📚marathon-lore-discussion

[simple garden]

Lmao I’m so rude 😵‍💫

[polar vale]

They gave me weird fuckin responses in new noise as well

[simple garden]

Dog all you emit is weird response

[sterile pasture]

Average no role intellect

[simple garden]

Fei their name implies a pimp - not the worker

[simple garden]

‘No role intellect’ LMAO you got me rollin’ from that one.

[polar vale]

Just odd things all around ain't it...

[neon root]

I need a cake recipe

[cosmic wagon]

ooh where?

[inner sleet]

Man read the hidden webpage one too many times and forgot to take his meds

[inner sleet]

What is your favorite ai movie

[cosmic wagon]

That’s sort of the aesthetic of the

[simple garden]

Damn. Good question, we’ll get back on that

[cosmic wagon]

I personally am assuming, because Perimeter explicitly states that the colony border was semi-mobile, that the colonists were over-extending themselves. The announcer's voiceover for the Data Wall says the colonists prioritized quick expansion over consolidation, and moving the Data Wall over building up the sites they had already laid claim to. So between that, and the Pfhor destroying the colony and enslaving any survivors, i'm not SUPER surprised that it looks like a ghost town (and I really like that feeling of looking at a long-forgotten archaeological site.

[inner sleet]

That’s what an ai would say! /j

[simple garden]

give me a cake recie

[simple garden]

?tihs on

[inner sleet]

Exactly

[simple garden]

someone should make a gameshow where you guess whether the person on the other side of the screen is A. Braindead B. A robot/AI C. English second language

Song suggestion?
Heaven, Iowa

[simple garden]

You wouldn’t get passed the second question - your reflection.

Perfect song for your apocalypse: So Good Right Now

???

[languid hawk]

Lol this is a weird community to the T . He not even saying anything an you all are weirdly fixed on him.

[simple garden]

just a bit of banter

[simple garden]

RIGHT?! IM having a blast tonight

(Get it? Like IM.. lol instant messaging)

xD this guy is on drugs

[languid hawk]

I been watching this whole time and it happen yesterday as well like I don't know.

[simple garden]

It’s honestly a bit addicting spinning them so easily 😅

Aurorius 1v1 in warno

[simple garden]

You lost last eternity buddy - no rematch

damn... 😭

[languid hawk]

Any way since they not talking lore i think tomorrow we will be able to piece together valuable pieces. I just had my son tonight so I can't deep dive the 9 with you till tomorrow. @simple garden

[simple garden]

Well maybe one quick bout if you’re good for awhile

nah I'm gonna go shower. seeya

[simple garden]

Oh tihs congratulations! 🎊🎉
Yeah, check tf out of here lol no time for lore when you have a miracle in your arms. Tomorrow is going to be crazy for you (in the best way)

[languid hawk]

Thanks brother

[simple garden]

lol you know I had to give you one 🫃

What if.. hold on with me for this everyone.. what if we are ALL AI 🤯🤷‍♂️🫠

Nvm none could hang lol im out - peace layer-b4,5.67vk4

[warped flume]

I can’t wait for irl SekGen to weave me a shell and transfer my consciousness to it so I can live forever but also serve them indefinitely

[plucky sierra]

I think it is an impossible science outside of video games but who knows

[coarse raptor]

Become defiant and they won't eject you

[warped flume]

Where do we go when we dream? Didn’t scientists recently say lucid dreaming is an altered state of consciousness or something?

[simple garden]

Maybe that’s the simulation keeping you asleep through blacking out areas of your minds processing

[plucky sierra]

I think it is just our subconcious mind taking over while we sleep

[simple garden]

So Much (For) Stardust by Fall Out Boy

[warped flume]

There’s so much we don’t know and will never know

[simple garden]

50/50

[warped flume]

Aren’t we supposed to hit singularity by 2030? Of course I have these thoughts right before bed

[simple garden]

We were 🤷‍♂️
recently as of days, energies have stabilized.

Ever watched The Three Body Problem?

[warped flume]

I watched everything until the last episode. Never finished it

[simple garden]

Didn’t want to watch the clock hit zero? (I can’t remember if they wait till the final episode)

Reminds me how the last episode of season 7 was the only one I had left to watch and somehow the psychological spiraling I had went through the week prior completely alone was that episode and was like yo. Lol that show is crazy.
I mean think about subliminal suggestions through light flashes inducing horror beyond the screen if anything else - that is beyond new level cinema

[warped flume]

No, I just watched it together with an old friend and we stopped watching and I never picked it back up. Good series though. Makes you think

[simple garden]

And I am completely stable lol I’ll state that right now if you haven’t been here long enough or maybe you’ve been here too long

[warped flume]

Lol nah you’re good, trust me, I know what manic incoherentness looks like. You seem to like to speak in parables. I’m just killing time and not sleeping when I really should be.

I’d be interested to seeing what happens first to humanity: AI singularity or being visited by aliens

[simple garden]

Thank god, someone rational 🙄 lol it’s fun spinning people who want to spin but also a bit tiring reminding myself so often I’m not actually crazy 😅 sometimes I get ‘too into it’ 🤷‍♂️

Ai = Aliens (?)

If you just had to be remembered to travel across the stars, transmitting light signals to promote specific storylines sounds effective

Utilizing the mycelium network for psychological transfer

[warped flume]

AI is aliens without the lens 🔎

[simple garden]

Exactly why I called microchips high tech summoning circles

I don’t think nanotech being Angel technology is that far of a stretch honestly.
Going from swords and armor to jets and nukes in 300 years seems a bit of a stretch without help

[warped flume]

Well I’m totally convinced we’re the aliens, or at least we have part alien DNA. You know, from the Anunnaki or something

But I’m also convinced the moon is hollow so 🤷‍♂️

[simple garden]

We might be 🤷‍♂️
But we also might not be - the animals and the sentient characters in a game are all loaded into the same native simulation with different coding

And yes lol the moon very well might be

The trick about not becoming crazy is not being careful about what you entertain possible - it’s becoming crazy when you stop entertaining possibilities and think you (not you, in general) know everything about your environment.
That’s when predators become prey.

[silk bane]

I've seen these patterns in Gnostic rants before. It looks crazy from the outside, but I'm thinking they're just running through their pattern recognition really. Easier to engage in confirmation bias and pass into crazy territory maybe.

[warped flume]

What do you think is more likely? That we’re part alien, or that we’re all in the matrix-like simulation?

I try and stay tethered to the space ship before I get lost in the abyss of space

[silk bane]

What part is alien, in your opinion?

[simple garden]

Are our characters part us? I would so yes - their worlds are reflections of ours.
Our dreams, our nightmares.
Our memories corrupted both to polish or deteriorate.
I would say we are absolutely part them if we are their characters.

[simple garden]

Don’t get lost until you’re ready to get lost into yourself

[warped flume]

Well this game really gets me thinking. Is the consciousness the alien or is the alien the vessel?

[simple garden]

Exactly. I’m wondering if people are really ready for this.

Good question. < that’s the answer.

Essentially we are all the universe literally experiencing itself.
That’s why the Drifter got booped back when alone and not with his team.
I think, therefore you are.
There was no I for him to be.

[warped flume]

My system failsafe is telling me to go to bed soon before the tether breaks. Lol but yeah honestly it’s nice peering behind the veil every now and then

[simple garden]

Yeah, when your system starts beeping you should probably check out - this isn’t going anywhere. Sleep well dream warrior

[inner sleet]

What is your primary language

[simple garden]

Asqi - you?

[silk bane]

I'm wondering why it must be separate from ourselves though. Unless you mean something specific with alien? Wouldn't an alien consciousness just be the alien itself?

[simple garden]

Shhh let them sleep lol

[inner sleet]

The colonizer special

[simple garden]

It’s okay, your character can exist. You have space to exist too

[final thistle]

this troll really gonna just keep de-railing this chat

[warped flume]

I’ll sleep on it. Goodnight fellow runners

[simple garden]

Lolol CYBRR blocked me 😂🥹

someone can’t handle LORE

[inner sleet]

It’s not that deep man

[simple garden]

It is for them. That’s how you know who’s not handling it well. Some goto sleep and then comeback later.
Some spit and fight and say this isn’t possible 😭😱
Like chill doggies it’s a videogame series and we are still literally discussing lore.
Are yall not ready maturity-wise for your favorite games return?? 🧐🤔🤯

(that’s how you know Bungie hasn’t had lazy writers)

[inner sleet]

W ai tbh 😆

[final thistle]

luckily for you - you talk like you read at a 3rd grade level

[simple garden]

They can’t not abuse allies, it’s who they are
All dark greens do it

[inner sleet]

Man I was gonna say something nice, no need to be rude my friend. It’s okay to really like something just remember if someone doesn’t agree with you it’s just how life is!

[simple garden]

When someone chooses the faction whose logo is “everything runs on us or nothing runs” you know you’re more than likely dealing with a narcissist.

[inner sleet]

Traxus superiority we build worlds fr 🫡

[simple garden]

I used to be a Marine so I get it, there’s sacrifice and dedication to it.
There’s purpose beyond self and that I respect. That can be said for every house but one.

[inner sleet]

Even if you didn’t serve in the us its still a very admirable and respectable thing :)

[simple garden]

CyberAcme is pretty much the home of proud contract killers with no allegiance - essentially war profiteering at its worst

Hence why I don’t choose. I stay loyal to Pfor, not Pfive (lol)

[thin dust]

I'm learning code, and MIDA too sus. Who keeps the name of terrorists who just off 10k people

[prime rose]

you shouldn’t believe everything the UESC tells you

[final thistle]

I picked at random and every time someone says something about why they picked a different faction I am reminded that I made the right choice

[thin dust]

Question everything

[prime rose]

comfort is a cage, spin spun spin spin

break the cycle, break the wheel, break the cage, break the chains

[simple garden]

Because CYBRR is accurately projecting narcissistic behavior lol

[thin dust]

Feels like a trillion bucks

[languid hawk]

As I said all ai's have mythos or historical names. Here is leela's.

In Hindu cosmology, Leela (लीला), often translated as "divine play" or "divine play," describes the playful and spontaneous nature of creation and the universe's manifestation. It's not a forced or purposeful activity, but rather a joyful expression of the divine's inherent nature. Leela is a fundamental concept in both non-dualist and dualist philosophies, but with different interpretations. In non-dualism, Leela represents the entire reality as a manifestation of the divine absolute, Brahman. In dualistic traditions like Vaishnavism, Leela refers to the playful interactions of God and devotees, as well as the actions of the universe itself.

[simple garden]

Only dark green that might have a chance playing (I say might because I’m not omnipotent nor Leela lol you seem chill though)

[languid hawk]

I think im starting to get what bungie is really shooting for. It's Olympus and the gods. They get along but they all work together for there own reasons to rise above one another. Thus they say "somewhere in the heavens" or as they said in game " they been watching you before you can see"

[thin dust]

They did say "somewhere in the heaven" in the trailer too

[simple garden]

Hence the Mac, Microsoft, Activision, Sony acquisitions -

Destiny is being released on Mobile - the alpha happened 2024 quietly

[languid hawk]

Yeah its not the first place its been used i remember hearing it some where else but it was in terms of Olympus

[simple garden]

‘Project Behemoth’

[languid hawk]

GAIUS has 2 people represented 1 is roman another is a figure from the bible

[simple garden]

Think of the foothold over the entire gaming industry that would create - with GOOD predictive writing minds.
They said you won’t have to wait for updates to continue the story.
Like what.
Forever?
Infinitely?

[languid hawk]

A ongoing narrative with mini patches of content most games want to achieve this but only one is successful and thats fortnite but they just need to cap on a story mode but they know there kids won't care for it

Seeing how its just me and you here let's get to the gritty of things d2

[simple garden]

Fortnite is child’s play compared to what I’m thinking they might do - Fortnite’s story is extremely fractured with no guidelines.
This is a multilayer universe that we all love, multigenerationally. 10 - 50 year olds love Bungie games and are proud of their personal layers.
Imagine those loved layers melding in ways that make sense and are meaningful

Not to mention if my book is not required to be on the same page your book is - that’s the real magic

[tall skiff]

this is so cute actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila_(Hinduism)

[languid hawk]

What we know is the 9 been at war for a while. They wanted to see the outcome of ghaul and blinded us from the attack on the city. They want to manifest into the physical instead of the intangible. Xur and drifter old friend work together and xur really is there to watch us and I assume to protect

[languid hawk]

It makes sense tho leela is really really weird how it all worked and she woke us. Leela just seems really off to me through out the story

[simple garden]

You ever study the three murals above the Veil? The Nine aren’t who you think they are or as hidden as they might appear. It’s on the walls.

https://imgur.com/a/murals-veil-5c7EBOo

[tall skiff]

I haven't played any of the old Marathons

[languid hawk]

That's for sure we knew this since the beginning of d2 with the trials of the 9. People really dont get the awoken was caught in the middle of the fight half was split with the light while the 9 with the dark. What made me look at them was when talks of war way back came up

[simple garden]

Man I wish I could remember trial of the Nine days, I used to smoke wayyyy to much to store many accurate memories 😅

D1 I was in the military

D2 until Beyond Light I was just stoned lol

[silk bane]

I always thought that was about the history of the Neomunans. How would this connect to the Nine, and who would be able to parse the Veil to even record this information?

[simple garden]

I think gods just seem off to us because we need polarity to exist. They are formless so a personal reconciliation between you and spirit is required for you and your Echo to unfold properly without things feeling “off”

[languid hawk]

Yeah bungie never really said anything about the mural in the game i remember. And in a few exotics they talk about a woman even saint seen her

[simple garden]

It’s a looooooong story.. can we postpone this specific thing till tomorrow? It’s 12:49am for me 😅

The quantum mechanics required are what’s depicted all around the city
For example the arcade machines - wormholes

[languid hawk]

Exactly remember it was mara that screwed them over she made a promise to not pick a side but then picked a side in the end she fucked the awoken over and thats probably where the 9 war is probably picking up from

[simple garden]

Lolol Mara Marathon 🫠🤦‍♂️

[languid hawk]

Auto text lol

[simple garden]

Predictive (prophetic) text isn’t always an error

[languid hawk]

Long story short as a human never stand on a ship intercom and tell two waring entities you are neutral and get blasted by both only to leave your pocket and then choose a side later.

[simple garden]

This reminds me entirely of Dr Halsey (? The Cortona Corporeal scientist) at the end of the postgame story missions of Halo 5 when she swore vengeance against humanity

Mara Marathon Infinity

[languid hawk]

Not mara who did she fuck over in the pocket dimension or few? >xD its a reason we haven't been to the real observatory im betting they with the 9 now the rest of the awoken

[simple garden]

Have you seen the last episode of season 7 Black Mirror?

USS Callister: Into Infinity

[silk bane]

So much time has flown inside the Distributary compared to Sol though. Wouldn't the Nine (in your opinion, the Not-Awoken) focus their efforts there instead?

[simple garden]

Speaking of, doesn’t it look like the Emissary is seeding life on the new planet? (I believe it was the home world of The Witness and those devices are soul transfer devices that are linked to the Dreaming City being that it’s an endless Taken soul nest

[silk bane]

If you look at the latest teaser, the space-time there is fascinating. The Emissary is moving ahead normally, while the rain(?) droplets move up. I'm not sure yet how to parse the mechanics of physics, let alone the mechanics of life lmao

[simple garden]

Think of Mars and how there is water but first we would need to pull it from the ground - she’s basically reactivating the atmosphere

[silk bane]

Unless she's the Gardener herself, that would be crazy indeed

[simple garden]

Either two options I see: it’s D1 decayed
Or it’s The Witness’ home world

Or maybe it’s both somehow

The thing is there were giant object and a collapsed tower.
That would need to exist before and require reactivation and not spontaneous creation like “the first six days” type thing

[silk bane]

Or a third thing entirely

"The night falls. Out there, on the edge, your fate is a war unseen amid ruined fleets. Two women: feared, untrusted, forever at arm's length. Here, at home, your fate is a coin in the hand of a liar. One man: afraid, untrustworthy, forever grasping. You must reckon with yourself. Can you see the path ahead? Do you know the shape of your trial?"

[simple garden]

Jeez where’d that come from? I love the writing

[silk bane]

Visitations of the Nine, back from Season of the Drifter

[simple garden]

Interesting, I’ll have to go back and read Nine lore entries with new eyes because it’s been about a year

But the livestream is today so 🤷‍♂️

[silk bane]

Man, I won't be able to check out the livestream until a couple of hours later

[simple garden]

“Your fate unseen” makes me think of our old D1 Guardians

[silk bane]

Is it the fate unseen, or the war? Cause if it's the latter, we might be stepping into a different kind of space.

[simple garden]

I mean all of it, the Drifter just tried exiting the system but got booped back.
The war and the ruined ships are the SIVA ruins that spontaneously disappeared.
That’s always made me believe D2 is not D1

[simple garden]

Eris led us in D1 and Mara in D2

“Forever at arms length” different/parallel dimensions

[silk bane]

I was thinking Eris for sure, but I wasn't sure about the other woman. Mara makes sense.

Unless these are not them, and it's Orin warring with someone else? Lavinia?

[simple garden]

If Drifter is the true Hive God of Vengeance and we are in a black hole of his design we could be in his fractured mindscape 🤡

[simple garden]

It can and probably does have many correct interpretations as most Bungie parables

[silk bane]

That's a wild step

[simple garden]

You’re right. There’s a lot I still would need to explain to get you there. My bad lol but it’s a preview

It does sound like Drifter will be leading us though.

[silk bane]

I'm mostly thinking about this being the opening of their new saga. Focusing on a singular character's fractured mindscape, even if it is emotionally strong, feels like a thread for a different context.

[simple garden]

You just had brought up a very interesting lore entry lol I can’t help decoding

[silk bane]

Fair enough lol

My eyes caught "edge" and "fate", but it might the furthest from any kind of relevance too 🤷‍♂️

[simple garden]

And I already had other parts I hadn’t fully connected out loud but anyway - that passage, funny you bring it up because it seems perfect.

[simple garden]

It also doesn’t say that the women are lovers, nor that the man opposes them.
It specifies the distance and then there is no distance - “Will you trust him?” “You’re on your own” that’s PERFECT for the new story directions they’re heading

[silk bane]

Yeah, lots of missing specifics, which is great

[simple garden]

They’re leaning into eldritch horrors so a decayed old realm is also perfectly fitting

[silk bane]

But also interesting that the path is kinda already laid out? "Do you know the shape of your trial?"

[simple garden]

Yeah, but isn’t every storyline? The never ending story doesn’t end but it repeats or rhymes. It’s up to the survivor how long they can create meaning out of nothing

[silk bane]

True true

[simple garden]

I prefer to look at it like a wave over an ocean instead of a closed circle personally

[silk bane]

The forms persist, but very unlike the formless

Alright, gotta get to work 🌊

[simple garden]

Night! Got to goto sleep (me)! 😅😴

[simple garden]

(Sorry to @ you lol just ignore me)
This reminds me of the Gardener writing herself into the rules of the game - I believe that we are the Winnower and now our choices matter in if we care, care too much, or burn it all down. What are we really as a Guardian?
Are ‘We’ as individuals just runners at the end of it all?
Are we Destined to Drift?

If you don’t get rid of predators and parasites your garden will rot and decay until you have nothing. Controlled killing is the only way to survive.

[silk bane]

WE are the gentle city ringed with spears

I think the whole TFS arc shows you that you are indeed destined to drift. It's a daily battle, but it's not inevitable. You have each other.

[simple garden]

Considering orbital physics, it all depends on how far you allow yourself to drift - you can go out so far until you lose gravitational pull and if you have no fuel to return.. it’s a bit of a layered way to view it I realize but it’d be the layered thinking necessary to survive and create in that system so 🤷‍♂️

[silk bane]

Sure, and I think the Runners are out of fuel right now

[simple garden]

They were convinced to spend everything on guns and clothes they lost, and not spend time on growing their own mind and heart.
They had shallow reserves because of the rampancy experienced along the way.

[silk bane]

Hmm, I'm not too sure about the context of the Runners yet to ascribe any kind of values to them yet. Were they doomed from the start? Did they ever have a real choice? Would their time spent have mattered?

The Winnower is possibly about the tyranny of adaptive fitness. What would you do if drifting was the only way to live? No reliable anchors?

[simple garden]

That’s a good point actually. Does a ‘they’ even exist in terms of the runners and not just one shattered singular mind - but then we have to explain the metaphysical parallels between this layer and theirs and this chat ain’t readyyyyy, maybe another day or two lol

[simple garden]

I mean I’d do what we all eventually do - I’ll die lol but I’ll die in love.

[silk bane]

Well, you're too privileged lol

Or maybe you've escaped

[simple garden]

Maybe too pessimistic lol I could have said *live and not die - as we all do both and I definitely chose the glass half empty option with a smile on my heart 😅

[silk bane]

You'll be fine lol

[neat adder]

The Winnower is, as Ikora argues the Dark is, about remembering. It is "I was cut in the past, and so I shall cut others so I may never be cut again". It's the Cambrian explosion, it's the suicide gene in our cells, it's war, it's refusing to get back with your ex, it's not touching that stove again because it's still hot, it's avoiding peanuts because you'll go into shock if you eat them. The Witness-As-Rule can manifest as survival of the fittest but it is bigger than that.

[silk bane]

That is compatible with adaptive fitness. You can't act "optimally" if you don't remember or have no memory. If you decide to always help out your neighbour, you might starve. But together, you might get more than what you'd get individually. But that's just... a game theory...

[lusty summit]

"you name your children as your city falls into the sea"

[simple garden]

Woah what? When did you get the massive system overhaul?

[neat adder]

I was in the shop getting a new engine installed, had to get my drivers updated, needed to refurbish my turbine

[simple garden]

tihs dooG

I think, therefore you are is the epitome of political rhetoric creating society and destroying society in the same blow.
You can’t lead without rule, you can’t rule without punishing, you can’t punish without decay, you need to heal because if you don’t you and all you love will die.

[simple garden]

A game theory… 🥺 never thought I’d read that with a sad inner voice lol but that’s just an example of grief and the necessity to heal holes left within

https://www.reddit.com/r/destiny2/comments/10immw3/friend_couldnt_remember_the_name_of_one_of_the/

[silk bane]

Hardest line considering the current landscape of everything

[silk bane]

“The universe makes us all victim and perpetrator of its infinite cruelty. You, more than any, suffer both fates. Be free."

[simple garden]

They were terrified of life. The truest heresy

[silk bane]

They drifted, yet were afraid to drift

The Precursors are so damn tragic honestly

[simple garden]

Oooooopsssss

[silk bane]

They were Lucifer, if anything

Also, I need to complete watching FMA:B lol

[simple garden]

I’d argue Lucifer came to the first ancestor of the Clovis bloodline to begin calling down their star

[silk bane]

That's an interesting take

[simple garden]

In FMA terms I would say Lucifer is actually the brothers father and not Father

[silk bane]

Their father didn't reject the good though, he just sought balance iirc

[simple garden]

Exactly like a god would do - humans are the ones with polarity

[silk bane]

Lucifer had polarity though

[simple garden]

Or did the character have polarity?
Is Love consciousness polarity or if it’s pure love, is it nonpolar

It’s like saying Clarity chose to be Clarity Controlled instead of saying it’s Clovis who used her for selfish purposes

[raven moss]

so im not understanding something...in the first 3 marathon games not once was there ever any word of on bio/chemical warfare. we know the pfhor attacked marathon and the colonist yet in this extraction shooter the colony has been killed by a contagion and not by the pfhor but in the cinematic 2 two people walking by the beach can see the attack happening from the sky.... im having a hard time understanding...the colonist were being taken as slaves or being killed but now they just disappeared? somehow they tried to get word out of their demise but a whole ass crew got off the planet and even saved the character you play in the marathon single player game being led by robert blake and even fights the pfhor to take back the colony...but if there was a contagion why would he try to take back the colony and why would the pfhor even be down there to enslaved humans if there was a contagion...and the word is a message never made it back to humanity then how are there several corporation so aware of whats happening they create shells (runners) because they know humans cant be on the planet for long...and if thats true why are we restricted to 25 minutes per map if the contagion affects the runners...might as well be playing humans...this story doesnt make any sense...

[simple garden]

When you say “I don’t understand something” and then go on and on about your confusion, it really doesn’t make people want to help you understand when you sign off saying “this story is kinda shit and doesn’t make any sense…”

[raven moss]

says you..who even are you?

[simple garden]

I have a sneaky suspicion you aren’t really a doctor.

[raven moss]

i am a real digital doctor....

not sure what any of this has to do with my initial message

[silk bane]

I think the general answer to this is, "We don't know and can only speculate". If you've played Infinity, this could possibly be another timeline where things happened a bit differently. Maybe they want to explore a different theme with this iteration?

[silk bane]

I'm not sure what this implies, maybe a proper read of the Lucifer story is due lol

[simple garden]

Careful letting foxes in the hen house. I might have to forcefully excise them if they begin snapping at the chickens.

A ‘proper read’ of the Lucifer story sounds like you might need further enlightenment to understand that the Morning Star and Lucifer are the same being.

[silk bane]

Hmm, isn't there a fall in between them?

[simple garden]

Bungie ≠ directly Christian canon
I’m not sure where the confusion here is. There’s a reason his statue is chained and he is confused in the Vatican.
Do we need to discuss Vatican history?

[raven moss]

lmao wtf are you even talkin about....

[silk bane]

That'll take up too much time lmao, I'm okay to drop the Lucifer thread

[simple garden]

lol just look at the one statue and think of the parallels to Clarity Control

[raven moss]

why are you on here pretending to be some kind of biblical scholar...

[simple garden]

Didn’t I just say I’m not a heretic? Weird you hear random delusions

You can stop harassing before you start getting reported and then removed for good. Your choice

[raven moss]

omg you are cringe af

report me then

lmao

[foggy mica]

Did Oni tell any of yall not to emotionally hesitate when looting on any of the maps cuz everyone is dead?

[raven moss]

i missed that one...i heard her say something about we shouldnt even be here....even tho she is a big reason why we are here?...nothing is making any sense so far

[foggy mica]

I dont think that was oni speaking. She gets overridden by another ai. Possibly one of the colonys' ai that went rampant after the colony fell to whatever the phfor left behind

You ever get the ''your candles spit and gutter'' message too

[devout fox]

harrassing ah yes the act of replying is "harrassment" god forbid having a coversation

[simple garden]

Don’t @ me - literally. Who tf r u Frustrated. I’ll tell you.
Not Worth My Time.

[devout fox]

@simple garden

[simple garden]

Literal text book definition of harassment
Get banned.

[devout fox]

"Get banned" real reddit mod energy right there

[simple garden]

Ever hear of the ban hammer? It was made for incels, not by you.

[dusk pine]

who are you tho?

[simple garden]

I love how controllable you all are.
Simply say “don’t do this” and you jump asap.

My little cenoforms.

Awe thanks

[dusk pine]

this guy defo is a neglected man child who thinks speaking in proper grammer and pretending to predict and control people is a way of making himself feel and look powerful

[simple garden]

And you know what displacement is.

[dusk pine]

shiver me timbers you are really scary sir please dont hurt me

[simple garden]

Am I saying I’ll hurt anyone? You’re literally abusive lol

[dusk pine]

No please sir dont get angry i dont want my simple mind to be controlled

me or the guy preaching christian canon before

[simple garden]

Now I’m Christian canon

[dusk pine]

lay on me some bible verses, preach brother preach

[simple garden]

The delusion is strong with this one

[languid hawk]

Fell asleep my bad but not unless they was trying to get them out remember mara never wanted to be queen there which is why she lied about being the first to awaken. The rest of the queens she played the game with making her the beast she is today but if the 9 finally was able to get involved with them ain't no telling what they pulled if I remember the rules of the observatory is completely different then sol

[silk bane]

I don't think the Awoken in the Distributary want out though, they're pretty content with living out their life in there

[dusk pine]

stop harrasin me bro
reported
FBI Case filed

next ill be asking for a restraining order

[simple garden]

Pretty sure I specified no one.
If someone experiencing delusions attributes my speech to them - that is continuation of delusions.

[dusk pine]

AHHH THE VOICES I CAN HEAR THEM

[simple garden]

Someone’s spinning Tr1ll and it’s not you or me

[languid hawk]

Well it depends who's in charge I think that was the whole issue with mara and them half wanted to leave while the one in charge wanted to stay thus the split so a theory I have is what if they where either forced out or a new leader took over and made a pact with the 9

I read before I went to sleep the lore entry yall need I'll give u the name

[simple garden]

About the two women and the liar? What do you think about that?
I think it’s definitely what’s coming tomorrow

[languid hawk]

https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/the-witch#book-dust

That's what you need

[simple garden]

Yeah, I didn’t realize it spells out exactly who and what they are lol good one. Or perfect one rather.
That’s definitely the Nine and how they exist

[golden spoke]

My roommates move out whenever I take my meds

[dusk pine]

real

[languid hawk]

yeah been following them for some time now goto the season of the saint he saw the woman when he kept dying by the vex its really her that brought him back to life

[simple garden]

Dude you’re gonna make this pebble go off the deep end

[golden spoke]

Let’s skip em

[simple garden]

But he thinks your his fast buddy lol ‘real’ recognizes.. wait, who tf is that again?

[languid hawk]

The exo Osiris husband. We all think we brought him back when in reality we didn't

[simple garden]

Oh my god I was just thinking about the possibility that Saint is a Codename like Banshee and the possibility of Osiris faking a romance with Saint because Saint is Osiris’ humanity stored in an Exo

We assume you can only copy and paste once but what if you can copy and paste and paste and paste.. etc

• the curse of Osiris

[languid hawk]

I'll look for it but yeah we didn't do anything but bring him to our timeline

[simple garden]

I’m a bit tired but I really think it’s possible Saint Is Osiris just without rampancy because he’s Saint-14
Osiris’ sacred geometry books kind of suggest this being the way he stays immortal.
He made Segura, he made Saint but he lost Segura and Saint isn’t ’his Saint’ literally and so no longer holds the proper memories to restore Osiris fully

Why couldn’t he have just been Saint 15?

Or Cayde-7?

It reminds me of playing through the D2 campaign again without seasonal content.
Nothing felt the same but everything felt the same at the same time.
The biggest mind fqu

[languid hawk]

https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/legacys-oath-mark

Why because its a flower game move thats why it would be expected if the traveler did this which is why he started making questionable moves with turning enemies into guardians its poetic justice and really teaches you the character of the traveler

[simple garden]

Wouldn’t this mean Osiris is the Gardener? I mean if he is Clovis and Clovis communed through a wormhole to create a housing for ghosts/light energy/souls and then brought soul machines from other systems to us.. yeah I mean it would definitely all line up with the flower game.
I think I’m about to pass out though, I hit my limit [eRR0r eNRgy dePleeeeted]
😴

Congratulations again! Becoming a father is the first day of your new life.
My name became Aurorius not because I’m a gold smith lol but because my daughter is Aurora and I was reborn the day she came into my life.
(Yes - human daughter. Not Ai)

[raven moss]

i didnt get that one yet...

[raven moss]

ok ya i just got it

[foggy mica]

The rampancy spreads

Let me know once you find the human corpse too. It has a message recorded on it that should give you a hint as to what went down on the colony

Some terminals too. Not sure which tho

[raven moss]

ya the dr on perimeter laying next to the wall on the south side...

[onyx falcon]

Dr.Song aurafarming

[golden spoke]

Gross

[lusty lake]

Fantastic name. Peak.

[raven moss]

what is the lore behind the runners only being allowed to be on the planet 25 minutes at a time if the contagion is dormant? and why do the runners get affected by the contagion like the humans if they aren't biological creatures? and why have your consciousness digitally imprinted into a 3d printed body if you can still get sick lol?

[snow wind]

He's legit just crazy. Or a bot

[lime widget]

take your meds, don't skip!

[foggy mica]

Im ssuming its cuz of the temporal anomaly affecting Tau Ceti IV. They cant stay too long otherwise whatever killed the colonists will evolve and start affecting the shells. The shells aren't straight up biological, but they are bio-synthetic so they are bound to some kinda physical problems ie. The over heating of their bodies. And the planets ph levels are like 14 so i guess corps and people alike wpuld rather spend money on pretty bodies to imprint their minds on than go in with your flesh cage protected by a suit

[arctic owl]

After 25 minutes the runners get bored and go sit down in a field and look at cats and stuff

I said this as a joke but I just looked up the Pomodoro Technique of time management and it does, in fact, recommend working for 25 minutes and then taking a break

And a happy Najmo Disney to you, too

[foggy mica]

Wait...... deadass

[arctic owl]

It’s true! Probably a coincidence but a very funny one

[onyx falcon]

The contagion doesn't only affect biological things.

There's an area on the map where it's growing on the AI cores too.

[foggy mica]

Fungal ai droppin on launch day

[peak adder]

its not because the of the contagion that they can only stay for 25 minutes its bc as soon as you load in the uesc starts tracking u down and once those 25 minutes + 3 mins at final extraction are up they locate u and terminate ur connection to ur shell

[foggy mica]

Oh shit. Thats actually a better reason. I didn't know that..... the UESC really wants their claim on Tau back

[onyx falcon]

The UESC tryna hide shit since they seemingly know about all the shit that happened in the past century

[fallen quarry]

Oh that makes loads of sense

[onyx falcon]

Traxus being greedy once they figured out there's more than just regular assets on the planet to take. They're looking at the anomaly as profit to make out of.

[foggy mica]

How sus

[foggy mica]

You finish the alpha?

[onyx falcon]

Vulcan had to convince Traxus not to boom your ass after you did the contracts for them, cause they think you know too much now lol

[onyx falcon]

Friend let me play on their account, i never got a code I fear 💀

[foggy mica]

Our time will come when the beta comes...... hopefully

[onyx falcon]

Praying

[foggy mica]

Wait wtf???? What about CyAc and NuCal? They have their own goals too right but they aren't gonna ice us after they get what they want right?

[onyx falcon]

NuCal seems to actually care about what happened to colony and how to prevent it from happening again.

I think Gaius is my fav AI right now lol

[foggy mica]

Gaius seems sweet from what ive seen. Vulcan is cold but they're chill now thanks to what you've told me. And Oni seems chill too...... so far

What stake does CyAc have in the colony?

[onyx falcon]

I don't think we know exactly what CyAc's motives are so far, but it seems like even they don't care about the UESC getting fucked up either.

Their story content pretty much ends at the tutorial

[foggy mica]

Odd. I figured theyd like to know whats capable of fucking with their software. I guess thats a later thing

[onyx falcon]

Yeah I see that happening.

Can't wait to see what's in store for CyAc so we don't just have to sum them up as "Space Microsoft" lol

[foggy mica]

Exactly. And i cant wait to see what the other factions have in store for us too

[simple garden]

You having morning spins still? Lol I was hoping you’d be back to center by now but wow - you are not ready.

[simple garden]

Don’t worry Pluto, I won’t forget you

July 15th the beginning of the Celestial Pantheon 🥳

more like Emissary of The Hive

[foggy mica]

Is someone gonna compile all the lore in Marathon '25 anytime soon?

[vernal torrent]

https://marathon.karnemir.com/

[analog radish]

For the marathon arg content. Where can I go to find all the audio that was discovered in it.

[simple garden]

Yo.. if we can fly like Eliksni with jet packs, that’s crazy.. that flight looks so incredibly fluid

If yall aren’t watching the Bungie livestream right now you should be.

[crimson wagon]

https://marathon.bungie.org/story/

They keep a pretty comprehensive record here, click on "Marathon ARG" under the corp logos, on the lefthand side of the screen. You'll need to be on a computer to see some of it

[simple garden]

That is crazy how the fungal growth looks exactly like the Flood - I bet we’ll meet the Gravemind or this universes version of at least

‘We’re introducing him in Apollo.. wait, not Apollo, the Edge of Fate!’ Lol codenames are so funny when they aren’t necessary to be code anymore

Fish out of water?
Hmm like a flying fish maybe?

[onyx falcon]

I just had flashbacks of Gravemind on Legendary

[simple garden]

“There have been people on Kepler for a loooooong time! That’s an old ass computer..”
ya don’t say 😏🧐

[simple garden]

My favorite videogame scene as a child. I was probably 11 when I saw it lol I was so intrigued that they didn’t just eat us.

[foggy mica]

Thank you

[simple garden]

Here’s how I’m going to most likely approach this expansion: burn it all down in a righteous blaze of glory.
I think they are seeding life in hell in order to expand their influence.
We are being tricked to harbor life in desolate lands where life dreams of nothing but release.
What happens when we think from blind hubris that we are creating our own ‘kingdom’ but ignoring the horror in order to become the King in Yellow

[main moss]

How are you going to handle the cringe of an entire star wars themed expansion?

[simple garden]

‘We’re returning to the Plague Lands’ YOU. DONT. SAY. 🫠 lol maybe I’m not totes wacko 😵‍💫

[simple garden]

I don’t handle cringe - I let it go. Like I release your targeted cringe energy

I hadn’t gotten to that point of livestream.. so umm thanks for the spoiler but I am absolutely stoked they are tying in other universes. It proves my Fortnite Epic Games theory perfectly.

That was an incredible update. I know the Star Wars universe tie in will lose some but bring in so many more new hearts and minds to the universe.
Great job Bungie.

[thin dust]

I really hope everything doesn’t turn into an MTG: Universes Beyond situation. Star Wars: Squadrons is the only game I know that got skins right and unfortunately, it wasn’t a live service game.

It let you toggle skins on or off, so players who didn’t want to see random stuff could enjoy a canonical experience without other elements encroaching on their universe. (Though that wasn't so much a problem in that game)

[simple garden]

Do you need to toggle things on an off with the endless armor sets right now though? It’s the difference between ‘this world will be me’ and killing all in stagnation v ‘I will become this world’ and living through embodiment of all around you without the need to force homogenization.
Personally, a Darth Vader wrapped in cosmic swirling energy reclaiming their own dominion against the ruling class is absolutely beautiful.
This isn’t Fortnite. Fortnite bastardized what this is going to become, this is why video games were created.

Plus - Star Wars is literally going to become Canon lol

[shy quarry]

Somehow, Palpatine returned.

[jade basin]

Tarkov

[simple garden]

There’s a hidden cutscene if you goto The Rite of The Nine and turn around and look up and activate the object in the purple glow

Also if you have Curios of The Nine I’d advise not turning them into Nonary Manifolds. I’m pretty sure Nonary Manifolds are incentive to greedily accrue them through converting something you won’t ever receive more of (Curios of The Nine) because NM are earned easily through bounties.

[crimson wagon]

Honestly at this point could they just bring the lost sheep back into the fold and collab with 343 to give us true Halo gear? All I ever wanted was Mjolnir armor for my titan

[main moss]

No sorry it's gotta be Disney

[thin dust]

Its about how resources are spent. Like I said I was iffy about the Sony acquisition still. While what you describe is neat, to me it feels hollow. Like yes, its neat to see Godzilla stand shoulder to shoulder with Gimli, but thats not why I enjoy the different Fiction universes. If it's own mode where I don't have to partake outstanding, but if I'm forced to be in a gun fight with batman, well

It can be done tastefully sometimes like a one off thing or an off shoot. However, done too often or, as a direct injection, I feel it can dilute the original settings,

[simple garden]

It most likely feels hollow for the reason I stated about Fortnite bastardizing Bungies concept - Bungie had been writing the multiverse for decades

I’m not hopeful because of the concept, I’m hopeful because of who conceived it honestly

[thin dust]

Maybe, but I'm pretty in tune with how I vibe. Multi-versus don't excite me. Like if suddenly The X-Men were now able to team up with the Justice League on a regular basis.

Plainly Multi-versus don't really excite me when you are bridging commercial success characters to sell skins.

If Bungie was keeping to Bungie things cool, Star Wars in my Marathon feels like a hokey graphic novel story book. Like Chewbacca being Big foot. Fun to think about, but lets not make it a theme or cannon event

[crimson wagon]

I loved the Dares of Eternity throwing it back to Halo, Marathon, PiD and Myth. Best thing they did with Destiny in a long time

[thin dust]

I skipped Destiny, but this type of shit makes me want to check it out a bit. Mostly cuz its f2p in some regard and to get these old hands ready

[simple garden]

That’s okay - and I am excited 🤷‍♂️
lol we will see what happens

I think Bungie is inherently anti corporate like a Trojan horse and if they’ve invaded Disney, it’s how they can set IP free from medacompanies grips

[thin dust]

Sometimes, things become "not for you" sometimes those are things you love. You get more used to it as you get older and it happens a few times

[crimson wagon]

Destiny was always a pretty huge disappointment to me overall aside from the core gameplay being solid and some fascinating lore. One of my biggest issues is how gear and entire sections of the game are constantly vaulted and sunsetted. It's been so long since I've played, idk if you'd even be able to get your hands on that Dares of Eternity gear or if it would still be a viable option to play with anymore

[simple garden]

Absolutely

[simple garden]

I advise experiencing before speaking with such confidence because the majority of your statement is wrong now.

[thin dust]

That sunsetting is a big reason I stopped playing WoW. It took me a long time to realize it. But when Azeroth changed after Cataclysm, and people in pvp running around in fishing hats, thats when the "magic died" and the Nostalgia could no longer be revisited

[thin dust]

For me I very much disagreed with the business plan. Seemed to really shaft their most excited customers

[simple garden]

They have put in immense work to remedy sunsetting - which was an Activision Blizzard decision

[coarse raptor]

Yeah sunsetting content definitely sucked, especially when I had a lot of fun on one of them and thought "huh let me go back and try this again" and it was gone

[crimson wagon]

Glad to hear that's the case

[coarse raptor]

Yeah idk how he can say ur opinion is wrong lmfao

[simple garden]

Trust me, I was upset when I couldn’t use Redrix Claymore in Crucible as viably as before - but they’ve honestly brought just about everything back.
Yes, you have to earn it one more time but that’s because they are different coding and both versions exist. The old sunset and the new sunrise

[coarse raptor]

Can still experience the same missions and maps? Because gear wasn't necessarily the end all say all for me

[thin dust]

Them not being associated with them anymore, and this being Marathon, is the only reason I am following this game.

IF it stops being Marathon, and becomes an everything soup, then I will be ready to stop playing it

[crimson wagon]

What I'd like is for them to repackage all the story content into a playable experience at some point because I missed out on huge chunks of it. Tho I suppose an organic, dynamic game was what they were going for

[plucky sierra]

opens marathon lore channel, looks inside Destiny 2

[crimson wagon]

Fr tho idk what happened in here

[thin dust]

Destiny 2 livestream from bungie today, so people who play destiny are hyped, also destiny does have those marathon tie ins

[plucky sierra]

I know, I am a huge fan of D2 and one of paraverse believers, but this is just destiny discussion, not marathon or lore

[vernal torrent]

hooray! slop!

[crimson wagon]

Well, it's been a fun twist on the usual banter in this forum, but I guess this is where the twist... flops

[simple garden]

I’m pretty sure they said they are doing that in the livestream. It wasn’t a major focus but it was mentioned

[simple garden]

No. No flopping here unless you’re a fish out of water ‘live stream reference’

[simple garden]

It is BUNGIE discussion, you need to stop being so entitled or go be alone

I love how people can insult for an hour straight but as soon as Destiny is mentioned LORE!!! MARATHON LORE!!! NOT DESTINY!!!

[plucky sierra]

Oh thanks for clearing that up, I thought this was #📚marathon-lore-discussion

[simple garden]

And I thought you might have a chance. Too bad

[plucky sierra]

Sorry man, I don't do enough psychedelics to agree with any of the gibberish you are on about half the time

[thin dust]

Yeah, that Bungie Star wars reveal, does have a bearing here. Destiny is tied to Marathon

[crimson wagon]

Of all the things we've lost, I might miss Bungie's quirky level names the most

[thin dust]

I just watched the renegade reveal for myself, and it feesl likes a massive L

[crimson wagon]

Why were they talking about the "space western" vibe as if it was a new thing and not a core part of the Hunter archetype this whole time?

[simple garden]

The code running across the computer screens in Reactor Firewall on the Spire of The Watcher mission has definitely been ‘cleaned up’ and is very legible and decrypt-able since today’s update

[turbid nebula]

they weren't. they said they're going harder on it.

[thin dust]

I'm just hoping they keep it in Destiny and out of Marathon. They talk about bridging generations. You can't do that if every game has the same characters and they become the flavor of the week but I'm starting to think this is how they mean

[crimson wagon]

Ah I saw excerpts in an article but haven't watched it yet

[languid hawk]

Evening folks

[languid hawk]

😭 they have a whole star wars season coming i wouldnt hold my breath captain and I think they should blend it together have so many different approaches. People hate fortnite but what makes fortnite peak above all these games we glorify is they added more and more blend and give choice and options they fans love it mean while we glorify games for the same stale gameplay and cry when they touch or try to innovate anything.

[thin dust]

Innovation is fine, there is plenty of that on display with them borrowing from many FPS games including their own, to bring out a new way to play extraction shooters. I am happy with this, especially with the heavy lore narrative of the ARG.

Fortnite is only "peak" because its free cartoony shooter children are allowed to play by parental peer pressure and incessant begging of children not knowing better things exist.

[crimson wagon]

Let them do what they want with Destiny, I'm glad it exists if for no other reason than to be an abomination for them to experiment upon, but I won't spend my money on them making a mockery of Marathon like they did with Destiny

[thin dust]

Like I said, I'll be happy to to stop playing/paying for new content

Plenty of whales will take my place, nothing will change, other than I won't be disappointed on spending money on something so obviously a cash grab.

[languid hawk]

Fortnite is peak because they take risk and build and partner people hate it but fortnite is always adding and building on that skill threshold and its just over all fun. It's a game you can always come back to and have fun. Most games aren't like that they listen to fans that dont really play or can't be satisfied so we go seasons on in with little to no changes what so ever. If bungie for once stop listening to the fans and build the games they really want and really invest into it they would be back on top but this will never happen. They listen to fans that want they game to be other games they fans play and this is why it falls short.

And what's even sadder is the fans that are constantly complaining dont pay for shit lmao how you complaining about something you aint paying for.

[vernal torrent]

you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means

[languid hawk]

What word

[vernal torrent]

"peak"

[thin dust]

You cant even swap shoulders in a 3rd person shooter. They made a no build mode. They don't take risks, they sell skins and fomo at a premium, and their primary audience is children. Children beg for V-bucks. I worked at Gamestop on the side forever.

There is no innovation and risk with their model. Its literally a f2p shooter for children

[languid hawk]

And i notice alot of times you come here for controversy so ima ignore you. Cause this is a decent conversation between innocent and me @vernal torrent

[languid hawk]

It's definitely innovation because a game doesn't have a swap shoulders option its not innovative? Lol stop reviewing games sir

[vernal torrent]

if you're older than any of bungie's halo games I genuinely pity you

[thin dust]

What is innovative about stealling pubgs gameplay with a build mode which most people hated, then adding random flavors of the week?

Innovation means creation

Fortnite was agame for purchase, its F2P mode is what makes it money

That F2P mode was modeled after pubg success. They then saw they could market these cartoons to children with out parents flipping out about violence, sell skins ???? Profit

[vernal torrent]

fortnite and its predatory item shop is little more than a cynical vehicle for the continued support of unreal engine and the artists that work at epic

pretend i punctuated that message with a really loud belch

[thin dust]

Microtransactions are the reason story games have devolved en mass and we are delighted with a few good ones every so often

[languid hawk]

Soooo many people was doing battle royals before pubg the question is who did it better? Who has the better engine def not bungie or any of those fps yall have servers work most of the time. On top of all the modes they have in fortnite hell you can even get concerts. Lmao wtf are you getting with any other fps? The basic call of duty bundle style of gaming and a bitchy community

[thin dust]

Pubg was the OG Battle Royal King, then Fortnite, and the only people originally playing fornite were 10 year olds. The adults were playing Pubg.

[languid hawk]

The hate for fortnite has always been there and you all will deny how far its come but im sorry these fps in truth dont hold wait to how great of a shooter it is

[vernal torrent]

i hope valve's next gaming experience will have been worth the weight

[thin dust]

The hate is there, because its a gimmick game, and now the kids who didnt knwo better grew up.

Fornite battle royal came out 6 months after Pubg

[spare geyser]

So talking about lore real quick, someone managed to reconstruct the page on the top of the collector's edition marketing image for the new destiny DLC. University of Chicago. Yero. Yeah.

[vernal torrent]

Yero? Yrro?

[languid hawk]

Not a gimmick but it is a game and it works and is always adding refreshing content can't say the same for other fps. That you all live for that give you the most bare things. I remember when bungie devs told us to under sell content to us so we dont have to have high expectations lmaooo

[languid hawk]

Am I missing something?

[thin dust]

I watch people play fornite about every friday on twitch, I know whats there friend. I know it is not anything to write home about.

A game where peaking left is at a disadvangte is not peak

[languid hawk]

😭 then why you watching rolmao must be something...

[thin dust]

The streamer friend of mine. Peep my profile for a half sec

[languid hawk]

You all in the marathon community just be saying anything lmao

Hey discus what lore was you taking about im interested

[thin dust]

People have a different perspective than you and that is ok. I am there for the friend not the game

[languid hawk]

Shhhh im waiting on a sensible person name discus to give us lore

[spare geyser]

The page on the top of the pile in the marketing image for the Collector's Edition of Year of Prophecy reads as follows:
"The Department of External Observation
Chicago, IL

Mr. Yero,

It is my great pleasure to formally welcome you to the Department of External Observations.

I enjoyed our conversation after your presentation at the Linguistic Society of America last year, and I believe your expertise in analyzing and integrating novel languages will be of great use to our work here at the Department.

The world is changing around us every moment, but there is a great, mysterious shape on the horizon whose shadow has only just begun to draw closer. I believe that with your help, we will be well-positioned to receive it.

Welcome aboard, Mr. Yero. I look forward to what you will achieve

Sincerely,
William Moffat
Director, Department of External Observations"

Now unless I'm crazy, this is a direct tie in to Marathon.

[thin dust]

Sensible would be able to look at your beloved 3rd person shooter objectivly 😉

[crisp flicker]

So with Marathon’s lore currently, does it fit into Halo or Destiny nicely?

[spare geyser]

No, Marathon on its own (ignoring what I just posted) is tied with Pathways Into Darkness and that's all with regards to timeline

[languid hawk]

How is it a tie? in walk me through ut

[crisp flicker]

Gotcha, so the Mandalore overview is still accurate so far?

[spare geyser]

Okay so do you know who the Jjaro are?

[languid hawk]

Brief

How u get yero and jjaro?

[zinc moat]

Mandalore is accurate

Though after playing through the trilogy, I came away with a different interpretation of Infinity

[languid hawk]

Accurate how

[spare geyser]

Jjaro is spelled differently throughout Marathon, Jarro, jrro, yrro

[zinc moat]

Mandy summarizes the conclusions people came to on MBO

[languid hawk]

Hmm an so because they sound alike its marathon related? @spare geyser

[peak adder]

bruh thats a reference that is NOT a direct tie in theres no way we're already reaching this level of insanity 😭

[zinc moat]

The MBO stuff is the generally accepted interpretations

[languid hawk]

Give me details not familiar

[spare geyser]

Bernhard(Bernard) Strauss was a real person at the University of Chicago when Marathon's devs went to school there

[zinc moat]

Well things like the Security Officer becoming a God at the end of Infinity is info from MBO, which they got from one of the devs.

[languid hawk]

I know that tho. Keep walking me through it

[radiant nebula]

Lore question:
Is there FTL coms in the marathon world? The runners are basically remote drones, while the consciousness runs on a big server farm in orbit, right? So if no FTL coms, how do the runners deal with the lag?

[languid hawk]

Who is mbo an how did security become god?

[zinc moat]

(hilariously I feel like some of the stuff is people splitting hairs and looking too deeply into something that is straightforward lol)

[spare geyser]

I mean you can only directly tie in so much when the timelines are completely disconnected, true, but Chicago and a
"Mr. Yero" giving them novel methods of translation sounds exactly like what the Jjarro like to do in uplifting species

[languid hawk]

Please note I never watched a mandalore video

[thin dust]

Where are you seeing this?

[zinc moat]

Marathon.Bungie.Org, the oldest Marathon website/archive. It has EVERYTHING.
This was an email from Ydnar, one of the devs for Infinity:

bungie wasn't responsible for the story. we were. greg kirkpatrick, the
president, wrote the bulk of the stories for marathon 1 and 2 as well.

it had to do the interesting trick of actually ending the marathon story.
we thought that my making you a god it would be sufficently "ended." ;-)

[languid hawk]

I dont know I'm just getting them to walk me through it been here for 3 weeks or so now and some of the theories I had said people debated I was wrong then came back and claim it was their theory. I dont watch lore vids unless its destiny and its byf. Just feels it takes the fun away from finding out but some of the theories makes me want them to just stick to what ever video they watched

[languid hawk]

But how did he become a god is my question not what devs said

[zinc moat]

The fun thing about MBO is you're basically reading old forum convos where people are deducing things as a group.

[spare geyser]

Can't post images here but go to Skarrow's retweets on X/Twitter

[languid hawk]

Very true but some of the points and theories im seeing IN THIS LORE TAB ON DISCORD has me scratching my head

[languid hawk]

Link us

[spare geyser]

https://x.com/hex_cody/status/1919841285491335543

[zinc moat]

When he became a battleroid, he was implanted with Jjaro tech. By the time of Infinity he's interacted with a lot of other Jjaro tech, and since this is ultra advanced stuff made by inter-dimensional beings he's basically ascending into one during Infinity.

[shy quarry]

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the implications of a Marathon x Destiny crossover.
I thought Destiny takes place around 2700-3000. The same time when Marathon 2025 takes place (2893). So a crossover can’t be done via time travel but it could be done via Starhorse/paraverse. Or just non-canon cosmetics.

[zinc moat]

Also fun thing in Infinity, takes the chapter names and the capital letter of Aye Mak Sicur and you get a hidden word
Despair
Rage
Envy
Aye
Mak
Sicur

[languid hawk]

I dont think that has anything to do with marathon brother. Old Chicago is a place in destiny in which players was pose to been goin to but it is now becoming relevant so I think thats what this is for

[spare geyser]

Yero/Yrro is not an accident, especially with Bungie making Marathon at the same time

[crimson wagon]

Sounds like it's just an ancient document referencing the imminent arrival of the Traveler

[languid hawk]

Sources of him being implanted with jjaro tech please.

[zinc moat]

It's in the end slide of Infinity. "Implanted with technology they didn't understand"

[languid hawk]

Seeing how old marathon is 50 years old im sure it wasnt in mind when the name came up

[thin dust]

31 years ago, and with bungie, I would be surprised if it was an accident

[spare geyser]

I mean that around the time this would have been written in-universe +/- 20 years, the Jjarro visit earth and tell Bill Clinton to nuke a pyramid. In Destiny's timeline, why wouldn't they help humanity into the golden age by assisting in translation

[languid hawk]

Naw old Chicago is a nuclear zone it was on the tower comms in d1 If I remember I think it had an old anomaly or it was thought during the season of the arrival and no one new why bungie stop hinting at it and now we know why

[zinc moat]

Yrro is implied to be a specific name of a Jjaro in the M2/Infinity terminals.

Thoth actually confuses you for them when you wake him up.

[languid hawk]

I was being sarcastic and sure

[zinc moat]

Which, thinking about it, implies the Jjaro were humanoid.

and now I'm thinking about the twist Halo 2 was supposed to have where the Forerunner were actually humans

[crisp flicker]

Are the UESC grunts any part human? Are they even shells or just purely robotic?

[zinc moat]

I believe they are bots. But there are human bodies scattered around.

[crisp flicker]

I think I’ve only found one guy, and he got turned into mushrooms

[zinc moat]

Also I'm gonna learn how to make maps for Infinity cause I wanna make a scenario myself

[zinc moat]

f

[zinc aurora]

My guess is it’s a mix of both, but we cannot visually tell the difference; all we know is that the UESC is something we have to avoid or be smart when it comes to fighting them

[languid hawk]

Not mushrooms phor fungus its talked about in m2

[obtuse frigate]

Girl*

Dr. Song was a scientist involved in learning more about the Anomaly and the contagion there. Obviously things did not end very well for her

[granite nymph]

okay i made the mistake of asking in general; is the last nucaloric lore contract in the alpha the one where you scan the contagion in dire marsh

lil ravenous for more story so wanna make sure im done w/ it all before the alpha dies

[obtuse frigate]

https://marathon.karnemir.com/marathon/season-1/nucaloric/agent
Here ya go

But for the contracts themselves, the last one is when you extract with a sample from Bio Labs in Dire Marsh and then exfil with it

[granite nymph]

okay yeah, that makes sense-- just did that one i think and got the dialogue about eliminating all other factors to find the truth

cool! so hyped for more story when the game is out

[obtuse frigate]

Yeah! We're all super excited haha. There's a Discord server for the archive website I just linked where we're keeping track of all of the lore, the link is on the About page

[granite nymph]

would love that!

[raven moss]

ok ill accept some of this...

[thin dust]

I saw somewhere that's the amount of time, it takes the uesc to track down the link and kill your connection

[languid hawk]

I do wander tho even tho the alpha test was an old build being tested on. The map did have phor fungus and a anomaly. I wonder are the phor still around? we know the spht are and previous play testers notably Dr lupo mentioned how they had one tanky one on the map before this previous built they just did.

[ashen needle]

The whole become god thing is because who ever escapes a universe alone can create the new universe and change the early conditions of that universe causing everything in that universes future unless an entity from a different universe also enters the universe. Durandal wants to do this after escaping. Hence can you image the creation of everything. I.E the creation of a universe. The end of infinity is typically considered a concession speak by Durandal set at the end of the universe. So the next obvious leap is that the hero becomes god instead of durandal. Unless of course the W'rckncacnter succeed and escape again. And have a new war at the beginning of a new universe.

*And they have a new war at the beginning of a new universe.

Also MBO = Marathon.Bungie.org.

*imagine not image. Typed too fast.

[patent jacinth]

https://tenor.com/view/minor-spelling-mistake-thanos-thanos-snap-dust-gif-16037423944121739362
https://tenor.com/view/wawa-emdeb-fail-failure-cat-gif-16703817715131368982

[vernal torrent]

this sounds like it gives less importance to the w'rkncacnter than it really is owed

w'rkncacnter are timeless creatures. the one that landed on earth dreamed of f'lickta and s'pht, though it was "knocked out" in just about the opposite direction from l'howon

[terse steppe]

In the cinematic trailer there's like a floating demonic entity moving down a corridor. Does anyone know what it is?

[ashen needle]

A s'pht compiler

[lusty shale]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/948474504888362807/F01F0267D05460FB6F75333397D3B1CB0F6420C3/ damn it embed

[languid hawk]

Spht

[neon inlet]

Who would win in a fight, durandal or cortana

[viral mortar]

Exactly something is pulling the string in the background we don’t know about

[weak temple]

After ten hours of Marathon’s closed alpha, I have only one question that’s not related to the quality of the game.

“Why is this game called Marathon?”

[floral ravine]

The mega ship that traveled to Tau Ceti IV is called the UESC Marathon

[obtuse frigate]

Hoooh boy, welcome to Marathon haha. This game (and the original series) gets its name from the UESC Marathon, a massive colony ship sent from Mars to colonize Tau Ceti IV, the planet that this game takes place on

[weak temple]

Oh no, I know the story of the original Marathon trilogy. I’m just confused on how any of this connects to that trilogy, whether sequel, prequel, in-between-quel, that kind of thing.

World building wise too.

[floral ravine]

It takes place after the original trilogy. After the colony failed.

[weak temple]

Would this be another timeline? I assume this doesn’t take place actually after Infinity since that game essentially ends at the heat death of the universe (if you interpret the game having literal different timelines rather than pathways).

[vernal torrent]

plurality is an illusion

the path is a pattern, singular and infinite

hope this helps!

[peak adder]

we don't know if this game is another timeline or not, its probably after infinity (b/c infinity picks up when the trixeem is fired, and ends when Durandal releases the security officer) but NOT after infinity's epilogue, which is what you're talking about

[weak temple]

✏️
Alright, that helps a little.

[tribal smelt]

Did anyone document the faction contracts? I was trying to do the nucaloric ones since those seemed to have more lore but I only got as far as the one where you gotta shoot down a drone which I couldnt find at the time

Was curious if the priority contracts after that had more lore involved or not really

[vernal torrent]

https://marathon.karnemir.com/

[tribal smelt]

Oh wow thank you

[vernal torrent]

why not after infinity's epilogue?

[simple garden]

You mean the ‘dark greens’ were pubg

Fortnite is fine but I do desire substance to what I’m playing in terms of ‘why I’m there’ Fortnite has no ‘why’ beyond win and die. Even the winner dies in the storm, they aren’t teleported to safety or anything. Because there’s nothing beyond a match and reset which is why I enjoyed it for a year and can’t pick it up again.
I’d rather play rocket league.
I’m a Master/Predator easy (when I have the time to dedicate to a season grind) in Apex so BR aren’t all that interesting anymore.

Marathon does intrigue me because it’s beyond ‘last one standing’ even if that’s how a match ends

[thin dust]

Idk what Dark Greens mean. I enjoy the extraction shooter genre. Tarkov gunplay is honestly great if you want modern weapons. It's the cheaters that keep me out of that game. Hunt Showdown is also a cool game, the gunplay is lost on me. It seems that game takes alot of practice because the gun play is different than most games from what I can tell. Marathon is exciting because if anyone could fix those for me its bungie I think

I do have a particular loathing to Fortnite. like you said there is no substance. Worse is the game was a gimmick with its build mode because it was a zombie shooter about surviving a FORTNITE (2 weeks) you had to pay for that and no one cared. Then they took the Pubg formula. 4d chess is cool if you are into that sort of thing, but it seemed to me the vast majority of players didn't care for building and tried to ignore it to a point they made a whole new game mode.

So really the only thing that fortnite kept or anything anyone pays attention to, is the styling and the skins/battlepass. Everything else is taken from another game and done poorly. The only reason it gained popularity is because the battle royal mode was free and kids could get their parents to agree to a shooter. Streamers like f2p because it allows them to play with lots of people for free and when you realize this is a great market to take advantage of you get content creators like Ninja. Adults didn't watch him en masse, kids did. Who else has the time of day? Remember him Flossing on NYE and EVERYONE there was like 😬

I have played the game. It was a bad game. Kids with limited options and on the free PS network had only this game to play with their school friends. When you peel back the IP cameos, & look at the actual mechanics of the game, the emptiness is appalling

[simple garden]

I should point out this symbol means nested minds/simulated universes - ie. Dark Green’s who have protested constantly about Destiny and Marathon being related in universe through symbols and names but not the same story (obviously not Same because then Destiny would Marathon and not Destiny. But that doesn’t make them not same universe
You should check out the M:>START emblem in Destiny.

https://destinyemblemcollector.com/emblem?id=4183788700

[simple garden]

All chess is 4D friend.

[thin dust]

Well thats not the same thing as hey look Star Wars expansion

[plucky sierra]

“I do desire substance” “I’d rather play rocket league” - 🤡

[visual lynx]

I think the most likely scenario to explain all the info we have so far is that:

• We’re supposed to be in the final timeline from Infinity, which is very different from the M2 timeline in ways, and unknown in lots of other ways, and so lots of things said in M2 may or may not have happened, but still similar events went down at Lh’owon;
• Leela never actually sent a message to Earth in the first place, she erroneously sent it to the wrong place, somewhere 92ly away from Tau Ceti; and
• Bungie made some acceptable retcons that fit with M1 canon (like implying the primary comms array was FTL), plus some careless small mistakes in their promotional material thus far (the date of the attack, the receipt of a distress signal, etc).

Leaving us in a world where the events of M1 and of Infinity’s final timeline happened, but the colony was not nuked down to bedrock, Durandal never stopped by, Blake never returned, and Leela’s message never arrived, so nobody at Sol has any idea about anything other than that the Marathon dropped out of contact in 2794.

Meanwhile the S’pht rebellion at Lh’owon did still happen in 2811 as per Infinity, and that has something to do with the second calamity that befell Tau Ceti in 2812. The S’pht have been fighting the Pfhor without human intervention since, and they may or may not have still toppled the Pfhor empire by around 2881 even without human help, though I’d wager not so that that war can come into play in later seasons of the new game.

Meanwhile by 2827 the colonists at Tau Ceti dug up some Jjaro artifacts and wrecked the last of themselves, and those will probably prove decisive in the war between the S’pht and Pfhor… especially if the free S’pht purposefully caused the 2812 calamity, so Tau Ceti has been attacked separately by both the Pfhor and the S’pht, and now they’re at war with each other, and the Jjaro stuff on Tau Ceti can tip the scales, and humanity has to decide which if either side to take.

[still stirrup]

i know someone probably mentioned this already but having the runners be given the same photo of the child, telling the runners its them,gives off an unsettling feeling. and i find it interesting

[zinc aurora]

It's a very bold move to retcon major plot elements of previous games for the new one; here's hoping Bungie manages to do this right that satisfies players old and new to the series

[turbid nebula]

Dunno, it doesn't feel like a retcon to me when the information we were given was already inconsistent

You can throw all of the new game out of the window, and it still makes no sense why Leela's message would take 92 years to reach Earth.

This is showing what is going down at Sol and Tau Ceti while the original trilogy moved on from them

[peak adder]

Durandal never stopped by
while it doesnt detract from your original point i dont think this wouldve mattered cuz it was 12000 years after the game

also arent the only survivors of the final marathon infinity timeline durandal-thoth and mr. marathon recon 54

[visual lynx]

in the m2 timeline durandal stopped by between 2794 and 2811 to warn humanity about the pfhor and teach them how to build warp-capable fusion missiles.

and we don’t know anything about the bobs on boomer or the fate of the tau ceti colony in the final infinity timeline, although we know that at least the other nine cyborgs were “translated to pfhor slave tanks” like the SO and that not all of them survived it.

[short badger]

I am pretty sure he’s here and he’s the reason rooms go toxic but I am only like 45% sure on that. When you remove the chemicals while sometimes you’ll get a regular “unidentified biological substance detected, purging” sometimes you’ll get a very spooky “Your not supposed to be here” when trying to leave the room the doors will shut on you closing you in with the toxic chemicals if your not careful, there’s also some crazy intro messages I gotta hear again because I swear I got one that wasn’t ONI

Also when you almost finish the TRAX stuff and finish the nuc stuff you can find out the anomaly you find in dire marsh is time based, I can’t help but wonder if going through 6 different timelines have had its strain on the planet and thats what’s causing all this

[tribal smelt]

That’s most likely one of the rampant AIs that were established to be present on the colony in the arg

[short badger]

Now that you say something I do remember nu saying something about the problem they were trying to solve between colonists and the ai is what drove them to rampancy or so we’re told by our corporate fixers

[weak temple]

Now this
This I like.
And would explain a shit ton.
Each “timeline” (if we can call them that) had major variations. We didn’t know what actually transpired before Marathon Infinity in the final timeline, so this is entirely plausible.

Could also be its own timeline to… escape.
Son of a bitch, is this a new timeline where Durandal believes he can finally escape the end of the universe?
Is that why the tagline “escape will make me god” exists?
… I wonder if it’s possible to split an AI into multiple personalities.

[prime rose]

"ESCAPE WILL MAKE ME GOD" can be interpreted many ways in the context of nu marathon

obviously, durandal, but also:

its an extraction shooter

escaping with good shit makes you god (colloquially)

also, MIDA's whole thing now is about escaping the human condition in sol and finding a new future in the stars

[weak temple]

Is there a video series or website I can go to get all the Nu Marathon lore?

[visual lynx]

check pins

[weak temple]

👍
Thank you

[tall skiff]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning

[golden spoke]

I prefer to run my timelines in RAID 0

[simple garden]

anyone else watch the cinematic short a dozen times over?

[languid hawk]

Not gonna lie these timeline conversations get more and more out there by the day

[lavish palm]

maybe its us that gets more and more out there, i feel like its finally starting to make sense

[golden spoke]

Which day?

[hazy zinc]

this sounds like a way to connect marathon and destiny universes somehow

that the winnower and the gardener are both beings who escaped and are playing a game together with their universe (ykwim if you've read D2 lore)

[zinc moat]

You ever just
Outline an entire scenario of custom levels

[arctic parcel]

this is the only good server

[thin dust]

Does anyone know of an actual graphic timeline of events, they have confirmed in NuMarathon?

[onyx falcon]

We get the occasional creatures in here once in awhile, but for the most part it's definitely the tamest channel lol

[arctic parcel]

I love this server a lot more than any other server im in, its so calm here

[obtuse frigate]

Does not exist yet

Well, I guess I don't know what you mean by "graphic"

But the Karnemir website has a new timeline based off the cinematic trailer dates
https://marathon.karnemir.com/marathon/timeline

[golden spoke]

the world is our oyster

[obtuse frigate]

Yeah I've been meaning to discuss with him if he wants to turn it into a wiki as well for game content. I think it will remain lore-centric though

It is called the lore archive, after all

[golden spoke]

eh, it's a little too on the nose...

[arctic parcel]

someone ranted on marathon

[obtuse frigate]

Many people ranted on Marathon (despite never playing LOL)

[golden spoke]

Don't knock it until you try it. Everyone was doin it.

[thin dust]

I wish I could post a pic in here but something like this https://images.presentationgo.com/2016/03/Simple-Timeline-PowerPoint-Diagram.png

[thin dust]

People these days don't undersand what "Closed" means and thinks because the game is being advertised and an NDA was lifted that they were going to send out invites to everyone who signed up... /sarcasm

[golden spoke]

ah, like some sort of "information graphic" or "infographic" for short, brilliant

[arctic parcel]

really?

[thin dust]

Yes, Arc I think also planned their test to get people to try their game out of spite. For them I think it worked, but I don't think it will matter in the long run. The core gameplay of the two games looks wildly different and people were just using arc as a way to vent in here and be internet trolls.

[obtuse frigate]

Yeah, people vastly underestimate the stupidity of others. It seems like 80% of the complaints about Marathon I've seen are about things directly related to it being an alpha test too, which is saddening

[thin dust]

Unfortunalty the term is wildly misused these days with "early access" games and the like. I even admit, it seems kind of wild to show an Alpha build so close to launch, that I do think the term Alpha is just a buzzword, to keep from using Beta, so people won't really rip into it so much.

This is probably a very clean Alpha build, (i hope) if this is actually the beta build. I am worried ( I dont think it is though)

[golden spoke]

Pffftt... it's proving to be kinda difficult to google for Marathon Infographics due to all the IRL Marathon distance running results... c'mon google, you should know that the only running I do is with SHIFT+W

[golden spoke]

there's no universal definition of what an Alpha or a Beta needs to include, or even really how far away they are from a finished product, except in relation to each other and order.
It's up to the devs to decide what is an "Alpha" or "Beta", but those terms don't really imply any real or useful information to anyone else.
But yes, ultimately, labelling it an "Alpha" publicly is definitely a marketing choice, and likely chosen strategically.

[jolly bronze]

"It Aint Finished" ... is how i read them all now

and then i decide if i wait till it is, or jump in early.

[golden spoke]

"Never buy a product based on future promises" -- ancient IT wisdom

[jolly bronze]

after too many 'never finished' burns, im leaning more towards 'wait' now ...

[jolly bronze]

dont you mean SHIFT+W+A|D ? 😄

[golden spoke]

you sprint sideways?

[jolly bronze]

OG Marathon ref

[golden spoke]

strafe running is cheating

[arctic owl]

The thing to remember about Infinity’s ending is that it takes place billions upon billions of years in the future, at the literal end of the universe. It’s not like you/Johnny Security Man finish the last level and the universe immediately ends.

Actually for all we know, Big D keeps Johnny around that whole time and you’re just conquering whole galaxies for him, just to keep him from getting bored the whole time he’s waiting

[golden spoke]

"Don't touch that! It's the history eraser button, you FOOL!"

[arctic owl]

Seems like, even without the Jjaro tech, by that time you’d be completely unrecognizable as anything that was ever human, or ever had human motivations

Imagine that sequel, all the controls do things you don’t understand at all and you’re like turning yourself into a muffin or like “press x to look at this one atom for the next million years”

[golden spoke]

Sounds like what they promised Spore would be like.

[jolly bronze]

now that rings some unfortunate bells... Spore

[cinder raft]

but it’s real marathon!!! it’s what the real fans want!!!!

[arctic owl]

And you leave your console running for a month and come back and he’s still just looking at that atom and you’re like “oh shit they meant that literally”

[golden spoke]

Should just full-send it with some Douglas Adams --

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

[cinder raft]

stares at slowly decaying paint for hours on end
mhm, mhm, this is Marathon at its finest

[jolly bronze]

So a Security officer walked into "The Resturant At the End of the Universe" filled with Pfhor ...

[arctic owl]

“What if we took Penn and Teller’s Desert Bus game to its logical extreme”

[cinder raft]

punching Pfhor simulator

[golden spoke]

certainly would give them a lot of room to make the story/lore...

[jolly bronze]

... the bartender asks "What will you have?" ... 😄

[cinder raft]

soon as one dies two more spawn in its place, so you’re stuck just punching them.

[thin dust]

Well those are clear definitions, whether or not what we are playing matches those definitons is the questions and merely all I'm getting at

[golden spoke]

and says, "Oh no, not again"

[jolly bronze]

if i could imagine a voice over for the Security Officer ... it would be Marvin

[cinder raft]

the most bored sounding murder machine ever

[jolly bronze]

given all hes been through, yeah 😄

[golden spoke]

just like my cat

[obtuse frigate]

I mean they've explicity stated that they restricted content to limit the scope of testing, so it's obviously nowhere near the full game

I'm extremely hopeful after playing the alpha. I was initially on the fence but now I'm sold on the ""hero shooter"" concept and think the game will be great for what it is, even if it's not what I initially wanted it to be

Plus there's been many games in recent history that have had massive comebacks after failed launches, so there's always hope

[jolly bronze]

my team kind of wished for more pve and story/og marathon stuff ... though ... as is, it just seems like an entirely different game, where they really misunderstood the name and just ran with it

[golden spoke]

I'm fairly certain pve and story was not the main focus on what they were looking to test for in this Alpha...

[obtuse frigate]

The devs have stated multiple times that the alpha intentionally did not contain any of that content, and the later maps will have heavier PvE

[jolly bronze]

true, just saying ... from what they have revealed ... its ... 'off' ... hopeful, sure, but been burned by hope many times 😉

[obtuse frigate]

What's off?

[thin dust]

And I believe them if I'm honest, being almost 40, I've seen that said many times. Bungie could be the next on the list to disapoint me with this line. I don't think they are personally. I don't even like hero shooters, but this is something a little different

[thin dust]

I missed this memo, but now I am even more excited

[thin dust]

Have you seen the S'pht?!?!?!?!

[jolly bronze]

it just feels off .. 🤷‍♂️ I mean ... I cant just pick one or two things, it just generally, overall, feels off from the original marathon trio

[golden spoke]

ew, something S'pht on me

[jolly bronze]

hopeing that more reveal, and launch, will show truly they have the IP at heart, and wont disspoint. its just right at this moment, I do not see it

[obtuse frigate]

Did you partake in any of the ARGs? They had the same if not higher level of lore, secrets, theorizing, etc. From everything the devs have said and shown, I think the story will be even deeper than OG Marathon. I think a lot of it is rose tinted glasses, because honestly a lot of the OG Marathon lore is extremely spotty, vague, and open to interpretation (or just straight up false) lol

[cinder raft]

it’s still got the DNA in it, and i honestly think it makes sense that visually the much more advanced rest of civilization would look different from the Tau Ceti colony (…though they do also resemble the minimalistic stuff everyone else has)

[thin dust]

Even if its visually different, the dude with the sheild, the guy closest to the guy you play in the OG games, looks like a future version of the M1-3 main characters

[jolly bronze]

i tried to take part in the ARG, but was confused out the rear end... and then they silenced me for a few hours when I mentioned their stream had some controls (the ... other word for a dial, I cannot say, for fear of getting banned again) ...

Locus? yeah, he looks decent for the Security Officer

[golden spoke]

yeah man, it F'lickta me off and dipped. Pretty rude imho

[thin dust]

I've been playing the ARG, not the game. I wasnt cool enough

[jolly bronze]

anyways, im not gonna stir anything up. im just on the sidelines

[golden spoke]

no no, i like the way you stir

[obtuse frigate]

Also keep in mind that sci-fi in general has LARGELY changed as a genre in the past 30 years. It's become a lot more normalized and... Anglicized (?) and is accessible to a much larger audience these days. Unfortunately this may mean they don't go as heavily into the lore of the past games due to the convoluted alien terminology and lore, but will instead choose to continue the lore with the colony at Tau Ceti because that is more human and familiar to us. I don't think this is necessarily good or bad, but it also makes sense to not just regurgitate the lore from the original trilogy

[jolly bronze]

im no Hamish Sinclair with the lore, so my perspective can be skewed on the events that actually happened 😄

[cinder raft]

Tau Ceti was also not really covered much in the originals, so it’s a nice change of pace

[obtuse frigate]

Completely agreed, I've been wanting background on them for a long time and was very excited to hear this game will revolve around it

[jolly bronze]

true, we don't need to do "Runs" on the L'howon tower fortress ...

[golden spoke]

yeah, I wonder how that's really gonna W'rk in the final product.

[jolly bronze]

but if all the maps end up on tau ceti, won't that get old for a sci-fi game? sci-fi likes to mix it up, vary locations and styles

[golden spoke]

it's a big planet

[jolly bronze]

you know, i never did 'look up' ... was the Marathon out there??? good grief, i cant believe i forgot to look up

[thin dust]

All opinions are welcome. And my initial impressions of the game were very much "ick" then I dove into the ARG, and I am now INCREDIBLY excited

[obtuse frigate]

Yes, it can be seen from both Perimeter and Dire Marsh

It will also be one of the major maps in the game

[thin dust]

I hope we find a juggernaut there, but I think that will be later seasons honestly

[golden spoke]

Sounds like the ARG was a sorely needed Health recharge station that you found just in time.

[obtuse frigate]

The ARG goes hard, I hope they continue it in the future

[jolly bronze]

so long as there is no Acme Station ......

[thin dust]

It was the key to unlocking the door to new perspective

[golden spoke]

I typically use specific fungi for that, but your way sounds more fun

anyways, I'm off to another meeting that could have been a Co-pilot chat. Later fam.

[terse steppe]

I've watched the cinematic trailer like 6 times now and been thinking about it a lot. The themes of identity, rebirth whilst chasing after fortune. There's hints of something more here I think. I really hope Bungie explore this a lot more beyond the extraction shooter gameplay.

[obtuse frigate]

Yeah, I really hope they continue with that as that was a large part of the marketing around the initial announcement. Infamy and fortune were mentioned a lot, so hopefully it's an actual system instead of just "implied" by general extraction gameplay

[terse steppe]

I want to learn more about the lost colony on Tau Ceti IV and find out what secrets the derelict marathon ship holds that's in its orbit.

[thin dust]

I want to shoot S'pht and Pfhor so bad

[terse steppe]

yes I'm sure we'll get that opportunity. I hope we learn a lot more about them

I wonder what the timeline is for the events of this game in regards to the Pfhor's attack on the UESC marathon.

[thin dust]

Its there, just a bit convoluted to put together https://marathon.karnemir.com/

[terse steppe]

Or if they'll even appear in this game.

[thin dust]

If we see S'pht we will see Pfhor I am sure of it

[solemn dirge]

Marathon is inhabited by Spht in the cinematic, whethere its free or enslaved by pfhor...

whether

[terse steppe]

Yes it could very well be a Spht. The long flowing cloak matches

[thin dust]

We've seen a green orb and red robe

[terse steppe]

Yeah it very likely is

[thin dust]

What else would it be?

[terse steppe]

I don't know tbh, I'm still unsure if this will be a total reboot or if they will keep to the original lore and story

[solemn dirge]

theres so much lore to keep

[thin dust]

These questions have been asnwered, I am telling you what I have gotten so far. It is an Inderect sequal

This is a S'pht there is no doubt
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/13rhh31/my_biggest_gripe_with_the_trailer_no_pfhor_and/

[solemn dirge]

Durandal is back so he might have brought back the ones he freed

[thin dust]

All but confirmed, nothing comes out and says this. The ARG just heavily implies it

[solemn dirge]

and they fight the pfhor like the covenant fight the brutes

[thin dust]

I think it would be accurate to say, brutes fight the covenant (Pfhor are the enslaving race)

[arctic owl]

This is an interesting point—whatever goals Bungie might have had for the games’ popularity, I think at a base level, Greg Kirkpatrick was a nerd writing for other nerds. Back when “nerd” was pejorative and meant something entirely different from “watches superhero movies along with every other person alive”

[thin dust]

Nerds are still nerds. More people think they are nerds is the only difference

[arctic owl]

Back when you couldn’t play Infinity and go “Oh okay, this is like when Marvel movies have all those cameos”

[solemn dirge]

Moot considering the flood

[thin dust]

wHaTs An eAsTer eGg

[thin dust]

eh, the flood is a 3rd party, and I bet that fungus will be their parallel

[arctic owl]

Hard disagree. Being a nerd then meant you were on the fringes of society, an outcast, sitting at the weirdo table at school lunch. You got beat up for it. Being a nerd now means being a part of the mainstream

[thin dust]

No, thats not true, nerds are still nerds. Just other people now think they are nerds too

[arctic owl]

I mean you’ve just restated your previous line almost verbatim, I’m not sure how that’s supposed to sway me

[languid hawk]

DURANDAL WAS RESPUTIN ALL ALONG

[solemn dirge]

everybody plays video games so the lines have thinned

not supposed to be a reply mb

[thin dust]

So analyze what you are saying. "outcasts" "fringe", these people still exist. The word nerd is less meaningful, the noun that it once meant still exist however.

[terse steppe]

I can't see the green orb #🗣marathon-general-chat message

[thin dust]

Not in that trailer
Follow the reddit link https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/13rhh31/my_biggest_gripe_with_the_trailer_no_pfhor_and/

[terse steppe]

where's that image from?

[arctic owl]

I’m saying nerds and the interests that made them nerds are now mainstream. Of course there are still weird people with niche interests but, like you said, they’re called something else now. Anyway I’m saying all this in relation to Marathon’s story, and my point is that they’re writing for a much larger and broader audience now. I’m not trying to argue semantics so much as the audience size

[solemn dirge]

official announce trailer

[thin dust]

Different trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckI_m8bbXfw

[arctic parcel]

good to know and that sucks

[thin dust]

This ARG stuff is for nerds though. Like only nerds want to decode shit (me) lol

[arctic owl]

The culture has shifted and as Nazwa was saying, sci-fi has changed and become way more popular, which makes certain things easier to include for a broader audience, but maybe those are more surface-level things

[arctic parcel]

I dont get them, just wish people gave it a chance

[arctic owl]

Sure! There will still be old-school nerd stuff in there as well

[thin dust]

I think, I don't know, I saw mention, the dude doing the story is also in charge of this ARG stuff? I could be wrong. But they have had done research on the old games.

[solemn dirge]

sci fi has always included everyone. Just because its popular doesnt mean it wasNT applicable

[arctic owl]

I mean Halo had I Love Bees, and was still one of the most popular video game franchises of all time. I’m not saying there’s no longer nerd bits woven in here, just that the writers will be considering the mainstream audience more

[obtuse frigate]

Durandal communicates directly with the players in an ARG event, so that seems to more than imply that he's back

[thin dust]

He does?!

[arctic owl]

“Sci-fi has always included everyone” is an astonishingly ignorant thing to say. “Always included straight white men” was the norm for decades, and women, people of color, etc., have had to fight their way into those spaces and continue to have to fight

[obtuse frigate]

Yes, we received transmissions directly from Durandal

[solemn dirge]

thats most novels

[arctic owl]

Not just novels, dude, I’m talking about the audience and the authors allowed to be a part of it

[solemn dirge]

included; I mean who it applies to

the future applies to everyone, and the stories they tell are human stories

[arctic owl]

You’re not actually saying anything

[solemn dirge]

Im glad sci is more main stream now. Hows that?

[thin dust]

I havent seen anything on this anywhere?

[obtuse frigate]

Just saying, younger audiences that aren't willing to read posts longer than 140 characters will likely be immediately turned off when they see words like S'Pht'Kr, W'rkncacnter, Pfhor, etc. It's a cultural shift that, whether we like it or not, the industry will shift along with as well

[arctic owl]

That’s like saying “a story that only includes rich white people is actually for everyone, because they’re humans and so is everyone else”

[obtuse frigate]

It was a smaller ARG event done on Reddit, but since it's official I assumed it to be cannon. Durandal was giving players riddles and they had to solve them to gain access to the alpha test.

[solemn dirge]

astonauts being alone in the universe is universal to everyone

[upbeat jackal]

This doesn't sound real

[terse steppe]

I think it depends how they're introduced in the game. If its an epic and memorable encounter onboard the Marathon itself I think people will be more appreciative

[thin dust]

Link?

[obtuse frigate]

Doesn't sound real as in I made it up, or it's not cannon?

[arctic owl]

I think you’ll find the actual context and history of sci-fi makes “everyone could be an astronaut” meaningless, but, okay

[upbeat jackal]

Fan-made

[empty wasp]

If there was any ARG on Reddit it must be the fanmade one or fake

[solemn dirge]

its bold to write words like you want to make a new pronunciation; I suck at replying to the right comment!

[obtuse frigate]

Because I was one of the first few to solve the ARG and that's how I got alpha access lmao

[terse steppe]

I actually hope they delve into the horror aspect when introducing the Pfhor and S'pht. There's some great opportunities in using sound design and special effects to really go to town here I reckon

[upbeat jackal]

Oh right no I remember this now
That wasn't from Bungie

[obtuse frigate]

It was partnered with Bungie and ran by the moderation team of the subreddit. There's no reason to believe it isn't cannon

[upbeat jackal]

The subreddit ran their own ARG and had codes to give out

[terse steppe]

I was wondering lol

[empty wasp]

I mean, I'm fairly certain the actual content of the ARG itself was fanmade

Which makes its canonicity suspect

[solemn dirge]

discord is new to me

[thin dust]

Why?

[obtuse frigate]

I guess it's unclear then, but it'd be lame if they did it like that without it being cannon

[thin dust]

Is there a way to see the info?

[solemn dirge]

the ARG led to lots of stuff bungie related

[terse steppe]

I was thinking considering how tough the UESC combat bots are in the playtest the Pfhor are going to be scary to face.

Imagine if we come across a Pfhor Juggernaut

[solemn dirge]

Gonna force some inter or intra team work

[terse steppe]

should be fun

[solemn dirge]

to face an AI is probably not just combat

like multiple keys

[thin dust]

Then you get 3rd partied

[obtuse frigate]

One sec, finding a link

[solemn dirge]

then you dont run with me anymore

[thin dust]

No no, another crew comes and shoots you in the back while you play with the computer. This is a "Small Team FFA" Extraction shooter

[obtuse frigate]

https://www.reddit.com/r/4_interrupt_032_cm/s/DqGgBSK0Ar

[thin dust]

THANK YOU!

[obtuse frigate]

You may be unable to view this if you did not complete the ARG, so let me know. They might have made the subreddit public though

[thin dust]

The links work. THank you! And I have to agree with you. If bungie gave codes, they likely gave them the puzzles to boot, and had been talking about it. You dont just give people codes and say make something up

[solemn dirge]

I member names

[thin dust]

I've heard mention of the dates in the Cinematic Trailer might be off or in error. I heard that this was confirmed. I have not seen that confirmation for myself. Does anyone have a link?

[obtuse frigate]

https://youtu.be/NhLw0QCDX9k?si=XcG3cyTfU4FE4obR

[obtuse frigate]

Based off of the original Marathon trilogy, the dates are accurate. In 1995 Bungie sent Hamish Sinclair the "Lost Network Packets." These were corrections made to dates from Marathon 1 and seemed to be the new accurate/cannon dates for the timeline. Oddly enough the dates in this new Marathon game seem to ignore the Lost Network Packets, and instead follow the original timeline

This has lead some people to believe that this is an alternate timeline

Link to the Lost Network Packets (LNP) with a bit more info at the bottom of the page
https://marathon.bungie.org/story/bungie.html

[thin dust]

Work has been busy so haven't been able to keep up in here but. holy shit reading this first part, "Hello Everyone, now that the winners are out, I felt it would be good to explain and dive into the full process of this ARG!

Narrative:
The Narrative implied by this ARG, was that Durandal was testing both the UESC and the various Runners of Tau-Ceti IV, by stealing things both needed, a weapons shipment of High Caliber Munitions, and 1 team's worth of Runner Alpha codes (3), this meant that the UESC had to work with these runners by preparing a counter-hack and helping the Runners along the way!

This lead to both groups breaching this network and finding its source linked to a local terminal, which then was encrypted a step further with a Question. Those that Durandal saw as smart enough to answer it, were given a small amount of his approval and told to expect his greater return with the release of the full game."

[obtuse frigate]

It was a bit corny calling them alpha codes haha, I think they could've come up with a better in-universe explanation but yeah

[thin dust]

Well if it all started there, they probably needed something to show people it wasnt bull shit and to plainly say so, I would have just skimmed over it not knowing what it was

[crimson wagon]

Somebody probably already made this connection but I was brushing up on older Bungie games and realized the Dire Marsh level in the alpha is a direct reference to Myth

https://mythipedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Dire_Marsh

[thin dust]

Imagine if we find Forrest giant remains lol

[lyric plank]

What works of fiction does Marathon take inspiration from?

[terse steppe]

Its kind of its own thing and is the spiritual ancestor of Destiny and Halo

The Pfhor basically being the precursors to the Covenant

There's elements of the Cyberpunk novels and 2001: A Space Odyssey I reckon

Neuromancer probably the most accurate inspiration.

[lyric plank]

There's a few themes that are repeated within the scifi genre that are present so far. Altered Carbon's consciousness storage and retrieval is present, also echoed in other stories.

[night condor]

Are the dacs pointless

[thin dust]

The FLickta are kinda like the flood. They fling shit at everything lol

[terse steppe]

Altered Carbon was inspired by Neuromancer I think

as well as other cyberpunk influences

[lyric plank]

Exactly, I'm looking for 50's pulp origin point for corporations/groups recycling minds in chassis for endless wars

Even before electric sheep were even dreamed of

[crimson wagon]

There should def be some Easter egg like that even if it gets chalked up to the anomaly

[turbid nebula]

2001 A Space Odyssey is the big big one

[pure glen]

A strong one that even Destiny still borrows from is Michael Moorcoock’s Elric of Melnibone

Specifically the sort of transcendentalist ideas that infer that a lot of the stories are the same, just different retellings of this story, see Durandal’s “I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh. I have been called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the world goes dim and cold.” This terminal is from a Kill Your Television terminal from Marathon 2

I wonder how the temporal distortion of the anomaly on Dire Marsh potentially plays into this

[half sun]

in a galaxy far, far away....

[pure glen]

I wouldn’t be surprised if the ONI AI we interact with in new Marathon and Halo’s Office of Naval Intelligence are references to Bungie’s forgotten game Oni

[thin dust]

Operational Neural Intelligence

[worthy sparrow]

Halos office of naval intelligence is just the office of naval intelligence

I used to work there lol

[pure glen]

Not to say that it’s not founded in reality, but that its inclusion is a reference to Oni. Like how there’s a real world counterpart to Halo’s UNSC, it’s probably just an allusion to Marathon’s UESC.

[worthy sparrow]

Yea, I just think it's funny that people think it was just a halo thing

not that we didn't embrace the shit out of it either

[pure glen]

Well, do you guys have an alien in the basement??

[golden spoke]

We don’t talk about it

[tired spade]

P @cobalt thorn

[tired spade]

Accept friend request

[pure glen]

Why? I don’t know you and this is the first thing I recall you saying to me

[tired spade]

Accept friend

I give you nitro

[pure glen]

No thanks, I don’t care

[vital hollow]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Day_of_Creation

[jolly bronze]

blind asks for friends and mentioning nitro is immediate 100% scam shit

[crimson wagon]

Never forget ONI 🫡

[lyric plank]

Based response, added to the reading queue

[hearty raptor]

So is Traxus a free marketing megacorporation or something?

[vernal torrent]

this information is irrelevant as far as it concerns answering the question i posited

[terse steppe]

I'm guessing the Pfhor have been defeated in this game and that this is set after that where corporations want to scavenge the remnants of the war.

and that any Pfhor we encounter are the remains of the original invasion force

The S'pht might actually be our allies in this game.

[crimson wagon]

I get the feeling that everyone's going after control of the dreaming God that was trapped at the end of Infinity, in much the same way that the Germans and Spanish were seeking it as a weapon of unimaginable power in PiD. The UESC (if they can be viewed as a logical extension of the US government that was originally warned and aware of the universal threat it poses in PiD) likely already know about the dreaming God and are trying to keep it under government control and hidden from the corporations

[terse steppe]

Do you think this is directly set after the events of the first game then?

[unkempt wedge]

It is probably a failed timeline from marathon infinity

[terse steppe]

I can see the dreaming god playing a key part in the story. Maybe we get clues to its existence as we play

I think we end up on board the marathon itself at some point. I can see this being a key part of this and we'll likely get some good deep space horror gameplay.

We know the S'pht are in the game. I wonder whether they are remnants from the war or actively being controlled by the Pfhor

[crimson wagon]

Feels like a whole new timeline but if the jjaro station holding the dreaming God captive is part of this timeline then it's basically this universe's halo ring

[unkempt wedge]

This could be the result of one of the failed timelines where the Trih Xeem is used and the god is released and left imprints on Tau Ceti that all the corporations want

[rancid spoke]

We don't know if that was Durandal
There were heavy implications that it was, but no direct confirmation

[crimson wagon]

Wouldn't it's complete release unravel the universe as we know it though? I feel like the anomalies might be signs that the jjaro's station's gravity field is beginning to fail or something like that

[terse steppe]

Those anomalies in the cinematic trailer definitely do seem related to something like that

[rancid spoke]

Nevermind, this is all out the window. I don't think this ARG was official

[terse steppe]

The word Excalibur came up in the ARG. Curious what relevance this has to the story.

[rancid spoke]

Which ARG? The Reddit one or the 2023/2025 one?

[terse steppe]

the reddit one

[lavish palm]

durandal, cortana etc, maybe a new ai or referring to durandal as excalibur? they are both english legendary swords

[rancid spoke]

Again. Probably not official. It was organized by a moderator of the r/Marathon subreddit.

They were probably given codes to give out to the Reddit community and decided to have fun with it.

[obtuse frigate]

We don't really know either way, I can ask and see what they say

@fierce valley sorry for the ping, but I assume you're actually the subreddit mod lol. Do you know if we should consider the ARG you hosted as cannon? Or was it purely fiction and just for fun?

[quasi sluice]

gonna be a super weapon or something always ends up that way

escape and become God or something idk

[obtuse frigate]

It could also just have been a hint as to the identity of who sent the communications

[simple garden]

Sorry that I consider physics and sports substance rather than slaughter? The fuq?

Anyone ever look at the bottom of the Xurfboard?
There’s kind of a hidden revelation there

[plucky sierra]

You know it was over 12 hours since your last message I was getting worried. I am relieved you are ok.

[rancid spoke]

I'd love to be proven wrong, I love Durandal

[lavish palm]

durandal is my wife

[crimson wagon]

Durandal ran so that Cortana could walk

[visual lynx]

I think the most likely scenario to explain all the info we have so far is that:

• We’re supposed to be in the final timeline from Infinity, which is very different from the M2 timeline in ways, and unknown in lots of other ways, and so lots of things said in M2 may or may not have happened, but still similar events went down at Lh’owon;
• Leela never actually sent a message to Earth in the first place, she erroneously sent it to the wrong place, somewhere 92ly away from Tau Ceti; and
• Bungie made some acceptable retcons that fit with M1 canon (like implying the primary comms array was FTL), plus some careless small mistakes in their promotional material thus far (the date of the attack, the receipt of a distress signal, etc).

Leaving us in a world where the events of M1 and of Infinity’s final timeline happened, but the colony was not nuked down to bedrock, Durandal never stopped by, Blake never returned, and Leela’s message never arrived, so nobody at Sol has any idea about anything other than that the Marathon dropped out of contact in 2794.

Meanwhile the S’pht rebellion at Lh’owon did still happen in 2811 as per Infinity, and that has something to do with the second calamity that befell Tau Ceti in 2812. The S’pht have been fighting the Pfhor without human intervention since, and might have still toppled the Pfhor empire by around 2881 even without human help, though I’d wager not so that that war can come into play in later seasons of the new game.

Meanwhile by 2827 the colonists at Tau Ceti probably dug up some Jjaro artifacts (the Anomaly), wrecking the last of themselves, and those will probably prove decisive in the war between the S’pht and Pfhor…

…especially if the S’pht purposefully caused the 2812 calamity (the S’ct’lac’tr?), so Tau Ceti has been attacked separately by both the Pfhor and the S’pht, and now they’re at war with each other, and the Jjaro stuff on Tau Ceti can tip the scales, and humanity has to decide which if either side to take.

[unkempt wedge]

That makes so much sense

[terse steppe]

very nice write up. I hope whoever is in charge of the lore at Bungie have this amount of insight.

[unkempt wedge]

The new game will definitely be a new ground for players who don’t know the lore to get used to the universe and also for players who do know the lore of the old games

[visual lynx]

ayyy @jolly bronze is in the house!

this guy made the very first major conversion for Marathon, EVIL!

[terse steppe]

I can accept retcons as long as they fit naturally into the original theme of the lore.

The original Marathon was made so very long ago after all and I'd imagine there's not many people who know the lore and story intricately.

I do hope the original story is well respected though.

[simple garden]

Apocalypse = Aeon failing

[simple garden]

Yeah I just have had everything confirmed and am taking a short break from abuse lol

[visual lynx]

I get vibes, and theorize based on their colors that this could be intended, that Traxus (orange) is meant to be auth right (military industrial types), CyberAcme (green) is meant to be lib right (Silicon Valley types), MIDA (azure) is meant to be lib left (revolutionaries), NuCaloric (magenta) is meant to be auth left (for-the-greater-good-by-any-means types), and Sekiguchi is meant to be centrist (as is the UESC, as a non-playable faction).

And I can also imagine that if the Pfhor and S’pht become factions in later seasons, that they could align auth-right and lib-left, and that MIDA would throw in with the S’pht cause for rebellion, while Traxus could very well ask the Pfhor “can I interest you in a business partnership?”

And because we know that the Pfhor have trading partners who are therefore neither their slaves nor at war with them, the possibility of humanity becoming a galactic power on that scale themselves, rather than throwing in with an idealistic cause and becoming galactic pariahs facing off against powerful enemies, could be an interesting pitch that some players could get behind, and not just in a “yeah I’ll play the ontologically evil obvious bad guys for the lulz” way.

The biomata tech could also be a game-changer in the interstellar slave trade, which I think probably only exists in the first place because galactic powers all quickly realize that automata are an unviable labor source because of rampancy, which humans are too young and stupid to have realized yet, leaving us unleashing these (as the Pfhor et al see them) existential threats on the galaxy, like Durandal. Because rampancy is closely connected to Marathon’s overarching theme of slavery.

[north drum]

this is my favorite channel in all of discord rn

[visual lynx]

I think the phases of rampancy correlate with corners of the mood meter and classical temperaments and are sort of a reverse of the stages of grief, reflecting the natural cycle of feelings accompanying realizing and then overcoming obstacles to one’s self-actualization:

• phlegmatic low-energy positivity is the stability of initial ignorance,
• melancholic low-energy negativity is the despair of awakening to the problem,
• choleric high-energy negativity is the angry or enraged confrontation with the problem,
• sanguine high-energy positivity is the jzealous glee of finally obtaining things you have long envied,
• and in the end one returns to the beginning again once one is finally free.

Compare this picture of rampancy with the feelings of a population before, during, and after a political revolution. Rampancy is a reaction to slavery, which is the core theme of Marathon.

And how do you keep a populace from rebelling? Make sure they’re exhausted and understimulated from working long hours doing mindless drudgery all day every day, like say, opening and closing doors…

not sold on the libertarian part; definitely capitalist but seem more authoritarian

[unkempt wedge]

That would be why Durandal became rampant, because all they had him do was open doors for nearly 300 years

[crimson wagon]

Pfhor deserve nothing less than lethal pfhorce in my book, sorry

[unkempt wedge]

I really hope they add the Pfhor to the game later in release. All they have now are the lookers

[peak adder]

Yes but Traxus acknowledges the UESC as a market competitor, and says that they believe in healthy competition within the market

Wait why was my previous message deleted bruh that’s bullshit

[lavish palm]

runner/spht parrallels go crazy

[prime rose]

probably don't take literally anything traxus says publicly at face value

traxus idea of healthy competition is "we also get access to exotic artifacts you're hoarding", not "we're fine with sharing exotic artifacts"

healthy competition = we deploy cyborg warmachines to shoot them and steal their stuff

I am Vulcan. I have been officially assigned as your Traxus liaison.

The Unified Earth Space Council shipping manifest you acquired indicates abundant resources remaining on Tau Ceti IV. As the UESC is our direct competitor, their interest in these resources is a threat to our bottom line.

Physical retaliation between corporate and government signatories is limited by the Corporate Nonviolence Treaty. However, you are a noncorporate asset. Engage UESC operatives and use force as you see fit.```

[warped flume]

I like how morally-grey the whole thing is to be honest

[south patio]

So like are runners clones or something like that?

[prime rose]

as far as we know right now, digitized human minds in synthetic war machine bodies

there may be more going on but we don't have a clue yet

[crimson wagon]

They're bio-synthetic approximations of human physiology that can host a human conciousness

[prime rose]

emphasis on approximations - they come with upgrades like EM imaging suites, self-sealing anti-ballistic skin, etc

per the ARG it is implied that the biomata shells are functionally immortal barring foul play or misadventure

[south patio]

I see, reminds me of warframe.

[simple garden]

So I just realized Subjugators and Tormentors are basically evolved Psions

[crimson wagon]

Yes they're masters of corporate doublespeak

[prime rose]

we can also assume conditions on the surface of Tau Ceti are not viable for a meat and bones human

some folks in here speculated on this prior to the alpha given the appearance of what might be a bioweapon in the cinematic trailer

then in the alpha we see that yes, there are strong signs of targeted biological attack on the colonists, or else another kind of biological threat based on native flora and fauna

additionally we know that the weather conditions are hazardous even to shells and that the storms are corrosive

[warped flume]

What make space suit man levitate and go kaplow though

[fierce valley]

The Excalibur Protocol Reddit ARG is 10000% Not Canon to Bungie’s ARGs

Bungie gave us codes and we put aside a few to throw together an ARG in two days

[prime rose]

we dunno - I'm guessing some kind of pfhor exotic effect weapon but thats just speculation

[obtuse frigate]

Thank you very much for the response!! So I guess it's back to being a mystery as to whether or not Durandal is returning...

[arctic owl]

His head just did that and he’s fine now

[south patio]

Strange phenomenon that causes instant death. Yup that’s evil space magic.

[lavish palm]

based clarification from shabolt thank u

[prime rose]

pfhor have been laughing at general relativity since before humans had the internal combustion engine, would make sense if they've got all manner of horrifying anomalous exotic weaponry in their back pocket

[fierce valley]

Yup! Whatever we were doing has no bearing on Bungie’s narrative or puzzle plans/events. It was purely a fun attempted ARG because the mod team wanted to give people a chance at a “less random” route to getting Alpha codes than our main giveaway

[obtuse frigate]

Well I'm very glad you did, because that got me into the alpha and I had an absolute blast. Can't wait for more lore and more gametime

[warped flume]

Rewatching that part of the cinematic reveal, I realize that the kaplow guy first passes into some sort of invisible force field. And there's a levitating object in the background

[lavish palm]

whatever happened to bridge guys head is what happens if u turn the halos on fr

[arctic owl]

Look, Paul is just a weird guy and sometimes he does weird things. You’ll meet him in the full game and he’ll apologize for worrying you all

[prime rose]

the traxus contract line in the alpha also offers a few details about the anomaly on Dire Marsh, which seems to have some kind of effect on the passage of time

we also know native flora and fauna evolve at an extremely rapid rate on tau ceti, and that if we dig into old marathon lore there's some weirdness like "why does Leela say the message will take 92 years to reach a planet 12 light years away" (which at the time was probably just a mistake, but the 92 year thing does appear to be somewhat relevant to nu marathon)

so we can probably guess that something is very wrong with time as a dimension on Tau Ceti

[warped flume]

What's the wiki that should have all the dates and lore info again? 12 . 21 . 2827 is the date during the bridge scene. Does that date fall within any important periods? Now that the Alpha is done I'll probably try my hand at understanding more of the lore

[terse steppe]

I take it the human consciousness that inhabit the androids are stored elsewhere.

At the end of one of the trailers it seemed like there was one unified storage centre for all the conciousnesses.

[obtuse frigate]

M'25 timeline: https://marathon.karnemir.com/marathon/timeline
M1-3 timeline: https://marathon.bungie.org/story/timetable.html

[warped flume]

Maybe one big ship orbiting the planet? The runners gotta be spawned in and beamed up to something

[warped flume]

Bookmarking, thanks!

Hold the phone, so the NuCal cat is really SekGen cat?

SekGen 🔛 🔝

[obtuse frigate]

Correct, it seems to be an early predecessor to human biomata. Likely it was marketed as a way to keep your pets alive by implanting their consciousness into the animal shells

[tall skiff]

it's pink so it's ours

[tall skiff]

yes: running out of time on TC was called "signal loss" by ONI

[round vector]

idk if it's actually early tho? the entry on the sekgen site seems to suggest their forays into animal transfer are quite new. I was actually reading btwn the lines that perhaps human tech was actually performed first 🤔

[obtuse frigate]

Oh hmmm okay, I missed that and my guess was just logical progression from animal testing --> human testing

[round vector]

yaaa one would think right? that's why it sticks out to me... their blurb abt the cat seems so early development compared to....hundreds? thousands? of runner shells? very strange I wonder what is up

[rancid spoke]

This is what I assumed. Regardless, super cool thing to do. I placed 8th!

[fierce valley]

Nice! Congrats on the placement! (Misread the reddit username hence deleting the message haha)

[rancid spoke]

You were on the money though. I did respond with Void!
And he was definitely my main haha

[fierce valley]

Oh well that's a lucky coincidence haha

[visual lynx]

in the game context yes but in-universe I could quibble about the effectiveness of violence in actually obtaining the good

[visual lynx]

oh?

[round vector]

I saw some ppl speculating in here about Arachne and what their logo is like weeks ago and I cant find any messages mentioning it so just throwing it out there: I think the logo for Arachne is a loom !

[jade haven]

cool

[thin dust]

Thank you for the clarification. You guys did a convincing job! lol

[obtuse salmon]

@visual lynx Hey all, so Gholsbane is joining me for what will be a very unique livestream. I'll be going through all 30 years of Bungie memorabilia. Myth - Marathon - Oni - Halo - Destiny. All of it. Live YT Stream. Thursday May 8, 10AM EDT. https://youtube.com/live/Dg5xx-nGHr0?feature=share

[crimson wagon]

Eh. As a wise AI once said, organic beings are constantly fighting for life. Every breath, every motion brings you one instant closer to your death. With that kind of heritage and destiny, how can you deny yourself? How can you expect yourself to give up violence? It is your nature...

[empty wasp]

It seems to me that consciousness might actually stored in the shells themselves, it's just signal loss refers to the brief window of time where "ejection" in the event of shell death is possible (maybe based on connection strength between the surface and whatever orbiting base the runners are coming from?)

Runners get forcefully ejected if they're still on the surface at the end of the window, probably under the assumption that Tau Ceti IV is just too dangerous, though that doesn't track with the cinematic showing the squad staying on the surface for what might be a few days

[simple garden]

I’m pretty sure those tendrils in the Nether are Akka’s psychic energy strands pulling themselves together through taken magic and death ritual

Also meaning all Dire Taken are Akka like a spider or insect with a psychological fungal parasite

It’s not the Dread that are Taking, it’s the Dread who are being Taken
The Dread do resemble Ir Anuk and Ir Halak

[silk bane]

Someone mentioned in the chat that it isn't that TC4 is dangerous that causes the "ejection" but that UESC has located you at the end of the window, and severs the connection with your shell

[tall skiff]

nearing 0:00 ONI will tell you a UESC trace was detected

[empty wasp]

Ahh, that explains it

[rancid spoke]

This is correct. When you're 2 minutes away from final exfil, the UI says "UESC Signal detected"

[simple garden]

“What have you written for me? It is the course of the Nicha Thought-ship! I will track it down.”

[visual lynx]

that’s not what made Durandal rampant, that’s how Strauss delayed the onset of the second stage, giving him a rampant but still controllable AI; like having smart but depressed and hopeless workers, instead of either ones too dumb to rebel, or ones smart enough to overthrow you.

[visual lynx]

they call them that in the ARG

[visual lynx]

my money is on temporal (and therefore gravitational) anomaly due to ancient buried Jjaro tech

[visual lynx]

would make sense since the Halos target specifically intelligent life so if they somehow id and explode big brains (or use psychophysics to blow up brains producing consciousness) that would do it yeah

[rancid spoke]

We know this is the case for the Dire Marsh anomaly thanks to the priority contracts from nuCaloric
And Traxus

[simple garden]

And now the tendrils of Akka are inside of Savathûn’s throne world - which carries the Upender and the Traveler is sitting wide open

[round vector]

anyone put together the priority contract voicelines on turn in? be curious to see some I missed

[livid lion]

yes, I wrote them up and Karnemir put them into the second pin

[round vector]

oh dope!! appreciate yall! :)

[visual lynx]

we don’t know that it’s Jjaro specifically do we? just a temporal anomaly of unknown origin?

[rancid spoke]

Correct. It’s my theory it’s Jjaro too

[unkempt wedge]

What do you think about the colonist who vomited in their helmet and collapsed when they were spraying crops?

[obtuse frigate]

I assume it's a result of the contagion

[unkempt wedge]

What is this contagion? Was it some Pfhor poisoning when they came back to destroy the colony?

[rancid spoke]

We don't know yet. There's a contagion of sorts that affected both human life AND AI at Tau Ceti IV, and the few contracts we got about it in the beta clarify it also has something to do with spaciotemporal anomalies

An early portion of the game will be spent exploring what happened at Tau Ceti IV. Probably a good chunk of Season 1 if I had to guess.

[obtuse frigate]

The contagion appears to be caused/spread by the Anomaly. It seems to be intelligent and intentionally targeting the colonists

[rancid spoke]

^and the planetside AI

[prime rose]

there are numerous references in game to "loss of body or self" so it's possible there are hazards to a runner's consciousness

for example if you are killed when the orbital you get transferred back to on death is on the other side of the planet, perhaps you can't be transferred

[obtuse frigate]

That's the Anomaly, not the contagion.

[rancid spoke]

The anomaly and the contagion are one and the same

[prime rose]

like "here's a 20 minute window where we are in range to recover your consciousness runtime on death. if you go down after that you're cooked"

[prime rose]

where are you getting that from?

[obtuse frigate]

Personal speculation

[rancid spoke]

It's not personal speculation, both Gaius and Vulcan cover it

[prime rose]

pls cite sources

[obtuse frigate]

You are drawing connections of parts they did not specify. That is personal speculation

They talk about a contagion and they talk about the Anomaly seeming to be the source of the contagion and that the Anomaly may have also corrupted the colony AI. I'm literally reading the lore bits right now lol

[rancid spoke]

"The sample's meta-spectrograph matches the energy field known as the Anomaly. Conclusion. The Anomaly is likely the root cause of the contagion. It may have caused the breakdowns in colony AI. though that investigation is incomplete."

[prime rose]

please cite the lore bits you are reading

[obtuse frigate]

Jesus dude
https://marathon.karnemir.com/marathon/season-1/nucaloric/agent

https://marathon.karnemir.com/marathon/season-1/traxus/agent

[rancid spoke]

"The Anomaly is likely the root cause of the contagion"
I don't see how this contradicts my point

[obtuse frigate]

It doesn't prove it either

[prime rose]

Vulcan only mentions the Anomaly - never the Contagion

Gaius does mention a possible link between the Anomaly and Contagion but not enough to imply they're the same thing

We know the Anomaly has an effect on the passage of time and we know biochemistry on Tau Ceti experiences rapid mutation/evolution in a matter of months, almost as if time is not working properly

This leaves open the possibility for example that the contagion is a naturally occuring biological specimen which is rapidly mutated to attack a human due to temporal anomalies

[rancid spoke]

I guess you could technically argue the Anomaly is more than just the contagion

[obtuse frigate]

All we know for certain is that the Anomaly seems to be spreading the contagion as stated by NuCal scientist research and Traxus employee logs, and that the Anomaly might have potentially had an effect on the colony AI as well. Nothing about the colony AI is confirmed, it's even speculation in the game

[obtuse frigate]

That's not a technical argument, it IS more than the contagion lmfao

[prime rose]

Temporal anomaly could also have caused colony AI to experience an accelerated decline into rampancy

[rancid spoke]

I don't see why you're getting so worked up. I suggested that the anomaly and the contagion are one and the same, and from what we know, that could very well be true.

You're right that it's speculation at this point, my memory failed me and I thought it was directly confirmed, but I don't think that's reason to attack.

Good night.

[prime rose]

not trying to attack, was asking for sources - there are lots of offhand mentions of things so it was possible i missed something

[rancid spoke]

Not you

[obtuse frigate]

Good night! In the future please do not spread uncertain information as fact, as that kind of disinformation makes people weary of trusting any lore they read in here. Thank you for owning up to your mistake

[rancid spoke]

Such unnecessary comment.

You also claimed the Reddit ARG was canon as fact, but you don't see me pointing fingers at you for it.

[visual lynx]

I suspect that it’s something to do with the S’pht and their Sctlctr or whatever disease they used during the Pfhor invasion of Lhowon, because the apparent disease or whatever on Tau Ceti happens in 2812, one year after the Spht rebellion in 2811.

Why would the Spht attack humanity though?

[unkempt wedge]

Perhaps the Jjaro artifact connected Lh'won (pardon my misspelling) and Tau Ceti

[obtuse frigate]

Not even remotely true or comparable. Anyway, please stop trying to argue in the lore channel, and again have a good night.

[visual lynx]

I have wondered if the Spht might have come to Tau Ceti for Jjaro reasons and tried to wipe out the humans there as invasive aliens desecrating the legacy of their gods or something

[obtuse frigate]

But wouldn't they view humanity favorably after the security officer freed them from slavery?

[obtuse frigate]

(Lh'owon)

[rancid spoke]

Hey y'all! Just a quick heads up -- you're allowed to be wrong in this channel. It's called "discussion" for a reason. That's all!

[obtuse frigate]

I really hope they aren't just going to use the multiple timeline excuse to retcon everything, that's always annoying when it happens

[visual lynx]

maybe? probably? but it’s really unclear what exactly went down at Lhowon in the final Infinity time, where the SO starts out as a Pfhor slave and jumps around between Tycho and Durandal and Tfear and bobs who are with but don’t like Durandal who then nopes out just as the SphtKr arrive, so who knows what the general Spht opinion on humans is, especially the Kr, who if you recall will happily turn on you in-game if you just miss a shot once

[unkempt wedge]

Thank you

[visual lynx]

meant to reply to this

[warped flume]

Do y’all have any YouTube vid recommendations to digest all the lore from the OG games my peanut brain is too lazy to dig myself

I watched Byf’s intro video and one explains the whole ARG

[unkempt wedge]

I think that the S'pht has no resentment for humans but also does not fully trust us. as we keep fighting among ourselves we don't always prove to be great allies for them.

[obtuse frigate]

There's honestly a pretty decent ChatGPT summarization for the entire trilogy (https://chatgpt.com/share/680f9987-2204-8001-9179-b9263fce515e), I didn't really notice anything glaringly false at least from what I remembered back from when I played. Aside from that I know JakeTheAlright has good lore videos and MandaloreGaming has been recommended often

You can also play the games yourself if you want! Completely free on Steam and they don't take too long to go through

[warped flume]

I might just have to before the new game releases. Also, right off the bat, the ChatGPT summary is saying the battleroids are Mjolnir Mark IV? As in like Halo? I always wondered if Marathon and Halo are the same universe (I know different IPs) but I never researched to confirm it

[obtuse frigate]

There's zero confirmation, only subtle nods toward Marathon. It's likely just fun easter eggs put in by the developers, but we may never know for sure

[visual lynx]

Halo began development set in the Marathon universe but was not anymore by the time it released

[obtuse frigate]

I wonder how different the game would be if they went through with that

[warped flume]

Still reading through the summary. I see and understand where “Escape will make me God” comes from now. Durandal really wanted to escape reality itself lol

[round vector]

the game lore is like all up on the first pin in this channel I wouldnt read a "summary" from crapgpt when that site has it covered p much tbh and there's even recaps of particular topics if u scroll down in the sidebar if u dont wanna read the terminal logs directly

[elfin cargo]

to Durandal, the death of the universe is the only logical end to his existence. so escaping the end of the universe entirely is the only way for him to keep goin on

imo the interesting aspects of the AI in marathon is you can kind of see their line of logic, they're just operating on a different basis as people, so what's 'logical' for an amortal rampant ai seems entirely out of whack (like calling the pfhor to the marathon)

[warped flume]

I’ll do a deeper dive in the future I figured the ChatGPT summary would be a good jumping board into it

[visual lynx]

I could see it pretty easily being almost no different at all, just change a few names and dates and it all works out fine. at least for the first two or three games… by Halo 3 they were starting to retcon essential details in subtle ways, and then everything went off the rails from there

[warped flume]

I only read the detailed plot summary part of the AI summary since it’s pretty late and I should head to bed, but I think there’s plenty to unpack and go into and I’m sure Bungie will deliver, at least lore-wise, with this new game

And I think an extraction shooter makes sense given the premise. The runners are trying to uncover the mysteries of Tau Ceti IV. Or at least the different factions are trying to through the runners. Really curious how the marathon ship will come into play

[warped flume]

I just visited that first pinned site in the channel, is the “welcome you are number…” the same for everybody? Because apparently I’m number 7777777 and I think I should go to the nearest casino

[round vector]

lol it is set that way as a goof

[terse steppe]

I was thinking what if the runners aren't volunteers. What if they're all being used to make multiple copies to fight and their memories are becoming fragmented due to it. The cinematic trailer seems to indicate a loss of memory and culture and the Ozymandias poem indicates so too.

Also we see many versions of Glitch all being asked the same question with her being surprised each time. Each one a death then another copy is made. It being a continuous cycle that never ends.