Oskar Strauss

Doctor Oskar Strauss is a character featured in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies mode. Once a former member of the atomic research division of Projekt Endstation, Strauss is now part of Requiem as their Head of Energy Research, seeking to find new ways to utilize Aetherium for Requiem to combat Omega Group and the undead forces unleashed by their actions.
Strauss is mentioned briefly in intel for Call of Duty: Warzone and makes a cameo appearance in Call of Duty: Vanguard Zombies mode, in a photograph with Ulrich Vogel on the intro cinematic for Der Anfang. He is also mentioned in the Vanguard version of Shi No Numa as one of the people who developed the Wunderwaffe DG-2. Strauss makes a cameo appearance in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Zombies, in several cutscenes for Operation Deadbolt.
==Biography==
===World War II ===
Little is known about Strauss' early life, only that he was born on May 19th, 1918 in Germany. After finishing university in 1943, Strauss was recruited by the , where he was promised an opportunity to explore a new frontier of atomic research with Projekt Endstation where he became the assistant of Ulrich Vogel. Prior to the incident of March 1944, Strauss realized that Endstation was working on developing nuclear weapons for the Third Reich, and promptly requested a reassignment to another project; to Strauss' dismay, he found himself transferred to Friedrich Steiner's Nova 6 program. Strauss' work at Endstation led Vogel to develop the Wunderwaffe DG-2 for the SS unit Die Wahrheit. After the end of World War II, Strauss defected to the United States during . He would then find work under .
===Requiem===
====Recruitment====
On November 5th, 1983, the clandestine Requiem organization was created by the CIA in response to the formation of several dimensional breaches caused by Omega Group's reactivation of the cyclotron at Projekt Endstation, which previously opened the first breach to the Dark Aether shortly after Strauss' departure. Despite his previous history, Strauss was selected to become the Head of Requiem's Energy Research department, where he was tasked with leading studies of new discoveries in the Outbreak Zones forming around the world to determine military and scientific applications.
====Operation Cerberus====
On November 13th, Requiem launch Operation Cerberus at the abandoned Projekt Endstation facility to deactivate the ongoing dimensional breach originating from the facility in an attempt to quell the other worldwide breaches. If present on the comms, Strauss will provide brief mentions of his history working at the facility and the work Projekt Endstation managed to achieve with the dimensional breach they had. Through Requiem radio transmissions, Strauss will introduce himself to the Requiem strike team and reveal the aim of his work: to study Aetherium and learn the means of utilizing it for Requiem. At the behest of colleague Mackenzie Carver, one of Strauss' earliest works with Aetherium yielded the creation of Weaponized Aetherium Neutralizer Devices for Requiem's strike team to utilize in combat.
====Operation Lost Property ====
In the months following Operation Cerberus, Requiem had yet to catch up to Omega Group's research of Aetherium and the Dark Aether. In June 1984, Requiem learned from Omega Group double agent Sergei Ravenov that Requiem's agent Samantha Maxis was captured and being held at Outpost 25, the primary center of Omega Group's research. Strauss was present in a meeting between himself, Carver, Elizabeth Grey and Grigori Weaver as they discussed the opportunity of a mission at Outpost 25 to recover any Omega Group research and rescue Maxis from William Peck, the head of Outpost 25. On June 15th, Operation Lost Property is launched by Requiem's strike team, proving to be massively successful as they managed to rescue Maxis and leave the site with critical information of Omega Group's work with Aetherium.
====Operation Threshold====
To further close the gap in the Aetherium Arms Race between themselves and Omega Group, Requiem launch Operation Threshold, an ongoing mission in the world's largest Outbreak Zone at the Ural Mountains to perform various military and scientific tasks to surpass Omega Group's work in Aetherium research and weapon development. During the operation, Strauss tasked Requiem strike teams to harvest Aetherium from the site and transport it to him via rocket, and experiment with Essence Conversion Modules to manipulate essence into objects from the Dark Aether. 
On December 14th, the Requiem strike team was tricked by Hugo Jager into being captured by Colonel Lev Kravchenko. After this occurred, Grey met with Strauss to ask him any information he knew about the strike team's status, and to see where he was at regarding his research with the Aetherium Neutralizer. Strauss stated there were benefits to entering and exiting the Dark Aether safely, but made a comparison to those residing within the other dimension, asking Grey if she thought that they had harnessed similar powers, and if they were on their way. She then left, sarcastically calling him a "bag of laughs" and went to bed.
====The Forsaken Threat====
After the incursion in Berlin, the Ural Mountains Outbreak Zone began to increase it's terraforming process, as well as Outbreak Zones appearing in Algeria and the North Atlantic Ocean, with Requiem's strike-team being deployed to take care of it. He, along with the rest of Requiem's Senior Staff, held a meeting and agreed to free Kazimir Zykov from the Dark Aether, under the assumption he could help stop the Forsaken. Afterwards, he met with Carver where the two set aside their differences in hopes they could stop the Forsaken together. 
====Operation First Domino====
On May 12th, Requiem was authorized to proceed with Operation First Domino, a direct response to Omega's Operatsiya Izbavitel, with all the departments working together on this operation aimed to secure Zykov and take him into custody before Omega. The same day, Strauss recorded a personal log talking about both the possible end of his Aetherium research, and the end of the world at the hands of the Forsaken. He then recalled one Professor Gabriel Krafft, who, during World War II, had faced a similar situation to him when attempting to stop a great calamity. He compared himself to the Professor, hoping that he could make the right decision as he had.
Strauss was witness to the Forsaken's escape from the Dark Aether, and Requiem's final battle against the Elder God. After the Forsaken was captured by the Requiem strike-team (thanks to the sacrifice of Samantha Maxis), the Director of Requiem ordered the Senior Staff to be arrested by military police. While being detained by military police, he did not go quietly - as his final moments at Requiem saw him kicking and yelling, attempting to break free as he was dragged away from his laboratory.
====Terminus====
For the next six years, Strauss and the rest of the Requiem staff were imprisoned in Terminus Island, a remote research facility in the Philippines Sea, where they were subject to various forms of torture, both physical and psychological. On February 18th, 1991, Strauss and the others were broken free by Peck, who was working with smuggler Maya Aguinaldo to infiltrate the island. Peck proposed an alliance with Requiem to eliminate Richtofen, but before they could escape, a dimensional breach occurred, forcing Weaver, Grey, and Carver to team up with Maya to fend off the zombies, while Peck and Strauss barricaded themselves in the command post in order to locate Richtofen.
After restoring power to the island, the team located Maya's brother, Nathan, who had been horrifically mutated as a result of Revati Modi's experiments. After killing Nathan, the team reactivated the Synaptic Algorithm Module, or S.A.M., and learned that it was designed by Richtofen based on Maxis' personality. S.A.M. assisted the team in retrieving Modi's submarine, but they instead had to deal with Patient 13, another one of Modi's experiments that roamed the sea. After destroying Patient 13, Strauss and Peck joined the team as they learned from S.A.M. about Richtofen's latest obsession: the Sentinel Artifact, which was speculated to be located in Avalon. Strauss, hearing about the artifact and its association with Prima Materia, immediately dismissed it due to his beliefs in science over alchemy, but Grey convinced him to take a chance. The team then set Avalon as their next destination.
====Death====
At some point during or after 1996, Strauss and the Requiem crew died as a result of excessive Aetherium exposure. Together with Weaver, Grey, and Carver, their corpses would remain hidden underneath a building in Zaravan, Urzikstan, until 2021, when the terrorist Victor Zakhaev unearthed the room, in search of Aetherium. Strauss' data regarding an Aetherium Neutralizer was first rediscovered by Terminus Outcomes, and later stolen by Operation Deadbolt for Ava Jansen's use.
==Appearances==
DieMaschine New Selection Screen BOCW.png|Die Maschine
FirebaseZ Promo BOCW.jpg|Firebase Z
Outbreak SelectionScreen BOCW.png|Outbreak
Forsaken Selection Screen BOCW.png|Forsaken
DerAnfang LoadingScreen CODV.jpg|Der Anfang
OperationDeadbolt LoadingScreen MWIII.png|Operation Deadbolt
Terminus AARSummary Background BO6.png|Terminus
CitadelleDesMorts LobbyScreen BO6.jpg|Citadelle des Morts
==Gallery==
===Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War===
Strauss dragged out Forsaken BOCW.png|Strauss being arrested by the military police.
===Call of Duty: Vanguard===
UlrichVogelOskarStrauss Endstation Photograph ZombiesFirstLookTrailer CODV.png|Strauss with Ulrich Vogel at Endstation
===Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III===
Oskar Strauss TopView Zombies Cinematic MWIII.png|Ravenov and Ava Jansen looking over Strauss' work.
===Call of Duty: Black Ops 6===
OskarStrauss HUD Terminus Zombies BO6.png|HUD icon for Strauss during Terminus.
OskarStrauss HUD CitadelleDesMorts Zombies BO6.png|HUD icon for Strauss during Citadelle des Morts.
==Trivia==
===Call of Duty: Vanguard===
*In the opening cutscene of Der Anfang, in his photograph, Strauss' character model can be seen wearing Peck's ID badge with a different photo. This probably is a developer oversight.
==References==
Category:Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Zombies Characters
Category:Call of Duty: Warzone Characters
Category:Call of Duty: Vanguard Zombies Characters
Category:Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Zombies Characters
Category: Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies Characters