tell of a series of runes that can be gathered and assembled to create a passage to a great power. With nothing else to go on, the Ranger decides to seek out these runes with the hope that this power will return him home. Minutes seemed like hours, hours seemed like days, and days to weeks. The Ranger's mind has seen and combated enough horror that would drive a lesser man to pure insanity, only his willpower keeps him together along with the hope of escaping this seemingly permanent nightmare. After finding the supposed last rune and to his surprise, he is finally transported to a familiar place. Upon entering this new area, he hears his surroundings deafen and stones crumbling in the distance; All he can hear around him is the sound of his own heartbeat. What was once a floor in this particular room is now a vast cavern leading to a black depth that can't be illuminated by normal means. Despite the Rangers instincts telling him no this is a bad idea, he still grasps that hope of returning home and musters all of his willpower to enter this black void.

Further and further the Ranger descended into the darkness, the more and more whispers of madness he begins to hear; And soon the sound of heavy breathing and a giant heartbeat. Upon entering the only light source in the vast blackness lays the biggest horrifying eldritch tentacle-covered monstrosity he had ever seen known as Shub-Niggurath, the entity responsible for shaping these twisted dimensions. The being is instantly alerted to the Ranger's presence and lets out a horrifying shriek that summons various monsters to it's call. The Ranger cuts through every minion that stood in his way, he notices that they are trying to keep him from getting to something up the staircase. As he gets closer the monster itself starts to attack him with its large tentacles. Quickly ascending the steps and dodging the monster's attacks, he finds a portal at the end of the staircase. Thinking maybe this monster is trying to prevent the Ranger from returning home, he blitzes to the portal the second an opening appears. Upon entering the portal the heartbeat and breathing sounds are louder than ever, the Ranger turns on his light and sees that the walls and floor are slimy and fleshy. He traverses the fleshy cavern following the source of the heartbeat sound and discovers exactly that, a giant heart. The portal had transported the Ranger inside of Shub-Niggurath, since none of the Rangers attacks worked on it from the outside, he attempts to destroy it from the inside. He pulls out his utility axe and hacks away at the monster's heart. The chamber quickly fills with blood and the Ranger was teleported back outside as the monster explodes with blood and flesh raining everywhere. The floor quaked and red energy surged randomly within the dark domain and eventually stops. The Ranger stood there for a moment, processing his previous moments, and wondered what to do now. Did he just kill his only source of getting home in self-defense? As he contemplated his future, he notices another portal in the distance. "Anywhere has gotta be better than here." He thought to himself. He takes a deep breath and traverses the portal hoping it will eventually lead him to home.

With the death of Sub-Niggurath several entities tied to this plane of existence were now alerted by this cosmic disturbance, and now perceive the planet Earth to be a threat that must be eliminated and begin preparing for war. The year is now 2065 and Earth has been invaded by the closest of several hostile entities within the vicinity, The Strogg. The leader of the Strogg known as "The Makron", conducted a full-scale invasion of the planet with no strategy involved; Thinking the planet would be easily swept aside like every other it has conquered. This proved to be a fatal mistake as the humans who were not so technologically feeble quickly pushed them back and immediately organized a counter-invasion to the planet the enemy retreated to, Stroggos. Quickly coming up with a plan to destroy the incoming retaliating invasion, The Makron would catch the enemy off guard with its new tech and relaunch a counter offensive to finish what it started. Again, this proved to be yet another fatal error as The Makron did not anticipate several skilled infiltrators to completely neutralize the production, logistics, and defenses of its army with him included. By the time the 2nd human invasion wave arrives, The Makron already reconstructed itself. This time The Makron plans to fight the human invasion with Guerilla tactics while waiting for reinforcements from other sectors to arrive. Yet again, another fatal blunder occurs when The Makron tries to convert one of the previous skilled infiltrators only to fail completion. This results in making him stronger, enabling him to further cripple The Makron and what's left of its army. It is unknown if The Makron is truly defeated, only time will tell.

Another nearby cosmic entity who had witnessed the fall of The Makron, decides to plan ahead and not make the same mistakes it did. Humans now possess some of The Makron's technology and are now more dangerous than they were before. It was clear that a head on blunt invasion was not going to cut it, so a different approach must be taken to defeat this enemy; Manipulation. 75 Years have passed, and while Slipgate research proved to be a lost cause, research on the Chaos Sphere reached an all-time high. Many years of attempted translation and documentation on the artifacts all pointed to the planet Mars for further answers. A research base was quickly set up on Phobos to excavate more artifacts and there it was discovered that this shattered Chaos Sphere contained an infinite self multiplying, controllable, and sustaining energy resource dubbed "Argent Energy". With this discovery, Slipgate technology could advance and teleportation was made possible. All of this came at a cost, unbeknownst to the researchers, their first Slipgate powered by the new argent energy opened a gateway straight to the realm of Hell. Demons quickly fled through the opening as if they were waiting for it to open and slaughtered everyone in their path; military personnel were converted into mental slaves to do the demon's bidding, and prisoners were taken for ritual sacrifice. A lone marine stationed at the research site proved to be a massive threat to this entity's plans; killing all of the demons in his path and sabotaging plans about to be set in motion. In order to stop this murder machine made of rage and steroids, the entity reveals himself as VIOS the Virtual Icon of Sin. It begins to explain how it manipulated people over the course of 75 years to forge a new hell gate to setup an outpost and begin an invasion of Earth, finishing what The Makron started and that there was nothing the marine can do to stop it.

The marine travels to the "Phobos Anomaly" as it is called in the UAC logs where the demon invasion started thinking he can shut it down for good. But as it turns out the demons can come from literally anywhere now, so sealing this portal was nearly pointless. But if he were to enter the portal himself and stop this VIOS entity in Hell before it attempts to invade Earth, then everyone will be safe. Upon entering the portal the marine discovers it was a trap and was surrounded by dozens of demons. Assuming the marine was dead, VIOS plans its invasion of Earth. The marine survives this feeble attempt of assassination and begins to track down the location of VIOS. After getting reports of the destruction of the Tower of Babel, VIOS discovers that the pesky marine is still alive and is coming for it. VIOS again reveals himself to the marine and offers a challenge at the city of Dis, winner is granted anything they want. The marine accepts this challenge no questions asked and plows his way through to Dis as quickly as possible. When the marine gets there he is assaulted by a giant brain with spider legs and guns. "This has to be VIOS right? We are in Dis and this thing looks like it could be it." The marine thought to himself. After a relatively short battle, VIOS reveals himself after the Spider Mastermind general had fallen. "You fell for my plan perfectly! And as you stand in the middle of the planes of Hell surrounded by all of it's inhabitance, I have already begun the invasion of Earth. Let this be a reminder of who's intelligence is superior, and perish!" Completely lost to rage, the marine puts his fist through the view screen and hears the sound of thousands of footsteps rumbling towards him from all directions while letting out an angry roar.

A week later VIOS had already invaded Earth, but the human race is a lot more resilient than it had anticipated. The marine found his way back to Earth after surviving that brutal trap VIOS laid for him; He quickly ventures to his home to make sure his family was safe. Unfortunately he did not make back in time, both his wife and child were slain and the family pet rabbit's head was severed and put on a spit for a ritual in the back yard. Whatever was left of the marine's personality died that day, all he could see now was red as he felt completely consumed with rage and vengeance. Before targeting key locations to further the invasion, VIOS gets reports of rapid losses moving towards its sector. VIOS, shocked by disbelief that the marine had survived the trap in Hell who is making his way towards it, attempts to sway the marine away from it with another speech. But this proved to be futile as every view screen got shot or was ignored completely. Since there was no reasoning with the rage machine, VIOS prepared for the marine's arrival. As the marine fights through the hordes of hell, he notices that the reality plane is shifting and being merged into Hell's plane scape as he had seen before on Phobos. Time was running out and he needed to kill VIOS, he quickly tracks it down to an underground dig site. There he sees the massive demon's head inside the wall, it appeared to be assembling a body for itself. Upon entering the area it alerted VIOS and its guards to the marine's presence. The head seemed to be the only functional part of the body, it spouted a command to its minions and began launching miniature Slipgate devices from its head that summoned demons. The hole in its head looked deep and could be a weak point to destroy VIOS' body. And against all odds, the marine succeeds in destroying the head causing the rest of the body to shut down and the demons to burst into flames. Reality started to pull itself together and reverse the corruption; Earth is safe, for now...

One Year has passed. The marine was highly decorated for his service and efforts, but mentally he has fallen apart. Unable to cope with his losses, he became highly aggressive and spoke to no one let alone at all. The only thing that kept him from ripping and tearing the flesh from the nearest person was that it was human. The UAC is recovering from their losses on both Earth and Phobos, and while trying to salvage what was left of the Phobos base to rebuild it, another attack occurs. After analyzing where it came from, it did not enter through a portal, but rather was hiding in orbit inside a damaged satellite. It was absorbing the leaking radiation from this satellite to regenerate itself but in so doing, mutated itself. Anything dead it came in contact with was resurrected and then mutated to be more powerful than it originally was. The UAC dubbed it "The Mother Demon", and quickly went to the military for assistance. Not wanting another full scale invasion to occur any time soon, Earth finds and debriefs the marine on current events. Without hesitation the marine takes the mission and enters a Slipgate back to Phobos. The base is already twisting back into the hell plane scape from before and already the marine is greeted by a hoard of demons. Before leaving for Phobos the marine was instructed to secure the research done on this Mother Demon before the base was overrun again. He instead ignores it and goes straight for it to end this conflict quickly. After plowing through an army of demons, he finds it and destroys it only to discover it had reincarnated elsewhere and is massing demons again. Angry that this happened, the marine looks for the research the UAC wanted to find a weakness. According to reports that were found, the marine needed to find a demonic weapon and power it with three key artifacts to completely disintegrate it's body to prevent reincarnation. The demons were powerful and becoming more and more numerous, but eventually the marine finds the weapon and artifacts to end this once and for all. Time was running out as the base seemed almost assimilated into Hell. The marine finds the demon at the Phobos Anomaly site trying to re-open the main portal to hell and finish what VIOS and The Makron started. With his new weapon he quickly dispatches the demon and its numerous enhanced minions, but it was too late; The portal was already open, and the only way to close it was from the inside. The marine knew he could never live life the same again, and that closing the portal was a suicide mission. What better way to go than ripping and tearing through the demons that made you what you are now until it was done? The marine reports back, closes the portal behind him and is never seen again, confirmed to be KIA.

And that's it, Doom 3 takes place 4 years later in 2145 with UAC trying to finish what they started, fails, and then tries again in Doom 2016 bringing back the marine. I rewrote the Doom 64 plot line a bit cus it sucked IMO, hopefully you'll find this a bit better. I also wrote the timelines in my own narrowed down versions, so if they aren't 100% lore accurate that's because I dodged it for something better. Quake 3 is basically cosmic entities running a deathmatch simulator to test people's capabilities, kind of like most MoBAs but in a FPS. Other games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein is roughly a repeat of the first game, I didn't play the newer games after that so I left those out. But I would imagine it's all still roughly tied to the Chaos Sphere being the main culprit to the Nazis coming to power by sparking an alternate dimension.

WTFL;DR:

The Chaos Sphere from Heretic and Hexen involving the Serpent Riders enabled all of this to happen on planet Earth all the way to Doom Eternal. The Chaos Sphere ended the world after the events of Heretic through Hexen 2. And when the planet reshaped itself to what we know today, research was done on the Chaos Sphere that was found in a tomb; Which started Wolfenstein that later caused Rise of The Triad to happen and much later Quake and Doom. The Chaos Sphere was later discovered to be powered by argent energy which was tied to the making of Slipgate technology from Quake. The death of the final boss in Quake causes Quake 2, and later Doom to happen with Slipgates being tied to the hell portals. And that's all of the ID Software games in one single understandable timeline.