Or; How I learned I was encoded with cold war history

[and I'm kinda nervous to share this bc NKVD era is like, my husband's expertise lol]

Anyway what has been bothering me for years at this point is the Soviets under the mall.

[And Dr Owens because i still can't get a read on him but after i discovered he LOOKS like Markus Wolf - I just don' t know]

Here's what I am willing to bet: Everything, or close to everything we have seen is taking place in NKVD Special Camp No. 3

I have pulled this from wikipedia:

The Soviet occupation authorities did not admit to the existence of the camps until the Western press led the Soviet Union to respond with a moderate propaganda campaign of their own admitting and defending the camps' existence.[4] No inmates were released before 1948.[2] On January 6, 1950, the camps were handed over to the East German government,[2] who tried the remaining detainees.[2] Officially, 157,837 people were detained, including 122,671 Germans and 35,166 citizens of other nations, at least 43,035 of whom did not survive.[2] The actual number of German prisoners was about 30,000 higher.[5]

Hohenschönhausen Held this camp within its locality and it would eventually be renamed Stasi-Arbeitslager X.

X.

Also from wikipedia:

The camp was closed and prisoners relocated to other camps in October 1946.[2]

After the closing of Special Camp No. 3, the Hohenschönhausen compound served as a Soviet prison during the winter of 1946–1947.

The former cafeteria was converted to the underground prison area ("submarine") by prison labour.

[there's been many allusions to ASW, submarines, etc. even outside the show the tudum puzzles mention submarine]

Here you weren't a name, you were your room number.

More from wiki

The new building included 200 prison cells and interrogation rooms. After the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the prison was primarily used to house those who wished or attempted to leave East Germany, although political prisoners were also held there. The prison was used until die Wende in 1989 and officially closed on 3 October 1990.[5]

The main prison also included a hospital wing, built in the 1950s and expanded in 1972. The hospital treated prisoners from all three Berlin prisons and sometimes from regional Stasi prisons as well. The hospital had up to 28 beds (in cells), an X-ray ward, treatment, operating rooms, a morgue, and outdoor exercise cells (called "tiger cages" by prisoners). In 1989, shortly before its closure, the hospital was run by Dr. Herbert Vogel with 28 full-time Stasi staff.[6]

FWIW - There was a similar camp run by the NKVD in the GULAG system in KAMCHATKA.

Because of the proximity to Berlin/Teufelsberg, I am thinking something odd is still happening in the vein of cybersecurity or SIGINT cyber teams.

edited again to add: I think this means whoever noticed Henry flying horizontally is correct and means that the wormhole or abyss is somehow reaching from The prison into the lab. Unclear if Owens is aware of this.

What's fascinating about this is we really haven't gotten stories from over The Wall like this during that era.

Anyway the NKVD were madmen. Now couple that with Nazis who somehow escaped prosecution and brought the NKVD their toolkit. Or, just hardline, high up German-Communists.

If this information is correct it may help the CG folks with narrowing the lense a bit.

If this is Prison X this explains why the elevator scenes and stair wells in the mall and Kamchatka look the same.

Also, this is a reach- but the gates in MAC Z and whatever gate you can see at Murray's through his window look like the gates that I saw in a documentary about East Germany's intelligence apparatus, I'll see if I can find photos. They are black and slanted.

edited to add: this Dr Strangelove looking m-fr

I think he was added to tell us THESE ARE EAST GERMANS

This ALSO MEANS. dustin's line to Steve about the hive mind wanting a master race and space nazis shouldn't be dismissed.

In addition the soviets under the mall in kamchatka come off as cartoony and I know that angered people. But it seems like whatever AI this is - was trained on media because in red october Skarsgard is one of those cartoon villains with the Soviets. Someone un able to change vs Ramius

Peter

The Wolf

Peter

The [Markus] Wolf

They completely altered the scene where Dr. Brenner gets attacked too😭

I made an edit where I play each version separate and then play them in sync with one another, and then again in slow-mo. The VHS Edition actually prolonged the scene and I had to cut part of it in the beginning to make it sync up properly‼ Just FYI.

Please note The 1st/top clip is always the standard/original version and the 2nd/bottom clip is always the VHS Edition version. I had to put the video in 2:3 Portrait mode to fit the clips properly.

(I tried to lower the volume on the clips since Tumblr loves to jump scare you with loud audio)

but please watch this and tell me what you see. Because I see a difference in both versions. In the original release, the demo moves in to the frame slanted and it's back is completely curved & it also moves more quickly.

or even in a real life job.

Historically speaking thingscrun smoother when intelligence agencies don't hoard info [see also 911 lol] but lessons are hard. anywho wish more of the GA knew about all this info.

Lonnie is homophobic enough to think that Will’s wish to see Mike is stupid. Will loves Mike enough to be stupid and break all the rules just to see him.

if you don’t get what Lonnie and Will have to do with this scene, read: [ corruptiongate: bad parent jim hopper ]

That’s the only way I can perceive El’s jealousy plotline along with Mike’s suddenly being into her in s2 after knowing her for a couple of days when she barely had any social skills. This IS what could explain it, stopping the far-fetchedness of it all.

Bc I'm thinking of Brenner's VHS tapes and s4 and the Nina Project

and

when Jane is upset and yells into the camera, it. It shows up on Brenner's tape, doesn't it? Lile, he sees her? I remember it being in black and white.

HOW is he seeing what she's doing IN HER HEAD through the VHS dated surveillance he inserted into the TV???? How?

There's a concept called "Dead Reckoning" which is mainly used in ships and submarines when plotting a course that is familiar, the process is automated. You can apply this to computing as well.

To ask one question sometimes we need to ask more. In this situation I would ask, what is a memory or how is this being stored? In Eleven's case the memory might be an older version of her programing or of the program she's in.

Henry would be like a maniac Clippy [from Word -- he was an ai helper] as an aside: lol please someone draw this

So where or how is it being stored. Well depending on the era anything from encrypted NSA reel to reel, floppy disks CDs, etc. Today would maybe be cloud services.

The next questions we get to what is hawkins or what is Eleven. We don't know. My best guess is El and everything we see was built off of or for the VENONA program which has roots in ww2/Turing/The Bombe. VECNA could be a virus meant to infect VENONA. She may have been created to protect VENONA.

Hawkins could be a couple different things. A therapy program, something like westworld, or even a cryptologic program/war game disguised as something else within a series of vacuum tubes within cryptologic machines. How did El escape NINA? Probably a backdoor that wasn't in the original "dead reckoning" of the program.

Widow's Bay did an excellent job showing the audience that under the facade was something else Entirely -- I suspect we'll get the same on stranger things eventually

if you or anyone else wants more info let me know I'll post some stuff I wrote.

scramble for my step sisters bridal shower way ahead of everyone. my grandma says, well she's always been like that, so,good at those and crosswords. ffwd ten years later i realize dad was a cryptologist and would do the crosswords every Sunday with grandpa for a reason

"they both crave the word puzzles" yes but dad's job was that except in russian lol

the past 20 years but really the past 5 have been like this for me, sudden realizations with not many clues that hit me like a wall lmao

It’s a theory based on cues hinting that m11 is byler in s3, the idea of which is the show being built upon corrupted memories. There are more significant posts revealing what exactly was altered (links will be below), but the ones based on El’s character, explaining cues around her, are its base.

Have you ever felt that Hopper yelling at El the way hatred for him feels with the whole body is in the heaviest way ooc after everything he’s done by this time? That’s because it’s not Hopper.

If you know corruptiongate, then you probably know how suspicious El’s room in s3 m11 scenes is. T85 didn’t make it ‘easier’, turning orange objects (as if orange being Vecna’s colour wasn’t enough) into pink and placing the bird poster in two rooms at once (in part 1 I theorised what it can mean, but I’d genuinely recommend to keep up with all three main posts).

What stood out for me this time is that s2 room looks nothing like s3 room (as if s3 room is not real at all): the walls are not green, the curtains are not yellow, and even El’s bedside table is different.

So there's this reoccurring motif where Hopper's attempted suicide is foreshadowed by him eating beef. Yes, I'm serious.

This is first established in S3 and the best symbol of it is Dustin's Roast Beef shirt.

The most noticeable thing about this shirt is that it's bright orange. I think it's important to remember that at this point in S3 orange was primarily used for two things: Hopper's curse and Kali's illusions. These then combined to indicate Vecna's curse/illusions.

Since there are a lot of newer theorists since 5x08, and our whole understanding of the show has been re-contextualised, we've often been working backwards. One of the side effects is that we have a tendency to disregard chronology when it comes to symbols. I do this all the time myself so I'm not saying this from a high horse, but I think without considering the timeline of a symbol we lose dimension from its meaning.

I'm not saying the writers did not know what they would come to represent when they first created the symbols, but rather that they might have intended their meaning to unfurl rather than already be fully formed the first time we see them.

Anything to do with Hopper's curse is a really great example of this. The tiger, the colour orange, the cave analogy, the 'curse', the black hole, are all introduced first to explore Hopper dealing with the loss of Sara.

The tiger and the cave analogy both evolve during S3 to apply more broadly but the colour orange is still overwhelmingly Hopper's until S4.

Remember that at this point we were still theorising about why Hopper might be feeling so guilty over Sarah's death. We haven't yet been told about Hopper's experience in Vietnam so all the orange everywhere is still foreshadowing the Agent Orange reveal in S4.

Orange in S3 is serving a specific purpose to a specific character because of its relevance to a specific plot-point. Once the attached plot-point has been revealed then it can be peeled back, expanded upon, create parallels, imply things for other characters and thus...

...the colour orange gains evolved meaning in seasons 4 and 5.

This is why it is so jarring to see Dustin in S3, whose t-shirts typically foreshadow the fate of other characters (Parachute S1 -> El catching Mike's fall, Byte S4 -> Steve and Eddie bitten by bats, etc), wearing this bright orange for the majority of the season.

It's out of place.

What is even weirder is that it has the words 'Roast Beef' on it. The only other place we see beef is when Hopper buys and eats it from 7-11.

How much they emphasise this beef stick is honestly crazy. It gets a dedicated shot of Hopper taking a bite and then he proceeds to do the WHOLE scene with it hanging out of his mouth.

It's in shot for such a suspiciously long time that it feels like the writers are hitting you over the head with the fact it's of symbolic importance.

I also think this is another symbol amongst a mountain (spinning records, "she's got you", sunglasses, uncontrollable anger, eating cereal of Mike (frog) specifically, sweating, head trauma, etc.) that suggests Hopper was flayed by S3. This is because the flayed are also symbolised by meat in S3 and this seems to be when this symbol is established clearly for Hopper, but I would have to double check on a rewatch. I agree with the theory that the spores flay you and Hopper inhaled A BUNCH in s2. The government tell him he's all clear but they said exactly the same about the soil and Will and we all know how that turned out.

So we've got the orange colour, we have the association with beef, but then we also have the pun. The shirt is a cow on vacation with the text 'roast beef'.

So, Hopper is beef (presumably because of the slang terms 'beefy' or a 'beefcake'? which means stocky, strong, muscly or fat and aligns with his repeated description by other characters).

He gets roasted here.

But, like the pun on Dustin's shirt, he really gets sent on 'holiday'. To Russia. A considerably more miserable fate than Dustin's shirt suggests. Though I guess the cow was gonna die.

Dustin is also involved a couple of other times in S3 with foreshadowing Hopper's fate. Most obviously when he straight up says "he's going to die" about Hopper.

In S5 we get the return of the beef and once again they make a big deal of it. They have another whole scene about it.

El asks Hopper for something to refuel her battery and Hop eats... beef jerky.

Then, what does Hopper try to do in 5x04? Blow himself up again. A return of the beef alongside the return of Hopper self-sacrificing for El.

There's a lot wrong with the Enzos meal but Hopper eating a Filet Special? Bad. That's usually beef.

And, like father like daughter, what does Hopper inspire El to eat as well? Beef.

AND THEN SHE 'KILLS' HERSELF.

Bonus: little return of the orange plaid symbol which connected scenes to do with Hopper's curse and the loss of his daughters because when Kali encourages El to kill herself she is wearing orange plaid. To Hopper what she represents is the curse taking his daughter again. Like, look at the shot of Kali touching Sara's hairband.

But my absolute favourite instance of the beef symbol is in 4x01 (still not beating the 'Ems' favourite episode' allegations) because, when Joyce gets evidence that Hopper could still be alive, what is she wearing? COW GLOVES.

Get it? Because he's not beef any more? He's alive! Fully a cow. I'm sorry but is that not hilarious? This show is so UNSERIOUS at times.

Unfortunately, this symbol might have originated from the grim reality of the high suicide rates amongst farmers. When looking into some news articles it seems dairy farmers were once believed to have the highest suicide rate of any occupation. However, this evidence has since been retracted. There's a lot of discussion of 'cowboy up' culture and Cowboy Up seems to be a suicide prevention charity.

Some other stuff that might be relevant

And the El and Hopper as cows thing might also connect to the weird dairy/butter thing?

But basically there's attention drawn to AA batteries.

And that they need "Eight" (that seems pretty self explanatory).

And we see the Grade AA of butter a few times.

^ There's other examples if I remember correctly but I think I read about it in a pre-s5 post and I unfortunately can remember very little of it. I don't remember a clear conclusion.

And this is the dialogue from the S5 beef jerky scene. El is eating the beef to refill her battery. Are they saying butter would be better? Lol. (how do cows power their electronics? butteries lmao). Anyway, I think that's probably something to be investigated some other day.

There's also other references to cows in S3. I'm not going to go into all of them out of laziness but there is a cattle prod which does seem to be foreshadowing Hopper's fate as well. They use one to knock out or kill this scientist and the electricity is very much like the arcs coming off of the particle accelerator when it explodes.

Joyce then uses a cattle prod to save Hopper in s4 in a nice little full circle moment that has a few different parallels to them just before Hopper's sacrifice. This is presented as a reversal of what happened in S3.

And Hopper being a cow has wider implications as we get this misidentifying a dog as a cow moment at the start of s4 which I theorised is about how Hopper's Kamchatka storyline is a proxy for Mike's Camazotz storyline.

I love all these details!

Anyway, more references to cows in 2x07.

Cows to milk, hm...

The farm, aka the lab?

Dottie is the one who keeps mentioning cows, and Kali says that she just left her home, like El. She's like El

Little kids and lullabies

Then Dottie (who is like El) mentions the farmer, old MacDonald, aka Brenner, and the cow on his farm

Back to Hopper. I too believe that there's more to his curse. We still don't know the truth about what happened to him and imo, the real connection between him, the Byers, the Wheelers and the lab.

There's a scene in particular that seems to connect him to Terry (the other one is when Becky says twice that he and Terry would've gotten along).

In the lab, they electrocute him, after he says that he knows that the lab does experiments on kidnapped kids, and turn their parents' brain into mush.

My interpretation of the moment where Hopper nearly blows them both up with the car is that it's supposed to foreshadow the explosion at the end of the season which is why I'm personally skeptical that the roast beef shirt is foreshadowing that moment.

But those moments in 2x07 really confirm to me that Hopper is a cow. In all these examples the home they're referring to is Hopper. He is her parental figure at that point and Kali says similar stuff to El about going back to her policeman. I do agree that this is to do with the lab and I think the cow connection really just further supports that.

If someone is 'dotty' they're 'crazy' or 'mad', and this obviously also links to the Wizard of Oz stuff (dorothy), but @stellargrav06 in the comments reminded me about Mad Cow Disease. I don't think it's a coincidence that Dottie's name means 'mad' and she keeps mentioning the cows. Mad Cow Disease 'turns the brain to mush' and so I think Hopper is this cow that has had his brain turned to mush, probably by Brenner like you're suggesting.

The brain ends up with holes like a sponge.

Humans can get vCJD from eating tainted meat (Hopper and El eating the beef) and this is also fatal. Hopper matches the early symptoms of vCJD and I think you could make a case for some of the later symptoms too. Memory loss?

I do think animal symbols in the show often have multiple meanings and are context specific so I don't think Hopper being the cow stops Joyce from also being a cow, nor do I think it stops Hopper from also being a pig. I think El eating the roast beef and Sara being referred to as roast princess suggests that they are important to this cow thing. I definitely think roast beef thing suggests more to Hoppers curse and is definitely to do with parenthood and the lab (plus vCJD can also be genetic). Like, if you do take the roast beef as foreshadowing the self-sacrifices then it connects to whatever's happening with Hoppers' daughters really consistently.

Roast princess scene -> Hopper is basically saying he is the cause of Sara's death. He's the monster eating her.

Dottie makes the cow symbolism parental.

Hopper sacrifices himself because of the guilt over his daughters.

Joyce finds out Hopper is alive from a doll that might be 'pregnant with an explosive'.

Hopper sacrifices himself because of the guilt over his daughters again

El kills herself, mimicking Hopper and fulfilling Hopper's belief that his curse endangers his daughters.

+ Brenner draws a cow and is turning parents' brains to mush. Even the cattle prods and the electricity from the key links to them using electrocution to do so. It also reminds me of cattle bolt guns. I think the cow thing is a major support of the theory Hopper is just like Terry.

The book I saw at the store that caught me dead in my tracks:

The imagery of the cow over the red ➕ the shape of the lab

AAAAAAAAND another version of the cover

And just for fun, here’s one of their blog posts about how they gave Ronald Reagan Alzheimer’s

episode 3 is incomplete because i just started watching the vhs version where i stopped my rewatch of the regular version. i'm probably gonna continue this for the other episodes over the weekend :)

timestamps (only minute) in brackets

episode 3 (incomplete!)

(21) el looking at pics of barb | (45) joyce talking to will through the lights

episode 4

(4) hop leaving the byers' house after telling joyce about will's body | (6) mike looking at will's art after learning about his 'death' | (9) mike skipping school

(14) honorable mention: this weird glitch after nancy gets mad at steve for caring more about his parents finding out about the party than barb | (16) dustin after lucas says that will is dead | (27) first exploration of the UD

(31) troy trying to get back to mike (right before el makes him pee himself) | (41) el exhausted after contacting will

episode 5

(1) hop breaking into the lab but not being able to open a door | (5) kids discussing if/how el led them to will | (7) hop seeing the gate

(10) lonnie telling jonathan to behave at the funeral | (13) flashback to before will was missing | (18) the lab discovering that el used the radio

(21) informing hop about two more residents going missing | (30) jonathan talking about his parents | (33) el manipulating their compasses

(37) after hop was bugged | (41) when lucas realizes el misled them | (50) nancy in the UD seeing the demogorgon for the first time

since i don't have time to look further into it: we recently talked about the cut-up method where you scramble and rearrange pieces of text. i wonder if we need to rearrange the stills (or clips) from the white line scenes, arranging them according to the position of the white line? (top to bottom)