- For other uses, see Warden.
- "Folk'll call you a lot of things over the years. Deseter, Zealot, Scourge, Sovereign, Purifyin' Flame - it don't matter none... But if you need a label... You go ahead and call me 'Warden'."
- — The Warden
The Warden, known as The Great Voice from Beyond to those he influenced, is a character and antagonist in the Dark Aether Saga in the Zombies mode. He was initially glimpsed in a cameo at the conclusion of Operation Deadbolt in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and was then a background character in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 before being revealed as the primary antagonist of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. He is a mysterious entity of the Dark Aether who communicates with Pericles Panos throughout Liberty Falls and Reckoning, before making his full debut in Ashes of the Damned.
Biography[]
Origin[]
Before he ventured into the Dark Aether, the Warden was a soldier of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. On January 27th, 1865, the Warden and some of his men held out in the town of Ashwood, gathering an estimated 8,000 cavalry and battery forces for an impeding attack on the Union; however, one Confederate scout warned them that the Union was on their way to Ashwood, so they decided to preemptively strike them before they reached the town. As they rode to meet the Union by the dawn of the next day, the Warden noticed that several of his cavarly's horses had started to die off, leaving many of his men vulnerable to the Union's offense. Not looking to perish in the Union's attack, the Warden ran away from the battlefield and hid from both Union and Confederate soldiers that were looking for deserters.
The Warden discovered soon after that the horses had been poisoned while he and his platoon were in Ashwood by the rich and wealthy people that lived there. Ashwoods elite expected the Confederacy to lose the war and wanted to be in the Union's good grace when they arrived in town. Betrayed, he held a grudge against the wealthy, believing that ideals don't matter, and that "self interest is their only creed."
Entering the Dark Aether[]
Some time later, the Warden arrived in the Dark Aether through unknown means, and felt “confused” when he first arrived. By the time he began contacting Pericles Panos, he had a mastery of the Dark Aether and could change his voice to mimic those of others. It is suspected that the Warden has similar abilities to those of the Forsaken, as he commented on the latter being an "impostor". Elizabeth Grey would later observe that while the Warden was human, he appeared to be a master of the Dark Aether - or at least the particular dimension that housed Ashes of the Damned - whereas Zykov had been corrupted by it, pondering what the difference between the two could be.
At some point, the Warden also gained control over the Shadowsmiths - ancient denizens of the Dark Aether - and used them as tools to help maintain his dominion over the dimension. He also asserted dominance over an Entity, who he kept as a personal servant, though the Entity would secretly plot against him later.
Recruiting Disciples[]
Having achieved dominance over the Dark Aether, the Warden began spreading his influence to the outside world, across multiple timelines. In one timeline, he reached out to Soviet scientist Yuri Zavoyski, manipulating the latter by exploiting his grudge against his superior Anton Gersh. In another timeline, the Warden responded to a ritual meant to summon him, performed by Josiah Shem and his zealous cult, who wished to gain immortality. The Warden, however, responded by seemingly killing the cult members, though Shem's spirit remained trapped in a liminal space for several centuries.
Also in that timeline, shortly after the spread of the Aetherium Flora in Janus Tower 1, the Warden began contacting the Project Janus scientist Pericles Panos, promising him knowledge if he submitted and became his servant. He later showed him a vision of the Dark Aether, revealing to him a world that once was, including a Farm, a Town, a cabin by a lake, a floating Pyramid, a Tower, and a Diner, promising that this world would be restored, as would he.
At one point, Panos began to design a living weapon, based on the knowledge that the Warden bestowed upon him. However, Panos' pet project was not able to make further progress, only remaining as a cyst contained within his lab at Janus Towers.
Using the Shadowsmiths' powers, the Warden also managed to physically pull numerous locations from different timelines into the Dark Aether, trapping their inhabitants in the dimension where he would be able to feed on their essence. One such case was the wasteland that the Warden showed Panos in his vision, while another was the Thurston Planetarium, an observatory from Liberty Falls which housed its owner, Dr. Silas Thurston, as well as members of Shem's cult, from another timeline. The observatory was brought into the Dark Aether and remained in outer space, housed atop a skull-shaped asteroid orbiting Saturn. Following this event, the Warden approached Thurston and the cult, then proceeded to drain the essence of several cult members, and left them to fend against the zombies. Having been inspired by the works of film director Dean Roth, the Warden also manifested one of Roth's creations, the robot O.S.C.A.R., to patrol the observatory, hunting down remnants of the cult.
Liberty Falls Outbreak[]
On February 19th, 1991, a Dark Aether outbreak occurred in the town of Liberty Falls, West Virginia. Panos hid in the Church, which soon became enveloped by the dimension, and he himself was converted into a ghost-like form that was unable to leave. The Warden helped him with the creation of the Simultaneous Dimensional Gateway, which could restore his physical body.
The next day, Alpha Team, a Project Janus rapid response team arrived at the town to contain the outbreak. On orders of Security Chief John Blanchard, they met with Panos, who manipulated them into powering up the SDG, claiming it would end the outbreak. As they worked to do so, Panos spoke with the voice, who was not physically present, promising to fulfill his end of the bargain, much to the suspicion of Blanchard and his team. Eventually, Alpha Team powered up the SDG, allowing Panos to extract their life energy, giving him a physical form but stripping them of theirs, allowing him to leave with Alpha Team trapped in his place.
Ten days later, Panos continued the Warden's bidding at Janus Towers. The Ex-Requiem crew - Grigori Weaver, Elizabeth Grey, Mackenzie Carver, and Maya Aguinaldo - arrived and made contact with Blanchard, who requested their help to hunt him down. After they created the Gorgofex from Panos' designs, he promised to grant them the weapon's full potential if they let him go.
- Siding with Panos
- Siding with Blanchard
If the crew chose to help Panos, they create a life-draining device and drain the essence of Blanchard, converting the weapon into the Gorgofex N.
If the crew chose to help Blanchard, they would disable an Aether elevator just as Panos used it, converting him into an orb-like form that later re-materialized into his ghost form, which would then be absorbed by the Gorgofex to create the Gorgofex C.
Starting the "Party"[]
Regardless of their choices in the conflicts between Blanchard and Panos or Edward Richtofen and S.A.M., the ex-Requiem crew would be sent to the Dark Aether by the Sentinel Artifact, where they met alternative versions of Edward Richtofen, "Tank" Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, and Takeo Masaki, each from a different universe. The Warden greeted them, understanding their confusion just as he once felt. Holding in his hands two cages containing "totem skulls," he whispered "feed" to one of them, causing it to violently drain the crews' life forces, transferring the essences to him. Having fed on their essences, the Warden then left them to face the zombie horde. Later, having seen the crews make it out alive, he complimented their skills and promised them the journey ahead was going to be "fun." The Warden told the eight of them he had other businesses to attend to, but that he would leave his "pets" to play with them. He also entrusted the essence that he absorbed with the totem skulls to the Shadowsmiths under his control; one of which, Veytharion, oversaw the wasteland that the crew was located in at the time.
Unbeknownst to the Warden, the Entity would reach out to the eight tormented souls, and offered to help them regain their life forces, by instructing them in secret, taking advantage of the Warden's lack of presence in the area. She explained to the group that the Warden sought out the group after each of them had an encounter with ancient powers in their own timeline. With the Entity's help, the group confronted Veytharion and defeated him, freeing him from the Warden's control and allowing Maya and Dempsey to regain their life forces.
Punishing the Crews[]
Later, the Entity guided the two crews to the asteroid where the Thurston Observatory was located, where they found and confronted the second Shadowsmith, Caltheris, and also freed her from the Warden's corruption. Just as Nikolai and Grey had their life forces restored, the Warden interrupted their victory, and quickly snatched the Entity from the location, while Caltheris managed to escape. Realizing the crews were more troublesome than he anticipated, the Warden summoned Ravagers to pull them beneath the ground, sending them to an unknown location.
Capturing Ava Jansen[]
In 2021, Ava Jansen went to Liberty Falls to research Project Janus. Due to her, and the town’s connection to the Dark Aether, the dimension began appearing in her hotel room, with the Warden appearing in the mirror and mimicking the voice of her mother Samantha Maxis. He tricked her into reaching out to the mirror, allowing him to pull her into the dimension, leaving her father Sergei Ravenov in distress over her disappearance.
Gallery[]
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III[]
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7[]
Trivia[]
- The Warden, in his previous life, attended university, as noted by Panos in a conversation between them.
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