Countdown to Chaos Story
Here's the story behind "Countdown to Chaos". It is subject to revisions/additions from time to time, but the basic premise won't change.
"COUNTDOWN TO CHAOS"...the Story...
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The strength of man has failed. Our last line of defense has been penetrated. Complete and total domination is iminent. Oh, and by the way...have a nice day!...
How did it all come to this? It's the 21st century, and mankind seemed to have reached it's peak of intellectual and technological development. Industry of all kinds had begun to flourish, and new technological advances were being made each and every day. All eyes were on the future, and what was ahead for mankind. How could it all come to this?
Unfortunately, with so much attention on the future, some things that should never have been forgotten faded into obscurity, as did those who posessed the knowledge to avert disaster. Only those who would misuse this knowledge paid any mind to it, safe from any interference in their diabolical affairs.
To trace the destruction of man to it's roots, we must travel back centuries to a time when the world was a much simpler, but much more violent place. A time when man took what he wanted by force and sword, and when neighbor battle neighbor and father battled son. The dark ages of mankind, the days of knights and barbarians.
It was during this time that a notoriously evil man named Baron Le'Guel was making plans to ravage the countryside. In the depths his foul castle keep, he attempted to tap into otherworldly powers to increase his power and aid his chances of expanding his domain. Using ancient techniques, the Baron was able to forge a Sword of Evil, with which he was able to create a portal between the dimension of man and a ghastly "other world", filled with inhuman monstrosities.
With these lesser creatures of this "other" dimension, there existed "supreme" beings as well, the rulers of the nether dimension. These creatures fiercely rejected any attempts to encroach into their dimension, thus, the art of breaching portals into other worlds was avoided by even the most practiced magicians. Nobody knows how Baron Le'Guel was able to do it, but somehow, he was able to forge a bond of "trust" between himself and a creature named Sarron, the most powerful dimensional creature at the time. Sarron would offer his legions, but Le'Guel would in turn be required to pay a price of his own.
Sarron, while powerful in his own dimension, lacked the physical form to occupy our own, and this displeased him greatly. By draining the essence from human beings, he would be able to slowly form a physical body for himself, and eventually be able to enter and dominate the world of humans. It was these human victims that Baron Le'Guel was required to bring to Sarron to appease him, and in return, hideous creatures were at Le'Guel's beck and call to do with as he pleased.
And so, the dark age of man became even darker as the English countryside was ravaged in the night by creatures of the night. Upon draining the essence from a human, Sarron was able to reanimate their lifeless shell, and use these "zombies" as additional soldiers to his cause. It was these creatures that fueled many ancient tales of graveyard zombies and undead, and they wandered about in the dead of the night following their master's purposes.
Eventually, of course, Le'Guel's reign of terror ended, before he was able to make himself known throughout history. A mighty Lord of the countryside discovered his evil plot, and lead a raid of seven different kingdoms against his evil castle. The minions of Sarron fell under the swords of brave men, and Le'Guel demanded more and more reinforcements from Sarron's realm.
Sarron was not a compassionate or friendly being to begin with, and his patience was greatly tried by Le'Guels irreverent demanding nature. Already, Le'Guel was unable to repay Sarron for the assistance he had been given thus far, and Sarron decided he had had enough. As the knights of the seven kingdoms penetrated Le'Guel's inner keep, Sarron withdrew his remaining minions, and closed the portal to the real of man, but not before pulling Le'Guel into the netherworld, where he was torn limb from limb by Sarron's creatures.
The brave armies who defeated Le'Guel burned his castle to the ground and destroyed it until not one stone was left standing on another. It was ordered that Le'Guel's name would never be uttered again across the English countryside, and thus he was forever erased from the history books. Unfortunately, the story didn't end there.
Roaming bands of ancient druids visited the site of Le'Guel's castle, aware of the evil he had unleashed during his reign there. It was his Sword of Evil they sought, and it was this they found, unscathed at the bottom of the rubble pile that had once been Castle Le'Guel. It was this that they took to the site known to modern man as Stonehenge, where through ritual, they again openned a portal to the netherworld, far beneath the surface of the earth.
As with Baron Le'Guel, the druids met Sarron, and struck a similar deal with him. They, too, had demands greater than what they could hope to pay for with victims, and eventually, Sarron grew tired of man, and this time, destroyed each and every druid dealing with him, and once again closed the portal. For centuries, the Sword of Evil rested in a forgotten lair underneath the Stonehenge monoliths.
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Let us travel many decades into the future, a couple of years after the second great war, after the death of Hitler. The Nazi party had been defeated and dismantled, but some of it's fanatical followers remained. After to fleeing to England with a strange man named Draven, who claimed to be one of Hitler's supernatural advisors, the Nazi's located the Stonehenge site, where Draven knew the sword to be lurking.
An elderly professor named Von Reinstein was already exploring the Stonehenge site, and with his help, Draven was able to gain access to the lair beneath Stonehenge. In the very bowels of the catacombs, Draven found the ancient Sword of Evil he was seeking, and with forgotten arts, was able to "reactivate" it. He, like the others, met and dealt with Sarron. Draven, however, knew the cost of failure and overeagerness with Sarron, and was prepared to capture as many victims as necessary using the technology of modern war. He would not fail Sarron like the others had.
That was what he had thought, anyway. What he hadn't counted on was that by running Professor Von Reinstein off rather than killing him, the professor was able to enlist the help of the legendary soldier, BJ Blazkowicz. BJ infiltrated the catacombs of Stonehenge, and laid waste to the minions of Sarron. He confronted Draven, who, in his overconfidence, was destroyed just as all his followers were. Then BJ did something no other human would have ever dared. When he grasped the Ancient Sword of Evil, he was transported into Sarron's realm, where he confronted and destroyed the supreme being. BJ awoke later on the English countryside, clutching the sword, and no sign that a realm had ever existed beneath Stonehenge could be found.
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And now, the time of modern man, the 21st century. The sword had long been forgotten, as had most other swords in the age of missiles and guns. Magic power was consider foolery, and otherworldly beings utter rubbish. BJ had given the sword to Professor Von Reinstein, who himself had even begun to doubt it had any power left in it. Upon his death, he donated it to a museum, where no magical powers at all were attributed to it, and there is sat to collect dust in a display with many other ancient weapons.
A student of Professor Von Reinstein, a Dr. Simon Madjab, had been told stories about the swords power by the professor, and had even shared in some research on the professor's part to determine how the sword was used to open portals. Von Reinstein was never foolish enough to try it, nor was Dr. Madjab, though it was not for lack of desire, rather, he doubted his ability to deal with and appease powerful other-dimensional beings. Von Reinstein eventually died, but Madjab never forgot about the sword.
Over the years, Dr. Madjab's mind began to decay, and as he gained more knowledge, he began to realize how easy it would be to dominate the ignorant with the power of science and ancient magic. Madjab became interested in other avenues to attempt his plans of domination, but shared with one of his equally dimented colleagues, Dr. Werner Chaoss, the knowledge of the sword.
The evil Dr. Chaoss became obsessed with the idea of controlling a supernatural army. In spite of the military might of the modern world, he knew that mankind would be struck dumb by the appearance of a horde of supernatural creatures, and fear of the unknown would easily overcome the technology of the modern world. And so, using the knowledge passed from Professor Von Reinstein to Dr. Madjab, Dr. Chaoss was able to open a portal, as the others before him had. It was then that he discovered "IT".
"IT" was the most intelligent, most powerful creature any dimension had ever known. All knowledge possible to be known of both worlds was known to "IT", and it had no fear of humans or their so called technological power. "IT" developed a plot, alongside Dr. Chaoss, to draw the armies of mankind to him, where they could be "converted" to fight for his side.
And so it was that one day, Dr. Chaoss reported to the government that a disaster had occured, and that a portal to a hostile world had been openned beneath US soil. Chaoss was working for the government on some other top secret projects when he took his turn for the worse, and performed his experiments in an underground bunker that was part of an enormous subterranean network of tunnels, set aside for the US government in case of disaster. Since many of these tunnels connected to key government buildings, it was considered top priority that anything that happened involving them be taken care of quickly.
The creatures began appearing throughout the tunnels, sometimes working their way into the government buildings themselves. US forces were immediately deployed en masse, and dispatched the creatures lurking in the tunnels. More continued to pour out of the portal, though, and it was decided (unwisely) that the solution was to enter the portal itself and neutralize the threat from within. And so, wave after wave of soldiers entered the world beyond the portal. None ever returned with his life...or his sanity.
The problem was instantly compounded. The soldiers that had entered the portal returned days later, but were far from the brave fighting men they had entered as. Instead, they were putrid, decaying shells of their former selves, but to the horror of those guarding the portal, were still proficient with their weapons. To top it off, the monsters from the other dimension continued to flood the underground tunnels and bunkers, and bedlam threatened to overtake capital hill.
The solution, it was decided, was to send more soldiers. Wave after wave of the best troops were deployed on follow up assaults, until the ground military might of the US was significantly weakend, but the results were the same. The troops were killed and converted to zombies, and eventually the forces of evil were too numerous to be stopped. A "Universal Army" was formed through a shaky alliance with other countries, but the lesser skilled troops of foreign nations were of little help against "IT"'s puppet zombie soldiers and his hordes of vile beasts. The threat could no longer be contained, and the forces of the nether dimension eventually spilled out across the face of the country.
In spite various attempts at resistance, the spread of "IT"'s influence was unstoppable. Being fed by the constant flow of soldiers attempting to enter his domain, "IT" was far better appeased than Sarron had ever been by former human servants. Secure in it's influence, "IT" began to reach out with it's overwhelming mind powers, and insinuated itself into the minds of the people of the world. Slowly, mankind began to sink into a mindless state of servitude, as "IT" began to devour their own will, and replace it with the desire to be one with "IT". The power of man had failed. It seemed that all hope for the world was lost.
Even in the darkest night, though, a light of hope can always be found. This light of hope was a soldier. A man named John J. Schwarz. Trained at the top military academies in the nation, Schwarz had risen above all the rest in his training, and had shown time and time again the ability to overcome any situation, no matter how difficult the obstacles. He had fought in many top secret missions, including some isolated efforts to repel unfriendly "alien" visitors, which were never made known to the public. Schwarz knew that "if it can hurt you, it can bleed too", and had no doubts that the otherworldly invasion could be subdued by the strength of men.
Schwarz was deployed infiltrate the Whitehouse and secure the premises, while attempting to locate the President, who remained unaccounted for. Before his chopper could reach the site of deployment, though, the pilot suffered a bizarre seizure, and the chopper crashed several miles off it's mark. There, Schwarz, the lone survivor, remained unconcious for days.
It was this unconciousness that would be his salvation. "IT" was manipulating his "death squads" to roam the countryside, looking for resistance, and those who still actively opposed him. Had he been concious, Schwarz would surely have been located and killed, but it was not to be.
And so, secure in it's supremacy, "IT" began to grow careless. Thousands of zombie soldiers were at his command across the world, as well as his hideous hordes of monsters. "IT" had nothing more to fear. Minor pockets of resistance were being located and crushed on a daily basis, and were becoming fewer and fewer. In a matter of days, maybe weeks, all hope would be lost, and the world would belong to "IT". Dr. Chaoss had achieved his goal, and was allowed to reign as the sole independant human, along with his thug commando body guards who were free from the influence and minions of "IT". World domination was about to become a reality.
The light of hope still remained, though. On a dewey, hazy Sunday morning, a filth covered, aching John J. Schwarz awoke in the twisted wreck of the Blackhawk helicopter his team had been carried in. After checking to see if anything was broken, and making a brief inspection of his teammate's bodies in a fruitless search for survivors, Schwarz was ready for action. A furious rage boiled inside him, but Schwarz was a professional, and the rage did not show. Instead, it heightened his already lethal instincts, and cleared his aching head for the battle to come. "IT" was going to pay...
Schwarz checked around for weaponry that had survived the helicopter crash, but the only suitable weapons were his trusty survival knife, and a shotgun the pilot had stashed behind his seat. Schwarz stuffed his pockets with as much ammo as he could carry, and began to set off through the damp, foggy, grassy fields, on his way to the White House.
It was a disaster. Everything was cast into ruin, and no sign of civilized life could be seen. Being a master of stealth, Schwarz was able to enter the White House complex, and make his way to the underground complex through the entrance in the Lincoln Bedroom, killing several zombies unseen along the way. A sense of duty burned within Schwarz...the President could still be alive, and needed to be rescued. And somehow, he knew that if he could destroy "IT", control would be lost over all the zombie soldiers, as well as the other dimensional beings, and they would dissappear from the face of the earth. It was just a matter of making it that far...but there was nothing left to lose...nothing but his life he had already pledged to God and country...
Deep in the underground complex, in a region just outside our world, "IT" sat and thought. "IT" disliked the human world, though it was now powerful enough to come and go at will. The world of man stank of weakness and overconfidence. The humans were cattle to be slaughtered and manipulated, never seriously dealt with. "IT" kept the man, Dr. Chaoss and his thugs about because they amused him, and posed no threat. They could be erased in a moment if they displeased "IT" for any reason. And so, "IT" reached out with it's overwhelming power of mind to check on each and every human under "IT"'s command...but something wasn't right...
Yes, there were those who were outside "IT"'s grasp for the moment...but it never lasted long. Something was horribly wrong, though. There was a mind...a powerful mind...with a calculating and deadly nature to it...and it was not within "IT"'s control. "IT" released a few of the humans in it's grasp to focus it's energy on breaching this mind...but it was no use...a shield of anger and determination that was bitter and painful, like salt on a slug, caused "IT" to shrink away with "IT"'s mind. No matter...moments later, a few undead soldiers were deployed to deal with the threat, but control was lost with them shortly after as they were disembowled by gunfire. This was not the way it was supposed to be happening...
"IT" had many minions under it's control, enough of which where near enough to confront an intruder. So what was this feeling "IT" was experiencing...fear? It was not possible. No man could penetrate the army of "IT", an the mad Dr. Chaoss would be forced to face any intruder before they breached "IT"'s realm. "IT" looked over at it's prize, the leader of the free world, the President of the United States, strapped to a desk chair not far away. This was the most powerful man in the world...and he was "IT"'s pathetic captive. How could any lesser creature hope to prevail. "IT" stopped for a moment to conjure up in it's mind a vivid image of a man, lying in a pool of blood, crushed and defeated...this would be the man who now so foolishly approached in the hopes of confronting "IT"...
...or would it...??
