Introduction[]
Over the many years I've been scaling DOOM, I've come up with many iterations of a cosmology blog. Well, this is the latest version of it. If you're more familiar with my modern stuff, like my scaling of Dark Tower and SCP, then this will be a very different experience because DOOM is a very simple verse when it comes to its cosmology where most things fall between two tiers.
Spanish Translation/Traducción al español[]
What Will Be Used?[]
First up, canon, which in order to fully understand the verse isn't as simple as it may seem. This blog will use;
- The mainline DOOM games.
- All expansions of the mainline DOOM games (TNT Evilution, The Plutonia Experiment, The Ancient Gods, etc).
- DOOM 3, and any extensions of it.
- Wolfenstein 3D, Quake, and Commander Keen.
- Reliable author statements.
The mainline DOOM games; DOOM (1993), DOOM II, DOOM 64, DOOM (2016), and DOOM Eternal, along with the expansions of each of them, are no-brainers, but everything else requires a bit more of an explanation. Starting with DOOM 3, which people tend to think is non-canon to the mainline DOOM series, while it can be enjoyed as its own thing Hugo Martin has confirmed that it is canon and connected to the main series in the sense that it exists as an alternate universe in the DOOM cosmology. This is backed up with things like the Soul Cube, a quintessential item from DOOM 3, appearing on the Slayer's desk in DOOM Eternal, along with Hell Knights in DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal looking similarly or virtually identical to their DOOM 3 counterparts.
Wolfenstein and Commander Keen are also confirmed to be connected to DOOM, but by the original series creators. They're connected in the sense that all of the protagonists, Doomguy, William, and Commander Keen are all part of a family tree. This is backed up in the games themselves, as we see Commander Keen's skull in the Slayer's Fortress of Doom along with his gun, and the very fact that he just decides to keep it entails there is some personal connection. There is also Wolfenstein RPG, where William fights and defeats a Cyberdemon, and said Cyberdemon stating that he will go on to terrorize his descendants.
Quake can also be roped into this, as DOOM and Quake have crossed paths in two officially published games by Id Software - Quake III Arena and Quake Champions, with the story behind them being that the best warriors across space-time are being taken to an extra-dimensional arena so they can fight each other for eternity, which not only includes Doomguy and the Ranger from Quake, but also Bitterman from Quake II and William J. Blazkowicz from Wolfenstein. Quake Champions goes an extra mile with it including weapons from DOOM, Quake, Quake II, and even Quake 4. Quake and DOOM being connected is backed up by multiple other instances of the two referencing each other with varying degrees of bluntness, such as Slipgates (Technology from the Quake series) being used by the Sentinels, and Doomguy himself wielding the BFG9K appearing in Quake. As for how Quake III and Quake Champions are linked together, the creator of Quake Champions lore have confirmed that they're connected, but interestingly noted that Quake Champions takes place before Quake III. This is likely possible due to time travel shenanigans, as these guys are being taken across space-time. One last thing to note is that in the official Prima guide for Quake III Arena, all of these characters are being gathered from across the history of the universe. Directly confirming that all of these games, DOOM, Wolfenstein, Quake, and the others all take place in the same world.
This blog, and my general DOOM scaling, will also be using WoG statements (Although here, it was mostly for explaining how shit is connected from above). I do think they can be used, but sparingly and if they are actually backed up by the source material. Author statements aren't infallible as they can contradict the source material, which should take precedence. Allow me to illustrate this point by sharing two author statements, one that is backed up by the lore and therefore valid, and the other being contradicted by the lore, therefore invalid.
- Doomguy is confirmed by Hugo Martin to have the ability to empower his weapons, allowing him to fight and damage powerful beings with seemingly mundane weapons. This is possible because he absorbed the power of the UI-Thranx demon, the demonic entities responsible for the Quad Damage's effects. This is backed up by the lore, as he has a history of killing and/or maiming the Icon of Sin, even though lesser titans are described as being so resilient that they are immune to conventional weaponry.
- Hugo Martin similarly confirmed that Doomguy used the Crucible to kill the Titan from DOOM (2016) lore. Not only is this just not generally backed up by the lore present in the game, but his fight with the Titan takes place long after his fight with the Dreadnought in Argent D'Nur, where he used the Crucible to incapacitate it and has been there ever since to keep it down.
"Dimensions"[]
"Dimension" is a word that isn't specific to spatial dimensions, as it can be used to describe things like universes or some other kind of alternate reality. In the case with DOOM, it typically uses "dimension" to refer to universes, and this is confirmed to be the case by Hugo Martin himself. So whenever the word "dimension" is used, it will be at first assumed to be talking about universes. It is still possible for the word to be referring to spatial/mathematical dimensions, but that is moreso in other ways like extra-dimensional statements or "higher plane" statements, but even then it should be a case-by-case thing.
Terminology[]
At some points in the blog, I will be talking about qualitative superiorities. If you want to fully understand this term, along with other terms I might use in this scale, you can read all about them here.
Philosophy and Scientific Theories[]
This isn't by any means specific to DOOM, there are a lot of verses with people that do this, but there is a surprising amount of people that do it in order to scale DOOM, so I'm gonna talk about it. Some people use real life scientific theories or ideas in philosophy in order to scale DOOM, which I won't be doing here. I think just scaling the verse off what it and it alone says is the correct way to scale any verse.
The problem with this is that, most of the time, it is just people picking out specific elements of a thing and then going on to say that this thing must be far more impressive and must be "this tier" by connecting it to some external work (I.E. Multiverse types, "essence", Plato's Theory of Forms, Apotheosis, etc). To tell you the truth, most of these people are just reading shit off the internet, and the verses they scale have absolutely nothing to do with what they're trying to apply to it. They try to shoehorn these ideas that completely change the scaling of a verse through traits that tend not to even be specific to whatever it is they're using (I.E. A lot of scientific theories involve the idea of there being infinite universes based off possibilities. Under normal circumstances, this alone would be just 2-A, but people would try to scale it to a multiverse type or something), or keywords that were just haphazardly thrown in. I know this because I use to be one of these guys, and there was a very dark period of my time as a powerscaler where I unironically argued 1-A Trevor Henderson via metaphysical statements. I am happy to have evolved pass that, and I won't be using these sorts of things when scaling DOOM (Especially since, even with this approach of slapping external shit onto a verse, what the actual verse says still ultimately takes precedence. So why even do this?).
Really, the only times where you should do this is when it is explicitly mentioned (I.E. A character in-verse draws a comparison to it), or the author of the verse confirms they used it as a reference when making the world's rules and cosmology. Genuine instances are few and far between, and let me tell you, DOOM or any of the other games made by Id Software are by no means complex enough to do that lol.
The Universe/Earth Dimension[]
The base universe that the games largely take place in is said to be infinite-sized twice. This universe isn't implied to be special, and many other individual realms also have infinite statements, so we can confirm that universes in the Idverse in general are infinitely large.
| “ | This reservoir is a place where the next generation from the infinite universe has come and gone. The reservoir is continually draining the next generation of transmuters from the infinite universe. | „ |
| ~ DOOM Survival Guide |
| “ | With the Masters of the Machine dead, the Strogg are severed from their Maker. Your work is done, vengeance has been wrought upon the enemy, and you are lost in the infinite cosmic void. | „ |
| ~ Quake II - Call of The Machine |
The Holt/Urdak[]
The realm where the Maykrs originate from. This universe is generally referred to as Urdak, but in actuality, Urdak is just this realm's capital city that is part of an even bigger structure that is known as the Holt, which is the actual name of the realm. We'll be talking about the realm as a whole here, so I'll be referring to it as the Holt.
The Holt is straight-up referred to as a "higher-dimension". This can be taken in one of two ways, either is explicitly being referred to as a higher-dimensional structure, or it is described as a realm that exists above the universe. Either way, Urdak would be higher-dimensional, and it transcending the universe is consistent.
| “ | The demons that remain in Urdak have corrupted the once-holy realm and threaten to use the higher dimension as a new pathway for conquests. | „ |
| ~ The Ancient Gods - Part I |
It, along with Hell, are described as a plane of existence that is fixed beyond the boundaries of the known universe.
| “ | Urdak itself exists in an anchor state, utilizing highly advanced dimensional shift technology to allow a static position at a sub-quantum level. This essentially inverts their position in relation to Hell; both planes of existence are fixed outside the bounds of the known universe, a 'lower' and 'higher' reality. | „ |
| ~ Story of the Maykrs - Urdak |
Is described as "lands beyond the mortal plane" by the Sentinels.
| “ | We would find eternal peace, and our minds would rest easy with the knowledge that those we fought alongside in battle would join us in the lands beyond the mortal plane. | „ |
| ~ Story of the Sentinels - Part II |
The Holt is described as a hub of transcendent technology.
| “ | Urdak is the floating capital city of the Maykr race. A hub of transcendent technology, all of Urdak is powered by a purified form of Argent energy, an energy source that is considered sacred in Maykrian scripture. | „ |
| ~ The Art of DOOM Eternal |
The Holt is said to be utterly inaccessible to lower beings like humans and Sentinel, and up until the events of DOOM Eternal, no lower being has ever set foot in the Holt.
| “ | Urdak is the Maykr's homeworld. It is not accessible to anyone, no human or Sentinel has ever set foot in their dimension. | „ |
| ~ DOOM Eternal |
This is actually pretty huge, as the Sentinels were able to create technology that would give them free access to all of space-time on a three-dimensional level. Thus allowing them to reach other universes, but Urdak remained inaccessible to them despite that.
| “ | After great effort the Priests discovered more than they had ever hoped for. They learned of the true nature of the demonic energy, and how it could strengthen those skilled enough to harness its power. The energy coursing through the malformed bodies of our relentless enemy could be used to end life, or to enhance it. The power to heal, to mend, immortality, knowledge and enlightened faculties beyond our understanding. With the demon's life force in the skilled hands of the Sentinel Priests, and under the righteous gaze of the Khan Maykr, our people would not only rise to victory over the unholy horde that clawed at our walls; we would move to a higher plateau of existence, ushering in a new era of military science and industrial healing. No Sentinel would grow sick, no Maykr would need suffer the Transfiguration that they so feared; all would be risen. None could ever oppose our peaceful ways and threaten our world again. True balance over Hell and its legions, over space and time, in this world and all others - we would dictate the order. United with the Maykrs, we would find eternal peace. | „ |
| ~ Story of the Sentinels - Part VI |
| “ | In the time of King Novik, as the Argenta secured peace and safety through dimensions across time and space, an Outlander he came to us. | „ |
| ~ Story of the Sentinels - Part IV |
| “ | While our generals were consumed with the Unholy War our culture was marked by the beautiful potion the enemy had provided us - the sweet Elixir. It brought us immeasurable capacity and empowered us to reach farther into dimensions once thought to be beyond our grasp. | „ |
| ~ Story of the Sentinels - Part VIII |
The Black Sun Dimension[]
Is directly described as an extra-dimensional space.
| “ | And from the intel, your scientists think they're trying to access "extradimensional space"" | „ |
| ~ William "B.J." Blazkowicz Bio Part 3 |
The Thule, who are entities from this dimension, are described as horrors beyond imagining and the frontiers of human knowledge.
| “ | I fear that this entire wretched place was built by inhuman hands far beyond the frontiers of our knowledge. [...] I have worked in Deathshead's labs and seen horrors beyond imagining. | „ |
| ~ The Wolfenstein Comic |
Structures from this dimension are said to consist of shapes that don't seem right to humans, or even seem possible to them.
| “ | But, Heir Hartmann, can we be certain that this place was built by the Thule? Those shapes... They don't seem right. Don't you all feel it? They should not be! | „ |
| ~ The Wolfenstein Comic |
The Black Sun Dimension is described as a strange alternate plane of reality.
| “ | Deathshead planned to harness the power of the Black Sun Dimension to power his ultimate weapon, but was single-handedly stopped by BJ, who entered this strange alternate plane of reality to destroy the apparatus that would be the doomsday device’s power source. | „ |
| ~ Quake Champions Website |
The Fathom Orb[]
From the outside, the Fathom Orb isn't that big, but on the inside it is huge. It contains black cities of gods made of impossible angles, built on the foundations of broken universes. At minimum, this would mean that it contains several universes.
| “ | The dreams come nightly now. Black cities of impossible angles, built on foundations of broken universes. And within them dwell gods, their eyes turned in our direction. | „ |
| ~ Scalebearer Bio Part 7 |
"Angles" in this sense relate to spatial dimensions, entailing that these cities are fourth-dimensional. This is backed up with the Melem's ability to "Ghost Walk", an ability that is described as "extra-dimensional". For exact details on this ability, it allows the user to temporarily phase into another plane that no one else can see or interact with, with the exception of Visor given his special cybernetic implants.
The Dreamlands[]
The Dreamlands as a whole is described as an extra-dimensional realm.
| “ | But as soon as she touched the Orb she was pulled out of her world and ended up in the Dreamlands, an extradimensional realm where champions from the waking world are trapped in eternal battle. | „ |
The Dreamlands is also said to have bottomless pits, entailing its depths are bottomless.
| “ | Still alive, my friend? Almost done here. After Dr. Howell, the universe opened up. Now not even the world was left. Now I saw worlds, new and terrible. Shall I describe them for you? The vast, terrible landscapes? The fumes stinking out of bottomless pits as these things crawled in and out? An engine of devouring and destroying, the screams constant, the roar of that horror. Non-stop. Sleep vanished, replaced by the constant vision of these places, each an arena of death and terror. But all I could do was see it! Just see! Or so I thought. | „ |
| ~ Anarki Bio Part 8 |
The Dreamlands is built up of several realms; The Arena Eternal, Dimension of the Doomed, Realm of Black Magic, Netherworld, Elder World, and Armagon's Realm. These realms have their own statements of being infinite-sized or extra-dimensional.
| “ | Two decades ago, a lone Marine stepped through the Slipgate and into a world of nightmares. Trapped in these realms ever since, time and delirium have eroded his resolve and even his name. |
„ |
| ~ The Quake Champions Comic |
Firstly, on many occasions these individual realms contain skies full of stars, massive blue stars, and even entire nebulas.
On two occasions, is the Arena Eternal described as an extra-dimensional structure.
| “ | The Arena Eternal is an extradimensional structure created by the Vadrigar and populated with the greatest warriors in all of time and space. | „ |
| ~ Quake III Arena Manual |
| “ | Long ago, the mysterious Vadrigar constructed the Arena Eternal, an extra-dimensional coliseum where they could entertain themselves by watching the chaos and destruction of battle. | „ |
| ~ Quake III Revolution Manual |
The Arena Eternal contains a void with with "endless depths".
| “ | A single mis-step might plunge you into a searing cloud of death fog or the endless depths of the void. | „ |
| ~ Quake III Team Arena Manual |
The gladiators, who fight endlessly in the Arena Eternal, have consistently described it as its own entire universe in the various lines they can leave in the game's text chat.
| “ | Dang! Ain't no one got any manners in this universe? | „ |
| ~ Bitterman |
| “ | All is chaos! [enemy] win? No order to universe. | „ |
| ~ Klesk |
| “ | That's one way to become one with the universe. | „ |
| ~ Random quote that any bot in the game can say |
There is also the Realm of Black Magic, which similarly contains an endless abyss.
| “ | Longest Yard joins the Quake Champions rotation of maps with the September Update. Test your Rocket Jumping skills along precarious floating platforms suspended above an endless, spiraling abyss inspired by the elder god Volkerh! | „ |
| ~ Quake Champions Website |
The last realm I'll be talking about is Armagon's Realm, because all the other realms don't have much on their own and we can assume they're just like these ones. This realm is described as "transdimensional". Under normally circumstances I wouldn't use this to argue a place to be higher-dimensional, since the word is typically used to describe entities that can travel across universes. But given this is describing a place, I think it is fine.
| “ | Now bestowed by grace with Mjolnir, the Hammer of Thunderbolts, and the Horn of Conjuring, you may just be the strongest, most dangerous person on the trans-dimensional continent. You fight for justice to vanquish evil from the land. Watch out Amargon, here the fun begins. | „ |
| ~ The description for the cosmetic, Spoils of Armagon |
The Multiverse[]
Back to DOOM. Before we talk about the entire multiverse, lets first talk about the individual timelines that make it up. In DOOM, it can be argued that individual timelines have several universes contained within them, and this is first heavily implied in the Divinity Machine codex entry.
| “ | Within the infinite conscious-matrix of the all-seeing Maykr God-mind, there exists every potentiality - every predictive variable of possible future timeline - each one known to the Maykr collective with omniscient, inextricable clarity. The God-mind surveys these timelines, watching them form and expand exponentially like fractal patterns in the fabric of existence. Among these infinite possibilities, only one constant appears among them, unchanged by the flowing data of endless variability - that of the prophesied Destroyer - the one who would bring about the destruction of the Maykrs. | „ |
| ~ The Divinity Machine |
The Doom Slayer is a constant across every single timeline within the multiverse, along with him destroying the Maykr race. This would directly mean that each timeline has an Earth Dimension and Holt within it, as those are the origin points of the two parties involved here. So at minimum, we are looking at each timeline containing two universes, but this can be taken even further. In The Ancient Gods: Part I, the Holt is referred to as the "sixth dimension", which given the previous statement and the fact that if you look at the scaling there isn't anything that necessarily points to it being 6-D, we can conclude that the Holt is the sixth universe in a collection of universes. There might be more universes, but we can't confirm that, so for right now each timeline contains up to six universes. Now onto the amount of timelines that exist in the multiverse.
The multiverse of DOOM is based off possibilities, as there is a timeline for each possibility. In total, there are an infinite amount of possibilities, and therefore there exists an infinite amount of timelines. These timelines expand exponentially like fractal patterns, likely due to new possibilities creating new timelines.
| “ | Within the infinite conscious-matrix of the all-seeing Maykr God-mind, there exists every potentiality - every predictive variable of possible future timeline - each one known to the Maykr collective with omniscient, inextricable clarity. The God-mind surveys these timelines, watching them form and expand exponentially like fractal patterns in the fabric of existence. Among these infinite possibilities, only one constant appears among them, unchanged by the flowing data of endless variability - that of the prophesied Destroyer - the one who would bring about the destruction of the Maykrs. | „ |
| ~ The Divinity Machine |
The amount of timelines that exist has also been referred to as various synonyms for infinite, like countless, untold, or a myriad.
| “ | In doing so, the Priests would fulfill their black covenant - for Hell was not alone in its conquest of Earth. The silent Maykrs, arbiters across countless dimensions, shared a pact with Hell, a calculated risk and mutually fortuitous arrangement, for which Earth would serve as the bargaining chip... | „ |
| ~ The Art of DOOM Eternal |
| “ | The Father, the creator of all things, served as the guiding light for the Maykrs of Urdak for untold eons before vanishing from their realm. Ageless and formless, the logic and power of the Father gave birth to untold dimensions and worlds, giving rise to innumerous species and civilizations. | „ |
| ~ The Father |
| “ | Foreseeing that Davoth's rule would ultimately grow to threaten all creation, and that Davoth would someday rise to challenge the Father himself, the creator of all things sealed Jekkad off from the myriad dimensions enfolded in his arms. | „ |
| ~ Book of the Seraphs - Part I |
It is also possible that in DOOM, there is actually a collection of multiverses out there. It is implied in The Art of DOOM Eternal, where the Slayer's fight with demonkind was causing A multiverse to implode, not "the multiverse", "a multiverse", suggesting that there is more than one multiverse out there. Sadly, we don't know how many of these multiverses exist in creation, nor do we know how they relate to each other.
| “ | A dedicated portion of VEGA's simulation matrix observes, records, and analyzes these dimensional abnormalities as VEGA attempts to comprehend their meaning. Processing a veritable kaleidoscope of hyperfluxual phenomena, VEGA observes what very well be the result of a multiverse imploding inward upon itself, where countless battles are fought between the Doom Slayer and demonkind. | „ |
| ~ The Art of DOOM Eternal |
Hell/Jekkad[]
Hell is repeatedly said to be infinite-sized. Containing an endless sea of blood, having bottomless depths, being described as a "Domain of Endless Shadow", etc.
| “ | Hunters of the Sloughlands, the Cacodemon lurks in the bottomless and murky depths of Hell in search of easy prey. An aimless wanderer, the Cacodemon is mostly devoid of cognitive ability, sensory awareness, and otherwise commonly occurring impulses. Driven only by a singular desire to feed, the Cacodemon is likely to appear wherever there is flesh to be consumed, bringing with it an insatiable propensity for hunger. It is said that the Cacodemon bears some resemblance to the cycloptic titans of ancient Hell lore, leading Sentinel scholars to believe that the forgotten titans may yet live on in some disembodied form. | „ |
| ~ Cacodemon |
| “ | For no matter their vile form in the Realm of Burning Light; in the Domain of Endless Shadow, they are magnificent. All will serve. All become legion. | „ |
| ~ The DOOM Eternal Lore Book |
| “ | After being dumped into the endless "Sea of Blood" following your humiliating transformation into a human you swim for an eternity before you finally bump your head against the pier of the keep. | „ |
| ~ Master Levels for DOOM II |
Hell is also repeatedly said to contain an infinite amount of monsters, along with other synonyms. Of course if you contain an endless amount of beings, there must be infinite space.
| “ | More demons massed, hoping to overwhelm the defenders by endless numbers. | „ |
| ~ Final DOOM Manual |
| “ | Despite their low status among the demon ranks and their seemingly endless number, Imps have unique characteristics in battle. | „ |
| ~ UAC REPORT FILE: 8WBD0DT |
| “ | The Damned are seemingly endless in number, their populations growing by the thousands with each rise of the black sun. | „ |
| ~ Lost Soul |
| “ | From the moment you walk through the door until the moment you fire your last shot, you will be fighting countless monsters. | „ |
| ~ Japanese DOOM II Manual |
Hell is unlimited by the boundaries of space, time, or dimension. Hell also creates pathways that explicitly transcend space-time.
| “ | Bound by the forces of chaos, Hell is unlimited by boundaries of space, time, or dimension.
[...] Many worlds have fallen to Hell, each now bound to ruin, connected by pathways of darkness transcending space and time. |
„ |
| ~ The Art of DOOM Eternal |
Demons (I.E. Cyberdemons) are described as evils transcendent to time and space.
| “ | Now, in the only time left - these few seconds before the creatures in the room would be emboldened to swarm and kill Kane and more cannon shots came - Kane raised the Martian Soul Cube. The life force of the entire planet was embedded inside it, a ward against evil that transcended time and space. | „ |
| ~ DOOM 3: Maelstrom |
Resources from Hell, like Argent energy, are described as extra-dimensional.
| “ | There have been speculation that the development of Argent Energy goes beyond traditional science and bleeds into the realm of SEFT (Spiritual Energy Field Theory). Experiments in this fringe science have been heavily criticized in the past as their development often involves "occult" like practices and the channeling of resources from poorly understood extradimensional resources. Coupled with the reports of cultish practices within the UAC, there are deep concerns over how Argent Energy is being produced, and if it is indeed safe. | „ |
| ~ Decoded Entry 002 |
Upon being discovered by the people in DOOM 3, it is described as a new dimensional plane.
| “ | On Project Apollo, the engineers developed a room-sized teleporter in Delta Labs Sector 4. It was capable of teleporting a small-sized team to destinations on this new dimensional plane. The expedition teams began exploring and setting up small research outposts. We could only teleport small equipment with the Delta 4 teleporter, and this condition frustrated Dr. Betruger. Soon after the success of Project Apollo, plans were drawn and work executed on a new facility: Exis Labs. | „ |
| ~ DOOM 3 |
Hell is said to be a superior realm to the Holt.
| “ | Here, the Father experimented until he created Jekkad, a realm superior to Urdak. | „ |
| ~ Book of the Seraphs - Part I |
Last bit of evidence that can support Hell being beyond the multiverse, is that it is beyond the reach of the Maykrs. This is despite the fact that they have technology that allows them to perceive every single timeline in the multiverse with omniscient, inextricable clarity.
| “ | The Khan Maykr gave blessings to our majesty and directed the Priests to delve deeper into the mysteries of the scarlet Elixir from the demonic realm, for she sought only to return balance to our universe. Proper assimilation was required, as Hell stood beyond her influence. | „ |
| ~ The Story of the Sentinels - Part VI |
| “ | Within the infinite conscious-matrix of the all-seeing Maykr God-mind, there exists every potentiality - every predictive variable of possible future timeline - each one known to the Maykr collective with omniscient, inextricable clarity. The God-mind surveys these timelines, watching them form and expand exponentially like fractal patterns in the fabric of existence. Among these infinite possibilities, only one constant appears among them, unchanged by the flowing data of endless variability - that of the prophesied Destroyer - the one who would bring about the destruction of the Maykrs. | „ |
| ~ The Divinity Machine |
All of this is cool, but there is one giant problem to all of this. Technically speaking, none of what I just said necessarily points towards Hell being 5-D, transcendent to the multiverse, over just being a fourth-dimensional construct that merely exists outside it. The wording of the scans provide enough wiggle room for either interpretation to be true, and there isn't anything else that makes either interpretation more valid than the other. Aside from the possibility of Hell being 5-D, it should at least be comparable in size to the multiverse. As said before, Hell is infinitely large, but what I haven't said before is that Hell has a history of absorbing universes into itself. These universes are an insignificant portion to Hell, entailing that Hell has a higher sense of infinity above just an infinite-sized universe.
The Void[]
Lastly, the most mysterious, probably largest, and least important structure in DOOM scaling. Very little is known about the Void, but it does seem to be a space that exists dimensions, as traveling to other dimensions (Like traveling from Hell to Urdak) is described as "passing through the void". It also seems to encompass all the other structures, as they were made inside it, however I have doubts on whether or not we can use that to tier it. We don't know the nature of this Void, like if it is just a giant empty space, or it is literally nothing. If we do assume it is a place and isn't just nothingness, then it would be 5-D to 6-D, depending on how you scale Hell. Too bad no one scales to it.
Debunks[]
Debunk 1 - Outerversal Hell[]
To give a basic run down on what a qualitative superiority is, it is a kind of transcendence where one thing supersedes another thing so greatly that nothing about the lesser thing applies to the higher thing. The qualitatively superior thing is beyond any and all possible extensions of the qualitatively inferior thing, and you cannot build your way up to a qualitative superiority using the qualitatively inferior thing. Outerversal in general is a great example of this, as it is beyond dimensionality entirely and no amount of spatial dimensions can be used to ascend to 1-A. As a result, a truly outerversal structure shouldn't have dimensioned parts of it, which is the aspect we can use to determine if Hell is 1-A.
With that in mind, Hell would not qualify for a qualitative superiority, as there are many physical locations that exist in Hell that can be interacted with by mundane entities like humans. I'm not talking about the various worlds Hell consumes, but places native to Hell like Immora and the Blood Swamps, the most "Hellish" parts of Hell. The physical composition of these places wouldn't be an issue if we argue Hell as 4-D or 5-D, because given how dimensions work, it is entirely possible for lower-dimensional entities to exist in Hell. The only thing that can possibly be used to argue for Hell to still somehow lack dimensionality in it, is this statement of a region of Hell being described as "formless", which is also faulty because we don't know the nature of this formlessness, as we never been to this location and this is the one time it has ever been mentioned. We can't faithfully say that this singular location is formless in any way more than it just being incorporeal. Incorporeal like a ghost, not in some transcendental way.
Debunk 2 - Urdak's Cosmological Position[]
A lot of people think that the Holt and Hell are comparable to each other in existence, like they both exist on the same level beyond the multiverse. This idea comes from this statement, which describes both of them as planes of existence beyond the universe. This is absolutely not true given everything I said above, with Hell being outside the multiverse meanwhile the Holt is absolutely bound by it. The statement itself isn't really even comparing the two in dimensionality, it is just saying that they are both places beyond the Earth Dimension. They both technically exist beyond the universe, but one clearly exceeds it far more.
Similarly, this happened way more years ago but some people still do nowadays, some people would argue that the Holt is actually above Hell with the same scan. Because of the Holt's anchor state, it creates a "higher" and "lower" reality relationship between the two places. For one thing, it doesn't make it clear on which one is the "higher reality", and if we based that on the evidence shown between the two realms, Hell would more than likely be the "higher reality" here. You could also argue that it isn't in a superiority sense, but in a literal sense, like Hell is placed beneath the Holt like how Hell is typically portrayed in religion and other fictional works, hence the popular nickname for it - "The Underworld". This is backed up in the game, as Doomguy had to travel upwards from Hell in order to reach the Holt.
Debunk 3 - Urdak's Inaccessible Statement[]
Others, including myself at one point, have argued that the Holt's inaccessible statement isn't a dimensionality thing, rather it is caused by the protective seal/barrier that the Father set around it, which was what kept the demons out until the Icon of Sin was awakened there. However, there isn't anything to suggest that this barrier keeps everyone out, and if anything it seems to be made only with the demons in mind. This is shown to be the case when Nekroval literally has a portal that Doomguy used to travel from Hell to the Holt, and despite that, the demons were still unable to get through. So this inaccessible statement is still likely referring to the Holt's dimensionality.
Debunk 4 - VSBW Stuff[]
Vs Battles Wiki says a lot of stupid shit on DOOM, but there is one argument in particular that I want to tear down. Some people have argued that Hell's "unlimited by the boundaries of time, space, or dimension" statement is just a fancy way of saying that Hell is infinite "spatially and temporally". This doesn't make any sense, as all universes in DOOM are already infinite-sized, and given these statements of Hell are essentially emphasizing how Hell is unique to every other realm, it would be incredibly strange for the verse to treat Hell specially this way and it should inherently mean something else. As for the "temporally" part, Hell is a timeless realm, as in time just doesn't exist there, so that doesn't work either.
Conclusion[]
- The Universe/Earth Dimension: 2-C
- The Holt/Urdak: 2-C
- The Black Sun Dimension: 2-C
- The Fathom Orb: 2-B (Unknown, but at minimum two)
- The Dreamlands: 2-B (Six to seven universes)
- The Multiverse: 2-A
- Hell/Jekkad: 2-A, possibly Low 1-C (5-D).
- The Void: Unknown, possibly Low 1-C (5-D to 6-D).
Fin.