#astra malorum

[damodreded]

Things I learned about Takeo Masaki listening to all of his voice lines ripped from Astra Malorum that everyone should probably know:

All credit goes to redsovietelise for the rips and uploading them for everyone to enjoy!

I noticed now he’s referring to the zombies as demons.

At some point he considered Tank useless.

Tank compliments him and he says flattery will get him nowhere. His trust must be earned. So Tankeo might be a slowburn.

Still talking to his sword saying it’s why he isn’t alone. He also says she (path of sorrows) is his burden alone.

In a convo with Carver he says the path of sorrows is not a sword others can wield, but would be honored to teach him swordplay.

Says you can cut down a “mountain” and it’ll grow back twice a tall about pubic hair. And I’m not unconvinced he learned this from Tank.

Refers to them as Dempsey-san, Weaver-san and Carver-san. They’re the only ones who get the honorific.

Refers to Maya as “little sister”.

Says the spirits whisper on Mars and it is not a silent planet.

Say Caltheris’ spirit is “honorable, if annoying”.

Say he is masterless but that wasn’t always the case. So at some point he lost his master.

Maya has been trying to teach him to swear and asked him to say “I’m not here to fuck spiders” (Aussie slang for “I’m not here to dick around). He instead says “I did not come here to fornicate” but says he will be a better student later.

Claims he dreams of basking in sunlight.

Says he has seen before prisoners who willing serve those who took their freedom. But I’m not sure what he’s referring to.

Never leaves duty unfinished.

Very confused with the models of space asking why the sun is in the center. So I’m really glad my “Takeo is an earth centrist” theory was true.

Hates yoga.

Says he once saw UFO in the sky but thought he was just really drunk.

Refers to OSCAR as “metal oni”. Oni in Japanese refers to demons orgres, trolls or devils.

Maya reminds him of Lady Tomoe Gozen.

Seems to believe restoring their souls is how they’ll go home.

He believes there is a thread that binds all of them together.

In a conversation with Grey he states that they should keep an open mind about Richtofen because desperate times require unholy alliances.

Tells someone (I cannot find who) he is as flawed as any man and hopes he has learned from his mistakes.

Asks Grey to pay him in dango for saving her.

Says Carver’s discipline is as sharp as a wakizashi, which was a short sword worn by Samurai as a backup to their katana.

[raine-tempest]

Astra Malorum Mashup Page, PT.2

I Made this one before my Ashes one and the quality isn’t as good as the others. I do really like this map and might remake it in the future because of that.

(I also can’t draw eyes….😞)

[oyeone89]

i'm so close to heaven, yet why do I feel so lost?

[rendered with blender]

[spahhzy]

Weiss: I want you to know Miss Belladona , despite your intellectual limitations, I value your combat acumen!

Blake: Is this a general ' I think everyone is dumber than me thing?' Nah its gotta be a schnee thing right?

Weiss: I meant no offense earlier...but you do possess an animal cunning that is essential to our survival!

Blake: Keep digging, Schnee and you'll strike pay dirt!

Blake: Final Warning; being a genius and a intolerant person makes you dangerous in my book.

Weiss: I assume this book has more pictures than words...perhaps we should refrain from this verbal jousting...it seems I've struck a nerve.

[damodreded]

Things I learned about Nikolai Belinski listening to all of his voice lines ripped from Astra Malorum that everyone should probably know:

All credit goes to redsovietelise for the rips and uploading them for everyone to enjoy!

Would be remiss of me to not mention Nikolai thinks Tank is flirting with him by nearly breaking his hand.

Keeping the same theme of being funny and saying fuck you when no one laughs.

Unmarried with no children.

He does say his wife is his T62, which is “big as house and twice as warm”. Mourns that someone else is taking care of her in his absence.

Experienced many electrical blackouts as a child

His babushka’s kitchen was “cold, distant and full of gas”

His father told him looking at the stars was a waste of his time.

As a child he had a pet grenade named Gunther

Claims he is immune to disappointment.

Says seeing double is perfectly normal.

He has tennis elbow

I might be incorrect but I believe he called the Warden a “сволочь” (svoloch).

Says he’s tried redemption before but it was boring.

When killing a zombie he says he will give them a family reunion, as it’s the only way he would ever be able to see his family again.

Truly feels after what happened in the caves that he is unworthy of saving.

Says perfect (political) party candidate is “rotten and brainless”

Richtofen’s smile makes his butthole clench.

Dr. Thurston is on his shit list

Says where he comes from arcane symbols can be a curse or a coupon.

Holds a lot of resentment towards Weaver for escaping the USSR and growing up with better conditions that he did. Weaver seems to think of them as friends for both being Russian. Nikolai does not feel the same way.

Believes Maya would’ve done well in Leningrad.

I don’t think there’s enough for me to do a full write up here, but there’s dialogue I’ve not heard before from his side EE. The most notable being that it sounds like he and Toor Bala were connected at some point. He mentions being able to feel its fingers in his mind and how it hungers. There’s another quote in the caves where he’s screaming for someone to stop laughing, which I’m assuming is Toor Bala?

[damodreded]

Things I learned about Tank Dempsey listening to all of his voice lines ripped from Astra Malorum that everyone should probably know:

I'm back in the saddle after five months away from doing anything significant in Zombies. The people asked, I answered. Now that we have people datamining and ripping the voice lines it's made this ten times easier for me.

All credit goes to redsovietelise for the rips and uploading them for everyone to enjoy!

Tank saying “You go left, I’ll go…yeah fuck it” gives me the impression he doesn’t really give a shit about battle plans.

Thinks solar power is hippie bullshit.

Talks about farting a better tune than you can get out of the organ. So we’re once again talking about his IBS.

After that I have something about being deadlier than a breakfast burrito on base. Definitely an IBS king.

I have zero context for this one but all he said was “cock sucking motherfucking shit sacks” and we need more of this.

Says fighting is in his blood so I’m just going to gentle remind the audience he is the “fighting Irish” trope. Yes I am using this dump to push the Irish Catholic Tank Dempsey agenda again.

We all know about it but I’ll share it again. Tells Takeo to get up or he’ll give him mouth to mouth again. So they’ve touched lips more than once.

Says he “fucking hates math”. Which checks out considering when he drinks Mule Kick he says three guns is twice as many guns (it’s not).

Says he’s a terrible liar too.

Went to a whore house in Saigon once.

Seems to be vaguely aware that something is wrong with Liberty Falls but isn’t sure what.

His grandma is missing both of her feet.

I believe he meant to say he’s an “Aquarius”, but what he really said was he’s an “Asparagus”. And I want to harp on this one for a second, this is the closest we’ve gotten to having a birthdate for any of the OG crew. This means Tank was born between January 20th and February 18th.

He claims if you put a gun to his head he couldn’t name a single star. So the above checks out. He also mentions on Astra he has no idea what planet he’s on.

Tells Nikolai he needs to take a shower. Which is interesting consider Tank hasn’t wiped his ass since he got to the Dark Aether. So let’s not worry about Nikolai right now.

In part of a conversation with Carver he talks about how he’s made peace with all the things he saw in Vietnam.

In part of a conversation with Nikolai he mentions feeling like he’s better off in the Dark Aether where he’s doing actual good.

Takeo tells him it would do him well to be suspicious of those around him. Tank asks if he really thinks that means he has no friends when they’ve been patching each other up. And he sounds a little offended that Takeo doesn’t consider him a friend.

His conversations with Maya mostly deal with what happened in the Temple. Veytharion tells him in Ashes he’s a coward for not just facing his trauma. It does sound like to some extent he’s finally accepting it and moving past it. He does admit he knows this Weaver isn’t his, but seeing him makes him want to punch Weaver in the face.

[damodreded]

“Where do the Shadowsmith names come from?”

This post isn’t really that serious and I wouldn’t look too far into this. After my post about “Astra Malorum” I just went full off the rails trying to see what other insane things I can connect to Black Ops 7.

In all honesty, I don’t have an official answer for this. They are most likely names that the writing team workshopped that sounded really cool and kind of imposing. But someone asked this anyways and I got cracking.

όθᾰρσῐς

When I first heard the name Caltheris, it sounded a lot like όθᾰρσῐς (kóthărsĭs). Or as we use it in English “catharsis”. The dictionary defines “catharsis” as: the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. It comes from the Greek/Latin word that means “cleanse” or “pure”. It used to have a physical meaning only for purification practices. And was also used to describe purification rituals in Homer’s works. And while this is a big fat nothing burger here, it is interesting that in a way the Shadowsmiths to perform a kind of purification ritual on our characters to make them whole again.

θηρῐ́ον

Veytharion was a little harder to track down. I was not determined to find Greek or Latin roots here, merely words that may be similar to either part of the name. And in my research I somehow came across θηρῐ́ον (thērĭ́on). It is the Greek word for “beast”. There’s no real mythology behind this, other than the constellation Lupus was later named “Therion” by Hipparchus of Bithynia. Interestingly enough, this name is used to refer to one of three beasts in The Book of Revelations. So Tank Dempsey, I fear you are just doomed to be seven degrees from God.

It’s really hard for me to say that this is what the writers intended for their names. Though given how much Greek and Roman mythology has wormed its way into this story (as you’ll see more on this blog lmao) they may have done what any writer does when they need an imposing and ominous name. Look up the Greek or Latin word and add some zest. But without a third Shadowsmith name it’s hard to say if this was done on purpose. Don’t worry, I’ll be on the look out in map 3 now.

[damodreded]

Happy Astra Malorum release day!

Since nuking my twitter, that means I lost some really fun things I posted about BO7 that I wish I had saved :( So I'm gonna post them again here.

So what does "Astra Malorum" actually mean? So glad you asked (you didn't) because if I don't flex my 3 years of Latin I took in high school I'll just disappoint my family who wanted me to take German instead.

"Astra" is the latin word for star, or heavenly body. But it's most commonly used in "ad astra" (sic itur ad astra is the full quote) which means "to the stars". I laugh that this phrase came from Virgil, the Roman poet, who wrote the Aeneid. Because apparently Edward Richtofen can't stand Virgil (and I think I know why).

Malorum has a few different translations but they're mostly negative connotation. It's more commonly translated to "evil" or "of evil". But it can also mean misfortune, unlucky, misdeed or calamity. It's commonly seen in "Premeditatio malorum", a Stoic exercise in visualizing the worst case scenario. Basically if you practice facing failure you can achieve success.

The literal translation here is "the stars of evil", or maybe "the stars of misfortune" if you're feeling zesty. Which could have a lot of meaning here.

However, until we get the full story, this feels like just a fun name the team came up with. Kind of like when Kingdom Hearts created Scala ad Caelum and it never really went anywhere other than it being really cool a world was called the stairs to the heavens.

Happy EE hunting to all my friends, mutuals and passerby's <3