Secret of Eridu is a Wolfenstein 3D mod, courtesy of Team Raycast. Initially announced in July 2007, mainly instigated by doomjedi, the mod's plot builds on a series of books by Zecharia Sitchin which deals with the ancient astronauts theory and Sumerian mythology in general.
The name Eridu was an actual ancient Sumerian city.
Though the mod had a very detailed plot by DoomJedi and related map list (up to 26 maps) spreading across Earth, space/spaceship (including space ufo enemy) and planet of Nibiru (homeworld of Annunaki), had most of the graphics done (including all main enemies and even Bosses), had functioning EXE and even one map ("Golden Mines") finished out planned maplist, numerous things have still not been finished, and while it is not officially canceled it has been put on hold for an amount of time. Screenshots survive and depict an atmosphere rarely explored in any Wolfenstein 3D modification.
Enemies were taken from the Demo version of a shooter "In Pursuit of Greed", those are in lower 64x64 resolution than sprites of the released version and so fit Wolf3D modding natively. Bosses were made from scratch by DoomJedi.
Plot[]
Plot itself is very long but it starts by
450 000 years ago, an advanced alien race called Annunaki, came from their planet Nibiru to Earth in order to get gold to save atmosphere of their home planet and they built gold mines. At first they worked their own "working class" of "lower" annunaki, but after hundreds of years of working at the gold mines, the workers revolted against their masters. The solution was to create genetic hybrid of local ape called Human to work at the gold mines in Abzu.
The leader of the original "lower Annunaki" revolt (against Enlil and higher Annunaks) was named Enki. After revolt's success, and as part of the final agreement between higher and lower Annunaks - revolt's leader Enki was "promoted" to a "higher Annunak" and equal member of the Higher Annunak Council. He also was part of the team developing "humans" to replace them in gold mining.
Galactic law of the GFoR (Galactic Federation of Races) states that a race is entitled to enslave their own species (as it's their internal matter) - but enslaving other race is strictly forbidden.
Ancient race of Nordics (their home planet is Apex) is serving under GFoR as "galactic police" to enforce the GFoR laws on all the Milky Way Galaxy, they have the related technology and legal powers from GFoR council.
So as long as Annunakies used their own species at the gold mines - there was no legal problem. To prevent legal problems with human/ape enslavement in the gold mines Annunakies (together with the rebels) decided to hid the success of the first revolt from Nordics and GFoR and presented it as failed revolt and that it's annunakies who still work at the gold mines. And indeed annunakies were sent for a few days to gold mines to replace humans each time there was a (very rare) visit from GFoR/Nordic representatives. This was part of the agreement that ended the original revolt.
Creating humans was a secret project, but just in case some Annunak genes were inserted to humans to try to present them as subrace of Annunaks in case they are discovered. As another preventive measure - Annunaks bribed with their "Earth gold" nearby Nordic "police" patrols and stations in the area of the Solar system - and so those "ignored" any evidence of human existence.
But only local Nordic patrols were bribed, main Nordic personnel and officials across the Galaxy are unbribed as it was impossible. And also Annunaks didn't have enough gold and connections to bribe them all. But as bigger officials almost fully depended on local patrol reports - things went well for a long time. The only time unbribed galaxy-scale GFoR/Nordic officials visit Earth is once in 100 Earth years and those were fulled by local patrols and replacing humans with lower annunaks at gold mines.
Other lower Annunaks remained living on Earth in good conditions, beside the rare "replacing of humans" in GFoR visits. With time, the story of the original revolt became more and more legendary (with some false fancy details added over time to the "revolt epic/myth"), and it's "legendary" leader Enki started to be considered as holy "Savior" of it's people "lower Annunaks", bringing them from "gold slavery" to freedom with use of some special holy magic powers.
So slowly a religion/"Cult of Enki" was born, with Annunaks building temples and such cult structures to work their Savior and religion. In the main temple their even was a special altar with a communication device in a special private room where Annunaki high priest would contact Enki directly at his place on the High Council. Then he'll tell other cultists the Word of the Enki, the Savior. High priest knew truth about Enki being a regular Annunak...but lied to other cultists to preserve their cult, power and status.
Enki himself was flattered by the cult, but didn't encourage it.
{ Long and detailed plot continues but it's enough for a wiki page }
Bosses[]
- Sin - as Guardian of the Oracle stone
- Marduk - as Keeper of the records
- Enlil - as medical Scientist, secretly helping Reptile's genetic experiments
- Shamash - as Head of Cippar spaceport
- Anu - as head of Igigi space defence for Earth.
- Anshar - as head of Niburuan spaceport Nibru-ki
- Abzu - as King of Nibiru
Enemies[]
Vicious!
- Imp - small brown creatures, result of failed genetic experiments
- Nordic - members of Solar System patrol police, tall and white skinned
- Reptile - green species feeding from the vibrations of fear, depression and despair.
- Annunaki Guard
- Nibiruan beasts
- Shem and MU spaceships
New enemy; the plot deals with humanity enslaved by an alien race.
Locations[]
Earth[]
- Gold Mines
- Forest
- Temple of Enki
- Baalbek space landing spaceport
- Caves of the Ancient in the city of Eridu
- City of Nippur
- Cippar spaceport
Spaceship in space[]
Nibiru planet[]
- Nibiruan spaceport
Weapons[]
- Spear
- Bow
- Nordic Gun
- Nibiruan Beast gun
- Throwing axe
Project revival attempt[]
In 2023 there was an attempt by Doomjedi and Linuxwolf to secretly resurrect the project (based on Green Arrow code) but was eventually abandoned due to lack of mapping availability from Ronwolf1705.
During that time - VSVAP was updated and very cool skybox-based animated backgrounds were hand drawn by Doomjedi - for Earth and Nibiru, and coded by Linuxwolf. THere was also neat space skybox for near Earth and one for deep space.