Does the 2nd chapter of The Plutonia Experiment take place in Hell?

[LucidLocomotive]

This is confusing to me. Normally you don't go to hell until the final 1/3rd of the game, the last chapter. This is the case with Doom and Doom II, as well as TNT: Evilution. According to the Doomwiki, chapter 1 takes place on Earth. This is confirmed by the games backstory and plot. However, the Doomwiki says that chapter 2 is in Hell (the sky is red so that could be?). The thing is that there is no text indication of this. Normally whenever Doomguy goes to Hell, the intermission screen somehow indicates it. I forget what the screen said after Map 11 but I know it didn't mention going to Hell. According to the Doom wiki, chapter 1 is on the earth base, chapter 2 is in Hell, and chapter 3 is in a specific section of Hell called the Devil Hive. Do we know for sure that chapter 2 is meant to be Hell, and not just a corrupted amalgamation of Earth and Hell, as was the case for all 3 previous games?

[Splatter]

No part of The Plutonia Experiment is set in Hell.

 

The background story says that "The quantum accelerator and its prototypes are deep inside the ravaged complex. A demon gatekeeper guards them and mans the last gate of Hell." Over the course of the game, you go deeper into the complex and through the devil-hive the lower levels have been corrupted into. By the finale you've reached the gateway of Hell, per the map name, and quantum accelerator, per the end text. Their destruction causes everything from Hell to be sucked back into it.

 

Since your ultimate goal is the gateway that leads to Hell, there's no point it would make sense for you to already be in Hell. You haven't reached the point where you could transition there until the game's practically over.

[LucidLocomotive]

I thought it was implied that you reached the "accelerator deep inside the ravaged complex" at the end of map 7. It was guarded by the cyberdemon, and then the story text says how you can't find it, so the demons must have taken it somewhere else. I figured the gatekeeper led the mission to steal the accelerator and take it into Hell, and then Doomguy had to go into Hell to retrieve it from them. Why would the devil hive not be in Hell? Where would that be?

[Faceman2000]

Pretty sure the Casalis has zero concern for setting with most if not all of their levels. That being said, I’ve always understood map 12 onward to be in Hell, similar to how most of D64 is in Hell.

[Splatter]

If the gateway to Hell was before map 12, the gatekeeper would be before map 12, and the game would end before map 12. That's definitely not what happens.

 

1 hour ago, LucidLocomotive said:

I thought it was implied that you reached the "accelerator deep inside the ravaged complex" at the end of map 7. It was guarded by the cyberdemon, and then the story text says how you can't find it, so the demons must have taken it somewhere else. I figured the gatekeeper led the mission to steal the accelerator and take it into Hell, and then Doomguy had to go into Hell to retrieve it from them. Why would the devil hive not be in Hell? Where would that be?

 

In the complex. The enemy in these games makes demonic structures on Earth every chance it gets. Doom II's "outpost of Hell" wasn't in Hell either.

 

Remember that there are multiple accelerators in the complex, as I quoted previously, the original and its prototypes. You find one at Baron's Lair, another at Hunted, and the last at The Gateway of Hell.

[Faceman2000]

3 hours ago, LucidLocomotive said:

I thought it was implied that you reached the "accelerator deep inside the ravaged complex" at the end of map 7. It was guarded by the cyberdemon, and then the story text says how you can't find it, so the demons must have taken it somewhere else. I figured the gatekeeper led the mission to steal the accelerator and take it into Hell, and then Doomguy had to go into Hell to retrieve it from them. Why would the devil hive not be in Hell? Where would that be?

That is how I understand it. The game is very vague about setting though and as mentioned above the Casali’s likely didn’t overly concern themselves with it. There’s also evidence the Casali’s wrote a different story for the game where you’re plunging through all sorts of dimensions past, present, and future.

 

In any case, it’s all up to interpretation. There simply isn’t enough info given to say it definitely is or isn’t this or that.

 

Edit: “I strongly suspect this story was developed after the Casalis handed the megaWAD over to id; the maps, while not strongly evocative of any real story, better reflect the blurb mentioned on Dario Casali's now ancient website. In their imagination, the marine has been sent to a top-secret military installation deep in the jungle to regain lost contact, only to find that the demons have taken it over. The lab had a device – the same quantum accelerator – except this one allows the user to travel to ‘alternative time periods’ (time travel, alternate dimensions, or both?). Hell of course has played with the technology, and you attempt to use it to stop them, except you have no idea where it's going to send you. ‘All you know is that the evil will have got there first. They're waiting for you...’” (From https://onemandoom.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-plutonia-experiment-plutoniawad.html?m=1)

[Splatter]

15 hours ago, Faceman2000 said:

In any case, it’s all up to interpretation. There simply isn’t enough info given to say it definitely is or isn’t this or that.

"The Quantum Accelerator and its prototypes are deep inside the ravaged complex. A demon Gatekeeper guards them and mans the last Gate of Hell." is as definite, unambiguous as anything in classic Doom stories.

 

Even if you go by the old blurb you quoted from Dario's site it's not Hell, it's alternative time periods.

[instagib]

looks like hell,sounds like hell,its hell

[Faceman2000]

1 hour ago, Splatter said:

"The Quantum Accelerator and its prototypes are deep inside the ravaged complex. A demon Gatekeeper guards them and mans the last Gate of Hell." is as definite, unambiguous as anything in classic Doom stories.

 

Even if you go by the old blurb you quoted from Dario's site it's not Hell, it's alternative time periods.

You’re welcome to believe that.

[Mortrixs19]

I'd say that the first cluster takes place on earth in a jungle, and the second part takes place on the same jungle but it's more corrupted by hell, that's why there are plenty of bricks. The last part is like a frontier between Hell and earth.

[Maximum Matt]

The.... "Final", frontier?