A brief explanation as to what is happening in SS3 and how it ties in with SS1

[Squadala]

I've noticed that there seems to be a few issues as to what the hell is going in Serious Sam 3, so I've made a mini-guide explaining what the hell is going on in the series and how Serious Sam 3 ties into Serious Sam 1's romp through Ancient Egypt, Mesoamerica, Babylon and Generic Medieval-themed Place ™. This info mostly comes from an old backstory to Serious Sam 1 that Croteam wrote in somewhat broken English before Serious Sam 1 came out, along with a few things taken from the codex in Serious Sam 1.

THE PLOT

In THE FUTURE, humans have found super-old technology in ancient Egyptian ruins created by the Sirians, human-like aliens (the beheaded enemies in Serious Sam 1 are Sirians, if you want to see what they look like). Long story short, the reason there's Sirian stuff in old Egyptian ruins is because they sent some guys down there to make contact and observe humans. With some work, humans managed to recreate their technology and go and explore the stars. Some of the stuff they find mentions Mental and his habit of appearing and killing intelligent life for the hell of it. They ignore it because the ruins mention it only happens every few 50,000 or so years and it's not scheduled to happen for a very long time.

Our pal Serious Sam is exploring what used to be Sirius for your average futuristic megacorp. While he's exploring, he finds a hugeass meteor belt surrounding Sirius, which the records from ancient Egypt didn't mention. He says “**** it” and goes through the meteors. Well, it turns out the meteors are actually a gigantic alarm system that wakes up Mental a bit earlier than usual. He wakes up and, surprisingly enough, rips humanity a new one. Serious Sam feels really bad about waking Mental up, so he signs up for the military and does all sorts of suicide missions but always survives, giving him the “serious” in his nickname. He's portrayed as a bit wangsty in the background story which was made before they made Sam the smartass that he is now, so I'm sure his angsty side has been rectoned.

(SERIOUS SAM 3 STARTS HERE)

Humanitiy is slowly beaten back to Earth, where there's no hope of them beating Mental anymore. So, they dig up some old time travel tech they found along with the Sirian info. Sam and some important people from the remains of Earth's military meet in modern Egypt and brief Sam about a time-traveling device called the Timelock that lets you go back into the past at the point it was armed. It turns out that the Sirians on Earth armed the Timelock around the time Mental wasted the rest of the Sirians. Luckily for them, Mental didn't know about the small group of scouts on Earth, so the Timelock was safe.

The military people brief Sam on his mission. His goal is to summon a hugeass Sirian spaceship (the cool-looking spaceship at the end of The First Encounter) that's parked on one of Saturn's moons from ancient Egypt, then fly to Sirius and somehow kill Mental. Normally, this sounds completely insane, but they're out of options and Sam is badass enough to kill something like Mental. So they download his mission objectives to NETRISCA (who's in his skull already) and have him jump into the Timelock to start SS1. However, the only problem is that using the Timelock will alert Mental in the present and in the past that something is up, so things won't be easy for Sam. Serious Sam 1 starts here.

I'm sure there's going to be a few differences between the old background info made before SS1 came out and what's going to be in SS3. First off, the background info hints that Mental hasn't invaded Earth yet, but SS3 shows otherwise. Also, characters like the flying lady with the tentacles coming out of her back and Hellfire, the helicopter pilot that's going to help Sam in SS3, aren't mentioned in the backstory at all.

QUESTIONS

Q. So what's the deal with Mental?

The Mental that's controlling the enemy forces in SS3 is Present Mental, while the one that spawns in all the enemies in Serious Sam 1 is Past Mental. Past Mental is clearing out the Sirians when Sam warps in from current Egypt and is the guy Sam is trying to take out. Present Mental seems to play a minor role in Serious Sam 1, as Ugh-Zan III's codex entry seems to suggest that he was summoned from the present to deal with Sam in The Great Pyramid level. Otherwise, it's Past Mental's show.

As for what Mental actually is, he's basically the last of a god-like species (or actual gods) that used to benevolently rule the universe. However, he said “this is bullshit” and decided to wipe out any intelligent life under his rule. To make things worse, he's made it his goal to appear every 50,000 or so odd years and wipe out any intelligent life before they get uppity or something like that. Basically, he's the Reapers from Mass Effect, but with a collection of oddball genetically engineered and primitive alien species as his shocktroopers instead of undead lifeforms with lights coming out of them, bug men and the occasional rogue robot species.

We don't actually know what Mental looks like. The creature shown behind Sam in the Steam Store Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter icon is possibly Mental, as that thing has never been seen in a Serious Sam game before. The end of Serious Sam 2 shows him escaping in a small, saucer-shaped spaceship, but who the hell knows if SS2 is taken seriously (hurrrr) by the developers anymore.

Q. Why do the enemies looks different in SS3 and SS1?

Art-wise, its to make SS3 look different from SSHD. Story-wise, its probably because of the time that's passed between SS1 and SS3 in the story. Mental probably altered the Gnaar between SS1 (Past Mental) and SS3 (Present Mental) for some reason, the Beheaded enemies are from two different species (the SS3 ones appear to be made out of humans, while the SS1 ones are made from Sirians), and the Kleer Skeleton looks much dustier and older because, in the timeframe SS1 takes place in, the species that used to be the Kleers were just wiped out by Mental, so they look a lot cleaner than the ones in SS3, who've probably been chilling in storage for thousands of years.

[ilikeserioussam]

Interesting.

[Alen Ladavac]

Kudos for the nice interpretation Squadala!

[Mongo]

Yeah this is excellent! I love how it was explained. I actually never knew how all Time locks got back in Egypt and all. Now I know... Thanks. ;D

[Processor]

Nice job pointing out the face behind Sam in the SSHD:TFE image on the Steam store page. I never noticed that before.

[viper45]

It'll be interesting to see how true they stick to this backstory in SS3. I imagine a lot can change over the course of 10+ years. Still, it's a nice little summary that should set the stage for SS3 pretty well.

Originally Posted by Squadala

Basically, he's the Reapers from Mass Effect, but with a collection of oddball genetically engineered and primitive alien species as his shocktroopers instead of undead lifeforms with lights coming out of them, bug men and the occasional rogue robot species.

Actually, the Reapers have genetically altered and enslaved species to fight for them. It's surprising how similar Mental and the Reapers are.

I think Croteam saw this similarity and decided to parody it a bit. At the (warning: spoilers for Mass Effect 2)

[Spoiler]

end of Mass Effect 2, we see this shot of the Reaper army approaching the Milky Way Galaxy.

At the beginning of the SS3 teaser trailer, we're shown this shot of Mental's forces approaching Earth. Made me chuckle when I first saw it.

[Solais]

That would be an amazing thing to behold. Mass Effect as the prequel to Serious Sam.

[Dave3d]

Thanks for the spoiler tags viper45.
I just started playing ME2, and that would have sucked to know something ahead of time.

[Serious Sam(BG)]

Squadala, there is only one Mental that sends the enemies back to time. Like in Terminator movie - there is only one SkyNet that sends the bad guys back to time, to kill Sarrah/John. Sam is going back to time to kill Mental BEFORE he gets too powerfull. Like in T2 T-1000 was sent back to time to kill John before he grow up and became a leader of the Resistance. So all enemies are coming from the future. In my opinion.

[Solais]

Originally Posted by h@ker@

Squadala, there is only one Mental that sends the enemies back to time. Like in Terminator movie - there is only one SkyNet that sends the bad guys back to time, to kill Sarrah/John. Sam is going back to time to kill Mental BEFORE he gets too powerfull. Like in T2 T-1000 was sent back to time to kill John before he grow up and became a leader of the Resistance. So all enemies are coming from the future. In my opinion.

nope.jpg

What Squadala wrote, that's true. In that past where Sam travels to, Mental is just as strong as the future one, however he doesn't expects The Spanish Inq- a single human going up to him one-to-one. Hell he didn't even noticed that the Sirians survived on Earth, until Sam arrived. He kinda ****ed it up, but he still doesn't really have to fight with Mental's full force, like back on the Present-Earth.

[AntonioR]

Wow, this really explained a lot. Where can the full story for SS1 be found ?

[Solais]

On this very site

[*Serious Godzilla*]

Originally Posted by Solais

nope.jpg

What Squadala wrote, that's true. In that past where Sam travels to, Mental is just as strong as the future one, however he doesn't expects The Spanish Inq- a single human going up to him one-to-one. Hell he didn't even noticed that the Sirians survived on Earth, until Sam arrived. He kinda ****ed it up, but he still doesn't really have to fight with Mental's full force, like back on the Present-Earth.

I'm not so sure though. I think its a combination of what you and haker said. becuase athough Mental wasn't aware that sam was going back in time, clearly he found out fairly quick of sam arrival. Plus how do you explain Ugh Zan III, which was "sent to supervise the final cleaning of earth"? It seems like mental was sending in troops into the past along with Ugh Zan. i think there was only one mental just as there was only one sam.

[Solais]

Originally Posted by *Serious Godzilla*

I'm not so sure though. I think its a combination of what you and haker said. becuase athough Mental wasn't aware that sam was going back in time, clearly he found out fairly quick of sam arrival. Plus how do you explain Ugh Zan III, which was "sent to supervise the final cleaning of earth"? It seems like mental was sending in troops into the past along with Ugh Zan. i think there was only one mental just as there was only one sam.

"Kowalsky says: 'About the Egypt, we are not sure. It is almost certain that triggering the Timelock will alarm Mental both at present, and in the past. When you come there, its forces might be on their way to the Earth. But they will not know that you are there. They will go primarily to wipe the Sirians, and the Egyptians whose presence will be revealed with that event. Due to the imprecision in the operation of the Timelock, you may get there before the aliens or after them. We don't know. We can just hope you won't be too late to sneak on Mental."

From the backstory, that I just linked above.

[Serious Sam(BG)]

Originally Posted by *Serious Godzilla*

I'm not so sure though. I think its a combination of what you and haker said. becuase athough Mental wasn't aware that sam was going back in time, clearly he found out fairly quick of sam arrival. Plus how do you explain Ugh Zan III, which was "sent to supervise the final cleaning of earth"? It seems like mental was sending in troops into the past along with Ugh Zan. i think there was only one mental just as there was only one sam.

Okay, imagine that John Connor is Mental. And John Connor from the future send Terminator (UghZan III) back to time to protect himself in to the past. Also, read the Valley of the kings strategy note.

[Discy]

According to The Ancient Ones, the age after great empires was named 'Ugh-Tah', the infinite death.

So if Ugh-Tah means inifnite death, what does Ugh-Zan mean? Does Ugh mean infinite or death? Questions, questions...

[Fiendian]

That goes back to Ugh-Zan's childhood. His mother got so tired of him wrecking and stomping everything that she was literally saying "Ugh... Zan!" every time she talked to him.

[Discy]

Originally Posted by Fiendian

That goes back to Ugh-Zan's childhood. His mother got so tired of him wrecking and stomping everything that she was literally saying "Ugh... Zan!" every time she talked to him.

"Just wait 'till your father gets home from enslaving inferior alien races! He'll unbuckle his tunic and I won't stop him this time!"

[The Serious Spoon]

Originally Posted by Discy

So if Ugh-Tah means inifnite death, what does Ugh-Zan mean? Does Ugh mean infinite or death? Questions, questions...

All from the FE story:

'Hum-Tah' = the infinite beings
'Ugh-Tah' = the infinite death.
'Tah-Um' = the one infinite

I vaguely remember that I knew what Zan meant as well, but I can't remember. Maybe it's in the Netricsa message?

[Discy]

This is the NETRICSA entry for Ugh-Zan:

Ugh-Zan III, The Vicious Warlock

INDIVIDUAL: Ugh-Zan III, The Vicious Warlock
METABOLISM: immortal mammal
PERCEPTION: ancient entity
SIZE: 330 ft
ENDURANCE: infinite
HOSTILITY: extreme
WEAPONS: homing missiles
thermal bombs
rocket launcher
pulse lasers
beamgun
REWARD: 1 million FC
THREAT: immeasurable

DESCRIPTION:

This is the third incarnation of the vicious Ugh-Zan, last of the Warlock giants. Ugh-Zan has the rank of Great Admiral in the Mental's army, and has served the evil for millions of years.
As large as a mountain, armed well enough to confront an intergalactic cruiser, and endowed with unseen magical powers and the ability of regeneration, this grand warrior is one of the most dangerous creatures in the universe.
Ugh-Zan was sent by Mental to supervise the final cleaning of planet Earth.

TIPS:

- Employs most powerful weapons and magic spells known
- Has ability to regenerate
- Pray your favorite deity for a quick death

So Ugh means death. The names you mentioned are in reverse order, so death is the second word of the name. Maybe "Quick Death"?

[*Serious Godzilla*]

maybe ugh-zan is "infinite death bringer"?

[LordAngus]

I was to say about bringer of death but it can't mean infinite death bringer because tah means infinite and the words are in reverse order (death bringer would be Zan Ugh).

[Discy]

Your guess is as good as mine. It can be anything: quick, painful, slow, funny...

[Mongo]

Ugh-Zan could be... No Death?