The Holar Tower in Iceland.
A Chimeran tower is a monumental spire-like structure that stands over hundreds of feet tall. Mistaken by humanity to be constructed by the Chimera during the Chimeran War, the towers were in reality built almost 60 million years ago on Earth and were left buried since the Chimera's inexplicable disappearance from the planet.
Description[]
Chimeran towers in England linking up to the hub tower in London, as shown in the Resistance 2 trailer "Shattered History".
The Chimeran towers were built on Earth by the Chimera's progenitors, the Pure Chimera, millions of years before humanity even existed.[1] The tower network were made to create a bridge between Earth and the Pure Chimera's home planet, and to terraform the planet into a colder climate that is habitable for the Chimera. The towers were shut down and retracted underground after the Pure Chimera were forced to abandon the planet following a catastrophic war against an unknown alien race.[1] Some of these towers happened to be buried underneath present day major cities such as New York City, London, and Paris.
Each tower comprises a single continental network, which is linked with every other major network via several larger towers known as "hub towers".[2] These hub towers powered the network via nuclear fission and emitted an arc of energy that form a nexus around Earth which would channeled into a hub tower that opens a wormhole to the Pure Chimera's planet.[3] The hub towers were heavily defended by the Chimera, as the destruction of a single hub tower would result in an explosive chain reaction that destroys a local tower network.
Four British soldiers, including Stephen Cartwright (pointing), and Nathan Hale (barely omitted offscreen to the far right) encounter a dig site for a Chimeran tower in Nottingham.
The towers were also specifically designed to alter the planet's climate by gradually cooling the surrounding area and making it more suitable for Chimeran organism, whose bodies emitted tremendous body heat than normal human beings.[4] The towers were further used as production facilities and command centers by the Chimera; Chimeran vehicles and advanced strains such as Angels and Widowmakers were made in the towers.[5][6] After the events of Operation Morning Star, the Chimera extended the use of the towers as conversion centers to manufacture more advanced troops for their ongoing war effort.
History[]
Resistance: Fall of Man[]
Since the Chimera's return to Earth following the Tunguska Event, the invaders focused their main goal in excavating the tower network during their expansion across Earth. Initially, humanity erroneously believed the towers were constructed by the advancing horde, until the British military tried to seal off a Chimeran tunnel nexus in Nottingham on July 12, 1951 during Operation Shear.
Stephen Cartwright and Nathan Hale discover a tower in Somerset.
Lieutenant Stephen Cartwright and Sergeant Nathan Hale later discovered an excavated tower in Cheddar Gorge, and changing everything humanity knew about the Chimera's origins. Hale soon learned that the Chimeran power conduits, which were scattered all over the country, were linked to the towers. Hale entered a tunnel in Bracknell and followed a conduit for several miles until reaching the hub tower known as C-03 in the London borough of Lambeth.
Hale concluded that destroying the A-0 tower in central London will kill all the Chimera in Britain and relayed his theory to Captain Rachel Parker. On July 14, British and American forces launched a massive assault on the London tower during the Battle of London, in which Hale infiltrated the tower and reached its reactor core, where he subsequently destroyed its reactor rods and caused to overload. The resulting explosion destroyed the hub tower and created a chain reaction which further destroyed the entire tower network throughout Britain, and killing all the Angels residing in the towers. Due to the Chimeran hive mind's dependency on the Angels, all the Chimera in Britain died out within minutes.
Resistance: Retribution[]
Following the Battle of London, acting on the knowledge of the tower network's weakness, British and Maquis forces worked together to destroy the Paris hub tower in order to liberate Western Europe in Operation Overstrike. On September 6, 1951, Major Cartwright led an assault on the Paris tower and subsequently destroyed it, successfully causing a explosive chain reaction that destroyed the tower network across Western Europe.[7][8]
British and Allied forces continue to push through the continent over the next two years. In December 1952, Allied forces in Poland battled for control of a hub tower in Warsaw.[9] On December 27, British forces managed to destroy two hub towers in Europe.[10] Gray Tech artifacts were recovered from towers in Bonn, Gerolstein, Paris, and Prague in which Rachel Parker relayed their discoveries to the SRPA.[11]
Resistance 2[]
By 1953, the Chimera under Daedalus aggressively expanded across Asia, Africa, and South America in their pursuit to excavate the dormant towers.
On May 15, 1953, Daedalus led the Chimeran fleet to assault the United States in order to activate the towers in America. Daedalus' flagship breached a section of the Liberty Defense Perimeter to activate the hub tower at Bryce Canyon.[12] After Daedalus activated the Bryce Canyon tower, he later activated another tower in Chicago. Echo Team and SRPA forces secured the Chimera-occupied city, allowing Dr. Fyodor Malikov to deactivate the Chicago tower.[13] However, Daedalus remotely reactivated the Chicago tower from the Holar Tower in Iceland. The SRPA launched an assault on Holar to stop the towers' reactivation by killing Daedalus, but only to be repelled with heavy casualties.[14]
Following the fall of the Liberty Defense Perimeter, every fully activated tower on the planet channeled arcs of energy into the sky. Daedalus led his forces to the Chicxulub crater in Mexico to excavate a massive tower located at the very center of the crater; the Chicxulub tower had served as the main conduit of the entire tower network.[15] On June 6, Daedalus had his fleet positioned around the crater to channel the energy of the tower network to the Chicxulub tower.[16]
The SRPA had made several attempts to disrupt the Chimera's plans for the towers. On June 9, Specter Team destroyed Chimeran reactors in Bryce Canyon which created a chain reaction that destabilized several Chimeran towers in the region similar to Nathan Hale's action in the Battle of London. On June 21, Specter Team caused mass disarray at the Holar tower in which their actions prevented Daedalus from constructing the Prometheus Weapon.
On June 26, the remnants of Echo Team and SRPA launched a desperate attempt to prevent Daedalus' plan from succeeding by destroying the fleet at the Chicxulub crater with a fission bomb. Although the fleet was destroyed, Daedalus had succeeded in fulfilling the tower network's purpose: by creating a wormhole to the Pure Chimera's home planet.
Resistance 3[]
The New York City tower that was used in bridging the wormhole to the Pure Chimera's home world.
The events that transpired at the Chicxulub crater revealed that the fission bomb's detonation had caused a massive power surge through the tower network toward the hub tower in New York City, in which it created a wormhole to the Pure Chimera's planet.[17] Furthermore, the New York tower served as a central hub for the entire tower network as it maintained the network to cooling Earth in order to make it more hospitable for the Chimera and further endangering the human race with extinction.[4]
Sometime after the events at the Chicxulub crater, the SRPA and remnants of the U.S. military launched a desperate assault on the New York tower in order to destroy it and close the wormhole. However, the tower was heavily defended by the Chimera in which SRPA's assault was crushed.[18]
In August 1957, Dr. Malikov salvaged another attempt to destroy the New York tower. Malikov recruited former Sentinel Joseph Capelli on his mission. Despite facing overwhelmingly odds, Capelli with help from the Remnants managed to destroy the tower by colliding a Terraformer into the structure. With the loss of the New York tower, the wormhole was sealed off from Earth and the tower network was shut down, ending its terraforming process. This gave humanity an advantage to finally defeat the Chimera.[19]
Known Towers[]
Tower C-3
By May 1953, there were a reported 58 known towers that were excavated across the world, including hub towers and excluding others that had been destroyed over Britain and Western Europe.[2]
Europe[]
- Paris, France [Hub][8] (Destroyed by Cartwright's task force in Operation Overstrike)
- Warsaw, Poland [Hub][9] (Destroyed in the Battle of Warsaw)
- Germany
- Gerolstein[11] (Presumably destroyed in the aftermath of Operation Overstrike)
- Bonn[11] (Presumably destroyed in the aftermath of Operation Overstrike)
- Prague, Czechoslovakia[11] (Destroyed presumably in the aftermath of Operation Overstrike)
- Moscow, Russia[20]
- Holar, Iceland [Hub][21] (Mass Disarrayed in Operation Wrath of God)
- United Kingdom (All known towers are destroyed by Nathan Hale in the Battle of London)
North America[]
- Chicxulub crater, Mexico[16] (Unknown; presumably destroyed in Operation Black Eden)
- United States
- Big Scrape Copper Mine, Nevada (Discovered by accident on May 27, 1934)[25]
- Bryce Canyon, Utah [Hub][26] (Destroyed in Operation Crucible)
- Chicago, Illinois [Hub][21]
- Grand Junction, Colorado (Destroyed in Operation Crucible)[26]
- Marble Canyon, Arizona (Destroyed in Operation Crucible)[26]
- New York City, New York [Hub] (Responsible for opening the wormhole to the Pure Chimera's homeworld. Destroyed by Joseph Capelli in 1957.)
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania[27]
- Rapid City, South Dakota[28]
Gallery[]
Resistance: Fall Of Man[]
Resistance 2[]
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Resistance: Retribution[]
Resistance 3[]
Trivia[]
- The Resistance: Fall of Man towers are more jagged and resembles to pieces of scrap metal than in Resistance 2, where they are completely excavated and appear more hexagonal, neater, and appear to be made by a different, brown-like metal substance.
- According to Rachel Parker, the towers were excavated on-site rather than built. This suggest the towers remain buried but raise to ground level upon activation, which was described by Henry Stillman as having "telescoped out of the ground."[29]
- In Resistance 2 it was previously implied the towers were designed to create a "spatial distortion bubble" around Earth to transport the planet to within orbit of the Pure Chimera's home planet as depicted in the game's ending.[3][30] However, this was retconned in Resistance 3, as confirmed by the Resistance 3 Signature Series Guide, which instead created a wormhole leading to the Chimera's planet.
References[]
- ^ a b Mass Exodus
- ^ a b SRPA Intelligence Memorandum 17
- ^ a b SRPA Intelligence Memorandum 21
- ^ a b Cooling Towers
- ^ Tower Notes
- ^ Observations
- ^ Resistance: Retribution, campaign level Where Nightmares Live
- ^ a b Resistance: Retribution, campaign level Retribution Lost
- ^ a b Mission Status Report (Bracknell)
- ^ Mission Status Report 2 (Bracknell)
- ^ a b c d Mission Status Report 2 (Axbridge)
- ^ Resistance 2, campaign level Bryce Canyon
- ^ Resistance 2, campaign level Chicago
- ^ Resistance 2, campaign level Holar Tower
- ^ Intel 20
- ^ a b SRPA Intelligence Memorandum 22
- ^ Resistance 3, campaign level Women and Children First
- ^ Resistance 3, campaign level Nature of the Beast
- ^ Resistance 3, campaign level The Promise
- ^ Seen at the end credits of Resistance: Retribution
- ^ a b Resistance 2
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Resistance 2 "Shattered History" Trailer
- ^ Resistance: Fall of Man, campaign level Somerset
- ^ Tower Notes
- ^ Vore, Bryan (October 15, 2010). "The Official Resistance Series Timeline". Game Informer
- ^ a b c Mission Status Report 2 (Bryce Canyon)
- ^ Heard in Radio USA in Resistance 2.
- ^ Resistance: The Gathering Storm
- ^ Heard on Radio USA in Resistance 2, campaign level Cocodrie
- ^ SRPA Research Journal 7