Lore from The Official Doom Survivor's Strategies & Secrets (Sybex), Doom Battlebook (Prima) & Doom II: The Official Strategy Guide (Prima) books explaining backstory for the game.
What is Doom?[]
...Doom is about a rugged and somewhat jaded Marine who is caught in an improbable web involving a conglomerate giant, the military, toxic waste disposal, interdimensional gateways, and some rather ghastly creatures emerging from said gateways. Our antihero's saga begins on Mars, where he has been reassigned because of an earlier shall we say, "attitude" problem. Although the officer who wound up encased in a full-body plaster cast would probably label the Marine's actions as a bit more drastic than simple misaligned attitude.
Collaborating with the military, the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) has set up research facilities on Phobos and Deimos, the red planet's twin moon system. UAC's research centers around some strange structures found in each of the moons. These never-before encountered structures were given the names Anomalies. Early research shows the Anomalies are ruptures in the fabric of time/space which actually provide access to "interdimensional gateways." Using these gateways, UAC has been able to experiment with interdimensional space travel, sending objects and organic matter from one moon to the other. But as destiny would have it, this meddling with forces and laws beyond our comprehension has had some unexpected, baffling, and ultimately, horrifying results. The gateways have recently become unstable and, basically, all of Hell's dark children have come to visit you today.
When the Marines arrive on Phobos, after heeding the desperate cry for help from the lunar scientific base, they encounter a scenario that defies all logic, that reaches into the darkest corridors of your deepest fears: a face-to-face encounter with evil incarnate in a labyrinthine nightmare. If Poe, Dante, and Lovecraft were alive to see Doom today, they might feel vindicated...
Who Am I and What The Hell Am I Doing Here?[]
You are one tough marine. You wound up in a toxic waste disposal plant on Mars because of this "attitude" problem that seems to follow you around. Here's the skinny. You attacked a superior officer after he ordered his troopers to shoot unarmed civilians. That riled you up a bit. So the officer wound up wearing a full-body plaster cast; you, sucking red Martian dust and longing for some real combat action.
The toxic plant is operated by the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), a multiplanetary conglomerate. UAC also has scientific research bases on Phobos and Deimos, the otherwise desolate Martian moons, where bizarre structures named "Space Anomalies" were found. These anomalies are quite extraordinaire. UAC and the military have been using them to investigate interdimensional space travel. That is, teleporting objects and organic matter across "gateways" between Phobos and Deimos.
But lately it seems the gateways have become somewhat unstable. The human "volunteers", who've taken the interdimensional leap have undergone unexplainable physiological changes. Some subjects were lost to the gateways. Others not so fortunate have literally exploded without warning just a few hours after emerging.
But things can always get worse, just minutes ago, the incoming message from Phobos left no doubt there was something awfully wrong. According to the desperate request for military support, something evil was materializing in the gateways.
So now you find yourself guarding the perimeter of the Phobos moon base, alone and armed with only a handgun. The rest of the platoon went in taking all the heavy weaponry, leaving you behind as their best last-chance fighter. After a few agonizing hours of waiting to be called in, the silence you're hearing on your radio is enough to fray your nerve fibers raw. Knowing any chance of ever leaving Phobos lies inside, you don your helmet, tightening your grip on the handgun, and head straight for the entrance hatch. Without another thought, you know it is time to stare Doom in the eye.
Your Mission--It's Not Like You Have A Choice[]
Your objective is simply stated: Go inside each of the Phobos plant installations in systematic search of ammo and answers, and along the way kick some serious interdimensional rear. And pray that you can avoid an untimely death. To better your odds, use any weapons and ammunition you pick up along the way. You'll need them. You'll be slugging it out with whatever evil forces came through the gateways. There are also other electronic gadgets and supernatural aids that might prove useful, if not right-out lifesaving.
Ultimately, you want to make it back to Earth and out of the hellish nightmare you're in. But how? Can it be done? The answers may be as close as your fingertips or as far as Earth from Mars. Perhaps the gateways hold the clue...
In Phobos No One Can Hear You Scream[]
You are now in Phobos but soon you could be in Hell. Literally and figuratively. So it's a good idea to stop for a second and orient yourself. If you're already familiar with the Doom menus and the setup options and know the enemy well, and all you want is the lowdown on the level you're interested in playing, you can skip the following amenities. Just flip over to Chapter 3, "The Doom Episodes and Level Maps," and look up what you need.
Shores of Hell[]
You've endured a most grueling episode. There were moments in Knee-Deep in the Dead where the notion of losing your mind might have seemed like a distinct possibility. But that's all over now. Or, is it? Don't kid yourself. Maybe you won that battle, but the war, as they say, is not over. Now you're in Deimos But where the hell is Deimos? Only hours ago Deimos had vanished from the heavens. Indeed. Welcome to the Shores of Hell. In this second Doom episode, you make the acquaintance of some formidable new opponents. The Lost Soul is a dismembered flying head whose modus operandi is a swooping kamikaze dive. The Cacodemon is a floating head full of bad intentions who belches awful thunderous balls of lightning and has a crunching bite. Ferocious though it might be, the Cacodemon is a puff ball when you get your first look at this episode's boss, the colossal Cyberdemon. The architecture of the installations now incorporates teleporters. Fortunately for you, you will also gain access to the plasma rifle. Is there a chance to redeem yourself from the Shores of Hell? You're about to find out.
Thumbnail Storyline (Doom II)[]
At the end of Doom, Our Hero having returned to Earth, is left staring at a flaming city, evidence that the demon aggressors have arrived head of him.
It turns out that the monstrous invaders are all over the place. There are demons from Tokyo to Timbuktu, from Stockholm to Scranton. Many people are dead. Some people have been transformed into flesh-eating zombies, but some have actually survived. The remaining leaders of humankind have evolved a place to save the human race. In orbit, they have built dozens of enormous ships to carry all the remaining people into space, away from their ruined world. However, the only spaceport has been taken over by the demons. A small band of tough fighters is sent into the port to kill the demons and permit the ships to land and take on passengers. If you lose, all mankind is doomed.
Eventually, you manage to kill the demons guarding the spaceport, and find the master switch to turn off the flame barrier that prevents the ships from landing. You pull the switch, and the ships land. People file onto them as fast as possible, and they take off. Unfortunately, you are trapped in the room with the switch, and are unable to leave with the rest of humanity.
Now, you are the last human left on Earth. Everyone else is a zombie, dead or in orbit. The High Command radios down to you and says their sensors have determined that all the demons' power comes from a single spot. If you could find that spot and somehow close it down, they would lose much of their strength, and humanity could land back on the planet and begin to reclaim Earth from the demon horde. You must fight your way through the suburbs and slums of a ruined city, making your way to its very heart, where the monsters have raised a mighty citadel of evil.
You break into their stronghold and find the source of power. It is, of course, a portal direct to Hell. To close off the gate, you must go through the portal into Hell, and close it from the other side.
Without hesitating, you plunge through. Now, you have to fight your way through the diabolic landscape to the center of hell, where you find the master source of all power and destroy it, thus closing the gate to Earth and trapping the demons in their nether dimension. You are flung back out of Hell to Earth. Humankind and the demons are thwarted.
Now you can have a donut.
How to Use This Book[]
Stand by, Marines, you are about to embark on a grueling course of training to prepare you for the life-or-death mission you have been given. We'll start out with the basics. First, you will be told how to maneuver in the DOOM ll environment. You gotta learn to walk before you can run, right mister? HEY ... I'm talking to you scumbag. Listen up! Next, Sergeant Workman will instruct you in object recognition. Pay attention! You will only see this once before you go in, and I don't want to write a letter home to your mother explaining that you got your butt blown off because you couldn't remember the difference between toxic waste and a tripwire. Now comes my favorite part, dirtballs... the weapons briefing. Think you're big and bad just 'cause you stumbled across a BFG 9000? | can hear you now. "Oh yes, Drill Sergeant, Mama told me there'd be days like this. Bring 'em on, I'm ready to rock and roll." That'll be just before you blow your own damn foot off. Sergeant Workman will also teach you the ins and outs of every piece of hardware in the game. You will learn how to fieldstrip your weapons in the dark, clear jams, and reload on the run. When we're finished with you, gentlemen, you will be able to use your chaingun like a Ginsu knife and lob rockets like you were shooting layups back in Podunk. When we get done making you a lean, mean, killing machine, your Mama won't even know you. Can I get an UUURAH, Drill Sergeant? Uurah, Drill Sergeant. I can't hear you ladies! UUURAH, DRILL SERGEANT!! Right. After you've mastered the finer points of achieving peace through superior firepower, you will get your first look at the enemy. Make no mistake, they are about as baaad as they want to be, and you're playing on their turf, sweetcheeks, don't you ever forget it! We will wrap the training session with a review of tactical fire and movement. This is the bread and butter of a grunt's life. Learn it... Live it ... Breathe it. If you don't, you'll end up in one or more body bags on a plane back to Podunk. If you do, and you're a good little Marine who remembers his Drill Sergeant before you go to bed each night, you just might— and I said might, mind you — survive. Next will come the meat-and-potatoes, detailed intelligence and tactical briefings for the entire campaign. You will receive annotated maps and a fire and movement plan. You must commit this to memory, synchronize your watches, and execute it to perfection. There is no room for error, gentleman, nor will you have time to casually refer back to your maps once you've entered an area. To hesitate means death, as those of you with bloodstains in your manual may have surmised. If you make it out the other side, and that "if" is entirely up to you, you will have the opportunity to face some of the people who put you in this predicament to begin with: the gang at id Software. No, no... save your questions for later. I have a feeling they will be more heartfelt by that point. Provided, of course, you're still in any shape to voice them. That's it, Marines. Anyone who doesn't feel man enough for this mission should step forward now... so the rest of us can eat you alive. We'll need our strength.
Chapter 1[]
Staying in Control
Alright, jarheads, the first indication you may get about things getting out of control is an inability to bring your tactical display up in the first place. No problem. Listen up here and we should be able to square that problem away.
I'm Too Young to Die And you probably still need rubber sheets. Don't let me catch any of my Marines wasting ammo at this level. Hey, Not Too Rough Crawl back in the sandbox, ladies, you're not ready for the real world. Hurt Me Plenty That's the spirit —no pain, no gain. This is a good place for you Boots to cut your teeth and get bloodied. All missions will start with this profile unless you specify otherwise. Ultra-Violence UUURAH! This is where real men play. All your intelligence briefs and tactical fire and movement plans are generated for this skill level. If you wimp out and go tactical at lower levels, don't be surprised when things that look like they are going to be fun turn out to be just another boring shoot and loot. Nightmare Hey, even my mother told me not to play in this sandbox. It's waaayy too scary. The bad guys move twice as fast, shoot three times as often, and come back from the dead no matter what you do to them. It's like some kind of bad drive-in horror movie.
Some of you are probably itching to get into combat already. If you are dead set on being that foolhardy, there is probably nothing I can do to stop you. Take a few pieces of advice, however, before you go running off to your death.
If you follow these simple guidelines, you should manage to survive just long enough to realize that you have made a grave mistake. Don't worry, once they turn you into one of those damned zombies that seem to be running around all over the place, the rest of us will wave hello before we blow you away. This concludes the first module of training. Anyone who cares to drop out and go it alone may do so now. The rest of you break for chow and reconvene at 1300 hours sharp. Be there... aloha.
Chapter 2[]
Good Afternoon, maggots! My name is Sergeant Workman. I will be taking you through the next four courses of instruction in short order. I know your bellies are full from the fine chow you were just served, and at least some of you are having flashbacks to your kindergarten nap time. Rest assured, kiddies, anyone who falls asleep in my class will get to come up front to help me demonstrate one of the 27 ways to break a neck. Understood? Good, let's get started. The first period of instruction will be split between two topics, navigation and object recognition. There will not be a break between them. Sorry, ladies, you'll just have to cross your legs and hold it until I'm done. First things first, let's find out if you babies are afraid of the dark.
Keeping Up Appearances As you know, the Marine Corps not only expects you to think smart and fight smart, you must also look smart while you are doing so! I realize this may be difficult for some of you, but you have no option. If you look sloppy, you will fight sloppy, and I will not tolerate that from any of my Marines. Understood? Good! Now, here is what the well-dressed Marine will be wearing for the fall season in Hell.
Radiation Suits OSHA may not like it, but to get this job done you've got to play with a little toxic waste now and then. Hey, don't complain about it, the world doesn't need any of you kids anyway. You do need to live long enough to get the job done, however, and that means finding and using these rad suits to navigate through the numerous radioactive pools and pits you will encounter. Look over the edge of any pits you find a need to go in. You might see one of these suits hanging nearby for the convenience of passing Marines. If you do, try to maneuver yourself so that you will jump right into the suit when you hit the pool. Once your suit is on, your view will be tinted green to indicate that the suit is actively protecting you. This protection only lasts 60 seconds, so don't dawdle around practicing your backstroke in the slime puddles. When your time is almost up, the view screen will begin to flash. This means everybody out of the pool! Got it?
That's A Wrap
This concludes your briefing on objects. While you are on patrol, your objectives with regard to them are threefold: find them, cherish them, and use them wisely. Satan doesn't give second chances, and neither do his playmates.
Chapter 3[]
Peace Through Superior Firepower
Welcome back, devil dogs! Our next course of instruction will be on weaponry. Please do not refer to them as guns. If you do not know the difference, stay after class and I will explain it to you, dipdunk. Weapons are like any other tools. If you use the right one for the job, things wil go smoothly. If you don't, you won't have the opportunity to make the same mistake twice. Each of you will be issued a standard service handgun and 50 rounds of ammunition at the beginning of the mission. Though reliable, these pieces do not pack much stopping power. Consider them to be efec- tive against all varieties of Former Humans and of marginal use against Imps and Demons. Their greatest strength is that they have reasonable rate of fire. The weapon si a semiautomatic and will discharge just as fast as you can twitch your finger. Lesson number one for the pistol, maggots— never shoot an enemy just once, then stop to see how good you were. Double tap everybody at a minimum, then follow up sa necessary. Once they go down, immedi- ately acquire your next target and repeat the procedure. Lesson number two, and this one applies to all your weaponry — always aim center of mass on the target. Focus your eyes on the front sight of your weapon, not downrange. You will know when you are doing this correctly because potential targets will seem slightly out of focus. That's alright, don't try to bring them back into focus, or you will lose track of where the hell you are aiming. When the largest part of the target moves in front of your sight picture, squeeze of a round and you should be shooting dead-on center of mass. Don't jerk the trigger or you will pull your shots of target.
Shotgun Shotguns were the weapon of choice for close quarters work in Vietnam. Their effectiveness in that respect has not diminished in the least to this very day. They feed easy, never jam, and throw up a wall of lead that mows down most lesser enemies, including Imps, Demons, Specters, and all varieties of Former Humans. The shotgun will be your minute-by-minute workhorse on most msi- sions. Upgrade to one as soon as possible and always keep it handy.
Tactical Recap Know your weapons, both how to use them and what to use them on. Always focus on your front sight and shoot to kill, not to wound. Fire center of mass on all targets. You should pick up blood spray that con- firms you are being effective, even without refocusing on the target. Conserve ammo when you can, but not at the expense of losing the bat- tle. It doesn't make sense to die with full bandoliers. If ti looks like you are going down regardless, take as many of the SOBs with you as you can.
Chapter 4[]
Well, kiddies, ow it's time to meet what you are going up against. If any of you fe a sudden urge to leave the room in the middle of this briefing, don't Just go where you are and wallow in it. You might as well get used oa little extra weight in your boots and lightness in your bowels nw, because you will feel this way again.
Chapter 6[]
Ok, Devil Dogs, now it's time to hit the bricks and earn that $100 a month combat pay that Sergeant Workman psyched you up about. This is your intelligence specialist, Sergeant Swann. He will prepare you for the missions better than anyone else could, so listen up! Good afternoon Marines! Let's dispense with the formalities and get straight to the heart of it. Hell isn't freezing over anytime soon unless we give it some help. Each mission briefing will consist of two elements. First, you will be given an intelligence map that shows the location of all valuable items, as well as the composition and disposi- tion of enemy forces. Overlayed on this map will be a series of red waypoints marking the location of critical items, such as keys, coded doors, switches, secret rooms, false walls, exits and so forth. These are numbered and indexed sequentially such that you have a quick reference to review in the heat of combat. The final item you will receive si a level summary report. This detailed document explains the optimum path to complete the level and make it home in one piece. In preparing this document, I have assumed nothing, because we all know what happens when someone assumes. In other words, ti is just as fi I took you by the nose and pulled you around every corner. Because of that, fi you cannot determine the best way to get from point Ato point Bon the intelligence map, refer to the mission summary report for the straight poop, instead of relying on any scuttlebutt you might have heard around the barracks. That said, let's get on with it . . .