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| “ | Patient and potent, the Elder Being Shub-Niggurath weaves her dire plans to clear off all life from the Earth, and bring her own foul offspring to our world! For all the dwellers in these nightmare dimensions are her descendants! | „ |
| ~ An interlude describing Shub-Niggurath. |
| “ | Now, you have all four Runes. You sense tremendous invisible forces moving to unseal ancient barriers. Shub-Niggurath had hoped to use the Runes Herself to clear off the Earth, but now instead, you will use them to enter her home and confront her as an avatar of avenging Earth-life. If you defeat her, you will be remembered forever as the savior of the planet. If she conquers, it will be as if you had never been born. | „ |
| ~ The interlude before Ranger's final battle against Shub-Niggurath. |
Shub-Niggurath, also known as Quake, is one of the two overarching antagonists (alongside the Nexus) of the Quake series, appearing as the main antagonist of the 1996 first-person shooter game Quake.
She is the absolute ruler and mother of the monsters that roam the dimensions of Quake, and seeks to spread her reign to other worlds as well. She invaded Earth after humans invented dimensional travel in the hopes of wiping out the planet and destroying the universe, only for her plans to be foiled by her nemesis, Ranger. Later games imply that Shub-Niggurath is also worshipped by the Strogg.
History[]
Shub-Niggurath spent untold eons invading and enslaving the myriad worlds of her fractured dimension. When the humans of Earth invented interdimensional travel with the Slipgate, Shub-Niggurath took notice. She used her power to forcibly connect all of the Slipgates to her own dimension, and sent her demon children through to conquer Earth.
It was 4 AM when the call for reinforcements went out. The only one to make it was a single Slipgate marine, codenamed Ranger. He arrived to find the Slipgate complex overrun, his former brothers-in-arms slaughtered and converted into brainwashed cyborgs in service of a mysterious enemy, at the time called only by the codename Quake.
Just as Shub-Niggurath had used Earth's technology against it, Ranger used Shub-Niggurath's magic against her. He collected the four runes which she used to access Earth's Slipgate network, and used them to open the passageway to Shub-Niggurath's pit. However, he found the old one to be completely invulnerable to all of his weapons. Once again, Ranger used the demon's magic against it. He used a portal, connected to an artifact called the Dire Orb, to teleport into the same space as Shub-Niggurath and instantly destroy her via "telefrag". With this, the interdimensional invasion was stopped, and portals to the dimension of Quake were closed. However, Ranger was lost in the process.
Powers and Abilities[]
Shub-Niggurath has the ability to create life, and is the mother of all demons in the dimension of Quake. She and her children also possess advanced technology, and are capable of quickly and efficiently converting enemy combatants into cyborg soldiers for their own army, which they control through the use of brain implants which give the subject feelings of intense ecstasy whenever they kill another of their own kind.
Shub-Niggurath's only weakness is a lack of active motivity. She relies on her demon spawn to do literally everything for her, and seems to be completely incapable of moving or directly attacking hostiles, though it is possible that she can do these things and simply chooses not to.
As an elder god, Shub-Niggurath is also nigh-invulnerable, at least to conventional weapons. Blood sprays when she is shot or hit, however she doesn't take any actual damage, suggesting that she can be harmed but instantaneously regenerates from anything that doesn't kill her instantly.
Trivia[]
- In the original plan for Quake the four runes, instead of being keys to travel further into the realms of Quake, were going to be "freedom runes" which would allow Ranger to liberate the other old ones - the gods of worlds that Shub-Niggurath had enslaved - and enlist their help in defeating the Witch-Goddess.
- Shub-Niggurath's name was originally going to be Shalrath, a name from John Carmack's Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
- Dimension of the Machine and Call of the Machine, from the 2023 remasters of Quake and Quake II, confirm that Shub-Niggurath's surviving children who remained on Earth are in some way connected to the Strogg, the hostile species who are the antagonists of Quake II and Quake IV. However, it is not clear if the demons created the Strogg, or were merely allied with them.
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 Villains
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Monsters The Strogg | ||