Aether Story
Timeline
Key events in approximate story order. Uncertain dates are labeled — nothing here invents precision.
- Pre-WWII through WWIIconfirmed
Group 935 experiments with Element 115
Group 935, led by Ludvig Maxis, researches Element 115 — enabling teleportation, wonder weapons, and the reanimation experiments that begin the outbreak.
- WWIIconfirmed
The first playable outbreak (Nacht der Untoten)
Soldiers hold out in an abandoned bunker — the mode’s first survival scenario.
- 1945confirmed
The Der Riese incident sends Samantha into the Aether
Richtofen turns on Maxis at the Der Riese teleporter trials. Samantha is cast into the Aether and reaches the pyramid device on the Moon, becoming the voice that commands the undead — the announcer every classic map answers to.
- 1945 → 1963 and onwardconfirmed
Ultimis is thrown across time
The Wunderwaffe DG-2 overloads the Der Riese teleporter mid-jump and hurls Ultimis to the Kino facility in October 1963. From there the crew rides a lunar lander to Ascension and follows Richtofen’s plan through Shangri-La, tearing temporal rifts across dimensions as they go.
- Cold War eraconfirmed
Richtofen's Grand Scheme (Moon)
Events on Moon dramatically alter the balance of power in the Aether, reshaping the storyline’s direction.
- After 2025confirmed
Maxis and Richtofen race for the towers (Victis)
On the broken Earth left by the Moon rockets, the Victis crew is pulled between two voices: Maxis and Richtofen each need the polarization towers activated in their name. In the accepted ending Maxis wins, opens the gateway to Agartha to reach Samantha, banishes Richtofen into a zombie — and abandons the Earth he wrecked to do it.
- Alternate WWI timelineconfirmed
The Primis crew is assembled (Origins)
A new "first" crew — Primis — is drawn together to begin correcting the fractured multiverse.
- 1939, altered timelineconfirmed
Primis kills the other Richtofen (The Giant)
Primis Richtofen arrives at Der Riese in 1939 and shoots his own earlier self, taking the dead man’s soul for the plan ahead. The paradox splinters the timeline rather than cleaning it — and marks the moment the story starts running in a circle.
- 1940s, altered timelineconfirmed
The quest for the Ultimis souls
Across Der Eisendrache, Zetsubou No Shima and Gorod Krovi, Primis hunts down the older versions of Dempsey, Takeo and Nikolai and grants each a soldier’s death, banking their souls in the Summoning Key. Each map ends with a member of the crew executing his own other self.
- Agartha, outside normal timeconfirmed
Revelations: the souls reach the House
In the fractured space where the Shadowman and the Apothicons wait, Primis traps the Shadowman in the Summoning Key and delivers the children’s souls to Monty’s House — a protected corner of Agartha. Monty, unwilling to erase the crew outright, throws Primis back to the Great War instead.
- Alcatraz pocket dimensionconfirmed
Blood of the Dead: the truth about the cycle
Inside the Warden’s Alcatraz pocket dimension, Primis Richtofen walks knowingly to his own death so the crew can escape with the Kronorium. The book confirms what he suspected: the cycle has run countless times, and breaking it will cost more than anyone has yet paid.
- The saga’s final resetconfirmed
Tag der Toten ends the Aether story
Nikolai’s Grand Scheme comes together at the Siberian lighthouse: the Agarthan Device is completed with the Elemental Shard and the elder god’s blood, the Aether is sealed away, and Nikolai shares a final drink with both crews — poisoned, by his own choice, so that no version of them can start the wheel again. Samantha and Eddie walk out of the collapsing reality into a new one.