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ludicrous_peridot

Were UAC cultists in the classic Doom story?

Cultists or not?  

36 members have voted

  1. 1. Cultists or not?

    • Cultists
      2
    • or not
      34


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I gather Doom's modern reicarnation has UAC actually worshipping hell and undertaking godforbidden rituals? I thought from classic Doom there were not like these - buch of scientists and engineers probably falling victims of their arrogance, belief in technocratic ideals and greed of their corporate heads. So, do you think I'm wrong and they have always been like this (any maps suggesting this?) or are these two versions of UAC in separate alternate realities Marine is visiting using hell as a hub to travel?

 

Please share your opinions and screens!

 

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No cult was mentioned in the classic Doom games. I think that the UAC's angle was more meant to be something along the lines of typical prying into inter-dimensional matters, with perhaps the ordinary mortal sins of greed and arrogance on their part, rather than the UAC being outright corrupted by Hell.

But the original story is so bare-bones that it's easy to put additional interpretations on top; as I remember, Doom's story doesn't really go into the motivations of the UAC for carrying out their teleportation experiments.

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I vaguely remember that Doom was planned to have more of a cyberpunk evil greedy corporations angle.

 

In a way, the modern UAC cultists still fit into that narrative mold. Higherups in the UAC only care about getting energy and technology from Hell. The poor workers doing the work and the DYING, get some HR produced "POSITIVITY BEGINS WITH YOU!" death cult forced down their throat like they're Amazon workers.

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Abdolutely not. It was just a super rich and powerful mega-corporation that tapped into the hell dimension by overambitious teleportation experiments.

 

Them making it basically a hell worshipping cult in the new Doom is one of my major gripes with the games.

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2 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

Them making it basically a hell worshipping cult in the new Doom is one of my major gripes with the games.


Why is that a major gripe in a series where gameplay typically comes before story?

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Noooooo, Classic Doom is pretty much just: UAC experimented, it went really really wrong and Hell followed.

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Well to be fair, we are talking about two different alternate universes.  The Doom Slayer of 2016 and Eternal is the same marine that fought through the original series, and the Earth of that reality is a different Earth from the original series.  Basically, Phobos incident happens, Doom Slayer fights on Mars, then Hell, then Earth, then eventually back to Hell again, before running into the Sentinels and Maykr, then getting trapped in Hell, then being rescued by Dr. Haydn of an alternate reality Earth that hadn't been invaded yet.  

 

The humans of Doom 2016 already knew about Hell, the Demons, etc., probably precisely because of Dr. Samuel Haydn, and so a cult had a chance to develop before the initial Hell wave event of that universe.  In the original, the UAC had no idea what they were messing with before shit went down.  Of course, considering that test subjects turned into gibbering idiots, it's possible that some cult worship could've started to take hold, but not to the extent that it does in Doom 2016 wherein everyone at the UAC knew they were messing with Hell from the very beginning.  

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To be honest I like the whole cultist angle in nuDoom. It makes sense. In the classic Doom story, there's no real reason given to why the teleportation experiments are allowed to keep up despite it being a literal meatgrinder. I mean the story says that "matching head to torso became a full-time job" or something to that effect because of how all the "volunteers" just underwent "full-body explosion" and it just doesn't make sense that the whole thing isn't put on hold. Or at least, stop human testing.

 

But if you figure they're insane brainwashed cultists? Then yeah, why not. It makes a dumb sort of sense then. I also love how they parody corporate speak for that. It starts acquiring a higher level as a result, it's no longer just a dumb plot to serve as a pretext for shooting monsters with guns, it's also a satire of end-stage capitalism, with the UAC literally transforming Earth into Hell so as to extract more energy. It's an allegory of global warming, and Samuel Hayden telling you that it's all worth it is every corporate lobbyist telling you that pollution is worth it.

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The UAC was not a cult. They were similar to NASA without having to call them NASA. I think the UAC works similarly to how countries work in space, unified (ex. ISS). They opened up a portal to hell by screwing around with ancient stuff on Mars’s moons, and all hell broke loose. The marines are the security of the UAC, and they of course attempted to ward off the demons and failed. Then, you get shipped out to the Hangar and the rest is history. 
 

The whole shock of Doom II is discovered at the end of Doom. The marine returns to earth, it all appears peaceful at first until he wanders his eyes... the invasion didn’t just stick to Mars and its moons, it has spread, but it was UAC’s screw up in space that started the whole thing. 
 

I don’t know where you got the idea that they were a cult though. All the corpses you see in the first Doom are often UAC members and mutilated marines. They didn’t do this to themselves. 

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The UAC was only used for design. ID wanted the game to look more realistic, so they just stamped that logo on a few doors. It's interesting to think that, but no. 

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2 hours ago, Gez said:

In the classic Doom story, there's no real reason given to why the teleportation experiments are allowed to keep up despite it being a literal meatgrinder.

 

2 hours ago, Gerolf said:

The whole shock of Doom II is discovered at the end of Doom.

 

Which makes me think: how much time did spider mastermind need to assemble armies of hell and plan the invasion, and have UAC experiments on Mars moons last enough to actually give hell time fot that? Or were the baddies plotting that for eternity, just waiting for an opportunity that UAC have presented?

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Hmm, my thinking has always been that the demons don't really work together so much as they just exist among each other. So I think it is more likely they were waiting to be released, and because of the UAC's tampering with ancient technology, they ripped open portals from hell. My guess, is the hell portals were opened all over the universe, or at least within our local solar system and/or galaxy, but this is something the marine doesn't realize until the conclusion of Doom.

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I always thought things like the Cyberdemon were creations by the UAC so at some point they were basically turning demons into cyborgs. That seems like it enters different territory than just playing around with physics anomalies that they can’t control.

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13 hours ago, Gez said:

it's also a satire of end-stage capitalism, with the UAC literally transforming Earth into Hell so as to extract more energy. It's an allegory of global warming, and Samuel Hayden telling you that it's all worth it is every corporate lobbyist telling you that pollution is worth it.

Wow, now I get why these games are called Doom. Especially the later Dooms (Doom 3 kept the naïve outlook). They're warning us. It may seem ridiculous for now, but that is where we're headed...

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No, the original UAC were just a bunch of scientists experimenting with highly advanced technology, not any sort of cult. I think that idea occurred to them in Doom 3 first via Betruger, and decided to take it one step further in the new games.

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