Clarification on the lore of the new expansion

Howdy!! I’m just dropping by to attempt to catch up on the new lore introduced in rise of the machine, if there is new lore. I have not played the new expansion yet, but I am re-downloading Quake 1 to play it.

From what I understand so far, it bridges the gap between quake 1 and 2, with the final defeat of The Quake Entity / Shub Nigarath, and officially showing The Strogg to be part of its army. I heard there are npc allies in this expansion, which was a surprise because i believed the ranger was the last soldier uncorrupted by Quake, but an all out war against Quake sounds exciting.

On a side note, The Cosmic Relm from Doom The Dark Ages really reminds me of The Quake Dimension. I would like to say they are one and the same, but I hear that was confirmed false?

I don’t mind story spoilers, I’m not sure I’ll actually finish the expansion lol.

You're mostly thinking about Call of the Machine, the Quake II expansion from a few years ago. That's the one that has the Q1/Q2 crossover stuff. It's also non-canon as declared by MachineGames.

Dawn of the Machine, the new one for Q1, doesn't really have "npc allies" in the way that you're thinking of. In gameplay terms, they're non-hostile entities. In story terms it's more complicated and gets kind of spoilery, if you care about that.

Rule of thumb is that all MachineGames expansions are non-canon as far as classic lore is concerned.

It's more "the next bridge" between Quake and Quake Champions. It shows Ranger's descent to madness and remaining trapped in the Dreamlands, with a specific

The presence of strogg / Q2 is almost non-existence. There are still carry overs and hints to Quake 2 connection, but it's far less overt than even Dimension of the Machine. Rather, Dawn of the Machine plays on time loops and past/present between medieval and base themes. The base themes are not (directly) linked to Q2/Strogg in any fashion - or to any group in particular, for that matter.

>I heard there are npc allies in this expansion,

Eh... Yes and no.

They're called ghosts in the fgd, and they're non-hostile, but I wouldn't call them "allies". They are just set pieces, mechanically speaking. My interpretation of them is that they're "possible alternatives" of Ranger in this time looping shenanigans of repeating the levels countless times before escaping this machine.

You even get ranger corpses with messages about stuff like "she won't let us leave".

>because i believed the ranger was the last soldier uncorrupted by Quake, but an all out war against Quake sounds exciting.

Well, there's always been Wrack as well. He's a non-corrupted soldier.

Ranger was more "the last" soldier left from the base still on Earth (until he wasn't), rather than the sole one left. There would've been earlier expeditions, and not all would've made it back.

>On a side note, The Cosmic Relm from Doom The Dark Ages really reminds me of The Quake Dimension. I would like to say they are one and the same, but I hear that was confirmed false?

The two are nothing alike beyond vague Lovecraftian influences.

I’ll be honest, I kinda forgot Quake Champions was a thing. That makes more sense than leading into Q2, even if (off the top of my head) the only character in that game to make it out of the arena is Doom Guy (unless his inclusion is non-cannon)

Time loop induced madness is a sad fate for The Ranger, but hey, lovecraftian horrors tend to do that to you. I assume “she” is The Quake entity / Shub Nigarath? Maybe defeat in the arena at the shells of the doom marine is a mercy kill.

I apologize for my misunderstanding of who The Ranger is and his position as the last one remaining, Quake is not my strong suit in the lore of the ID multiverse (I started playing Quake because I had been playing a lot of DooM and and wanted to see what else the goated devs had to offer). I admit my connection between The Quake dimension and The Cosmic Relm is grasping at straws for connections.

Thank you for clarifying!!!

Thank you for clarifying!! I really did have it backwards, my apologies. I really love The Strogg, and I guess that clouded my judgement a little.

Time loop induced madness is a sad fate for The Ranger. I guess the phrase “fuck around and find out” definitely applies here, he did in fact find out, even if he wasn’t the one who fucked around.

The expansions are all non-cannon? I’m a little surprised to hear that, to be honest.

They're not even especially canonical with each other, really. It's best to think of each of them as a self-contained story concept.

You could think of Dawn as a meta-narrative through which any other expansion or usermap is part of the nightmare machine. In the same way that John Romero has said that all Doom usermaps are "canon" in the sense that Doomguy just never stops dimension-hopping to kill demons.

Short of it is the devs didn't worry too much about continuity or canonicity over just making an interesting concept for a level pack. Anything you want to read into it beyond that is completely up to you.

I hope that's nor the case for the Q1 expansions we're getting, cuz they're all so good it seems to be a waste of lore implications, new weapons and amazing locations. I'm already kinda pissed the new Q2 expansion is non canon cuz like... The hell is the point in connecting Q1 and Q2 with a whole ass new expasion if it won't matter nor actually be a thing lore wise? Sure the maps are amazing and the gameplay is fun, but seems kinda useless in a way

Ah, the “make awesome stuff, explain little, and leave the fans and lore nerds to sort out the story” strategy.

Doomguy's and BJ's inclusions are non-canon to their own franchises. No one has canonically escaped the Arena, though that doesn't mean it is impossible. Just that even death isn't an escape since you'll find yourself respawned nearby.

And yes, "she" is The Queen, aka Matriarch of Decay, the angelic figure seen throughout DawnTM, who is

>It's also non-canon as declared by MachineGames.

All expansions are non-canon.... to Quake Champions.

It isn't restricted to Call of the Machine, but every expansion. Even Scourge of Armagon, the first expansion.

However, it's only strictly non-canon to Quake Champions and even then, the degree of canon is in a weird limbo state because SyncError (who got laid off) was using the locations and characters as canon lore, but the events as not.

If that ever extended to the new expansions, then, well, the fact that Shamblers serve as Masters of the Machine (but not the Creator of the Machine) would've remained canon. And according to SyncError, the Strogg are related to the Dreamlands / Elder Gods in some manner.

Specifically he specified that they were somehow tied to Armagon, who in turn was tied to Commander Rice aka Goroth, who was Ranger's superior and subordinate of the Dark Young fought in Q1 aka Code-Name "Quake".

So... Q1-Q2 connection is still there regardless of Call of the Machine's state

>The expansions are all non-cannon? I’m a little surprised to hear that, to be honest.

I wouldn't hold onto this anymore to be honest.

The dev who insisted on them being non-canon was part of the layoffs. Of course so was all the other devs who had anything to do with Quake, unfortunately, but what this means is that the state of canon in Quake is unclear.

Plus the whole "expansions are non-canon" comes with some complicated caveats. Specifically, the story events are non-canon, but the characters, the locations, and the lore are canon. At least that's how Adam SyncError treated the og expansions while writing for Quake Champions.

With him gone (as sad as it is), we honestly don't know what is and isn't going to be considered canon once another dev picks up Quake.

Ah, just cameo’s. Got it. (Tho with doom guy’s track record I wouldn’t rule it out)

Matriarch of Decay is an awesome villain name.

Guess all we can do is wait and see

You - the player, role playing as the Ranger, are trapped in endless dimensions. Any of these can spawn alternate dimensions and alternate timelines which you can play through as you choose. Canon has no meaning when endless realities exist. It’s all up to you.

If anything it is like Q3 and only the OCs are canon to the game (RIP Sarge, forgotten by time)