Could the demons in Doom 3 actually take over Earth?

I mean if you think about it, the marines and the security drones on the Mars base did not appear to have much difficulty killing them, losing to them only because the demons attacked them with overwhelming numbers inside a small cramped facility.

If the player and the marines who did not get killed instantly (like Bravo team) were able to kill countless demons then would that not mean that the demons would not stand a chance against the whole of Earth's armies? This just sounds like a bit of a plot hole to me 0_o

Bravo Team remind me of the backstory for the Quake 3 Arena character Phobos with his marine squad.

Well they were kind of stopped twice on Mars. Maybe if the incident had started on Earth it would be a whole different matter, but they still seem to be working on their escape plan.

Supposing they can't just teleport an infinity of mancubuses and other heavy hitters, they just need to be more subtle. Betruger-like corruption of people in power (e.g., the boardrooms at Goldman Sachs, Monsanto, Halliburton, Chiquita, the supermajors, etc.), and humanity will create hell on Earth without the demons having to do anything.

While easily defeated seemingly on a per-unit basis, the hordes of Hell are, unlike a conventional army, endless. What happens to a demon when you "kill" it? It goes back to hell I'd guess :P

Quasar said:

What happens to a demon when you "kill" it? It goes back to hell I'd guess :P

But what if you kill it in hell?

hardcore_gamer said:

I mean if you think about it, the marines and the security drones on the Mars base did not appear to have much difficulty killing them, losing to them only because the demons attacked them with overwhelming numbers inside a small cramped facility.

I don't know what gave you the impression that the marines and security drones didn't have much trouble with the demons. The game pretty much gives me the impression that it was pretty much a one-sided massacre.

I always thought it was plausible that the player survived the initial attack wave because he was on the outskirts of the base (looking for the scientist) at the time, and was away from the initial chaos in Mars City. By the time he gets back there, the fight is pretty much already over and things have quieted down a bit---the demons, zombies and newly possessed security personnel are just hunting down stragglers. Besides, the heaviest concentrations of demons were in Delta, far away from him at the time.

As for why the player is able to handle himself so much better than everyone else, well, therein lies what may be the biggest plot hole in almost every FPS.

Quasar said:

While easily defeated seemingly on a per-unit basis, the hordes of Hell are, unlike a conventional army, endless.

While I can imagine hell creating new demons with some kind of evil magic I don't think hell's armies are endless. Doom 3's storyline had a plot point that explained that during the first demon invasion the martian's most powerful warrior used the soulcube to defeat the demons. Something which could not have happened if the demons had simply been able to respawn over and over again.

Quasar said: What happens to a demon when you "kill" it? It goes back to hell I'd guess :P [/B]

It is more likely that they just cease to exist and that new ones are created. Demons are pure evil after all, so they probably don't have souls. If they don't have souls that they would probably not go anywhere after they are killed.

On a somewhat unrelated side note, what happened to the souls of the UAC staff? Betruger says at one point in the game "your friends are with me now, and soon you will join them". Does that mean that everyone that is killed my a demon goes to hell?

hardcore_gamer said:

On a somewhat unrelated side note, what happened to the souls of the UAC staff? Betruger says at one point in the game "your friends are with me now, and soon you will join them". Does that mean that everyone that is killed my a demon goes to hell?

I think it's implied that everyone's soul goes to hell, leaving a zombie husk behind with powers relative to it's capabilities when it was human. Why hell couldn't just turn everyone into something more effective than a slow zombie which weakly punches you is anyone's guess.

DoomUK said:

I think it's implied that everyone's soul goes to hell, leaving a zombie husk behind with powers relative to it's capabilities when it was human. Why hell couldn't just turn everyone into something more effective than a slow zombie which weakly punches you is anyone's guess.

I don't really think that everyone who was killed by the demons just automatically go to hell even though some may have. I suddenly remembered that in RoE you could see the dead bodies around you glow so that you could know which people still had their souls in case you wanted to use them to power your artifact.

but wat if impse?

SPOILERS AHOY!

One of the very very few decisions the player can make in Doom 3 is deciding whether or not to send a distress signal to Earth. Swann argues that it could endanger earth by bringing the Hellspawn back on UAC (or whatever) ships which Sgt. Kelly orders you to send the signal anyway. Whether you do or not is irrelevant in the end as it gets sent either way and the story plays out the same.

Besides, the Demons from Doom 1 took over "Earth" in Doom 2 - or at least it was supposed to be Earth no matter what the levels looked like.

Doom 3 is basically a remake of Doom 1 so what does that make Doom 4?...

hardcore_gamer said:

Doom 3's storyline had a plot point that explained that during the first demon invasion the martian's most powerful warrior used the soulcube to defeat the demons. Something which could not have happened if the demons had simply been able to respawn over and over again.

Perhaps just my interpretation but what I seem to remember is he managed to buy the survivors enough time to seal the portals and then prepare for off-world teleportation. That he himself did not ultimately survive is perhaps telling (he is buried in a crypt that you pass through on your way to the Cyberdemon).

hardcore_gamer said:

It is more likely that they just cease to exist and that new ones are created. Demons are pure evil after all, so they probably don't have souls. If they don't have souls that they would probably not go anywhere after they are killed.

Perhaps but this doesn't jive with usual religious theories of them being immortal fallen divine beings and the such; with DOOM 3 making the connection to the time when the Earth was "void and without form" by having Swann make reference to the demons possessing Earth once in the past, plus references to demons speaking in Aramaic, DOOM 3 seems to have a stronger connection to Judeo-Christian eschatology than the original game did.

hardcore_gamer said:

On a somewhat unrelated side note, what happened to the souls of the UAC staff? Betruger says at one point in the game "your friends are with me now, and soon you will join them". Does that mean that everyone that is killed my a demon goes to hell?

The Devil is said, above all other things, to be a liar. If it suits his purpose in demoralizing the Doomguy by telling him this, then he does it. No other reason is needed.

Quasar said:

The Devil is said, above all other things, to be a liar. If it suits his purpose in demoralizing the Doomguy by telling him this, then he does it. No other reason is needed.

Perhaps, but there are still some rather horrible things that you see during the game that strongly suggest at least some of the victims went to hell. For example, during the cinematic where you see the first maggot there is this guy who has been nailed to the ceiling and is screaming in pain. In addition you find some corpes and remains of other people during the hell levels that have clearly been tormented. in addition Betruger threatens you during the hell level saying that your soul will burn in hell forever, so the chances are that Betruger can use his magic somehow to send people to hell.

It makes the game even more disturbing if you think about it. Before you just assumed that everybody died horribly, but if given some thought you realize that most of the UAC staff wasn't just killed, but are now burning and suffering as well in hell forever.

I believe that Tv tropes has a special pages for this kind of stuff:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NightmareFuel?from=Main.HighOctaneNightmareFuel

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FateWorseThanDeath

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndIMustScream