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bones58

What is the Anomaly exactly?

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Always wondered what it was. I thought it may be referring to the teleporters themselves, not sure really. Is it the platform doomguy uses to teleport into the shores of hell ? Or it the giant star where the Barons of Hell reside? Any thoughts?

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bones58 said:

Always wondered what it was. I thought it may be referring to the teleporters themselves, not sure really. Is it the platform doomguy uses to teleport into the shores of hell ? Or it the giant star where the Barons of Hell reside? Any thoughts?


What do you mean, the Phobos Anomaly ? Cause I'm pretty sure (99.9%) that's a moon orbiting Mars.

Also, if I recall correctly, that is where you fight the two Barons in the Pentagram arena.

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By the descriptions in the DOOM Bible, it should be an area, over which the UAC set up a building, and which seemingly has unusual or weird characteristics or phenomena (a lot of "fire dust"). The Bible explains the anomalies are at the poles, and gates open there when the invasion begins.

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Sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm just referring to what makes the Phobos & Deimos Anomalys.. well anomalys?

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I always liked it how the anomalies were linked. The original anomaly was probably where the Tower of Babel was erected, then once Deimos went to hell, literally, an anomaly probably opened to Phobos to repeat that process.

I always liked reading the little story that came in the Doom manual. Made the levels into so much more when you kept the story in your head.

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Ragnor said:
The original anomaly was probably where the Tower of Babel was erected,

No reason to think that, given that there's an anomaly, named as such, in Deimos already.

an anomaly probably opened to Phobos

The gates are in the anomaly areas, and are the most important thing in them, but they aren't the anomalies.

Before the UAC scientists knew for certain they were dealing with gates to another dimension (Hell) and they found these strange areas in the two moons, they designated them "anomalies" and set up facilities on them to investigate and contain them. We could say they are the areas affected by the presence of the gates.

See definition 3 here for why the word anomaly was used.

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bones58 said:

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm just referring to what makes the Phobos & Deimos Anomalys.. well anomalys?


Well, for the Phobos Anomaly, I don't think the UAC coincidentally constructed a building shaped like a giant star. Also, as myk stated, it appears to be how monsters got from Deimos to Phobos, as the same gate got you from Phobos to Deimos.

There doesn't seem to be anything very anomalous about Deimos Anomaly, besides the giant red inverted cross that deals damage if you stand in it. (I guess that's what it's referring to?)

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And the triangle the shotgun is on that also damages you :p
What I found intersting about the level, was that it was fragmented into all these rooms you teleported between. Everything else was just demonic corruption to me.

I might have to dig up my Collectors Edition disc and read the manual on it for a memory refresh on how it all went down again.

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40oz said:
(I guess that's what it's referring to?)

You start with a window behind you, through which you seem to have jumped in. The gate, which you must already have left behind, could be somewhere else, like atop some hill or in an adjacent building. In E1M1 you don't see a proper hangar, either, just a door behind you where, if you want, you can imagine the actual hangar building is.

Originally, what became E1M8 was a cavern with a red floor in the anomaly area. Whether, to throw a couple of relatively consistent possibilities, the star shape in the final version (which seems to be part of the anomaly area proper) is something the demonic invaders created (perhaps long before the UAC discovered it) or whether it's a design the UAC needed to make to get the gate to work, is left to the player's imagination. It does use the red flat on the floor, inherited from the idea related to "fire dust". The same goes for the inverted cross in E2M1. (Other than the concrete fact that it's some sort of fancy evil design to impress the player,) perhaps the monsters added it there, or maybe the UAC, following studies and investigation, constructed it to complete or activate some sort of ominous phenomenon.

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Phobos and Deimos Anomaly are the places where the UAC military used their gateway to throw one way or another gadgets and volunteers. It can make sense, because you finish E1 at an anomaly and wake up at another one. Probably plotwise they found a pole of any physical properties and used that to try teleportation. They seem to share some textures, notably STONE2. And they both look like rockets (or poles? :) to me, when seen in the WIMAPs.

The marbface teleporter at E1M8 is how the UAC gateway in the manual looks like when you reach there as a player. It can't be anything else. The monsters from the dark are the sparks of insanity people were experiencing during their teleportation tests, probably something like a nightmare or black-out for Doomguy. And there's nothing to tell about any big gateway in E2M1. I say it could be there but the monsters built over it, and the designers wanted it to look like a wake-up, so you have the sky as your past, nothing ominous.

Saying that there's nothing suspicious about E2M1 save for that satanic cross or shotgun barbecue is moot, because most of Episode 2 is anomalous in nature, and E2M1 and most of the others are odd by their whole selves, unlike Episode 1 Levels 1-7 + 9. Perhaps the unusual layout of map fragments is a reason for calling it anomaly, but I say it's more a sudden occasion for the designers to use a cool new feature.

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printz said:
UAC military

The military uses the UAC technology and bases to conduct experiments, but they aren't part of the UAC. Perhaps they were linked more directly in the Bible, as it had the UAC and the UAAF, like two arms of the same thing.

The monsters from the dark are the sparks of insanity people were experiencing during their teleportation tests, probably something like a nightmare or black-out for Doomguy.

Might as well say the whole game after episode one is just a hallucination produced by teleportation insanity :p

Without speculative interpretation, the marine is ambushed right after teleporting (and the player knows, from the story, that the anomalies link the two moons). It leaves the player asking "wait, did I just die?! Now I'll have to buy the game to find out..."

Saying that there's nothing suspicious about E2M1 save for that satanic cross or shotgun barbecue is moot

Well, yes, though you might still wonder why particular parts are as they are. The first anomaly has a more solid "anomaly" concept, while maybe Tom Hall was going to use the level that ended up in E2M1 for some other purpose...

Perhaps the unusual layout of map fragments is a reason for calling it anomaly,

The name precedes the level designs, along with the concept of two weird areas where gates are opened, and that the first episode would end after entering the first gate (originally the twins were on the other side). What changed is that they put the anomalies in different moons instead of the two ends of one planet, and connected them to explain the chain through which the denizens of hell reached humanity: Hell controls Deimos, so it can pump minions into our universe, abusing the open gate.

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All the teleporters on Episode 1 are red star's (E1M5, E1M8 and E1M9) with E1M8's being the biggest and evidently most powerful as it transports the player to the other moon. I think that could explain why ID called it the anomaly.

Indeed, maybe ID originally intended to use red stars to represent teleporters rather than having teleporter flats.

Regarding E2M1, one could theorize from looking at the map, that maybe ID originally intended for the map to start near or on a red star somewhat like E1M8. But they later altered the map, leaving the remnant of that star shapped platform the teleporter in front of the start sit's on.

Indeed, there’s also the odd red floor outside the window behind the player start and that the back of said window uses door textures rather than grey stone.

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Actually, the reason a red star was used in E1M9 seems to be that Romero wanted to include a first teleporter, placing it somewhat out of the way (the secret level) and showing the effect but not exposing the player to it directly, while they didn't feel it convenient to include any of the teleporter flats, which likely already existed, in the shareware WAD. Since the base belonged to the military, who were doing the experiments, perhaps it made sense to place a teleporter there. The teleporter in E1M5 was added in v1.2, probably to enhance navigation and deathmatch and to make the place more of a "lab" where more experiments took place. E1M8 must have been shaped like a star to enhance and exploit the association between pentagrams and teleportation, doing it in a grander way for the occasion.

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myk said:

Hell controls Deimos, so it can pump minions into our universe, abusing the open gate.

And how are they transported on the rock? Using Zerg Overlords? Big Cacodemon relatives that can place land monsters in their sacks, for transporting :)

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That isn't explained, but if all the marine had to do was rappel down to get to hell, it couldn't have taken much to get up there...

If they didn't use long ladders, as we all know there's lots of wood or iron in hell, maybe a boss like the one in Map30 spit many cubes at Deimos :p

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The gate in e1m8 is the anomaly. Its the original gate that was found on the moon, then UAC built the installation around it.

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The whole sequence of events that led to Doom (and the events that take place during Doom) aren't quite ordinary, either. Unless you consider monsters from hell teleporting into research bases "not an anomaly" ;-)

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Yeah, many things are anomalous, but the word anomaly is applied to a place, in a categorical fashion like when you give a phenomenon or object a name in science.

Use3D said:
The gate in e1m8 is the anomaly.

In a way you could say that, although more from the perspective of the scientists who are studying these gates or potential gates, not having yet unleashed or discovered their full meaning:

Meanwhile, the research team are doing experiments at the anomalies found on the moon. There is a flash of horrible light and energy and two gates open at equidistant points on the moon's surface, the larger of the two at the lightside.

Besides, the anomaly would be both the star-shaped building with bizarre floor and ceiling as well as the green marble gateway.

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printz said:

The marbface teleporter at E1M8 is how the UAC gateway in the manual looks like when you reach there as a player. It can't be anything else.


I agree.

myk said:

What changed is that they put the anomalies in different moons instead of the two ends of one planet, and connected them to explain the chain through which the denizens of hell reached humanity: Hell controls Deimos, so it can pump minions into our universe, abusing the open gate.


I don't think that'd be necessary. Demons came through the Phobos gate even before Deimos vanished.

Use3D said:

Its the original gate that was found on the moon, then UAC built the installation around it.

myk said:

Before the UAC scientists knew for certain they were dealing with gates to another dimension (Hell) and they found these strange areas in the two moons, they designated them "anomalies" and set up facilities on them to investigate and contain them.


My response to the topic's question would've been the same as you guys, but now I think this isn't the case in the classic Doom games. Maybe I was accidentally mixing in elements from the other Doom stories...

* In the Doom bible, there were anomalies discovered on the poles of Tai Tenga. The UAAF had teams researching them.

* In the old Doom novels, the UAC was investigating "Gates" on Phobos and Deimos. There were no experiments sending people from one moon to the other like in the game. There's no man-made transportation technology at all; the little teleporters were all there before humans arrived.

* In Doom 3, an ancient race invented teleportation, but didn't realize until too late that it went through hell. Humanity (who may be their descendants whatta concept!) finds their shit eons later and reinvents teleporters, with similar results.

But in the manual for Doom, there's no mention of anything unusual being found on Mars or its moons. Phobos and Deimos were simply places where UAC set up shop to do various experiments, including teleportation. Personally, I like this explanation better because it doesn't involve TAI TENGA or MARTIANS or FREDS, all of which sound really stupid.

Of course, the wholly-terrestrial explanation for the UAC's teleporters leaves us without an explanation for the "anomaly" mapnames. Maybe they're just a leftover from the Doom bible, or maybe, like Use3D said, anomaly is just another word for the man-made gates. *shrugs*

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I always assumed it was just a name for the man-made gates, and that they were called anomalies because before the invasion, they didn't totally understand what they were dealing with, and after it, well, yeah.

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Splatter said:
I don't think that'd be necessary. Demons came through the Phobos gate even before Deimos vanished.

It doesn't actually say that. "Something fragging evil" could be a force turning people into zombies, for example. If the monsters could so easily pass through both gates directly, there's still no explanation as to why Deimos was swallowed by hell. It does add to the plot that the marine can rappel down to hell, and that's amusing, but the fact that the moon was taken that way can easily inspire the idea that it was made into a "stepping stone". It's "the shores of hell", after all, between our world and the infernal plane.

But in the manual for Doom, there's no mention of anything unusual being found on Mars or its moons. Phobos and Deimos were simply places where UAC set up shop to do various experiments, including teleportation.

That doesn't answer whether there was ominously evil looking stuff there or whether it all came in after the invasion because the story is told from the player's perspective, and the player is just some bored and ignorant marine watching restricted flicks until all hell breaks loose, not a top UAC scientist or a high ranking military official.

Personally, I like this explanation better because it doesn't involve TAI TENGA or MARTIANS or FREDS, all of which sound really stupid.

The DOOM Bible is part of the development material of the games, and thus relevant in examining their production, unlike the novels which are third party franchise material with no impact on what the games are like. Of course the DOOM Bible doesn't explain everything, because after it was written the designers made various changes to the plot, but it's evident they kept elements from it and used it as a starting ground for much of the design and artwork. It lets you know part of what the designers were thinking when they made the game.

Of course, the wholly-terrestrial explanation for the UAC's teleporters leaves us without an explanation for the "anomaly" mapnames. Maybe they're just a leftover from the Doom bible, or maybe, like Use3D said, anomaly is just another word for the man-made gates. *shrugs*

Even if you are inclined to conclude that there was nothing apparently demonic in the area, you can still have physical phenomena furthering the placement of such a gate, which scientists may categorize as an "anomaly" just like they called a type of region in space a "black hole".

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