The Mother Demon also known as the Demon Entity[1], Rectabus or Mother of all Demons, is the final boss of Doom 64 and is found on MAP28: The Absolution. The player does fight the same monster type in the Lost Levels MAP39: Final Judgment, but the latter is actually her sister named Resurrector, who wanted revenge for the death of the Mother Demon. Oddly, the Mother Demon is implied to be weakened by the explosion that bombarded Phobos (or Mars in the Remaster, or a moon of Jupiter as per TNT). However, this was not the case for her sister Resurrector. The odd thing is that, despite one being crippled, they both have the same stats. It is possible that, while the two use the same sprites, they are not exactly the same type of demon, or that one is older than the other, with the Mother Demon being more powerful and the Resurrector being only as powerful as the former in her crippled state.
Background[]
The military episodes code named "DOOM' were not actually completed: A single entity with vast rejuvenation powers, masked by the extreme radiation. In its crippled state, it systematically altered decaying dead carnage back into corrupted living tissue.
The mutations are devastating. The demons have returned even stronger and more vicious than before.
A preview claimed an alternate backstory for the Mother Demon that its actually a heavily radiatiated mutated Archvile that survived death even after being wounded by the Marine:
- The story goes down like this: In Doom II the big, bad space Marine who gamers control destroyed everything that even had a hint of being demonic so he thought. The problem was that one of the Archviles was still barely alive. Even though the demon didn't seem to have much of a chance of surviving with the many bullet holes in its gut, somehow the fiend lived. The only enemy left, this particular Archvile, healed and slowly started resurrecting its demon pals. Since the healing process wasn't quite finished, its resurrecting powers mutated the enemies when they came back from hell (hence the new look). Now it's time to get killing once again.[2]
Technically the only Doom II related episode to be set on a space installation/base with archviles is TNT: Evilution (PC).
Physical Appearance[]
A monstrosity in her own right, the Mother Demon appears as a large demonic larva with dead black eyes with red irises, four arms, a skull-like face and smallish mouth filled with many long, sharp teeth. It has no wings, yet moves by floating around. She makes a soul-chilling cry of discovery upon being roused, a ghastly snarl when moving about and a frightful shriek like a Banshee when she is damaged.
Combat Characteristics[]
The Mother Demon's attack consists of powerful flame trails, followed by a set of 4 homing fireballs which split up when they hit something.
In the backstory, the Mother Demon appeared in an old relay satellite, battered by neutrons and quarantined by massive levels of radiation. When her presence was made, the satellite activated and sent a message to Earth. Her presence came with many demons and though their energy signatures were caught, the Mother Demon used the radiation levels to escape detection. She has rejuvenation powers and whenever she walked by a corpse of a demon, it was brought back to life. It also made them stronger than before.
After she is killed, the Marine decides to remain in Hell to ensure no demon ever rises again.
The Lost Levels expansion, available only on the re-release of Doom 64 via the Doom Eternal package, continues the story of the Doom Marine and how it ties up to the current Doom series. In those levels, the Mother Demon's sister, Resurrector, wants to exact revenge against the Marine.
Tactical Analysis[]
MAP28: The Absolution:
The Mother Demon. This screenshot is taken from the Doom 64 TC for technical reasons.
The Mother Demon will kill the player quickly if coming in battle unprepared. Her flame trail, when hit, launches the player into the air, making it harder for the player to control their movements. At the same time, she will wide launch four Revenant-style homing missiles to the at the player, being the only monster to perform two ranged attacks at the same time. Even though one homing missile is not as strong as one rocket, getting hit by one of them will bounce the player back pretty far and getting hit by all four of them at once can be fatal regardless of the player's health and armor levels. Though the player can still hide on the walls like how the player fight a Revenant, dodging the missiles can be a hassle, especially when hit by either attack and the wide open space of the arena. There is also no limit on how many homing missiles are simultaneous on-screen.
She is the fastest demon in Doom 64, moving just as fast as the player, and can catch up to the player in seconds, unless the player is using the neutral position reset which makes the player run extremely fast.
The best way to defeat the Mother Demon is to have the 3 Demon Keys to fully power the Unmaker prior, get the Invulnerability power-up and rush to the fight area, open all 3 Demon Key switches quickly, and kill her before the Invulnerability runs out. Not only will rapid-firing the Unmaker stun her to minimize her attacks, but will also kill her quickly.
However, if the player did not receive all three of the Demon Keys needed to fully equip the Unmaker, the battle against the Mother Demon is very difficult. To make matters worse, varying upon how many keys the player collected if they did not collect all three, their previous battle before facing her may have consumed a lot of ammunition. In such cases, the player has the following options:
- The BFG 9000, which requires precise timing and a lot of cells conserved from the previous battle against the horde of enemies.
- The rocket launcher. Due to the Mother Demon not being immune to blast damage (unlike the Cyberdemon), it will take at least 25 rockets to defeat her; still, this requires precise timing and caution of avoiding hitting a wall.
- The super shotgun. With this weapon's mass spread, there is a stun chance; however, it requires point blank range for full effectiveness.
MAP39: Final Judgment
While the Mother Demon's sister is called the Resurrector, this boss is indeed the same as the previous one. Still, due to the levels' structure, this is a much easier fight:
- The level itself is narrow on space, thus her wide attacks are going to get blocked. If you decide to force her and the Cyberdemon to infight, the Cyberdemon will win due to that plus non-immunity to blast damage.
- There are at least 2 invulnerability power-ups in the level; one in the beginning and the other elsewhere. You can also backtrack to the first invulnerability power-up unlike in the Absolution.
- You already have a fully-powered Unmaker before fighting her. While the original campaign have the 3 Demon Keys as optional, you are required to get all 3 keys to unlock the door that opens the door to the Resurrector.
The player can instantly kill the Resurrector before she enters the teleporter by going to the gap immediately after the doors are opened and just blast through with the Unmaker, as long as there are around 150 plasma cells in the inventory. To reduce even more concerns with this method, her flame trail cannot go through the gaps, marking the player safe from any of her attacks.
Data[]
| ID # | Hit points | Speed | Width | Height | Reaction time | Pain chance | Mass | Bits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5000 (decimal) 1388 (hex) |
5300 | 32 | 80 | 110 | 8 | 20 (7.84%) | 1000 | 4194310 |
| 1: | 2: | 22: |
|---|---|---|
| Obstacle | Shootable | Affects Kill % |
| Sprite name | Alert sound | Pain sound | Death sound | Action sound |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RECT (MOTH in the TC) | DSMTHSIT | DSMTHPAI | DSMTHDTH | DSMTHACT |
| Type | Damage | Sprite name | Sound |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multiple projectiles | 10-80 (main fireballs) 5-40 (secondary fireballs) 6-48 (fire trail) |
MBAL (main fireball) BAL2 (secondary fireballs) Fire (fire trail) |
DSMTHATK (fire/fireball attack) DSBAREXP (main fireball explode) DSFIRXPL (secondary fireball explode) |
Other Games[]
In Doom (2016), in the main room with the tanks filled with demons, behind Dr. Olivia Pierce's office where the player can find the Soul Cube (which is unusable) and the hologram of the Doom Slayer's tomb along with his suit, a fetus version of what looks like a creature similar to the Mother Demon can be found. This creature is located in the tank closest to the Soul Cube, but does not move or attack, as it is not fully grown. This appears to be an immature version of the gremlin or the Abaddon pilot seen in The Art of Doom (especially the latter one), which in turn seems to be inspired by Doom 64's Mother Demon.
While this thing doesn't exactly look like the Mother Demon, having a slightly different head (one that more closely resembles that of the Spider Mastermind or the Arachnotrons), it does appear to have evidence of multiple arms in development, possibly four.
The final boss of Half-Life, Nihilanth, somewhat resembles Mother Demon. Like this boss, Nihilanth has multiple arms, vestigial legs and an oversized head, and attacks with volleys of homing projectiles.
Gallery[]
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