Today's been a pretty big day for the Zombies community. In case you're not aware, 7 of the unsolved Revelations ciphers have been cracked today, and the info in them is pretty juicy. There's a lot to unpack in general, but for this post I'm gonna mainly focus on one topic. I'll start with the plaintext for one of the ciphers:
"My love we are now flowing among the stars, among creation, as one. I love this feeling. Me too. Where shall we go. Everywhere my love…Everywhere."
This is almost certainly from the perspective of Maxis and Sophia after the end of Revelations. The last time we see them is during the end cutscene, where Maxis from within the Summoning Key merges with Sophia, or as Maxis puts it:
MAXIS: "We will do it together. As one we are, now and forever."
They then fly into the Apothicon Sun, reverting the damage the Apothicons did and banishing the corruption from Monty's perfect world. There wasn't many hints of what happened to them afterwards. One of the only ciphers solved early on during Revelations was the following, which further elaborated on what Maxis & Sophia actually did, as quoted by Monty:
"Thanks to the sacrifice of Maxis and the contraption called Sophia, all the 115 has been purged from the final universe. Thank fucking god. Time to get some rest. -M"
We also saw the Summoning Key floating in deep space at the end of "The Gift" music video, presumably taking place after the Rev ending, after a brief shot of Samantha staring out of a window into the sky. But for a long, long time, that was pretty much all we got regarding Monty's "perfect world" after the events of Revelations, as we followed the events of the Broken Cycle in BO4 and banished everything to the Dark Aether.
But now, with these new ciphers, we have a bit more context as to what happens in Monty's world after he sends Primis back to fight in the Great War.
"Now that the many worlds are one, it has all reset. There are no Apothicons, Keepers, or 115 knocking around to cause trouble. Now I can focus on the children, making sure they grow up in a better place"
Monty, no longer having to worry about the overarching Apothicon-Keeper war that's encompassed all of reality, focuses entirely on raising Samantha and the child versions of Richtofen, Dempsey, Takeo and Nikolai. They go on to live normal lives, grow up, and eventually leave the House to explore the perfect world on their own. Samantha's the last to leave, and she documents her thoughts on the matter in one of the recently solved ciphers.
"Final entry: I have run out of pages for this journal so it seems fitting that this is my last entry. I am leaving the house today for good, and I dont think I will ever return. Father has been gone for many years now, and I miss him. I think of him often. Monty says he is not dead but has just evolved into a new form. I guess you can say that Monty is my father now, really the father to all of us kids that grew up at the house. We know the sacrifices that were made to get us here and keep us safe. I will always love them for that. A debt that can never be repaid. Monty was going to take me to the lake today to go swimming. I love floating in the water with the warm sun dancing on the surface and watching the clouds slowly pass overhead. Sometimes I think I see father in those clouds looking down at me and I smile. I know he will always be with me. Samantha
The key thing here to note is that Monty says that, not only is Maxis not dead, but that he's "evolved into a new form". This lines up with the previous cipher of Sophia and Maxis existing in the stars. Furthermore, Samantha thinks that sometimes she's able to see Maxis in the clouds looking down at her. Knowing what we know about Maxis and Sophia in their merged state, this might not be a hallucination or metaphorical. Samantha might literally be seeing Maxis, in his evolved form, staring down at her from the heavens. This bears similarities to The Gift music video where Samantha stares into the sky and the shot fades into the Summoning Key, again, floating amongst the stars…
With all of this in mind, we can establish the following:
- Maxis, from within the Summoning Key, and Sophia have merged into some sort of a highly evolved entity at the end of Revelations.
- Through their evolved form, they were able to reset creation, wiping Monty's perfect world of Element 115, the Apothicons and the Keepers.
- This entity then "flows" among creation and the stars as one, and is able to go everywhere and anywhere.
- This entity still exists long after the children grow up and leave the House, and possibly watches over Samantha in the sky in the form of Maxis.
As to what this is meant to mean for the long run in the Zombies story… I'm sort of at a loss. It sounds a lot to me like they ascended to some sort of absolute Godhood, existing everywhere all at once, but I'm not sure if that's an accurate statement to make. And what bearing does that have in the story as a whole, if any? I intend this post to be a springboard for discussion regarding the topic. Let me know what you guys think in the comments.