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How do you imagine the interpersonal relationships of the demons?

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In the spirit of inane Doom General threads, let's take things even deeper.

On one hand there is the loosely-based "army of Hell" hierarchy to consider but, on the other hand, the actual demon-to-demon relationships as well.

We've generally believed that a baron of Hell has a tendency to infight with a cacodemon. But why? Is it due to their military stations in Hell or a long standing grudge? Do imps and demons have any meaningful friendships or possibly take it a step further? How do cyberdemons relate to the rest of the horde, considering they're actually not fully demons in the truest sense of the word?

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I think there is A LOT of silent animosity between the races. Something prevents them from snapping in the civil times, but as soon as they get a reason to attack they will always use it.

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I don't see Doom monsters as anything but robot-like entities fueled by the forces of evil, devoid of feelings or anything higher than the lowest level of cognition. If I saw them as having friendships and such, I'd quit playing, because it would feel awful to enter their realm so often and fight them for my own amusement.

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This is what I gathered;

The Spider Demon is the angriest demon. It attacks anything and everything for the tiniest of reasons. It's the only Hell spawn to fight with it's own brothers (zombies don't count).

The Archvile is like a deadly strongman. Demons don't want to fight with it easily.

The Demon is the friendliest of the bunch. It doesn't like to fight with anyone. It instead yells at the other demons if it has a problem. He gets ignored until he loses his cool completely and decides to attack. It then gets turned to mush by whatever it attacked.

The Icon of Sin seems like a Mother to all the other demons. Too bad it's stuck to the wall (I know it's free in one of Sgt. Mark IV's wads but I can't imagine that's how it really looks. It should be a lot bigger than that)

Then there is the Doomguy, He's basically the guy everyone hates but no one can kill.

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the Schutzstaffel officers convinced all the other demons that it was their manifest destiny to conquer Earth then went and hid in their castle cackling maniacally and exchanging frog memes

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Sometimes I feel like cacos and PEs are just opposite sexes of the same race. Or at least they are related, like horses and ponies or whatever. I think in Doom 2 there are quite a few places where they seem to be living together.

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Memfis said:

Sometimes I feel like cacos and PEs are just opposite sexes of the same race. Or at least they are related, like horses and ponies or whatever. I think in Doom 2 there are quite a few places where they seem to be living together.


:(

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Zulk-RS said:

[The Spider Demon is] the only Hell spawn to fight with it's own brothers (zombies don't count).

Lost Souls too.

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Memfis said:

Sometimes I feel like cacos and PEs are just opposite sexes of the same race. Or at least they are related, like horses and ponies or whatever. I think in Doom 2 there are quite a few places where they seem to be living together.

Would that make Lost Souls the larval form?

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Memfis said:

Sometimes I feel like cacos and PEs are just opposite sexes of the same race.

O_o
dear god
the image you put into my head
why?

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How do you imagine the interpersonal relationships of the demons?

Non-existent.

Hellspawn appear spontaneously out of thin air, and the just stand there, doing nothing pretty much, until they detect a potential victim.

Some demons have the ability to exert limited control over other demons. Arch-vile can prevent other demons from ever attacking them. Masterminds have a greater control and can coordinate attacks, but they tend to get overwhelmed and panic when they are themselves engaged. None of them are really intelligent, though; it's all just bestial cunning and aggression. Hell itself -- not the demons -- is the real intelligence, demons are just vaguely autonomous pawns.

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Maybe they're capable of a certain degree of intelligence, but are repressed by whatever's controlling them back in hell.

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I'm inclined to believe they are mostly simple minded creatures with minimal cognitive ability. If they have a origin away from hell then very little of their fundamental instincts remain. Think zombiemen, they know how they use their weapons but they are driven by hell's influence which puts them in a rage state against anything they consider hostile. No ability to negotiate. If you go by Doom 3 then lost souls take direct influence of them.

Based on Doom 2016 there seems to be a hierarchy and eco system of sorts but it only tends to show in hell. Otherwise they mostly work as a single unit as if there is some influence of command by Hell itself or a higher Demon.

Archviles? I do believe they have some sort of higher cognitive ability and ranking but majority of the demons don't really know it or care. Barons aren't commanders but rather the biggest of the bunch with more of Hell's influence driving them.

The Mastermind is intelligent and often commands but they are still puppets to both rage (more effective away from combat) and a higher Demon. Satan himself maybe, if Doom has one.

Cyberdemon is just a far more ancient and lethal demon that gets used as a Leading powerhouse that may have some slight intelligence and loose command. But isn't much more than that.

The icon of sin may not be the highest ranking demon but if there were any hierarchy then it may be up there. Although it appears to be harvested as a spawner so it's difficult to determine if it has any command whatsoever.

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I imagine the lowest tier monsters to have low levels of cognition, and the only emotions they know are hate and lust. Hatred for each other, even larger hatred toward humanity, and a lust for bloodshed. Higher tier monsters have higher levels of cognition, as they are able to lead, such as the cyberdemon ruling the Deimos base and the spiderdemon having been the one to plan the invasion. Of course, the Icon of Sin is the true mastermind and ruler of them all.

FWIW, I consider only registered Doom 1 and Doom 2 to be canon. Ultimate's E4 was tacked on with little thought long after the fact, and as awesome as Doom 64 is, the Icon's death really was the end of the story. Everything outside of D1/D2 are part of an extended universe, unrelated to the original story arc.

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I imagine that hell is in a constant state of Mad Max-styled anarchy in which every "race" of demon hates the other. The only times the demons all band together is when the possibility for new worlds to destroy/enslave arise(in our case, earth and humans). That would explain why demons infight so much, they are all fighting for the same thing, but they still don't take shit from other races.
Archviles are the elite, and the only "neutral" demons, since they heal the other demons they kill. The lesser demons prefer not to get on their bad side, so they don't retaliate.

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Imps are a lot like humans, but craftier and lacking any personal hygiene. They're also an enslaved race.

Demons/Pinkies are the cattle of Hell and are treated as such. They're taken care of by imps until they eat them or vice versa.

Lost Souls are those souls that were too crappy, annoying, or pleasant to be anything higher, so they're stuck inside a skull or a Pain Elemental, and then they're stuck inside a small skull- to conserve space, of course.

Cacodemons are just like the buzzards of Earth, if buzzards were shaped like a balloon and had only one eye. They bite absolutely everything, and you don't want to walk up to your dismal hovel and have bite marks all over the doorframe.

Hellknights are Hell's true soldiers, similar in status to the Alien Grunt from Half-Life. However, hellknights that aren't soldiers are accountants.

Barons are at a "royal" status, and they can command small armies of imps, hellknights, revenants, and maybe even an Archvile if they can coax them. Barons get a bad rep because the Brothers Bruiser, two unsuccessful entrepreneurs that were dabbling with teleportation, broke out of Hell and established the Anomalies on Phobos and Deimos thousands of years ago. They were buried alive when an asteroid hit Phobos.

Archviles are the mysterious ones. They are some the oldest and most wicked demons that secretly love everything, but to keep their image they have to kill things too. They hate that, and thus they are very conflicted.
So that's all I've got for now, but if you want more tell me!

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Imp standing right next to a Baron of Hell in a preparation lineup, both of them having different thoughts:

Imp:

Spoiler

Oh man, what is that big guy thinking about even? Does he even notice us smaller troops down here? How is he so cool?

Baron:
Spoiler

Meow meow meow meow meow meow kill all humans meow meow meow meow.

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If you consider that wonderful Doom 1 texture of the slain baron, the frequent infighting, and just how fucking pissed off most of them look, it's clear the hellspawn are operating on primal, bestial instincts. They're not too concerned with respect to hierarchy, or even the fact that their goal is to kill you, considering many of them slay each other without hesitation. I like to think of them as genderless, barely sentient entities who are more about brute force than any sort of nuanced intelligence. They don't really have a culture, just programmed instructions from the Icon of Sin.

Of course, that brings up the question of who designed all of the architecture, both in hell and the stuff that leaks out into our universe. I like to think that something even greater, and ultimately unseen, was the architect, and it is responsible for Icon of Sin as well, even though it's seen as the end-be-all of the demons.

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GoatLord said:

If you consider that wonderful Doom 1 texture of the slain baron, the frequent infighting, and just how fucking pissed off most of them look, it's clear the hellspawn are operating on primal, bestial instincts. They're not too concerned with respect to hierarchy, or even the fact that their goal is to kill you, considering many of them slay each other without hesitation. I like to think of them as genderless, barely sentient entities who are more about brute force than any sort of nuanced intelligence. They don't really have a culture, just programmed instructions from the Icon of Sin.

Of course, that brings up the question of who designed all of the architecture, both in hell and the stuff that leaks out into our universe. I like to think that something even greater, and ultimately unseen, was the architect, and it is responsible for Icon of Sin as well, even though it's seen as the end-be-all of the demons.

Anarcho primitivism

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The icon of sin is prisoner in a wall, with its skull sawed open, and maintained in its state by machinery. I don't see it as a leader, but as a particularly useful pawn.

The real leader of the demons is the malevolent dimension of Hell itself, not anything embodied. (In meta terms, it's the level designers!)

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Gez said:

I don't see [the Icon of Sin] as a leader, but as a particularly useful pawn. The real leader of the demons is the malevolent dimension of Hell itself, not anything embodied.

Deep, man. :P

In all seriousness, this is my new favorite interpretation!

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Gez said:

The icon of sin is prisoner in a wall, with its skull sawed open, and maintained in its state by machinery. I don't see it as a leader, but as a particularly useful pawn.

The real leader of the demons is the malevolent dimension of Hell itself, not anything embodied. (In meta terms, it's the level designers!)


This theory right here. I like it. I like it a lot.

GoatLord said:

Of course, that brings up the question of who designed all of the architecture, both in hell and the stuff that leaks out into our universe. I like to think that something even greater, and ultimately unseen, was the architect, and it is responsible for Icon of Sin as well, even though it's seen as the end-be-all of the demons.


I like to think of hell as a dimension not bound by conventional laws of nature, so things such as ruins, castles and whatnot can occur naturally, for no real reason other than to taunt the damned who end up in hell, a reminder of the sinful ways of humanity.

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Actually the demons get along just fine, they generally sit around the eternal hellfire and sing kumbaya. Things are always ruined when the Doomguy shows up, he's such a party pooper.

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Am I the only one who thinks that the possessed humans are probably regarded as the red headed step children of Hell's forces? You know, like outsiders. They're probably never invited to the 7th Circle mixers or anything.

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I think that Hellspawn society is divided in strata of species, ordered in the hierarchy corresponding to their increasing sentience. Lost Souls are an equivalent to insects, Pinkies are more like perpetually rabid dogs. Zombies are the possessed humans that are enthralled by some higher Hell inteligence via the use of Lost Souls. But the control leaves them when they are mortally wounded, just so they experience the sudden agony for themselves and not whatever demon pulls the strings on them.

Imps are close to human intelligence, but still not on par. Revenants are more like automatons, severly cyborgized corpses of some unseen demons species that are sent to battle once more to fight in whatever way they will. Hellknights are the first to reach human intelligence, and they serve as Hell sergeants, ordering everything I mentioned earlier. Mancubi are those stinking fat guys that no one likes but everybody is afraid of, since they are a slave species that traded freedom for big guns that will roast anyone that bother them. Arachnos are the similar case, being weaklings (super)naturally, but are given powerful mechs in exchange of their service for that super demon (reminds me of Sligs from Oddworld).

Cacodemons are boastful and lazy flying beasts that order timid Pain Elementals around (which in turn control Lost Souls, if there are no Hell Nobles around) and hate Barons of Hell for some reason. Barons, in turn, are Hell's captains that order around everything enumerated above, save for Cacodemon's chain of command, but do not exceed humans in intelligence. Arch-Viles have the privileged status of being Hell's healers, so no demon messes with them. Cyberdemons and Spider Masterminds are the Hell's colonels or generals that supervise entire invasions or smaller operations (in the case of Cyber leading the takeover of UAC's Deimos base). Spiders are of bigger intelligence than human, but when engaged in combat they panic, and thus do not show it at the time.

The demons we encounter are generally at each others' throats all the time, fighting for delicious human souls that land in Hell after death (how this happens? Who knows - maybe ones condemned as sinners indeed, or maybe they get captured by demons via other means). They only refrain from fighting between themselves since they are under command of a supreme leader, but still will revert to civil war at smallest provocation of a friendly-fire stray shot hitting them. That leader is never shown, as this entity is way too smart to give you a chance of assassinating it. The Icon of Sin is high up, but is stuck in a wall and does not really command that much of Hell: there are bigger and smarter demons.

Sgt Ender said:

Anarcho primitivism

What GoatLord described is not an anarchoprimitivism. It would involve much more tribes and living in woods... and when was the last time you saw a forest in Hell?

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