Dropa Stone Disc's: Der Riese, Moon & Shangri-La Easter Eggs[]
So as pretty much all of you know, there are these Dropa Discs which can be found across many of the maps in Zombies. Some are more hidden than others, but the Moon one is the most obvious. Now TheFlame150 reminded me that they were in the maps and so I thought I'd just share a tiny piece of their history with you.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, here are the discs in their 'classic' positions on the maps, however in the moon beta the disc was not there. The first is on the Der Riese loading screen on the bottom right.
Der Riese Dropa Stones
The History Behind these Discs..[]
High in the mountains of BayanKara-Ula, on the boarders of China and Tibet - a team of archeologists were conducting a very detailed routine survey of a series of interlinked caves. Their interests had been excited by the discovery of lines of neatly arranged graves which contained the skeletons of what must have been a strange race of human beings; strange because they had unnaturally spindly bodies and large, overdeveloped heads. At first, it had been thought that the caves had been the home of a hitherto unknown species of ape. But as the leader of the team - the Chinese archeologist, Professor Chi Pu Tei pointed out, "Who ever heard of apes burying each other?" It was while studying the skeletons that one of the team
A Dropa Stone in Shangri-La
stumbled on a large, round stone disk, half buried in the dust on the floor of the cave. The team gathered round the discovery, turning it this way and that. It looked, absurdly, like a kind of 'Stone Age Gramophone record'. There was a hole in the center and a fine, spiral groove radiated to the rim. Closer inspection, however, showed that the groove was, in fact, a continuos spiralling line of closely written characters. The object was a 'record' ... in more ways then one. Only nobody at the time - the year was 1938 - possessed the key to its incredible message. The disc was labeled and filed away among other finds in the area. Even those who knew of its existence knew nothing of its meaning.
Many experts tried to translate the hieroglyphs in the 20 years the disc languished in Peking. They all failed. It was not until another professor - Dr. Tsum Um Nui - broke the code and started to decipher the 'speaking grooves' that the extraordinary implications of the disc were realised. Realised, that is, only by only a select few. The outside world remained in ignorance. For the professor's conclusions on the meaning of the disc were so shattering that they were officially suppressed. The Peking
Dropa Stone in Moon's Bio-Dome
Academy of Pre-History forbade him to publish his findings. Two years later, in 1965, the professor and four of his colleagues were finally given permission to reveal their theory. It appeared under the long- winded but intriguing title, "The Grooved Script concerning Space-ships which, as recorded on the Discs, landed on Earth 12,000 years ago". The 'records' - 716 of the grooved discs were later uncovered in the same caves - told an astonishing story of a 'space probe' by the inhabitants of another planet which came to grief in the Bayan-Kara-Ula mountain range. The strange, spiral script told how the peaceful intentions of the 'aliens' had been misunderstood and how many of them were hunted down and killed by members of the Ham tribe, who lived in the neighbouring caves.
Replica 'Wax' Drop Stones and Skulls
According to Tsum Um Nui, one of the lines of the hieroglyphs read, "The Dropas came down from the clouds in their aircraft. Our men, women and children hid in the caves ten times before sunrise. When at last they understood the sign language of the Dropas, they realised that the newcomers had peaceful intentions...". Another section expressed 'regret' by the Ham tribe that the aliens' spaceship had crash-landed in such a remote and inaccessible mountains and that there had been no way to build a new one to enable Dropas to return to their own planet. In the years since the discovery of the first disc, archeologists and anthropologists had learned more about the isolated Bayan-Kara-Ula area. Much of the information seemed to corroborate the bizarre story recorded on the discs. Legend still preserved in the area spoke of small, gaunt, yellow faced men who 'came from the clouds, long, long ago'. The men had huge, bulging heads and puny bodies and were so ugly and repellent that they were hounded down by local tribesmen on horseback. Strangely, the description of the 'invaders' tallied with the skeletons originally discovered in the caves by Professor Chi Pu Tei. On the walls of the caves themselves archeologists had uncovered crude pictures of the rising Sun, the Moon, unidentifiable stars and the Earth... all joined together by lines of pea-sized dots. Along with the discs, the cave drawings had been dated around 12,000 years old.
The cave area was still inhabited by two semi-troglodyte tribes known as the Hams and the Dropas, themselves extremely odd in appearance. The frail and stunted tribesmen averaged only about five feet in height and were neither typically Chinese nor Tibetan. "Their racial back-ground," said one expert, "is a mystery." Even with the publications of Professor Tsum Um Nui's amazing translation, the story of the 'space discs' was not over. Russian scientists asked to see the discs and several were sent to Moscow for examination. They were scr***d free of rock particles which had stuck to them and then put through chemical analysis. To the surprise of the scientists, they we found to contain large amounts of cobalt and other metallic substances. That was not all. When placed on a special turntable - according to Dr. Vyatcheslav Saizev, who described the experiments in the Soviet magazine Sputnik - they vibrated or 'hummed' in an unusual rhythm as though an electric charge was passing through them. Or as one scientist suggested, "as if they formed some part of an electrical circuit." At some time, they had clearly been exposed to extraordinarily high voltages.
Did the discs actually record an abortive space mission by alien astronauts 12,000 years ago? Nearly all the leading 'space speculators' theorists like Erich von Daniken and Peter Kolosimo believe so. For once one accepts the proposition that aliens may have already have visited earth, then it follows that some of their space-probes must have failed and the astronauts must have been destroyed.
Additionally, some people linked previously to the Vril-Ya, an essentially redundant call however, like the Dropa, the Vril-Ya held their religious ceremonies underground. Behind doors that were deemed 'immovable' by those who had not touched 'grace'. All those who were considered 'sinful' were not allowed into the catacomb areas. The doors were said to be inscribed with various 'warding' creatures, which would ward off evil spirits. If Treyarch had known this then maybe they considered our team of four to be... 'righteous'?
Shangri-La's Closed Door
Shangri-La Opened Door
Actual Dropa Door
Is this all a bit too familiar now?
The Dropa Race... (Suspiciously Alien Like People?)[]
So... The Dropa are 'allegedly' small human beings who have miscoloured skin tones and mis-shapen heads, now the first time I heard this I remember immediately thinking of the Skull on top of Richtofens shine at the top of Shangri-La's stairs. Pictured below on the left.
Richtoven's Shrine
To this very day, there are two tribes of people inhabiting the Bayan-Kara-Ula region who call themselves the Dropa and the Han. Neither tribe can be categorized into any known race - they are not Chinese, nor are they Tibetan. The people of both tribes are pygmy-sized with adults growing no taller than 3'-10" (the smallest measuring 2'-1") and weighing an average of 45 lbs. Their skin is yellowish and they have unusually large heads just like the remains of the aliens found in the caves in 1938. Hair is very sparse on their bodies and their non-Asian eyes are large with pale blue irises.
The Dropa's burial service was very similar to that of Christianity, unlike other local cultures at the time they did not embalm the dead, instead they would bury the dead in the clothes they were wearing. (probably why the zombies in Shangri-La look as they do). They were said to bury the dead in piles (not multiple bodies) but instead feet lower than the head in an almost standing position. Their graves were said to have 'chestnut' shaped graves.
Chestnut Graves
There is even an old Chinese tale which speaks of tiny, yellow-skinned people who came to Earth from the sky, and who were shunned because of their ugliness. Supposedly the following article appeared in Nexus 2/16 with no author's credit given. The text, regarding the mysterious stone disks found in the mountains of Tibet some years back, offers additional information not commonly found in the newspaper account.
Could this be the skull that we see on the left of the Richtofen shrine in Shangri-La? Could Treyarch have actually have got something right? I personally hope that it is, and that they weren't so stupid as to put an alien skull in there...
I would love to see what you guys think about this possibility, I know it's not the first time you may have heard it BUT... This will be the most concise (obviously... it's PLAYtheGAMEhome)
ALTERNATIVES...
ALL OF THE ABOVE IS B******* AND THE DISCS ARE JUST THE BASES OF STATUES, PICTURED BELOW.
Alternative One
Alternative Two
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Sources:
Internet:
http://www.pranalight.de/dropa.htm
Books:
'The Lights of The Dropas' - Penguin Books, 1997
'The Walk in Paradise' - Sirian Publishing