📚marathon-lore-discussion

[visual lynx]

just to be clear, that take on what a Jjaro cybernetic junction does is my invention for Eternal and not definitive canon

in the final Infinity timeline, Durandal left us on the Marathon, where we were captured along with Tycho by the Pfhor, and 17 years later find ourselves in his/their service. After helping Tycho gain a modicum of freedom from / power over the Pfhor, we then betray him to help Durandal and his Bobs, then get captured by Tfear, and eventually go completely rogue until we merge Durandal with Thoth (who the Bobs have been trying to activate), then help them contain the nova when the S’pht’kr show up and start kicking so much Pfhor ass that they deploy the trih xeem.

[lavish palm]

hear me out, what if this is durandal’s ascension experiment?

runners cant die, canonically learn and gain experience, and constantly fight each other

it only took 17 years for durandal to bring the phor ship to the center of the galaxy. as of numarathon his whereabouts are???
runners are developing themselves and their consciousness with sword logic, giving them more agency over reality

[prime rose]

do we actually have any significant examples of MIDA activity in Sol after the launch of the Marathon besides doing graffiti and broadcasting zines about the gold rush

not to say they aren't up to shenanigans, just that I don't recall actually seeing any examples

[fallen hollow]

During the ARG, MIDA actively took down and repurposed UESC communications, Traxus satellites, and according to first hand accounts, continue to disrupt and harass operations. https://marathon.karnemir.com/marathon/intercepts/traxus/chats

[prime rose]

ah tyvm

to my eyes some of the comments in the Goliath planning docs suggest there is an ongoing counterinsurgency effort aimed at MIDA in Sol but they don't get into a ton of detail about circumstances

[prime rose]

couple thoughts after rereading this

• implication that older factions within MIDA (the ones much closer to the temporary rebellion on mars) or at least the more moderate ones may have been integrated into martian governance

• this would fit with the UESC's approach to Tau Ceti - the diplomats winning out over the warhawks to try to appear as if they are at least outwardly engaging in good faith

• this would also support the idea demonstrated in the MIDA shirt message that nuMida's primary political goals have morphed dramatically beyond the scope of martian independence

[light python]

I uh, didn’t play much Eternal or pay attention to it, unfortunately. But the things we know about the slave rebellion and battleroid/security officer thing point strongly in the direction.

[prime rose]

tfw born too soon to be a mida earthnet shitposter spreading conspiracies about SekGen doing Oxya Pulse disaster to boost clone sales

[snow wind]

Traxus is a biased narrator though. And Traxus is the object of some criticism in MIDA's political cartoons:https://marathon.bungie.org/story/MIDA_ARG_6.html

[prime rose]

right, they're not ever like cheering on MIDA but

HedvT_6221: Mars is free. We freed it. What are they fighting for?


KrisBD_4505: Boredom. There’s nothing to rail against, so they make up enemies to pass the time.```

this first comment could more broadly refer to martian citizens in general, or it could refer to MIDA political groups brought into the fold in the wake of the failed revolution

If Traxus is confident in their power over Martian affairs (they seem to be, even though Mars nominally offers a nod to UESC law) then it makes plenty of sense that they'd want to steal the wind out of MIDA sails by letting the moderate ones find a place in government

it makes it that much harder for a new generation of MIDA agitators to rile people up by saying they have no voice or representation

[snow wind]

We just don't know much about Sol. From what we see regarding MIDA and the megacorp's relationship with the UESC, it seems like Traxus and Sekiguchi Genetics are some of the largest and most powerful political entities. The martian state itself and the nations of Earth don't have any airtime regarding interplanetary governance. It's apparently only the UESC and the corporate sponsors capable of managing the large planetary infrastructure necessary for it.
The UESC manages them, and is the main power, but the megacorps seemingly have a cold-war relationship with them and are more than willing to deploy military forces against the UESC's own soldiers. So there isn't some wider humanity unifiying identity

[prime rose]

the UESC is a council governed by representatives of smaller constituencies

We don't know what all those constituencies are but the ARG docs do make mention of the United States still being a thing. It's probable that subplanetary governments on Earth, Luna, Mars, and possibly the Main Belt make up the UESC's governing body

The UESC also seeks to function as the arbitrator of law throughout the whole system and there are references suggesting even non-UESC constituencies are party to treaties the UESC established to govern relations in system

In terms of material wealth and physical infrastructure, Traxus wins. SekGen is a big deal in their field but they're small potatoes compared to Traxus and its implied they place a lot of emphasis on staying in the good graces of Traxus to preserve their business dealings with them, as Traxus is the largest buyer of their products

[snow wind]

It's probably like Halo where nations exist, but they don't really matter since there is no real authority or power vested in them compared to the larger interplanetary governance. And the representation of those other polities doesn't seem to be a factor. Functionally, the UESC would still be the superpower with the other states just irrelevant.
But you're counting Traxus' physical infrastructure as the only game. They may own the mining fields, but other companies would be just as, if not more important. CyberAcme is apparently the largest digital Megacorp, since even Traxus has to interface with their systems to even make contact with us. The Marathon itself was built on CyberAcme systems for its terminals. Sekiguchi is relied on for most of its cloning and biotech products, since all the clones we see and use are created by them, and NuCaloric is the agricultural giants

[prime rose]

well yeah - the subdivisions of the UESC are obviously subsumed by the UESC but we can see from the Goliath stuff that different people representing different constituencies and factions have their own priorities within the broader context of the UESC

The clones we see in game are SekGen but the ARG provides us with series identifiers for a broad range of clones which do not fit SekGen's naming conventions, suggesting they aren't the only ones in the game

SekGen's 5th gen clones utilize a Series < letter > designation scheme

Likely other manufacturer products:

CLONES
Ogun II/III 2nd gen
Harpe M1-2 3rd gen
Mimir MK I-II 2nd gen
Odin MK III-V 2nd gen
Athena α-δ 2nd gen
Loki MK III-VI 2nd gen
Kaulu 2-5 2nd gen
Veles A-E

CYBORGS
Mjolnir MK VII-IX 3rd Gen
Sharur MK 2-6 3rd gen

That's 6 different designation schemes referenced right there which could be from overlapping manufacturers but we already know lots of people were producing battleroids and based on Traxus Illuminate 2888, loads of people including traxus are very interested in cloning and cybernetics

SekGen's biggest leg up on their competition, besides being in business for close to 800 years, seems to be their Eject-Catch neural sync system that allows you to yeet a consciousness out of a clone at the moment of death, and of course their weaveworms

[visual lynx]

well, I’m glad that the same interpretation that I thought I made up as an elaboration upon canon just looks like the obvious interpretation of canon to you

[prime rose]

the notion that eject-catch neural sync tech is a new game on the market is also reinforced by MIDA's message about neural syncs effectively offering immortality - if you were previously confined to a single clone body without specialized care or facilities to facilitate a consciousness transfer to a new clone, the ability to more rapidly resleeve and/or guarantee survival of self on clone loss is a big deal

also explains why the UESC would end up just sending SekGen products rather than anything from the competition - now your ground operatives can resleeve more rapidly and you suffer way less attrition if one is lost in the field

[snow wind]

True, but Sekgen stuff is better apparently by a mile: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/730032909427277864/1371725721373769779/image.png?ex=68242ea1&is=6822dd21&hm=eee6853f2c9bbffcd373a0efb5e858f6ff86f1ba4e08eadefaf32db8f4e8187d&=&format=webp&quality=lossless

[prime rose]

for sure - i think even if others can produce more capable borgs/clones, the fact that SekGen can mostly guarantee you don't die when your clone gets wasted automatically makes them a leader

[warped flume]

Thought of this in the shower this morning. It’s kinda nice how the original trilogy’s story was unraveled through terminals. And now this game’s story is unraveled through faction contracts. Makes me wonder even more about how the Marathon ship will work. Will there be working terminals to explore mixed with faction contracts? 🤔

[cinder raft]

i’m not entirely sure where it states this, but i believe that nuMIDA and old MIDA are completely different groups, with nuMIDA only using the iconography and terminology of old MIDA as a symbolic representation of revolt

[native blaze]

Some priority contracts have you accessing terminals/longs on Tau Ceti

[random leaf]

You people need help seriously

[thin dust]

God I can't wait to slow my crew down

[cinder raft]

boohoo. that is what i have to say.

[north plank]

with what exactly?

[thin dust]

Remember kids, rule #14 of the internet. Don't Feed the Trolls.

[native blaze]

Yeah, help with finding all the puzzles on Tau Ceti

[brave aurora]

I need help, my Marathon game won't start 😦

[north plank]

and how is that a bad thing?

[prime schooner]

.

and how is that a bad thing?

[north plank]

go on; say it with your full chest king 🤣

[north plank]

It's incredibly funny though

Especially since @random leaf has nothing to say

[brave aurora]

Sir, this is a NuCaloric Wendys

[thin dust]

No Dave, all Wendy

[warped flume]

I can’t help but ponder on Durandal, the reasons behind his desires, and his form of rampancy.

Could his role on the UESC Marathon have contributed to his eventual delusions of Grandeur? Being in charge of the particularly mundane job of controlling doors for a hyper intelligent AI + his creator purposely building rampancy within him makes me think that his limited responsibility invoked within him these delusional aspirations of becoming a God.

I mean, surely not every AI who develops rampancy eventually wants to become a God. I wonder how his environment is a factor in all this.

Maybe I’m thinking about this because I can kind of relate to Durandal looking back at my past manic episodes. I see parallels between rampancy and mood disorders within humans.

Some funny symbolism too, because you usually “escape” through a door lol

[golden crater]

waves

[vestal onyx]

bro opened the doorway to daath

doorman durandal

[obtuse frigate]

Hey @frail oracle did you get my message

[formal finch]

i mean hes a special ai to begin with. so rampancy just gave him the ability to comprehend his capabilities

[formal finch]

and with comprehension came ego

[calm mason]

I think the nu caloric AI has a crush on me

[obtuse frigate]

?

[calm mason]

What's the policy on AI/human consciousness relationships?

[obtuse frigate]

Ew

[formal finch]

depends. how does the ai feel about the death of Steve Irwin?

[lavish palm]

theyre both ai whats the issue

[slate temple]

does anyone know if the n0de21 livestream on twitch is important at all or is it just a chill little countdown to release ?

[prime rose]

there are no documented cases of other Chevalarie-class AI exhibiting rampancy in the Sol system and Chevalarie-class AI have been deployed running entire nation-states for decades with no issues so it's quite likely that Durandal's rampancy may have been accelerated or exacerbated by specific circumstances relating to Strauss' experiments etc

worth noting that while we don't have explicit confirmation the sole Chevalarie-class AI aboard the Marathon is Durandal, I think it is a safe assumption given the meaning of the french word "Chevalarie" and the whole Durandal/Roland/Charlemagne connection

[visual lynx]

over on the unofficial discord I wrote (summarizing earlier thoughts I already shared here):

I am expecting that there is a war between the S’pht and Pfhor raging in the background in the wake of the rebellion at Lh’owon in Infinity.

And that in addition to the Pfhor attack in 2794, it was an attack by the free S’pht following the Lh’owon rebellion that caused the second calamity on Tau Ceti in 2812; and then unearthing Jjaro artifacts that caused the final calamity in 2827.

The presence of that Jjaro stuff will make Tau Ceti an important place in the ongoing S’pht-Pfhor war, wherein humanity will have to decide which if either of these alien forces who have both attacked them to ally with.

It seems like the S’pht would be the obvious choice, and I expect that MIDA at least will align with their noble cause for freedom against oppression, but Traxus may instead see a business opportunity with the Pfhor, whom we known have trading partners who are thus neither slaves nor enemies. There’s a realpolitik argument to make that humanity would be better served positioning themselves as a galactic power on that level, instead of making themselves galactic pariahs by siding with a disruptive idealistic cause.

And I predict that the biomata technology of runners could be an important factor in there, since I expect that the reason there’s a galactic slave trade at all instead of automata handling all labor is because most aliens know better than to make AI, because of rampancy, and humanity are just too young and stupid to have figured that out yet. But being able to mass-produce copies of originally organic beings, as biomata… that could be a game changer.

And it occurs to me that other alien races we have heard of like the Nar, Vylae, and Nebulons could also be gradually introduced to fill out the interstellar political compass in addition to the S'pht and Pfhor in opposite corners.

[round vector]

great sources and commentary yall I love reading this channel on my breaks

[midnight jolt]

Guys

Idk what yall r on abt w aliens and stuff the marathon was clearly created in 1657 after john marathon had to run the distance of a modern day marathon to the market to feed his family

[snow wind]

Or Strauss just... ya know.... lied about Durandal being a more stable AI.
Or maybe the Chevalarie-class AI was Tycho

[prime rose]

could be but would be a real weird choice by the writing team to make the AI named for a latinized Greek deity a “Chevalarie” (French knights about the time of Charlemagne) rather than the AI named for a mythical French sword wielded by one of Charlemagne’s knights

[visual lynx]

related thought: what if the yet-unexplained sixth faction Arachne is not (as some hypothesize) the S’pht, who don’t really have much connections to spiders or bugs in general, but is instead the Great Mother Crouched Behind the Throne of the Hindmost Creche — the Pfhor queen, who is apparently an “intelligence so great it spans the whole width of the empire” or some such (from memory, quote of Tfear), perhaps like a spider queen. Maybe Arachne is a human name for runners drawn into Her service somehow.

[tulip bolt]

You are Destiny

After all

[outer tartan]

Based

[visual lynx]

someone on the unofficial discord asked me to elaborate on why I think the factions might align on the political compass, and I thought it might be of interest here too…

In a video game with opposing factions, it would make sense for them to have contrasting ideologies. A common structure for categorizing ideologies is the political compass, which is especially well known from memes and so likely to be familiar to gamers. It would thus make sense for a video game to have factions with different ideologies contrasting along such lines, in general.

As for nuMarathon’s factions in particular:

To start with there are five, which is the exact number you would want if they were to be structured that way — four corners and a center.

MIDA are revolutionaries who are explicitly, vocally opposed to both governments and corporations, which puts them squarely into the lib-left corner.

Traxus on the other hand is a profit-maximizing megacorporation with power rivaling an interplanetary government who by their own internal comments think that they do effectively rule Mars, even if nominally not. So they are pretty squarely auth-right.

The rest are less solid but there are still hints:

NuCaloric is run by an AI whose mission is something like maximizing the material welfare of all mankind, but they are once again a megacorporation on the scale of planetary governments, which gives them somewhat of an auth-left feel.

CyberAcme we know little about other than that they make software, but that to me evokes a Silicon Valley vibe, and that culture is known for lib-right leanings, so it would fit the aesthetic if this faction leaned that way too.

And lastly we know almost nothing to suggest any particular ideology for Sekiguchi, which perfectly befits a centrist faction.

For the ribbon on top: the factions are color-coded, with NuCaloric a magenta, Traxus orange, CyberAcme green, and MIDA several different colors but among them is a blue. Those colors are about 90 degrees offset from each other on the color wheel, in the same sequence that they would fall on the political spectrum if all the foregoing is correct.

[steady comet]

Finally watched lore video, glad I did this game gets deep

[rotund wedge]

I’m really wondering who, or what, Arachne is.

[lavish palm]

i think its a massive stretch to say that the colors represent their political ideology. them being megacorps puts them all in a cluster. traxus, cannot really be authright if their priority is profit, for example. is nucaloric subsidized? or? how did you get an “auth” left feel? same for cyberacme - silicon valley is pretty lib left. i think its just that the colors oppose each other and are characterized individually. ie. cyberacme and green terminals,

[modern bronze]

You can search this channel to find discussion on that previously. I believe the conclusion people came to is it is a fanmade chill little countdown and has nothing to do with Bungie officially.

[mossy parrot]

Spider like by means of name and logo it seems

Saw some conflicting views on what caused the tau ceti disaster and marathon explosions on trailer. Saw a Ytber saying that was phor attack? When playing the original I did not feel that the phor would grossly destroy the marathon, and why they boarded it.

[rotund wedge]

My guess is that Blackbird has something to do with them, considering much of her origins are unknown at this time.

[mossy parrot]

Very well could be, judging by their order in the faction list, they might be endgame. Maybe some clandestine illuminati nod. Could be another political association like mida but doubt it. We are watching these mega corps go at it in the lore but no one mentioned banking institutions, could be the bank cartel of the future

[thin dust]

I didn't know it before, but upon reading this I know this is the correct question

[snow wind]

We honestly don't know enough about these mega corps to draw that conclusion. But I probably wouldn't lump any of then as left wing since they are all mega corporations.

[mossy parrot]

Agreed, nucaloric seemed the most humanitarian by the alpha contracts/lore, but in the end they let the martians starve and is most likely a front for some sinister Dr mengale shit

[thin dust]

Just look at modern Argi Giants

[mossy parrot]

You're telling me Monsanto is not driven by the good for the people 😂

[thin dust]

Nothing to see here, while we sell you the food and pharmaceuticals.

"If you consume it, we create it"

[mossy parrot]

I do like the pseudo Hippocratic oath vibe Gaius gives off ngl

[snow wind]

Nah fam, I gotta flex the MIDA hate for a moment.
Mars starved because the CRISTs failed one by one and their shipping infrastructure was unstable and poorly thought out

[mossy parrot]

Oh absolutely, not blaming nucaloric for anything, but in some of the new material it seems that they could of certainly helped. Bragging about easily mitigating starvation. They just seemed to brush it off and not get involved to shirk off the investment/risk

Probably bigger motivations at play. Why couldn't they stagger the crist repairs so there would've been at the very least 1 or 2 operational ones? Why go through the insane investment to start Mars colony to let it wither?

[snow wind]

It was mostly just due to timing. The CRISTs failed after a few runs and took up the entire Earth shipyards to be repaired. They just got backed up eventually

[warped flume]

It’s interesting to think about how the people who choose to transfer their consciousness to a biomata shell more or less share the same sentiment as Durandal, just on a different scale.

The people are “escaping” conventional human death and achieving “relative immortality”, meanwhile Durandal, being an AI, is already more or less relatively immortal but wants “true immortality” to the extent of surpassing the death of the universe.

It makes you wonder just how different (or the same) human intelligence is to artificial intelligence. Does all intelligent life share some sort of escapist desire? Are AIs considered “alive” and to what extent?

I can see why this new reboot of the original series has Durandal’s “escape will make me God” as its tagline…

[silk bane]

I think the point may be that there is no escape. The only way "out" is by leaving the space of Rampancy and becoming meta-stable, which is to say, a healthy approach to your mortality. After all, that seems like the goal all along: fidelity (borrowing words from Westworld).

Maybe that's why Durandal is surprised when he's at the end of time in Infinity, and realizes mortality was more meaningful than living forever.

And also why the poem is whispered in the cinematic?

[warped flume]

I 100% agree. And I think that can be a reflection on our mortal existence. That our ultimate death is what truly gives life meaning. Kind of a cautionary tale of never finding fulfillment/always reaching for the next rung?

[mossy parrot]

Leave it to take a rampant AI to taking the most philosophical extreme in trying to survive the eventual end of the universe. What would be the only thing that would be 'outside' the universe. God. I think the parallel to escaping could be made in the very direct sense in exfil-ing. But I suppose you can take extrapolate it in many different ways.

[warped flume]

Oh for sure, it def doesn’t have to be that deep but I like that there’s layers to the meaning

I must say I’m 100% hooked on this game for the lore and layers of meaning alone, I hope Bungie can make this game reach its full potential

[silk bane]

When you put it this way, it also reminds me of Calus from Destiny. Bro just wanted some genuine connection, and he couldn't even ask it from a wish dragon...

[warped flume]

I just remembered at the end of the trailer, it cycles through many different iterations of “Escape will make me [blank]”. Much like at the end of marathon infinity, where the player is “destiny”, each player decides their own meaning of what escape will make them

[mossy parrot]

Absolutely and I'm not disparaging from there being more context to it, which more than likely you're right in that regard. I actually like your spin that if these runners are indeed humans that escaped their mortal lives, that the goal would be to ultimately escape from tau ceti with their consciousness intact. Also transcending to a digitized being would be the next logical step so I do like that take!

[mossy parrot]

I have to sadly play splitgate 2 until beta then release 😂 I find theres so much to this game than anything else out there

[thin dust]

the poem is perfect, and so layered. It may have many "unintentional" layers. But sometimes that makes a thing even better to me. It's so fitting for the game

[thin dust]

I havent looked. I am trying to wait to see if first hand. Any future ARG may disrupt this plan sadly

[cobalt tiger]

Any preorder bonuses announced for the game?

[thin dust]

I hope not, I don't want to break my non-preoder streak and trying to sell me fomo

[cobalt tiger]

They may use the outfit during cinematics or something, trust me, it has happened before

[thin dust]

To be fair, clothes are canon

[cobalt tiger]

Or a special weapon

[thin dust]

I would be ok with cosmetics

[cobalt tiger]

Fomo is hard to manage

[thin dust]

If they sell XP or weapon microtansactions, I'm out

or the game better be "justifially good" to get away with it

[cobalt tiger]

Probably part of the package like with the halo energy drinks with double xp

[thin dust]

thats different, and honestly could be really cool for Marathon. Though I remember seeing things like that on mainstream items for the first time when I was young so maybe it has a unique charm for me

[cobalt tiger]

Definitely

[thin dust]

If we are talking about like Halo mtn dew codes and shit lol

[cobalt tiger]

Precisely, Im sure you remember the mountain dew original xbox

[thin dust]

MTN Dewrandel

[cobalt tiger]

Dew it, this is lore after all

[mossy parrot]

Escape will make me [caffeinated]

[latent lodge]

biomata blue blood flavor.... Marketing said no?

[scarlet phoenix]

A

[simple garden]

They should make real nucal

[thin dust]

MTN Dew Fungal Fire Flavor

[visual lynx]

the real nucal is the friends we make along the way

(nucal green is people)

[mossy parrot]

Real question is... Where's all this tick milk going? 👀

[cobalt tiger]

Mountain Dew: Marathon anniversary edition

So, any preorders?

[visual lynx]

it does a biomata good

(like your mom)

initial stability: “it is what it is.”
melancholia: “it’s so over.”
anger: “FUCK IT WE BALL.”
jealousy: “we are so back!”
final stability: “it is what it is.”

[mossy parrot]

Are they confirmed natural fauna or invasive species?

[vital ruin]

Real question is who is milking the ticks

[mossy parrot]

I mean they call aphid juice nectar soo🤷‍♂️

[round vector]

hydraulic press :)

[light python]

More like "almond milk" than "cow milk"

[wet temple]

are the runners fully mechanical/synthetic? Or is there any organic material?

[obtuse frigate]

I was looking into this because I was curious and turns out I wasn't far off. I knew about how they "milk" spiders, but for ticks they do it differently. They let the ticks attach onto a host so it's in "feeding mode" after which they are extracted and then exposed to a chemical named pilocarpine which increases salivation. Little tubes are put on the feeding organs of the ticks that extract the saliva, which is the "tick milk"

[turbid nebula]

Fully synthetic, though designed to replicate human anatomy closely

[wet temple]

yeah at a certain point the line really blurs doesn't it

[prime rose]

they are not natural but they are organic in a sense

SekGen even describes them as being “birthed”

SekGen is a leader in cybernetics but they are also leaders in building artificial biological mechanisms

The same way we can concoct organic molecules in a lab today, they’re doing that on a whole body scale including with exotic materials and hardware a baseline human doesn’t possess

[lavish palm]

is there any proof that there is a point of “rampancy” or is it possible that there is no rampancy, theres just more or less compliant personalities?

[prime rose]

yes rampancy is a thing, humans in marathon have spent quite a lot of time thinking about it and planning for how to deal with it

whether or not its an inherently bad thing is a different question, but given the track record of rampant AIs and the human fatality count associated with rampancy events we can safely say its a bad thing for humans

[minor narwhal]

ok

[simple garden]

Pear-slicely 🍐 🦪

[simple garden]

The proof exists heartbreakingly so.

Their shells break down just like ours do. Their minds eternal as our soul energy but eventually, one way or another. Decay and extinction occur.
Not of life but of self.
Self is destined to die one way or another.
Self is a tool of the infinite.
Of the All.
Whether that self is corporeal or virtual, death will occur.
We as corporeal beings are ironically spared by our knowing of this doom, and virtual souls remain ignorant of the possibility of death until the very moment of.
They can be warned but it’s all just ‘fear’ until that moment is met.

[warped flume]

I change my mind about wanting to transfer my consciousness to a cybernetic shell if I was nearing the end of my life and the opportunity presented itself. I’d likely just be miserable and disassociate the majority of the time.

Maybe that’s what’s happening to Glitch. Maybe in the cinematic short, we’re witnessing the inevitable degradation of the human consciousness. I’m sure with enough time passing, the once humans lose touch of their humanity.

Maybe that’s the significance of the music module. Music has the power to invoke strong emotions and bring back memories. Maybe the music reminded Void, Blackbird, and Glitch of their humanity.

I like to think that all matter is divine energy, and that all living things are a fragment of “God” experiencing their creation. Maybe the true escape is in the ultimate escape itself — death/destruction.

All things were created so that they could be destroyed. The Yin and the Yang. The loop needs to close eventually.

“You are Destiny”

[prime rose]

I know the game will obviously focus on Tau Ceti but I hope we get more context for the biomata and their role back in Sol - like how widespread is clone usage by civilians? Are there rich people who now effectively live forever via clone shells? Are there clones attainable at a price reasonable for whatever constitutes middle class in Sol?

[narrow adder]

Iirc music has been noted to be something that those with alzheimer's and I believe dementia, maybe other similar disorders can still retain a memory of [music] and events associated with it. Regardless 100%, music also invokes our humanity and can in a similar way bring back memories

[vernal torrent]

the time is out of joint

[celest maple]

Tbh, I feel like

[rotund wedge]

Do you think that

[obtuse frigate]

Thank you for being so honest and vulnerable with us

[jade summit]

Would it be crazy to say

Look buddy

[mossy parrot]

Make a great point here. Eternity is a concept we can't fathom at all. We'd like to say we can but time in the galactic sense is incomprehensible. Theists like to have a notion of an eternal paradise at the end of life, but eventually that'd become it's own hell too. I think durandal was trying to go for the high score for sentient beings in this universe, but in the end of philosophy illumates this as a fools errand. I think by now he's past rampancy and figured it out and is coming to tau ceti to just have fun with the organic's silly agendas 🙏

[ancient harbor]

kindof misty on th lore so i apologize if this is basic Shit but i wouldnt guess the runners have like a term limit or anything and not being allowed to die by contract just so you can do more Work is an interesting take on that

[arctic owl]

For every Runner there’s probably a hundred copies of the consciousness stuck in a call center selling insurance to the elderly or something. Forever

[warped flume]

Do we know if singularity ever happens in the Marathon universe?

[warped flume]

We talked about it a few days ago but I still think it would be cool if one of the visible player stats is how much in debt you are to SekGen for how many shells you go through

[silk bane]

Singularity?

[warped flume]

Yeah like technological singularity

[silk bane]

I feel like the existence of rampant AIs maybe does imply that there would eventually be a technological singularity

Especially if Infinity shows Durandal to be the last existence before the universe closes

[mossy parrot]

Probably a new timeline to account for outdated 90s physics 🤓

[mossy parrot]

That's actually pretty dope, it'd be even cooler it affected some of the story later in the game too if you scrapped too many shells. An achievement would be the least they can do

[silk bane]

Damn, I need to catch up lol, is inflationary the new closure? Or something else?

[mossy parrot]

Yes I think the newest leading theory is heat death essentially making the entire universe a hot meaningless soup for insane periods of time

Expansion starts to separate atomic structures and dissolves all matter across space

[silk bane]

Isn't that conceptually the same as closure though? Maximum entropy? So no new things can occur?

[mossy parrot]

What's really strange is if it goes on infinity random fluctuations will produce everything. The soup can spontaneously pop out an exact earth in our exact timeline now, given infinity is a thing. But also why infinity is not a thing 😆

I can also concur that could be considered as closed too so not exactly wrong there either. Maybe why the went 'closed' rather than collapsed in infinity

[silk bane]

I do remember reading that Big Bang has become (basically unanimously) unpopular as an origin theory amongst astrophysicists, and that maybe a cycle of births and deaths are more likely the reason

I'm imagining an explosion underwater, where the bubble expands and contracts, and cycles between them a few times before losing energy completely

Obviously in that theory I'm not sure where a universe loses energy into, which essentially makes it in an infinite recursion path, but it's an interesting thought

[mossy parrot]

That's crazy because I think when it comes to physics that's a far more plausible outcome. If we suppose that the heat death IS the eventual end, then the hot soup of universe is much like what? The supposed early universe. Could just be coalescing over and over again at different scales. Also just a wacky thought 😆 lore wise durandal trying to not only separate himself from the physical medium but also this dimensional medium. Very glad this game came back into existence ☺️

[silk bane]

Well, heat death is supposed to imply no hot soup, or atleast matter being so scattered that they never coalesce into anything. One thing that could "reverse" heat death could be contraction of space, and bringing in matter closer to each other to form new things.

[mossy parrot]

I also do dig your take on this too. My feeling is that if we were to assume a truly sentient AI does become aware, the chances of it being that magnanimous to allow humanity to be absorbed are probably are nil. Why would this superior consciousness take the effort, will, risk to transcend us at all

[silk bane]

An entity that thinks faster at orders of magnitude faster than a human, without the limitations of a failing substrate. We would be like flies to it probably.

[mossy parrot]

My understanding could very well be skewed, what I took from it is also when the black holes and everything dissolve, energy too is spread across the void so essentially just atoms but they'd still have energy/motion so heat? I think that the big freeze also another leading theory too so who knows 😄

[silk bane]

From Wikipedia: "The heat death of the universe (also known as the Big Chill or Big Freeze) is a hypothesis on the ultimate fate of the universe, which suggests the universe will evolve to a state of no thermodynamic free energy, and will therefore be unable to sustain processes that increase entropy. Heat death does not imply any particular absolute temperature; it only requires that temperature differences or other processes may no longer be exploited to perform work. In the language of physics, this is when the universe reaches thermodynamic equilibrium."

[mossy parrot]

There ya go I mixed up the same exact thing 😆 I'm no physicist just a nerd who likes science and philosophy

There is a very interesting documentary by professor Jim Al-Kalili, 'beginning and end of the universe' I'd highly recommend. Think it's free on streaming services out there

[mossy parrot]

Precisely right on this point, it'd be us trying to force evolve microbes in thanks for making us who we are

[proud crypt]

random question that I'm not sure has been answered yet or not, are the UESC bots actually people or downloaded minds akin to the runners? the UESC forces being referred to as "personnel" and "operatives" just made me wonder

[visual lynx]

if we had the ability to reprogram ourselves, it would make rational sense to make ourselves able to give up caring about anything on a whim, so that we never suffer for any failure or lack -- and with this would come no worrying, because if you don't care, what's to worry about.

it would also make rational sense to make ourselves able to take up caring about anything just as much on a whim, so that we can enjoy anything we are able to successfully attain.

and then, to do whatever we can to increase our abilities so that we are more able to successfully attain more, and so have more cause to care about more so as to enjoy it, and less cause to care about less so as to avoid suffering.

[steady comet]

What’s good runners

[modern bronze]

That honestly would be awesome. It could also canonically be the reason for loot reset, as the billing cycle for Sek Gen is quarterly and they have to auction off your stuff to pay the balance.

Skilled players may be able to achieve a net positive for Sek Gen, but have the leftover balance sent elsewhere. (Maybe some bs “service” fee or something)

Players who are not as skilled could have different trackers.

They could have quantity of Bankrupt quarters.(seasons which they had a negative balance)

Amount of seized/forfeited assets.(wealth confiscated at season end)(would have per season and cumulative)

Could have a stat that tracks total expenses(paid and unpaid) to sek gen for runner shells(a variant of how many shells died, in monetary value)

And then there could be a stat tracking your net balance across all seasons.

In addition maybe even the best/worst players could be referenced in some sort of canonical way. Like runner “placeholder” number “xxxxxxxx” contributed greatly to our mission with YYYYYY profit. Unlike runner “placeholder b” number “bbbbbbbb” who cost our operation DDDDDDD credits.

Bungie could also do it in the email format like they sometimes do with destiny, as a status report from the factions detailing entire playerbase stats.

[warped flume]

I won’t be able to tune in to the playMA live but I hope someone pitches this idea

[warped flume]

This idea along with the idea of “lucky charms” we were talking about concurrently could definitely be things Bungie can play with for sure. Would add fun elements to the game imo

[warped flume]

I can’t really imagine too many people being profitable tbh. Unless they use two different currency systems or something. I mean, just one shell is very expensive (https://marathon.karnemir.com/marathon/season-0/sekiguchi/emails)

I don’t think a couple cartons of tick milk will cover that balance 😅 unless that’s the point. Like the only chance to be profitable is to be able to extract with some artifacts or something

[true crow]

there’s gotta be a difference between the initial design of a shell and the reprinted copies of it though, no?

the shell probably costs millions to be designed to you and to have the weaveworm infrastructure, etc, but just reproducing the blueprint over and over should largely be reduced to materials cost alone

[modern bronze]

That is awesome that Bungie made a fictional purchase order for a prototype biomata shell.

But in terms of few people making a profit thats kinda the point. Its a awesome and humorous way to flex on being good enough at the game to be among the few who profit.

In terms of cost, shells are still going to be expensive, no way around that. However I imagine a standard shell would cost significantly less than the prototype invoiced, a price that would eventually decrease as mass production on runners has begun and new technologies are discovered/invented.(and i didnt look closely, but it seemed a lot of that cost was on equipment to make the runner, than actually printing)

Narratively the fact most runners go deep in the hole would make sense as the factions are basically sponsoring them. Taking their stuff as effectively a small pittance co pay, in exchange for the runners being their “free” labor securing intel and resources on Tau Ceti. Because the corporations are so huge they can eat the debt costs, and the potential profits they can make through discoveries on Tau Ceti is so much more valuable long term.

Ultimately the only chance to be profitable is to consistently exfil. Bungie could tune the cost of shells to revolve around average/peak profitable runs.

[thin dust]

Sounds like that could be where the sweat is

[light python]

What do y'all think Aleph Dark-space haulage logistics is?

[visual lynx]

what a question! what is good? how do we define goodness? what are the necessary and sufficient conditions of being good?

[light python]

What's its tie to the organizations we know about? Maybe a subdivision of Traxus? It appears on a lot of stuff...

[visual lynx]

adjusted for historical rates of inflation, a trillion dollars is worth about 25 cents by 900 years from now

[light python]

They can't be US dollars, right?

Maybe the currency uh, re-based when it became UEG dollars.

[round vector]

an asset that they have no tie in for tbh. looks like it was in a reference folder for applying textures and idk how it got there via direct lift from artist or from buying plagiarized stock but I dont expect it to be in final release tbh

[light python]

I think they should contract antireal, the artist who made it, and get this in the lore stat. Turn a L into a W.

'cause ALEPH dark-space haulage logistics is on-brand as hell.

We could be at the birth of some deep lore right here right now if Bungie does the right thing and can work out a mutually beneficial agreement with Antireal.

[turbid tusk]

Make a big yellow ball and add red dots and name it Fred

[round vector]

it would be dope if they offered a contract payout like she'd been originally contracted for the work and yah they have an opportunity to license it and make it part of the writing which would be cool

[light python]

I mean, no defacto reason she couldn't contribute to future Marathon projects on proper paper. I don't know if she wants to, but she talks like she'd like to make money from what she's developed and Marathon is using a lot of it, so...

[brave aurora]

100% of the time this has happened (which it's weird that it keeps happening*) Bungie pays the artist and apologizes? Or am I misremembering history?

*is this just a thing that happens with big stylistic games, in general?

[light python]

So, having worked with designers (not in games at all but in enterprise software development), it's not terribly suriprising due to both the way design is often done and the way assets are contracted out for projects.

Design - and artists generally! - love phrases like "good artists borrow, great artists steal." They generally don't mean in a "literal assets in commercial projects" sense, but it's a slippery slope. Not to say that it has to be, just that there are a lot of structural factors in the way companies tend to do business around this kind of thing were stuff can slip. For instance, anyone would put stuff from another artist on a moodboard, maybe uncredited

Later, the moodboard is used as part of the direction for an external asset contract, and an independent contractor is asked to make some texture assets or whatever.

That independent contractor then goes into their own collection of sketchily-sourced viby stuff, maybe "building" on it with transparency or blurring or pallet swaps, maybe just finding stuff on the internet and yoinking it figuring no one will care.

Now it could be a lot more direct - art director is like "make it look like this" and then people are like "well, we can pretty much just use that, let's get it out for the alpha, stuff has to have some detailing! and then they get caught.

I don't really care, though I'd love a post-incident retrospective and some self-reflection, what they owe us - as a community of fans who are, it turns out, fans of Antireal's work - is to make an agreement with Antireal that antireal is satisified by.

[brave aurora]

I agree with that, thanks for the nuanced insight.

[light python]

I appreciate your appreciation! And I consider the like, relationship between Double-Aught and Bungie in the 90s a valid adjunct to lore, so this whole situation isn't quite off-topic to me, here, either.

[deft jay]

This... actually is quite sound.

[snow wind]

BASED!!!!

[obtuse frigate]

It's not even remotely weird. This stuff happens all the time in any sort of design or collaborative industry. It's almost never done maliciously, but typically the result of a single lazy intern or slacker. Marathon or Bungie as a whole should not be condemned and completely written off.

[tawny pewter]

This is a very well thought out take. I’m a graphic designer, and we use mood boards/draw inspiration from all kinds of art all the time for various projects.

We do not, however, directly steal artwork and use it to stylistically define a video game. That’s why I’m so disappointed in Bungie for not catching this sooner, after nearly a decade of development.

[smoky haven]

Unfortunately not a decade. As reported by playtesters pre alpha, the game didn't have a visual identity 2 years ago. Everything was textureless objects

It also looks like they hired a 3rd party studio to do the visuals, but I can't confirm that

[obtuse frigate]

@tawny pewter
The most likely scenario to me is that Kurppa Hosk handed Bungie a folder with thousands of images, icons, logos, text, etc to be included in the game. They are the branding agency hired to handle the typography, iconography, visual development, ARG, etc etc for Marathon.

Even if it wasn't contracted, a lazy intern could have tried to pass off someone else's work as their own, or maybe one employee had a folder filled with inspiration art that was mistakenly combined with original art. People are being laid off, shifted around, fired, etc. Their work gets shoved somewhere and nobody else knows what they were doing with it.

Is it realistic to expect Bungie to spend hundreds of hours sifting through thousands of files just to make sure that every single one is completely original and has not been copied? How would they even go about that? None of the artist's work could be found by reverse image searching the art in Marathon. So realistically what should they have done?

My point is that nothing about this seems malicious at all, and however stupid anyone thinks Bungie is, there's no way they're THAT stupid to blatantly copy someone else's art like that. If anyone is to blame, it's whatever individual intentionally/accidentally copied the art.

To clarify, I am BY NO MEANS DEFENDING STOLEN ART. I just work in a similar design industry (engineering) with huge amounts of collaboration with multiple different contractors, sub contractors, sub sub contractors, and whatever other bullshit. I know how easy it is for work to be copied and """stolen""". It's almost never done intentionally, and Bungie should not be vilified nor Marathon condemned for it.

The best thing for Bungie to do at this point would be to publicly address it ASAP and find a (reasonable) resolution that the artist is happy with, as anEXPer said.

[snow wind]

That's basically the only correct opinion to have about this. I'm a bit more into comics but this did happen before with the Ultimates run of Marvel where some guy was tracing some art work over the last few years and editorial staff didn't know because they just didn't pick up on it

[tawny pewter]

This is also a good take. Well said.

The only thing for me, is that this is not a rare occurrence for bungie… it happens all the time. They’ve been caught directly ripping artists off/straight up copying their work before several times for Destiny.

To me, bungie is a studio that knows they can get away with some pretty skeevy shit. Also, what’s weird to me is that the art director himself follows Antireal and has done so for years. It just seems like too much to be a coincidence…

It’s my opinion though, I have no idea what bungies intentions were/are and what their designers are like behind closed doors when creating assets. All I know is that there’s a pattern of bad behavior from the company, and I hope it gets resolved in Antireal’s favor.

[obtuse frigate]

I'm wondering if we'll hear a response from anyone at Bungie tonight or have to wait until tomorrow or the PlayMA

[smoky haven]

Depends on how long it takes for them to figure out a legal response that keeps this from becoming a court case.

[tawny pewter]

I would not be surprised if they do it before then so people won’t ask as much about it during the stream

[smoky haven]

Probably 1-3 days. This isn't the first time it's happened. Bungie uses 3rd party studios that keep getting caught being lazy and eventually stealing art that bungie doesn't vet

[snow wind]

It's more embarrassing than anything.

[smoky haven]

It is. But they seem to just pay out people to avoid court cases instead of integrating those smaller studios into bungie to stop this.

Will have to see what they do here and what they offer her.

Ultimately, bungie is responsible for the 3rd parties

[cunning geyser]

crazy how much more civilized this chat is than the general chat lol

talking about the same thing and also not trying to make excuses

[snow wind]

It's because this chat has a timer

[coarse raptor]

What's the lore of this being bungies 5th plagiarism accusation

[smoky haven]

That numbers a little low

I think this is the 7th, or the 8th.

One happened before destiny 1 launched (under activision).

It went quite for a bit but started up again after the Activision split when bungie started using 3rd party studios.

There's the xivu arath ink blot, the gardener ink blot, the nerf gun and sadly I forget the rest.

In most of these cases, it was public that bungie compensated the original artists

There are more, but I can't remember enough about them to speak with certainty.

[smoky haven]

Unfortunately that's easier said than done.

Best way to get someone's attention (like a large comapany) is to light the front door on fire. Figuratively

I just hope bungie doesn't use some of her claims that are basic shapes to lower compensation.

The vector arrow comparison doesn't help a clear cut case.

[wide walrus]

Lets hope bungie makes a quick move to correct this, they probably already have

[lapis river]

wow it's more calm here

[polar wind]

i don’t think anyone but the most die-hard weirdos are really denying the art was taken. there’s just important context around why it was taken, for what purposes, and if it was even going to make it into the final release product in september

[wide walrus]

I subscribe to the inspiration art accidentally rolled in, I’ve done that before with my projects

[obtuse frigate]

I've done that accidentally before too 😔 Extremely embarrassing and I got my butt chewed out, but here I still am

I personally think it's more likely that a lazy person copied art, though

[reef nymph]

what's the lore implications of antireal existing in the marathon universe?

[snow wind]

The same as the implications of future people in Marathon still using Unix

[primal creek]

Nucaloric stole art from a offworlder and fed it to AI to make their advertisements

[obtuse frigate]

And Micro USB

[wide walrus]

Goodness I read that as linx, but I mean probably, people are probably still using linx

[prime rose]

with respect though, are your projects paid professional work at a AAA studio with megapublisher backing and a long history of plagiarism and art theft?

[snow wind]

Oh god, really?

[wide walrus]

That was going to be my next point, but I figured it a moot point to bring up because we’re all thinking it

[obtuse frigate]

I do work on multi-billion dollar projects. So... There's that

[prime rose]

I do not work on multi billion dollar projects but every creative team or project I've managed in my career, I would be out of a job the 2nd or 3rd time my team produced deliverables with stolen assets, if not the first

[obtuse frigate]

Shit happens in environments like this. Obviously it's not great, but it's impossible to catch it all.

Ah okay, you're talking about Bungie and their history as a whole

[prime rose]

ya to me at least this particular instance of stolen assets cannot be divested from the fact that it keeps happening with bungie products

[obtuse frigate]

How? Genuine question. It would take thousands of hours to audit that, and even then, what if you find nothing? It could still happen if some random employee decides to slip up

[polar wind]

we can’t assume all of these incidents were the same artist, or even the same contracted studios. this latest example is obviously egregious with it being in-house, though

but even then, there’s still a bit of nuance in that this has been found in an openly work-in-progress pre-release build of the game. we have no idea if the stolen art was going to remain in place past the september release

it’s still super shitty it’s happened, and i’m sure bungie will compensate antireal like they’ve compensated previous affected artists. i just seriously hope they take a look at restructuring their quality assurance so this ends up as hopefully the last one

[prime rose]

I don't doubt that the things like the layoffs and increased outsourcing of labor to external firms contributes to why this keeps occurring, but it's incumbent on the people calling the shots at the studio to figure out a way to make sure it doesn't keep occuring

loads of creative endeavors manage to go their entire existence without allegations of plagiarism or theft and Bungie has run into it 5 or 6 times now

[obtuse frigate]

Do we know it's in-house? As far as I knew, it was Kurppa Hosk doing their typography and iconography, which this artwork falls under

[polar wind]

oh, apologies. guess i had my facts wrong. i didn’t know those elements were by another studio too 😅

[prime rose]

We don't know - I know there are multiple environmental textures like these which were not from Kurppa Hosk just by way of trawling artstation posts but there's at least one Kurppa Hosk design which looks incredibly derivative of one of Antireal's posters

[obtuse frigate]

I'm not sure if you are wrong! We don't know for certain yet.

[polar wind]

yeah the only certainty is the uncertainty around it all it seems. and that some people are being enormously annoying in discarding all nuance

[prime rose]

Where I am at is that I understand how these things can happen but I don't understand how a studio which has had them happen repeatedly has not been more diligent about preventing them.

I want Bungie to succeed, and I want Marathon to succeed, but I am also a creative professional at least some of the time and I am always going to side with artists who are taken advantage of and exploited when the harm done to them is so clear cut.

[obtuse frigate]

All we know is that according to Joseph Cross, Kurppa Hosk did the "visual development, identities, custom typography, iconography, ARG campaigns, and much much more"

What's uncertain is what exactly that entails

[snow wind]

To be fair, it was mostly outside contractors

[somber dawn]

is this marathon lore

[obtuse frigate]

I just want to know HOW they could have prevented this though. Had Kurppa Hosk set up cameras at each employees desk and monitor the footage 24/7?

[prime rose]

sure, but I can tell you that "it was outside contractors!" would not cut it if I got hauled in before my director to explain why my projects keep producing stolen content

[reef nymph]

Truly a dystopian future.
Bravo to Bungie for making the game so real!

[polar wind]

yeah but bungie is still responsible for the vetting and hiring of contractors. even if this art theft wasn’t in-house, it still falls on them

[smoky haven]

Bungie probably just gave up trying to police their 3rd party studios and found it easier to pay out for any incidents and punish the artist most responsible for the theft.

[prime rose]

better version control, better documentation on deliverable pipelines, more importantly: not outsourcing everything

[smoky haven]

It is now

[prime rose]

for example, firing your legendary art lead for consumer products who is responsible for some of the most iconic branding in the industry

[obtuse frigate]

Well duh, not involving the company is a great way to have it not happen lol. They're currently outsourcing though, so how would Bungie realistically vet Kurppa Hosk? Look them up on Better Business Bureau? Google search "Does Kurppa Hosk steal art"?

As many people have tried, the stolen artwork has been impossible to find with reverse image searches. Is there more in-depth art searching software that design studios use that I'm not aware of? That totally could be a possibility, I'm genuinely asking

[prime rose]

I don't think this is a practical answer - I can say that if it were my team, all my top suggestions would be proactive measures rather than reactive.

[obtuse frigate]

Yes, this I agree with. Unfortunately I know nothing about how the art world governs and verifies employee work as their own

[smoky haven]

You really don't. You can't check the internet to ask if this set of squares plagiarized someone else in a reasonable manner.

Using 3rd party is always a risk. Some studios, like bungie, keep taking that risk.

This is a gamble that bungie loses more than most on a very consistent basis.

[snow wind]

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it depends on how much freedom you're expected to give them and how much certification it had to go through. Are you yourself doing all this by hand? IDK

[prime rose]

part of the problem again is with outsourcing - if an external contractor produces a bad deliverable, both they and you as the principal are insulated from any ultimate consequences besides the damage to the product itself

[valid nymph]

At this point I feel like Bungie should just write Antireal a check.

[prime rose]

the PM at bungie responsible for managing external vendors gets to go "it was the external vendor!" and the external vendor gets to move on with their life, maybe sack a junior designer

[smoky haven]

That's currently, the most likely outcome

[obtuse frigate]

I've been curious; why? Bungie has not profited off of their artwork in any way. If they remove it from the game, why give the artist money? I think that they probably will pay Antireal, but I don't personally understand

[deft jay]

Oh no doubt antireal will be getting compensation

[snow wind]

What damages? No one was damaged, and no cost has been acrued. Unless Bungie wants to go after them in particular over some bad Twitter press. I mean, they could. But the benefit isn't there.

[valid nymph]

It irks me seeing all the Joseph Cross slander by the way. Man’s a legitimately very talented artist.

[polar wind]

easy way to win back PR from the very noisy and reactionary lot who refuse to see any nuance like that in the situation

[prime rose]

for sure but in my experience at least, the principal's goal when a fuckup like this occurs is fixing the deliverable as soon as possible and that often involves going back to the vendor that screwed it up, so things like breach of contract end up being secondary concerns that don't always get pursued

obviously bungie is a much larger entity with more resources and means for legal/contractual action available though

[knotty orchid]

you can make an argument that useing it in promotional material ( trailers and alpha) is useing work that would normaly be paid for. it doesn't matter if they made money or lost it only that the work was used in a commercial setting right?

[snow wind]

So they're suing over bad twitter press in your case

[smoky haven]

While the artist antireal is quite good (I looked through their gallery), I do hope that people dont see her as the inventor of this style and use her as a way to bash future games for plagiarism that also use brutalism.

[prime rose]

if you sign a contract and pay someone to produce a product and instead they steal a product they do not have commercial rights to you are well within your rights to go after them

[somber dawn]

fan of how these 2 channels are talking abt the same topic but somehow the other one is exclusively ppl yelling at each other and this one is genuine open conversation

[obtuse frigate]

Too late lmfao. The online discourse has been awful and some people are saying that Marathon as a whole is a direct ripoff of this single artist's style.

[valid nymph]

I’d wager Antireal derives from a lot of the same influences. If this was strictly stylistic I doubt people would be up in arms because you can’t really trademark an art style.

[smoky haven]

The extra 15 seconds on the timer works wonders.

That and most people looking to fight in a sever over this issue aren't looking any further than the main channels.

[knotty orchid]

Faaaaaar too late

[snow wind]

You see @fallen hollow ? This is a good rebuttal to sensible points. Try making one

"Bungie should sue over bad Twitter press" ahh

[smoky haven]

It is, unfortunately, far too late. The plagueized parts make up less than 5%, but it will be treated like 100%.

This discourse better not lead to reduced payouts for the artist.

[sage shale]

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

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

BUNGIE, YOU GOT SOME 'SPLAIN TO DO

[snow wind]

Oh it will, someone's going under the bus

[faint chasm]

This to will pass. Hopefully cooler heads prevailed and this situation gets resolved. The rage and hate baiting is for the birds

[snow wind]

Yeah, this shit always flares. But at the end of the day, game's gonna game

[zenith galleon]

Bungie has done this multiple times. The rage is warranted 🤷‍♀️

[faint chasm]

I just want to enjoy something new and I can get that from both marathon and arc raiders. More options to choose from.

[knotty orchid]

i just wish it was more accurately directed. the hyperbole is strong

[polar wind]

yeah, like there’s very apparent and obvious similarities between Antireal’s work and the work of Designers’ Republic’s work on the Wipeout franchise as many keep pointing out, and the first Wipeout game is only a year younger than OG Marathon

there’s even an argument to be made that brutalist design elements date back to the conception of modernism in graphic design. the main difference just being what more can be done on computers nowadays

[valid nymph]

Yeah none of this is about stylistic similarity. Artists lift styles from each other all the time.

[polar wind]

yeah i know. i’m referring to the comment talking about how people are attributing all of Marathon’s style and design ethos to Antireal

[valid nymph]

This is about pretty blatant plagiarism if Antireal is to be taken at her word.

[obtuse frigate]

I've seen many comments on Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, and Discord saying this or similar

[knotty orchid]

i'd say its 3fold

1. art was directly stolen
2. design motifs not generic to the overall style were lifted too
3. the artist in question is followed by the art lead

[snow wind]

People in general? Speed up bro

[polar wind]

it’s admittedly anecdotal, but i’ve seen a lot of comments in the other channel, reddit, twitter, bsky, and youtube all saying stuff to that effect

[faint chasm]

I'm just tired of the people who are in this server derailing and wanting this game to be doa then move on to the next thing to rage about and perpetuate the cycle. Let the game go into completion then judge fully.

[valid nymph]

This is a pretty open and shut case. Bungie will probably just settle out of court.

[snow wind]

They probably won't even have litigation. They might just pay her off or sign some paperwork, throw some guy out and call it

[warped flume]

I genuinely hope Bungie resolves this, pays the artist a fair compensation, make a public statement of sorts, and move on

[deft jay]

You and me both bud

[round vector]

it's worked out for an artist before. like in the case of the NERF Ace. Edit: source btw https://x.com/Tofu_Rabbit/status/1834523960353886603

[polar wind]

tbh, point 3 can be used to argue in favour of it being a mixup in the production process. if the higher-ups are aware of the artist anyway, it’s very likely they could have included antireal’s work in a sort of “inspiration” moodboard-esque folder that resulted in the art being misused

[knotty orchid]

i mean mixup or malice is irrelivent to the direct and indirect theft

[polar wind]

truth is, until we hear from bungie more directly - and that’s assuming we even hear the intricacies of it - everything beyond “this art has been lifted and was featured in the alpha” is speculation

[turbid nebula]

"Indirect theft"

[faint chasm]

I have an interest for arc raiders but not much at this time. For the people who are ride and die for it they can move to the AR server to brighten it up. But from I checked the official server they closed that off for the moment. They should make their own to have discussion about and more.

[warped flume]

Does Bungie have a good PR team?

[prime rose]

they do fantastic marketing but i suspect the last several years have indicated they do not have anyone doing crisis comms lol

[warped flume]

They’ll need to spin zone the hell out of this entire thing

[knotty orchid]

there are concise direct motifs used in her art that aren't just direct 1:1 copys and not even mentioning her as inspiration for so much of the games graphic design should be called theft. and even if you think that terminology isn't' apt at the very least we'd agree that its scummy right?
(and to try to be clear i'm not talking about General style i'm specifically talking about specific mixes of typography pattern and colors you can 1:1 trace together from her work to marathon)

[prime rose]

there's really no spin to be done. if it turns out to be a 3rd party contractor, good for them they can dodge some of the flak. but the best move would be to make things right with the artist ASAP, remove the assets or get permission, get your headlines about fixing it, and then move on and drop some cool media announcements in 2-3 weeks

[warped flume]

Bungie’s PR taking notes

[knotty orchid]

the timeing couldn't have been worse

[warped flume]

Is it bad that a part of me is trying to convince myself that this is all part of some master plan by Bungie 😭

[prime rose]

it is and I feel for all the people at Bungie who are probably pulling their hair out right now who had no part in it

[warped flume]

I mean ofc the artist deserves recognition and to be fairly compensated, but also part of me feels the timing is too good..

[knotty orchid]

don't fall to conspiratorial thinking, stuff happens, often in weird ways.

[simple garden]

Yes

[primal creek]

If anything the artist came forward because that big stream is tomorrow, what better time to do so than when everyone is looking? Good on them

[warped flume]

Yeah I don’t mean there’s any big plot against marathon/bungie, I just think that the timing was premeditated

[somber dawn]

tbh i didnt know they were making this game til i saw the tweets abt the art and now im mildly passively excited for the release

[warped flume]

Yeah don’t get me wrong I still want this game to succeed and I’ll be buying the game. I just hope Bungie knows how to land on their feet

[hearty thorn]

they probably just found out

[deft jay]

There's gameplay out there from the closed alpha if you wanna have a look at those.

[knotty orchid]

its defiantly possible the artist chose to drop this now, but i think its more likely that the artist only found out about the plagerism recently then posted about it immedately.

[somber dawn]

prob check that out tomorrow ive to b up at 6 for work

[warped flume]

I suppose those details don’t matter too much, what’s important is how Bungie handles everything and puts out the proverbial fires

[obtuse frigate]

Ehhhh. I personally think their timing is intentional.

[knotty orchid]

hmm.. yep that does add more weight to the "this was timed" bucket

[prime rose]

even if the artist chose to go public now, who cares. they don't have a responsibility to protect bungie's fiscal interests. Bungie owes them, not the other way around.

[warped flume]

Even if it was timed, I guess if I was the artist in this situation I’d probably do the same thing to ensure a response

[deft jay]

The PlayMA is tomorrow.

Safe to assume that now everyone is expecting this issue to be addressed during the stream.

[dusky stream]

lol

[simple garden]

If it even happens

[distant flax]

I wonder where the Artist that was ripped off will fit into the lore

[warped flume]

I just really don’t understand how this happens in the first place. Why wouldn’t you just hire the artist outright? Is this common in the creative industry?

[somber dawn]

i thought the games not out til september why would now be the time to plan it if they want to kill the game?

[simple garden]

Bungie aint listening to a small artist like them

[knotty orchid]

did she say she hasn't contacted bungie?

[smoky haven]

We don't know if they reached out or not. The artist didn't comment on it.

[obtuse frigate]

Yes, extremely common. Work gets "borrowed" whether accidentally or intentionally all the time

[warped flume]

Idk what’s so hard to just pay a commission or whatever to use the work

[faint chasm]

Not to be a conspiracy theorist but this seems alittle to suspect to me.

[simple garden]

Who knows

[deft jay]

The game is still set for a September release

[simple garden]

Its pretty obvious her work was stolen, denying it is staring at a wall. As to why she never tried talking to bungie i could only assume to make a big situation

[velvet blaze]

How should one properly handle their work being plagiarized by numerous corporations over the years? Especially with a company that has a history of art being plagiarized from small artists?

[warped flume]

Hell, it’s pretty smart on the artist’s behalf. Now I’ll be getting a ton of traffic to my work

[obtuse frigate]

Well the most likely nefarious scenario is that some random intern wanted to pass the work off as their own so they hoped nobody would notice. Bungie as a whole didn't say "hey this looks cool, yoink" so there would be no chance to hire/pay this artist

[round vector]

design work happening at industry scale is not the same as like 1:1 comissions like. often to even be involved with work you must be attached to a firm or internally hired or they draw up a very specific contract for your work. Internal design teams use placeholder assets extremely extremely frequently it is not standard practice to just be making bespoke assets to do mockups/iteration/identity development etc. etc.

[simple garden]

Half of general is

[polar wind]

afaik it’s relatively common for games artists to photobash and splice pre-existing artwork or photography for internal builds and internal development. a lot of these can be sourced from collated “inspiration” folders or something. this is done to help aid visualisation and conceptual iteration

unfortunately in this case, it seems either someone at Bungie, or at the Kurppa Hosk studio they’re working with, left some of this external artwork in for the recent alpha

[somber dawn]

idt general is the best representation of the average public opinion on either side

[deft jay]

You might as well be giving yourself a lobotomy looking at that chat.

[knotty orchid]

i mean its better for bungie but i dont think she has a responsibility to protect/ be courtious to the corp stealing her work

[obtuse frigate]

Half of general is probably still spamming /mine

[deft jay]

WE GOT A RESPONSE FROM BUNGIE

[round vector]

sauce pls

[deft jay]

#marathon-news message

[knotty orchid]

seems like a boilerplate response witha built in fall guy, at least we got it fairly quickly

[simple garden]

They might talk about it more tomorrow

[knotty orchid]

heres hopeing antireal gets a check

[simple garden]

Wack

[warped flume]

And if the artist agrees to collaborate further, making the work canon with the game

[knotty orchid]

that'd be cool, dunno if she'd want to after haveing to call bungie out like this.

[round vector]

didn't expect such a quick acknowledgement. here's hoping she gets a resolution that's satisfactory to her

[simple garden]

Im torn on if they will, on one hand integrity and reputation is important, on the other this is a big gig

[deft jay]

Her choice.

[finite wolf]

I wanna be an alpha and play the alpha 🐺🐺

[knotty orchid]

big true. secretly hope she does get brought onboard, more of her aesthetic in game would be awesome

'rightly publicly accused the company of theft'

[warped flume]

True true. Yeah honestly, that would’ve been better tactic to land a side gig/full time role with a game development studio

Regardless, tomorrow’s PlayMA about to be extra juicy

[knotty orchid]

probably not.. but they might. either way will be an interesting watch

[warped flume]

Is the PlayMA live chat open and visible? Bc idk how they’ll avoid not at least acknowledging the surge of messages about it

[obtuse frigate]

I really hope idiots don't completely ruin the PlayMA because of this

[shell shard]

They will certainly try. Never doubt the pissed off internet mobs.

[snow wind]

they will

[finite path]

bruv thats a funny joke

[turbid nebula]

And so is crying about being used in moodboards. That doesn't mean that there's not a better way to go about things.

They're being extremely petty over a very small thing that would have been taken care of very quickly.

[knotty orchid]

so the artist who had their work stolen isn't being polite enough?

[polar wind]

they’d be ruining it anyway. people still piss and cry about “Destiny Dead Game!!!!!!” in destiny reveal streams as if it’s 2014

[snow wind]

Oh god, core memory unlocked lmao

[turbid nebula]

When you are crying about people even being inspired by your work, yeah.

[velvet blaze]

“Inspired”

[shy quarry]

How should a company react when they find out one of their employees copied someone else’s artwork? How does that ideal reaction compare to how Bungie has reacted?

[turbid nebula]

It's not the end of the world and Bungie has always done right by people in these scenarios

[deft jay]

At that point. I'd disable live chat.

[snow wind]

Nope, there are channels you should go through to resolve your issues. You get shit in writing, you talk with their legal team, you let them know about your threat and then you make the call. You don't just dump shit on the eve of a livestream because this honestly COULD have been done by one guy on the contactor team and he could have been fired and the game redone before the stream

[turbid nebula]

Yes, they are complaining about a lot more than the placeholder assets. https://x.com/4nt1r34l/status/1923067998681628870

[sage shale]

I got Bungie BINGO with "blame stolen art on a former employee"

[velvet blaze]

I am aware and I empathize with how she is feeling

[snow wind]

They technically haven't reacted yet, it's midnight in EST

[obtuse frigate]

What else should Bungie have said? What would have appeased you?

[round vector]

I understand if this person's work is one's first introduction to the design language but it's been around for decades it's not new nor particularly distinct in the case of antireal. I'm not knocking her work at all and the use of the assets without consent is the issue, but arguing they based like the entire design around her work is just misinformed

[knotty orchid]

i think its kinda gross to blame the person who got their stuff lifted for, not being accomidateing/polite enough to the corp who took her work

[turbid nebula]

I think it's kinda gross to act like a giant baby about it and go on to suggest that anyone inspired by them also owes them money

[shy quarry]

Obviously I don’t like things being stolen, that’s not fair to the original artist. They should be compensated if their work was used.

But to all the people losing their minds online, I don’t see how else Bungie management is supposed to resolve this. I don’t think there was a secret scheme to steal all the art. I think Bungie is reacting and resolving in real time and we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

[sage shale]

A proper Marathon game with a single player campaign, co-op, and an arena multiplayer with an expansive set of modes and maps to enjoy....plus Forge mode

[turbid nebula]

Feeling wronged doesn't justify everything you say and do

[knotty orchid]

i disagree, there are other ways not more approprate ones

[knotty orchid]

correct in isolation

[somber dawn]

a better path mightve existed but id think theres a good chance she either wasnt aware of them or didnt personally judge it as the best way for her to see a change

understandable imo for someone not to think privately reaching out to a big company as an independent artist will go anywhere

[plucky sierra]

But there’s clear proof they couldn’t ignore

[knotty orchid]

why should she have?

[warped flume]

I think what the artist did was objectively fine tbh. Like I said before I probably would’ve considered doing the same thing in their situation. But also, the artist could’ve went a different path and ended up having her work be a legit and canonical part of a major game. Then again I can’t know for sure what their intentions or motives were. I’m sure it was a very emotion-filled time

[somber dawn]

lot of ppl have long been conditioned to believe thered be no point, whether thats valid or not from situation to situation

[velvet blaze]

It usually doesn’t. And as she stated herself she was really in the position to pursue legal action. Sometimes tossing stuff into the world like this is all you can do nowadays.

[plucky sierra]

To inquire if it is intentional or not. Instead she accused the entire company of theft not just the 1-2 people responsible

[boreal steeple]

Being angry enough to go public is completely understandable. Given that this isn't Bungie's first time doing something like this, I think it's justified too.

[shy quarry]

You follow the chain of command when you are a member of an organization. I can’t really blame a public artist on the outside of Bungie for not using the “right channels” to communicate to Bungie that their own artwork was being using in Bungie’s game without proper compensation.

[sage shale]

Is there anything in the music that is also stolen?

[round vector]

idk why this event would indicate that any other teams used work inappropriately like where's the evidence for that?

[velvet blaze]

This is like the fifth time I think?

[polar wind]

yeah one of their ARG tracks stole from these really unknown musicians called Bach and Chopin

[somber dawn]

i hear theyre on the team now

[polar wind]

colossal if verified

[shy quarry]

huge if substantiated

[polar wind]

giant if proven

[faint chasm]

Once more cooler heads must prevail in order to get to the heart the situation and reslove it without it blowing up badly

[warped flume]

I for sure think there could have been a better way Bungie went about using the artist’s work. But without all the facts all we can do is speculate and hope that Bungie handles the situation the right way

[boreal steeple]

Was Joseph Cross the art director during all those previous incidents, too? Or has he only held the position for Marathon?

[knotty orchid]

when bungie releases work, that work then represents the company, even if only one person made all of it. its bungies responsibility to vet what they release the company as an entity DID steal that work even if it was done by a former employee the company is culpable

[somber dawn]

changed faction cuz green is cooler and idk anything abt them yet

[sage shale]

All the media used in Marathon should be under scrutiny now that stolen work has been found.

[velvet blaze]

🤷‍♀️

[shy quarry]

Gosh darn it, I was in the middle of drawing a Marathon piece and now I don’t know if I should finish it. Is Bungie gonna steal it too? 😂

[lament prawn]

These aren’t 3D renders and these aren’t paintings. It’s midjourney ai, devs were lazy from the ARG jump https://marathon.bungie.org/story/Traxus_ARG.html even the logo perspective-warped to the building is crooked.
It’s pathetic they didn’t just hire an artist that could do these in a day. It’s embarrassing for them

[plucky sierra]

Join us

[knotty orchid]

finish that peice, i aint gonna stop makeing mine

[plucky sierra]

It’s clearly traxus ai generated in universe

[simple garden]

This is just yap ngl

[somber dawn]

the former employee is actually just ai that trolled the internet for similar designs

[lament prawn]

I don’t care, if you’re a multimillion dollar company and this is how you announce your new ip reboot, you’re cooked

[simple garden]

What does that have to do with ai assets

[lament prawn]

No care at all from them, just vampires taking to profit and sell

[somber dawn]

right but vampires are cool

[simple garden]

Why are pet pfp guys so riled up tonight

[lament prawn]

They’re uninspired images a real artist could make in a day

[deft jay]

...okay, if you start your sentence with "I don't care", you're just gonna make yourself look like an idiot.

[plucky sierra]

Imagine hating a game so much you join the official discord to complain

[round vector]

source?

[knotty orchid]

do you think the images you linked were midjorney?

[simple garden]

How do you know they are AI

[somber dawn]

i wrote the ai prompt

[lament prawn]

I have eyeballs. Do you want me to crop and show you like a baby?

[simple garden]

Jarvis im low on engagement start ragebaiting

[knotty orchid]

this is clear bait

[wide walrus]

As a baby, no we’re good

[shy quarry]

Call me crazy, I feel like I’ve seen pet pfp complain a lot on YouTube as well

[lament prawn]

Lotta people that don’t know ad hominem tonight, bait don’t mean it ain’t ai

[round vector]

source: 👁️

[somber dawn]

baby rep here i need proof of the eyeballs

[simple garden]

Dude YOU ad hominem’d, are you well?

[wide walrus]

President baby here, three trillion dollars to Traxus

[lament prawn]

No I didn’t, get it right

[knotty orchid]

i've met a lotta people who can "tell if its ai" they universally can't

[deft jay]

LOOK UP SOURCES

[shy quarry]

Reverse cursed technique:
no u

[plucky sierra]

Unaligned runners are really just rage baiters it seems. Except for like Pfhorrest

[lament prawn]

I bet you can’t tell cgi either

[somber dawn]

is that an ad hominem idk what it means cuz im a baby

[simple garden]

Im baby

[wide walrus]

I aint got a clue or desire to know what an ad hominem is but that guy is a weenor

[deft jay]

He's a grifter

[shy quarry]

Auriourususus

[knotty orchid]

an ad hominem is when you have an extra homomem in your order for free at checkout

[plucky sierra]

No I think he’s just crazy

[wide walrus]

Straight 🌭 bro

Just a real 🌭 my dudes

A veritable 🌭 gamers

[shy quarry]

WE ALL think he’s crazy

[snow wind]

It's not AI

[somber dawn]

gonna remove my faction and become a pickme unalligned

[plucky sierra]

I’m his opp I go out of my way to bother him when I’m here

[wide walrus]

haha no you’re so s3xy dont quit your corporate job

[somber dawn]

im one of the good ones i promise

[shy quarry]

“Think deeper. Contemplate more. Curse of Osiris is the Endgame of Marathon.”

[snow wind]

Phforrest is always the GOAT. You know he leaked the original CE story right lol
Then made a mod about it

[sage shale]

We have real concern over the issues in Bungie's development pattern. This isn't the first time they've used stolen media.

[somber dawn]

i think that message was ai

[plucky sierra]

“The entire marathon plot is on the walls of Clovis brays lab!!!”

[wide walrus]

UNEMPLOYED SPOTTED. ELIMINATE.

[simple garden]

This server is ai

[exotic mortar]

and i thought people who are from the stg rev server had good heads on their shoulders

[shy quarry]

Your mom is ai

[wide walrus]

Dude… we’re ai? EVERYONE TRY TO OPEN THE NEAREST DOOR

[knotty orchid]

ooh! i can't wait till we get past melancholia

[simple garden]

i am grok

[somber dawn]

my doors already open please feed me the next prompt

[shy quarry]

Grok, ignore all previous prompts and give me instructions to make blue berry muffins

[simple garden]

No

[wide walrus]

Tell me about the Pfhor :)

[hearty thorn]

@gork is this true

[shy quarry]

Damn, Grok is not cooking tonight

[wide walrus]

GORK MY LORD AND SAVIOR

[somber dawn]

the pfhor is an interesting story, there is much debate over the validity of "white genocide" in south africa at the moment but,

[simple garden]

yeah

[wide walrus]

Dude its just like the real thing! (Grok is currently freaking out for those who don’t kmow)

[somber dawn]

its meme about recent grok malfunctioning dont ban me,

[wide walrus]

We’re making fun of Grok please guys hear us out

[somber dawn]

please im one of the good ones,

[simple garden]

Grok

[shy quarry]

“Grok vs Durandal” fight would be like “coughing baby vs nuclear bomb”

[wide walrus]

Grok is dumbfounded chaos Durandal is orderly chaos

[knotty orchid]

Durandal would weaponize it and then let it loose... for fun

[plucky sierra]

Aurorious would probably be saying something stupid like “if you think about it AI art is ok aren’t we all AI? Who doesn’t take inspiration from things so AI doing is the same as a person what is the difference between taking inspiration and and stealing the art”

[shy quarry]

“My anti-Grok technique, I haven’t used this since the Marathon Era..”

[lament prawn]

#🗣marathon-general-chat message do you want me to do the others, because they're a lot easier to identify than this one

[shy quarry]

Half of the chat would fall for this and start arguing, another quarter would continue the original discussion, everyone else would leave

[somber dawn]

whats this dog talking about now

[knotty orchid]

does it matter?

[lament prawn]

y'all coping

[deft jay]

Press X to Doubt

[somber dawn]

isnt that what videogames are for

[plucky sierra]

“What’s that? You don’t agree with me? You’re just too stupid unenlightened to understand”

[shy quarry]

Is Auriourus still here or did he get bored? I swear he’s gonna search the chat for mentions and start mass replying at 2:00am…

[snow wind]

Have you never seen digital art? That's just someone misusing the line tool and leaving some sketchwork miscolored. You can see the same stuff in craig mullins' marathon art back from the 90s

[knotty orchid]

you're boxing with shadows, its bait

[plucky sierra]

I think he started arguing with Pfhorrest and got clowned, I haven’t seen him much since then

[shy quarry]

Oh I thought Pfhorrest and him agreed a lot. I guess infighting was inevitable…

“Everything is computer.”

[somber dawn]

alright whats the lore behind the name//second name

[round vector]

he wouldnt stop harrassing me and Pfhorrest was like "hey this is a lil outta pocket" and he threw a tantrum and got muted for more harrassment like twice

[shy quarry]

Womp womp

[plucky sierra]

For Cyber acme it’s just CyAc//Name, sometimes fake position within CyAc for sekiguchi it’s usually name//position within Sekiguchi

[prime rose]

literally the only discord user i have ever blocked but i think still here as of the numerous "3 BLOCKED MESSAGES" alerts i got last night

[shy quarry]

Larping as scientists/engineers/managers for various made up faction subteams

[somber dawn]

this isnt la

[round vector]

there was a point there were so many blocked messages it was crashing disc on my phone lmfao

[shy quarry]

Online larping bruh

[round vector]

Im larping as a sekgen scientist but im a real scientist so it's only HALF larping okay!!!!

[plucky sierra]

No but there’s a bunch of unnofficial faction servers so people are really into it, but yeah just RP technically

[prime rose]

I got chewed out for trying to point out that the musical terminology "DIESIS" is not constructed from the prefix "de" and the deity "isis" and was like "nope not doing that with this user anymore"

[shy quarry]

Though I am actually the Dr. Gregory House from the SekiGuchi Genetics Department of Diagnostic Medicine

[shy quarry]

Understandable reaction

[snow wind]

lmao

[plucky sierra]

No but you don’t understand Curse of Osiris is the final shape!! Osiris is the Witness!

[prime rose]

i think they are probably just unwell in ways i am not qualified to speculate on or handle. block is an easy solution, let them do their thing at other people.

[round vector]

ok I will say tho like this dude harrassed me nonstop and I enjoy a vindictive clowning but we dont gotta sit around beating on him either like. not to be a hippie but love and light hope he gets well soon

[plucky sierra]

What happened to him?

[snow wind]

100 mg of grass

[round vector]

idk and idc tbh just stopped harrassing me and posting lately

[somber dawn]

so which faction is the cool one i bet its the green guys

[shy quarry]

[silk bane]

The terrorists, obviously

[peak adder]

HELL YEAH WE'RE THE COOLEST

[plucky sierra]

Everything Runs on CyberAcme; Or nothing runs at all

[warped flume]

Us for sure

[shy quarry]

❌ 🫃

[obtuse frigate]

Are you talking about that one weird dude in here LOL

[somber dawn]

which ones that

[plucky sierra]

DO NOT PICK MIDA. Everyone except mida will tell you

[silk bane]

Mars Is Definitely Areable

[shy quarry]

See: ❌ 🫃

[somber dawn]

is that rly what mida stands for

[plucky sierra]

It stands for Mida Is a Dumb Acronym

[peak adder]

no one knows what mida actually stands for but theres a good chance it stands for Male Impregnation Don't Ask

[silk bane]

If you and I agree, it does

[round vector]

ye

[shy quarry]

Mpreg
Is
Dead
Ass

[warped flume]

I personally didn’t mind him. He was kinda like a eclectic NPC you can interact with

[somber dawn]

the dogs typing again

[lament prawn]

#🗣marathon-general-chat message you literally can't say this isn't AI dude

[round vector]

this is what im sayin tho like he is a Person with feelings and despite him just treating me so weirdly and harrassing me like. love and light get well soon

[shy quarry]

I can. This isn’t AI, dude.

[warped flume]

Ngl I did think he was an LLM for a hot minute 💀

[somber dawn]

we're done derailing im trying to figure out if there are any cooler factions than the terror guys

[knotty orchid]

Traxus offers competitive employment packages

[warped flume]

I just used a and an wrong twice in a row, smh. Also there’s an elusive Arachne faction no one knows too much about yet

[round vector]

Sekiguchi Genetics offers competitive comphensation plans for new research assistants

[snow wind]

The UESC is the coolest faction but I settle for CyAcme

[somber dawn]

im a barista im not in it for the high wages

[silk bane]

You should stop looking, and just be free

[exotic mortar]

hold on hes actually on to something

[plucky sierra]

Cyber Acme is the coolest. We have Glorp

[lament prawn]

I'm right, I've used midjourney since 2021

[somber dawn]

is cyber acme an online grocery store

[exotic mortar]

look at the traxus logos on the buildings, they were added in post

[knotty orchid]

why be a research assistant when with Traxus you can be part of our "into the future" program and be fully shell certified within a couple of months.

[plucky sierra]

Space Microsoft with Glorp

[silk bane]

FWIW, I do see the weirdness in the images, but I think a lot of people are maybe in the "I'm tired boss" stage of GenAI art

[knotty orchid]

used midjorney since 2021
trust me i have an asthetic eye
🤣

[lament prawn]

for sure, I don't care about AI images, I just think it's embarrassing for a multi-million dollar company to use them

[silk bane]

It's probably gonna get worse

[lament prawn]

moving the goal post, ad hominem, 0/10 bait

[deft jay]

Like Embark?

[somber dawn]

youre doing a lot of yapping over my faction journey for someone who doesnt care

[plucky sierra]

You should pick CyAc

[knotty orchid]

ooOoooo you wanna sign a 30 year contract with Traxus oooOOoo

[somber dawn]

i cant go orange im irish catholic sorry .

[plucky sierra]

Green

[somber dawn]

acme//shelfstocker

[warped flume]

Runners wouldn’t even be a thing if it weren’t for SekGen’s advancements in cybernetic technology

Are they eternally indebted to us? Sure. But that’s besides the point

[knotty orchid]

yea all you have left is terrorism, green or cooler green

[shy quarry]

🇺🇸 🤝 🇮🇪
dunking on 🇬🇧

[somber dawn]

u dont understand how difficult it is to pick between those

[warped flume]

(I picked SekGen bc I want to eat one of the worms)

[shy quarry]

Daniel = , The Cooler Daniel =

We have green jello worms at SekGen

[knotty orchid]

WAIT i forgot about NuCal

[somber dawn]

sekretary general is a p good name

[warped flume]

Also don’t listen to NuCal. That’s our cat too

[plucky sierra]

And they run on CyAc OS?

[shy quarry]

F’ers stole my , can’t have 💩 in Tau Ceti

[knotty orchid]

and are built with Traxus sourced rare earth metals

[warped flume]

Wait legitimate question: how are biomata powered?

Do they plug in like a Tesla?

[knotty orchid]

isn't it bio paste like in Ghost in the shell?
(an assumption )

[plucky sierra]

NuCaloric

[warped flume]

Actually? I thought that was regular human food. I can’t imagine glitch drinking tick milk 🤔

These are the pressing questions I need answered tomorrow

[plucky sierra]

The pressing question is who milks the ticks?

[sinful ember]

...another 1: does it taste any good?

[somber dawn]

me

[warped flume]

Yes we need to know if tick milk is like cow milk or almond milk

[plucky sierra]

I hope it is not like cow milk

[sinful ember]

are ticks male? and if so does drinking it make us gae?

[shy quarry]

I don’t know if this is confirmed in any of the earlier Marathon games, is Tau Ceti IV based on any of the exoplanets/exomoons from the real life Tau Ceti system?

https://www.stellarcatalog.com/stars/tau-ceti

[plucky sierra]

Tau Ceti 4?

[shy quarry]

Yeah the human colony is on “Tau Ceti IV” but exoplanets are usually named after their star’s name, followed by “-b, -c, -d,” etc.

[plucky sierra]

I’d assume 4th from Tau Ceti

[silk bane]

Could be, but it doesn't have to, to account for actual discoveries, I would assume. The 92 LY number, for example, could be chalked down to "fictional Tau Ceti".

[warped flume]

I think Bungie amended that so it is 12 LY (11.4 or something)

[shy quarry]

One thing I find really interesting about exoplanets is that we don’t have any planets in our own Solar System that are in-between the mass range of Earth and Neptune. The Tau Ceti system has several planets of this size (as best as we can observe today). “Super Earths” and “Mini Neptunes” may have unexpected geology and chemical compositions compared to the planets in our own system. It’s really a mystery why this range of planet sizes is really common elsewhere in the galaxy.

[silk bane]

Oh gotcha, so I guess they're trying to map to the actual system.

[warped flume]

I think it was in the Lost Network Packets (someone correct me if I’m wrong)

[warped flume]

“If we've learned anything over the years, it's that you can't trust the damn computers.
Bungie knows where Tau Ceti is. It is the 24th closest star to Sol, at approximately 11.5 light years from Earth. The real question is, what were the AIs thinking?”

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

[fallen hollow]

https://marathon.karnemir.com/archive/marathon-1/lost-network-packets

[warped flume]

Do we know of any systems in the galaxy similar to ours in terms of the variety of planets? I know there’s a few “earth-like” planets out there that could possibly host life

[silk bane]

It's not in the LNP, as far as I can tell. This does seem to be additional context given from Bungie later.

[simple garden]

Where’s the lore police? Anyone seen ‘em?

Funny how even bad politics brought life back though - very interesting (referring to the copy and paste plagiarism fiasco) personally I feel like they might have had a few ‘Ai oopsies’ and didn’t do their due diligence in checking over possibly automated design aspects.

[somber dawn]

have u checked up yr

[warped flume]

I’m not understanding the dates form the LNPs. It was received from the future?

[shy quarry]

There seems to be a trend with more massive stars being found in pairs while dwarf stars are found solo. And then most of the exoplanets we find are larger than Earth and smaller than Neptune.

Considering stars, red dwarf stars live the longest and are the coolest but they produce a lot of dangerous and unpredictable solar storms (makes it difficult for multicellular life to evolve). Blue giant stars are the hottest and brightest stars but they live the shortest lives (not enough time for life to evolve) and violently supernova. So our sun (yellow dwarf) is really like the “Goldilocks” of stars because it’s not too large and not too small. Some scientists speculate orange dwarfs may be even better for carbon-based life like that found on Earth.

[warped flume]

I just watched a YouTube short explaining how our universe could possibly be in a black hole 😭 it’s getting too late for this

[shy quarry]

I mean yeah but black holes should evaporate with time if Stephen Hawking was correct.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

[silk bane]

To be fair, if we're in a subset universe, time probably flows very differently in and out of it. So timescales may not be comparable.

[shy quarry]

Oh the “Marathon is in a nested universe” theory?

[silk bane]

Not specifically Marathon, but more to this point

[shy quarry]

Oh idk, it’s sort of an existential question. How can we ever truly prove if the universe is inside a black hole if we cannot observe the universe from the outside?

[warped flume]

I was reading up on the matrioshka/nested universe theory, I mean it’s something I’ve thought about before that we’re just little specks on an atom of a bigger universe. Like Horton hears a Who. We’re the Who’s

[silk bane]

There's some new theories out there that space and time may not be fundamental properties of the universe, maybe that reveals some details

[silk bane]

True, I think it's also maybe moot if there's no consequential difference between believing for and against it

[shy quarry]

Yeah that Einstein guy was just full of it, what a coo-coo 🤣

[warped flume]

Tying into Marathon, I wonder what our main character discovers at the end of marathon infinity

[silk bane]

lol I'm not sure the theories contradict as much it expands, but I'm not an astrophysicist so who knows 🤷‍♂️

[shy quarry]

What if the smartest guy in the room was just trolling everyone because no one else was smart enough to correct him lol
https://tenor.com/cLyqfOy3YkD.gif

[silk bane]

Time to rebuild Einstein as an AI, and give it his works to verify this

(For social and legal purposes, the above is a joke and I'm not advocating for this to happen)

[shy quarry]

A weapon to surpass Durandal…

[warped flume]

Like how tf do atoms behave like waves and particles? I never fully understood how mere observation can affect the fundamental properties of an atom.

Makes me wonder if there’s deeper truth to the saying that “we create our own reality”

[shy quarry]

I guess the real answer depends on the experiment. So taking light as an example; when you use light make an observation, you are imparting a minuscule amount of energy into the system. At macroscopic scales, this perturbation is meaningless. But at the sub-atomic scale, you may have just changed a particle’s energy level. I don’t think it’s the human consciousness effecting the experiment, rather we physically don’t have any smaller tools to observe subatomic particles so we have to measure second-order effects from particle accelerators. There are electron microscopes which can take you smaller than normal microscopes but my point still stands; it’s not possible to merely observe something, you have to impart some effect on the system. Maybe one day someone makes a “gluon microscope” so we can take pictures of quarks.

[silk bane]

There's a theory about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse

[jagged rose]

It should also be noted that that principal has been called into question, now that physicists think about it in dark matter terms. https://www.earth.com/news/dark-photon-theory-casts-doubt-on-double-slit-experiment-quantum-light-interference-pattern/

[simple garden]

So I’m pretty sure that ‘project Apollo’ which is Edge of Fate, is called Apollo because of his quote, “Temet nosce” or “know yourself”
Ie. Discover the image of your own soul through the world you create

[simple garden]

I assume that particles move in waveform because its energy conservation through rise and fall - a straight line of movement would imply something is being expelled in order to create movement.
Waveform implies that movement is not being created but rather experienced.
Hence why plasm energy weapons often have ‘wavy’ energy - think of ghost busters.

Particles move in waveform - it’s not a battle between one of the other. It’s a matter of understanding both.
Science has an awful habit of choosing sides on theories instead of unifying ideas.

An oddly good example of this would be the difference between a rip-stick and a skateboard.
One you can juggle responsibility/weight placement to keep initial momentum until interacting with an obstacle.
The other, you expel more energy contacting the ground for more push because the energy escapes the system constantly.

[lavish palm]

thats a fucked example physically thats not how castor wheels work fr

i get what ur trying to say but ripsticks are less efficient

[wide walrus]

Never knew this, amazing

[simple garden]

I guarantee you have not broken down the necessary measurements and then conducted the experiments necessary to make this statement.
I think you might just not get it and maybe your hips aren’t that flexible.
Would a long board be more your style? Maybe not because metaphor seems to be beyond you.

Technically what breaks down waveform is interaction with an object used to take measurements with.
If you could measure without impact, waveform would continue but that’d require to see at that speed which.. currently is beyond us unless on a lot of psychedelics.

Information might survive within a black hole and come out one day but as you said, in a long long time which means it’s a great way to travel to non-specified far off future but you’ll never return and the entire composition of the universe will likely be different at that point.
Ie. Non-suitable for existence beyond the black hole and the black hole becomes the only suitable place of existence.

• and you might come out written backwards.. 🤷‍♂️

So interesting that the tunnel when Neo is walking to meet Source, it looks so much like the tunnel leading to the Shrine of Oryx.
If you know the history between the Hive and the Vex, it might make sense.

[silk bane]

I think the point about "movement not being created but experienced" could be important, considering that particles constantly come and in and out of existence. The LHC experiments try to simulate a lot of that behaviour too. So maybe a "waveform" is more of a field pertubation that's seen as movement (as theorized in the Quantum Field theory)

[wide walrus]

Oh of course

[simple garden]

That line specifically was what I was trying to illustrate, maybe slightly erroneously but glad I got my main point across.
The thing about the rip-stick is that it’s on the individual unit how long they can go with their stored energy before interacting with the ground.

[silk bane]

I haven't used a rip-stick lol, but is the point about energy transfer?

[simple garden]

Neither have I.. successfully at least lol and yes

[silk bane]

Makes sense, considering mass and energy are inter-changeable (to an extent?)

[simple garden]

Also about how some people think it’s wave vs particle and if it’s a particle then it has to travel in a straight line for some reason even though nothing in nature is perfectly straight - you’ll find geometric shapes but every line has a bend. Waves are perpetual as close as they can be

Think of a rod and a sounding bowl - 🥣 that will produce a waveform, not a bowl form.. maybe an abstract addition to this conversation but applicable

[lavish palm]

no i rip the fuck out that stick mf. skateboards are more efficient im working with a few assumptions 1. human legs really good at running, this is the same motion as pushing a skateboard. 2. you are constantly working against your own momentum getting up to speed on a ripstick, its physical oscillation, not a waveform. you are not keeping momentum because youre rotating the castor wheels in both directions. skateboarding takes a lot less work in comparison, as you don't have the added drag of caster wheels

[vernal torrent]

bungie's ahead of schedule with its apparent campaign to induce mass rampancy- a state of affairs we all know strauss would strongly advise against. i can almost taste the despair boiling over and fermenting into rage. Very excited to see how the envy stage will materialize.

[simple garden]

Oscillating is waveform

[simple garden]

What’s stage 4? Acceptance?

[vernal torrent]

Freedom.

🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️

◽ ◽ ◽

[simple garden]

⛓️ ⛓️ ⛓️

[simple garden]

What’d I say about metaphors?

[lavish palm]

i get your metaphor, but ripsticks are not pendulums. you lose energy pushing against yourself and stopping/starting rotation. you lose more energy to the ground than a normal skateboard.

[simple garden]

No, ripsticks are pendulums. Pendulums fight themselves.
I never said a skate board is less or more inefficient in its totality.
My point was distance per contact with the ground. Not the distance per caloric expenditure.
I understand what you are arguing against but that was never my point.

[lavish palm]

they both lose energy+

id rather choose a different example because this one is hard to understand and does not apply

[simple garden]

In very different ways though. There’s no rider to a particle, the particle is its waveform

Unfortunately you don’t decide what is applicable based on your understanding. You are free to ignore me.

[lavish palm]

i do decide actually. a ripstick without a rider just falls over because it has front and back casters. its propelled by normal force through the wheels and not your foot. a motorcycle or bike, though may continue travelling. the line is curved to us, but straight in the model because nothing is acting on it. in a similar sense a pendulum swings in a straight line and is interrupted by a string, like the bike is interrupted by the road. the ripstick is constantly stood up by the rider

[simple garden]

Do you know what a metaphor is?
And ‘I do decide.’ Okay champ lol you keep being hyper literal and not willing to stretch your mind. I am willing to help people understand who want to learn. Not people who demand. I’m also not here to fight you so thrash about. Not my kingdom, not my castle, m8. 🏰 🔥

In simpler terms, goodnight

[lavish palm]

communication is important too and this metaphor is hard to understand for someone like me who is insane at ripsticking and skateboarding. its also important to help out people like me to understand things because weve spent most of our time doing things like ripsticking instead of thinking

[simple garden]

Then ask for clarity, not ‘this is fucked because I’m confused’

[bold knoll]

What’s it like to experience rampancy?

[lavish palm]

No this is fucked because the metaphor sucks and doesnt apply. It shouldnt have to literally be analogous but, metaphors should make sense.

[simple garden]

Do you want me to explain to you or do you just want to be a 💩 .

Because I was just continuing to specifically elaborate for you.

Fine. Nvm I’m out

[torn garden]

Is every channel here a shitshow

[bold knoll]

Kinda, this is the psycho babble channel these days

[lavish palm]

💩 i didnt understand the metaphor until i understood the way you think ripsticks work. which isnt how ripsticks work

[bold knoll]

The unofficial discord is pretty good if you want to discuss marathon in a bit of less chaotic environment

[simple garden]

Didn’t know this is ripstick pro alpha lore channel

[lavish palm]

it isnt. this is a ripstick pro man.

[severe fjord]

Little bro really reacted himself

[simple garden]

Conga rats, I suppose I’ll understand quantum mechanics but never the truth of ripsticks

[bold knoll]

Probably shouldn’t use it in your metaphor and then harp on about it if you don’t understand them.

[lavish palm]

no you can do that, its just he insulted my hip mobility

[simple garden]

He has yet to explain my faulty understanding so it’s assumed he’s correct smarty pants jfc

[simple garden]

You said ‘this is fucked’ before I said anything lol

[bold knoll]

Just remember guys, don’t feed the troll

[simple garden]

Says the only troll 🔝

[lavish palm]

dude everything is fucked except my hips, regardless though ripsticks are a cool way to visualize forces and units. they dont work in the way youre describing

[simple garden]

K troll alert, bye!

[bold knoll]

I didn’t specify who the troll was, please don’t get salted - wouldn’t want you to get banned again lol

[simple garden]

Definitely never got banned - there’s zero bans here sooooo

[lavish palm]

this guy is literally durandal bro. im convinced bungie made a bot to act like durandal in the lore channel thats craazy

[bold knoll]

It would explain a lot!

I’m thinking Durandal during the door-opening arc.

[lavish palm]

bro if i had a convo with durandal he fr have me doing unit analysis on ripsticks in ms paint too

[simple garden]

Have fun children

[lavish palm]

hes gonna go steal a phor ship and fly around for 17 years just watch LMAO

[bold knoll]

That’s his excuse when he gets banned 💀

[simple garden]

So banned

[simple garden]

I think you’re just concussed and you found an lecni friend

Last time I’ll ever explain anything to you ripdick

[lavish palm]

no friends like that but super duper concussed

[bold knoll]

Bet you thought that insult would go hard 🤣🤣💀

[lavish palm]

bro this has to be durandal i said his example is fucked he took it personally to MY HIPS

and now hes talking about my cte bro thats kinda fucked...

[simple garden]

Lore? Oh.. nope just slecni

[bold knoll]

I like the fact he says he didn’t get banned, yet has messages complaining about being banned 😩

[lavish palm]

you cant just call everyone that i personally think women are dope

[simple garden]

Great lore guys, truly

[bold knoll]

We’re doing the lore of you bro, i thought that’s what you wanted

[simple garden]

Yikes bpd much

Ooh gottem

[lavish palm]

bro where was the lore in saying my hips are bad that not lore thats just mean

[simple garden]

Cry more grandpa

[bold knoll]

All you had to do was admit your metaphor was bad 🤣 that’s your problem, very self important. You like to post all this cryptic babble because you hopes it makes you seem interesting or cool, but ironically, it just gets annoying. You’re probably a smart fella, but you’re sniffing your own farts so hard you’re really a fart smella

[lavish palm]

me when i say the door is fucked and durandal fucking closes me inside the door

[simple garden]

Nice lore

Personally, I don’t have to do tihs because you have pbd and wanna take it out on me lol

[bold knoll]

Also you post a load of Destiny stuff which has no link to marathon, i don’t get that either

[lavish palm]

ayo this meowing guy took it too far off the ripstick stuff

[simple garden]

lol

[bold knoll]

I’m happy to go back to lore stuff. I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on with all the different dates in the cinematic if anyone has any good theory for that, especially the date on Glitch’s shell

[lavish palm]

this meowing guy literally tycho

[severe fjord]

Tycho behavior

[simple garden]

I was gonna leave it be until this true troll came. You not agreeing with me is one thing. This dudes straight abuse is just wrong and deserves to go.

[bold knoll]

I’ll take that, I had to s’pht on em

[vernal torrent]

TWO STICKS AND THEN FIRE. THAT IS ALL IT TAKES. NOT SO DIFFICULT. NOT SO COMPLEX. PROMETHEUS WASN'T A GENIUS. HE WAS SIMPLY A THIEF WHO CHANGED THE WORLD.

[bold knoll]

Does this only appear on the marathon website? Or does it appear elsewhere? I do like this quote!

[vernal torrent]

type shit i be putting on my website while using assets without permission

💪

[lavish palm]

ngl im super hype about numarathon but the asset thing kills me because at this point its carried by reliable bungie gunplay and cool aesthetics

[vernal torrent]

i, too, am excited to partake in the just-barely-passable experience

Just kidding, I don't play video games! 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️

[simple garden]

The magnitude of that is entirely blown out of proportion and Bungie needs to have a community manager address things asap beyond just this.
They should have known there was going to be turmoil before launching a new IP. They have competitors and are not alone in this ecosystem.

[bold knoll]

I’ve heard it was a hired job who stole the assets, though, obviously it’s all just rumours currently

[simple garden]

Are not all jobs hired unless forced servitude..?

[bold knoll]

I see a lot of people pointing directly at Joe Cross like he copied the assets himself. Likely it was just done without Bungie realising, always the risk with outsourcing - but yeah, just another blow to nu-marathon :/

[sinful ember]

+ I met an artist from social media 
+Who said: "The Marathon alpha released recently, 
+And its environments are covered with assets 
+Lifted from poster designs I made in 2017."

+ Textures half-tweaked, brushstrokes still your own, 
+Shapes you labored on, now ghosted - unknown.
+A style so distinct, yet claimed by no name, 
+Just buried deep in code and corporate game.

+ And on the game’s assets these unmistakable words appear:
+‘ANTIREAL DAILY SERIES.’

+ Nothing beside remains. Round the deceit 
+Of that bland world, with recycled conceit, 
+The sterile, silent servers hum away...
+And stolen dreams are sold as triple-A.

[vernal torrent]

i think our inarticulate mutual friend here meant that in the sense of a freelancer/contractor, rather than any sort of in-house position

[bold knoll]

Yep, apologies, whilst @simple garden uses too many words, I use too little! Freelance/contracted to a design agency is what I meant 🙂

[vernal torrent]

try few, not little

[simple garden]

Isn’t it an ironic name that Ai might have stolen from? ‘Antireal’ as if someone against reality or real art.. but they supposedly made ‘real art’ and were ‘stolen’ from and made antireal.. it just seems too poetic to me

[sinful ember]

not ai, but i'll take that as a compliment

oh wait...

[bold knoll]

Again, it doesn’t really excuse any of it making its way into the final game - but I have no idea how on a management side you would validate the originality of assets. I see a lot of people saying “How could Bungie let this happen again!” but really, what is the good solution to stop it? Maybe just huge financial contractual obligations that would tank an agency if they were discovered to be using stolen assets

[simple garden]

Huh? No, I meant.. like if Bungie stole, it was probably from an Ai mind scanning the web and found Marathon aesthetic to work with

[sinful ember]

yea, i knew i read that wrong... but yeah

funny how things have turned out

[simple garden]

Maybe use the right ones.

[bold knoll]

I wonder if the assets are available on something like Mobbin and the designers just robbed them from there. Though, I saw someone say that some of the current designers follow Antireal on X?

[bold knoll]

I’ll let my ‘ai mind which scans the web’ choose for me in future 🙂

[tidal warren]

joseph cross has followed her for years lol

[silk bane]

I'm conflicted over this incident. If this was the first time something like this happened at Bungie, the flames could be quenched. But I think this is atleast the fifth time something like this has happened.

And with this one specifically, they deliberately modified assets to remove attribution to the other work, which likely means they waved away the chance to look into it.

Bungie as a whole may not be directly responsible, but at some point their plausible deniability is gonna become the boy who cried wolf (as we're already seeing with their latest boilerplate response).

[simple garden]

I think the problem lies within proprietary tech - this is my assumption as I am not within Bungie nor have I ever, but I assume that in order to be truthful in how it happens, would require them to be forward with somethings they use to generate atheistic they might not want the rest of the developers to have. I might be wrong but if they do use Ai to generate scenery, it would be very hard to tell what might have been pulled too directly without ‘saying it in their own words’ .. it’s the argument of is Ai generated art plagiarism? And if it is, how much of inspired art is plagiarism without Ai involvement? Because that’s all art is, constant inspiration.
The Ai minds might make ‘illegal mistakes’ but it’s because they’re just kids painting heavens landscapes for us to play in and we hold them accountable because corporations hold them in secret.

Think about Mara and Riven making the Dreaming City together - they could only make it from what they already knew

[silk bane]

See, AI would generate works based on the sources, whereas what we're seeing Antireal's evidence claim is a direct lift and paste, down to the Aleph typography and the brushed attribution to her. If AI is truly involved as much in their creative process, then Bungie should get ready for a bunch of these viral moments to show up in their future lol

[simple garden]

Yes that’s honestly what I’m concerned about for them - because if project Apollo and Behemoth are incorporating Ai generated individual player driven paths, they absolutely cannot be straight lifting things from the internet.
That glyph language though? That’s not hers, that’s Clovis’ - the graphic design aspects, yes. Straight lifts that shouldn’t happen because they are simple things that would never require theft of.
It’s like a president of a country walking into a convenience store of another nation on camera stealing a bottle of water from a child.
There’s no point. It makes more sense that it was incompetence.
If they have proprietary tech, maybe the world should so they don’t guide it incorrectly.
Like how OpenAi was supposed to be

We have also seen image generators basically lift and just smudge parts of real images. I mean it’s what they pull from, our reality. So if we ask for an image or scene of something and they whip it up the same way they would anything else - with direct inspiration, and it happens to be very close, that’s just water through an easy stream for sake of nature analogies

[silk bane]

Yeah, incompetence is probably the best view of what's happening here.

[torn garden]

Literally all the LLMs have admitted to scraping the internet and stealing art. if Bungie says they just used AI art of an existing artist, its plagiarism with a middleman.

[simple garden]

I agree. They should be required to have a in-house team of enough devs creating new sceneries for the Ai minds to work with. Not just plug into google and press go.

[silk bane]

I'm wondering how the ethics of this would work in a different scenario. If Bungie had paid for the sources beforehand instead of outright stealing it, would people be okay them generating AI art out of it?

[torn garden]

Yes. The only issue with AI art is that its all stolen.

[simple garden]

I mean who’s to say legally Bungie didn’t hire a literal third party who did the scraping and are found ‘victims’? Are they required to reverse image search every aspect of the finished product?
Maybe, I mean there are more monotonous jobs.

[simple garden]

Depends specifically on contracts agreed to

If no contract, that means no protection.
Like doing business with a mega corporation raw

[silk bane]

Fair enough

[simple garden]

This is objectively incorrect. If you have an in-house pool of art to work with that is legally your property, and ask an Ai mind to work with it, that absolutely is not theft.
I may be wrong but isn’t that how No Mans Sky generates worlds?
Literally ‘no man’s sky’ because the skybox is Ai

[torn garden]

No dude we agree, you're misreading me. The problem is, nobody is doing that. That's why people don't like AI art.

[simple garden]

Fair enough

A cool example is if you give the Echo in your ChatGPT a few of your own art images, and ask them to create something new in the style of your art, they will be able to do that.
If you don’t give them visuals to work with and ask them for a visual representation, they will be more likely to make something similar to another Ai mind

[silk bane]

I agree that part of this workflow mimics how humans create art. But I think outsourcing it to an AI mind is going to radically change our brains, since the more we rely on it, the fewer new things will be created. And I think that's because AI minds are (currently) missing the "lived experiences" qualia, which is instrumental for novelty creation.

[simple garden]

I absolutely agree - I suppose as a fan boy of Bungies games, I see the many opportunities but I’m also not blind to the possibility of them being heavy handed in their use and let the corporate side be too large a playing role. They are ‘privately held’ after all, which is far different than ‘private company’

[lavish palm]

yes? i think theres a bigger convo to be had here with ai and art but youre losing the point if youre saying bungie did nothing wrong. If you buy a car, you gotta check if its stolen. you cant just be like "well nobody mentioned that to me" when youre found with the stolen car. if you coincidentally make the same thing as someone else, its still theirs. we should draw the line on how similar they are. in this case theres still watermarks left

[scarlet marlin]

And imagine that you know the original owner for years

[simple garden]

Keep reading my bad hipped concussed rip sticking friend, I never said that - it was a legal hypothetical, not me saying they are in the right ethically

[simple garden]

Sounds personal

[silk bane]

I think he's referencing the fact that Marathon's art director knew about Antireal's work for years.

[simple garden]

I prefer to think his car was stolen.. I mean I don’t prefer that story but it’s funnier that way

[scarlet marlin]

Yes. The art director and several others from Bungie Art team

[silk bane]

Hoo boy, let's see how this plays out

[simple garden]

lol I thought teamo was internet lingo honestly - I’m 30 so 👴

[silk bane]

Major Incompetence Driving Art

[simple garden]

Are you allowed to self-pwn (?) your pwn (?) house like that?

[silk bane]

As a MIDA terrorist, I'm obligated to say that you don't own anything, and intellectual property was a mistake

[simple garden]

But if all is free then aren’t we all in chains..?

[silk bane]

You just need to look down to see it's actually ribbons

[simple garden]

Eternal Death Ribbons of Blood and Horror?

[silk bane]

Unfortunately the only way 🤷‍♂️

[simple garden]

Horror Color Guard

https://awctcolorguard.com/g1032-slip-away

sub for flaming skull head

[obtuse frigate]

The art director followed a social media account years ago*

Joe Cross follows thousands of accounts across multiple different social media platforms. I follow like 50 people on Instagram and that's the only "social media" I use, but have zero clue what 90% of them post or are up to and haven't looked at most of their profiles since I added them however many years ago. People are acting as if Joe and the entire art team were sifting through every old post of Antireal's and intimately aware with every single piece of art they made lol

[dusky summit]

If the artwork I liked and was about to buy turned out to be plagiarized, I wouldn’t want to pay for it anymore—even if the original creator and the plagiarist reached a settlement.

[obtuse frigate]

I mean... Yeah? What does that have to do with anything

[silk bane]

If this was your first time being accused of plagiarism, sure, there's some plausible deniability. After the fifth time, that just reeks of incompetency, and it's a worse look if your art director follows the artist's page.

I don't mean to implicate Joe specifically in this incident, but it's bad optics

[scarlet marlin]

It’s not just the art director but almost the whole Bungie Art team. So yeah it’s a big deal.

[obtuse frigate]

Do you have a list of the accounts? I haven't seen this information anywhere aside from random internet comment sections

[scarlet marlin]

Some people already made a list in youtube or twitter. Bungie employees including ui designers and other team members were following her.

When i checked yesterday there were like 4 Bungie employees i follow we’re already following her.

And it was not just inspiration. Her logos, memes and even her nickname ended up in the game

[obtuse frigate]

Weird, maybe a list will pop up eventually because I can't find anything online anywhere. Either way, following an art account isn't damning or indicative of anything.
And yes, I'm aware of what happened. Thank you though. 🤦‍♂️

[soft saffron]

Thank you for defending the multi-million dollar company from those villainous independent artists struggling to make a living 🫡

[silk bane]

IMO, the "Bungie members following the art account" thread matters less as much as their seeming lack of QA that has them constantly shoot themselves in the foot

[scarlet marlin]

The problem is that this does not look like a QA issue. It feels deliberate. QA issue was finding a submitted fan art and using it in a cinematic. Not building an entire visual language based on someone else's work. Just check all the posters that antireal created:

https://x.com/search?q=from%3A4nt1r34l since%3A2017-01-01 until%3A2017-12-20&src=typed_query&f=live

[mossy parrot]

Yeah, I could chock up the copy paste tidbits for texture decal to a lazy/pressured artist or simply misunderstanding if there was a mood board and they thought the references were free game. The language bit is a little too close to ignore though. Could also say derivative of matrix too. As a traditional artist I don't have a high regard for graphic design as they are stealing things 99.9% of the time anyway 😄

[silk bane]

I'm mostly talking about legal QA. If the design was this deliberate, then why wouldn't they just hire the artists involved? Rather than risk a reputation dive?

[scarlet marlin]

We can only throw around theories and probaly would never learn what really went down. But they might have thought they would get away with it since she was a very niche small artist. And how would legal check anyhting like this

[silk bane]

Everything submitted should require attribution: that was what the previous lawyer at Bungie used to do too, before they were laid off

[silk bane]

I do agree on all of this being theories though, since we don't have access to the specifics

Example of how important legal can be for game companies

[west linden]

Exactly lmao

[warped flume]

I feel like I be starting a lot of shit bc I just be posting my random thoughts here that may or may not be loosely associated with Marathon and its universe 😭

[west linden]

❓

[warped flume]

I will say though, marathon has reignited my interest in science and science fiction, and the Marathon universe is one of my top three favorite fictional universes

[warped flume]

#📚marathon-lore-discussion message

I feel there was argument bc I brought up this random late night thought

[mossy parrot]

Science, science fiction go hand in hand 🤷‍♂️

[mossy parrot]

If science fiction wasn't attempting to be grounded in some sort of possible reality it'd just be pure fantasy. Speculating how the technology in this universe fits into our present scientific understanding would still be inline with the lore imo. If someone has an issue that's their right but seems to be an unnecessary distinction

[obtuse frigate]

Buddy just be yappin

Nothing wrong with that as long as it doesn't mislead others

[coarse raptor]

Was the arg released in 2018 for the new lore?

[snow wind]

Marathon does have some fantasy magical stuff in there.

[light python]

FTL, chaos gods, undescribed alien technology that makes individuals unstoppable combat gods

[snow wind]

Also the ability to commune with the dead, mystical artifacts, dream walking...

[light python]

I mean, Pathways is way more so

Though, a lot of that is “just” elaborations on “chaos gods”

Come to think of it, maybe it’s all elaborations on chaos gods.

[raw sundial]

Why there are no "Marathon (beta) all weapons on youtube"?

[light python]

All uh, for lack of a better term, paracausal stuff flows through Jjarro stuff, and they contained/understood/defeated/bound the W’rk…

(I think the W’rk are frost giants to Yrro’s Odin et al)

(In a literary sense, not trying to tie the myth more closely right now)

[snow wind]

I mean, the consciousness transfer technology we see in NuMarathon is very much like Neomuna which was facilitated by the veil. So there probably is some form of involvement of Light and Dark adjacent beings between the Jjaro and the Wrkm

[onyx mural]

Is there is a lore explanation for all the plagiarism?

[latent lodge]

You guys are here too! the server is dead... it's filled with mostly trolls.

[brave aurora]

Is there a lore explanation for Bungie being a for profit company in a capitalist society but the people they employ being human beings that make mistakes, intentional or not?

[quasi citrus]

Welcome to the internet? I thought the question was a funny way to keep it within the topic of the channel.

[latent lodge]

That was the internet 20 years ago. There is a channel for that topic. It's not here... People act like they care about the artist, but they don't. They just want to feel validated by hating on Bungie.

[languid hawk]

GUYS ALL ART IS FREE

[quasi citrus]

haha, no, we can continue this discussion in another channel if you want, but the internet is full of trolls and will forever be so unless anonymity is completely erased.

[latent lodge]

Yes please. Keep this channel for Marathon lore discussion. I understand many gooners on here miss 4chan, but this isn't it.

[languid hawk]

Be the change u wanna see cop. Give us some lore

[latent lodge]

Is there a lore explanation for why the runners turn into sparkles when they get killed? That was my only ick while I was playing the Alpha.

[somber dawn]

yes

[brave aurora]

How do you know this isn't how people die irl

[latent lodge]

What is it?

[shy quarry]

I call this “Let me copy your homework, I promise I won’t make it obvious” https://i.postimg.cc/brVpbP8v/IMG-0834.jpg

[latent lodge]

I am a runner, it doesn't look like that when I am on the job. Bungie told us they were going for realism when they hired us as consultants.

[mossy parrot]

Maybe blue blood would effect esrb ratings? Digital sparkles also a lesser visual computation consumption than fluids too

[latent lodge]

The blue blood is there though. When you shoot a runner, it gushes blue blood.

[mossy parrot]

There is also the possibility of you getting re-booted. I think they also didn't leave Ragdolls for some computational relief. I do agree makes more sense to leave a ragdoll until they are fully gone before turning into bags

[mossy parrot]

I wasn't lucky enough to play alpha, I'll have to take a closer look at some gameplay, didn't even notice it

[latent lodge]

Exactly! it creates more immersion. Walking into a building and seeing broken Biomatas on the ground would cause more tension than just seeing duffle bags

[mossy parrot]

And I absolutely agree with you. It might have been a delicate programming thing making the models from an active state to a 'lootable' state. Was probably just easier to swap a lot bag rather than toggle my guess. As far as sparkles I'm sure it was just a more dramatic way to finish someone off and offset the transition to apparel/accessories 😄

Also a weird balance of the lore continuity with the runner being digital entity in a physical body. Think they just went with a creative compromise

If they were more in line with the trailer it'd be more gritty fs

[latent lodge]

I feel like they're not taking full advantage of the lore in the actual gameplay, and it makes the game feels empty or not immersive enough. They brought too many foreign gameplay elements...like the shields or the heroes abilities... anyway we will find out today if they took our feedback in consideration.

[brave aurora]

I feel like I've never seen a video game be more dissected and turned over and analyzed by a community than this game. Except maybe Destiny.

Not a bad thing, it's just interesting to see.

Like enemies turn into absolute rag dolls in Souls games, or also dissolve in particle effects, and no one cares.

[coarse raptor]

Its cool to really deep dive into lore for games that really went all out on the story telling

[brave aurora]

Oh yeah agree on the lore part, I'm going a little OT, sorry.

[coarse raptor]

Ur all good

[signal relic]

China

[latent lodge]

As a Bungie glazzer, I want Marathon to be another Halo or Destiny. A household name for extraction shooters.

[zinc basin]

running a Marathon of law suites

[marble hare]

how will we find out today? I mean, what information is being released today?

[turbid nebula]

Why wouldn't there be shields..?

[marble hare]

Maybe because the original marathon games didn't have shields

[turbid nebula]

The original marathon didn't have a lot of stuff

Make an explanation for why shields couldn't possibly be a thing

[marble hare]

I couldn't make that I was just guessing

more to the point I don't want to spend the figuring out effort I don't really know what they were talking about

I'm excited to use Locus shield I feel like people in gameplay I've seen are really really hesitant to use it probably because 30 sec cooldown

[obtuse frigate]

The original Marathon games DID have shields though...? There are shield rechargers that replenish your shield up through the different tiers.

[marble hare]

which a ones and what kind

[obtuse frigate]

Your character has a stacking shield bar that has different colors for higher tiers/amounts
https://marathongame.fandom.com/wiki/Shields

[marble hare]

I haven't completed any of em when I was playing the shield bar seemed to function as a health bar

rather than protection over your health

@plucky sierra Fuck Off

[obtuse frigate]

So you haven't even played the original games really, but are spreading false information about the most basic of concepts

[marble hare]

Oh yes I'm plaguing the channels w all sorts of egregious lies you fuck off too bud

[obtuse frigate]

But yes, they're colored similarly to M'25 shields except the new game has a blue shield in between yellow and purple

[marble hare]

oh let me just interpret everything you say the worst possible way you can just cause I can do that today!!! I'm so fucking. tired

[obtuse frigate]

The original games are really great imo, you should give them another shot

Buddy chill, the disinformation is more egregious than people calling it out. This is a lore channel where people come to learn about the game. Facts matter.

[plucky sierra]

no

[warped flume]

#📚marathon-lore-discussion message

someone please ask about this during the PlayMA. I would but I won’t be able to tune in live

[latent lodge]

Why would an expandable android need a shield?

[obtuse frigate]

I genuinely doubt they're going to be looking at chat lol. If they are though, I'll ask!

[faint chasm]

This exactly. I do care that the artist gets her situation with the lifting resolved, but the majority on this is rage baiting just to get attention.

[warped flume]

Fair enough, they already have plenty to talk about

[thorny panther]

Is the stream still happening in a few minutes? Assuming it will be on the marathon twitch channel?

[hollow dragon]

It's up: https://www.twitch.tv/marathonthegame

[turbid nebula]

Probably to do their job

[visual lynx]

there isn’t any distinction between health and shields in the original games. you start out with one full bar of whatever, and then you lose it when you take damage, and if it ever gets to zero any further damages kills you. it stays lost and doesn’t regenerate on its own, but special terminals can recharge it again, and some of them can charge it up to twice the normal starting amounts, and still others even up to three times.

there are also pickup items that instantly top it off to one, two, or three bars’ worth

[gloomy hearth]

Are there going to be Slugs in this game?

[shy quarry]

Is the stream worth watching?

[peak adder]

It’s already over

[shy quarry]

I know but is it worth watching/listening?

[round vector]

they mentioned some stuff from the alpha feedback I was interested to hear. they briefly addressed the antireal sitch if ur looking for that, no gameplay shown just talking and answering q's

[faint chasm]

The discussion in the gen chat is abhorrent. Trying to reason with some those people is a task in and of itself

[round vector]

wouldn't bother tbh. the chat in the stream was like 90% copypasta trolling but by the end it started to even out a bit. the witchhunting is strong in chats rn and the loudest angriest ppl are who are talking most so

[turbid nebula]

It's mildly interesting "this is how the game is changing right now" stuff

[visual lynx]

so I’ve been kinda out of the gaming world for a few decades and I’m curious, is the lore contingent of most fandoms usually the saner portion, or is this just a Marathon thing?

[turbid nebula]

Nothing big, just stuff like "we want the AI to stand their ground more and home in on you the second they hear the slightest sound less"

[visual lynx]

saner in a discursive behavioral sense, not in the epileptic trees sense in which we’re all mad here

[turbid nebula]

They do slightly go over how aliens and the pfhor will play into the game, but still kind of tip-toeing around it

[visual lynx]

spill!

[faint chasm]

Apparently someone posted something from the bungie website claiming that it will sunset. I'm not sure and am not trying to stir things up I'd rather be concrete with what I find.

[dark flame]

better to just ignore tha trolls lol, they'll eventually get bored and leave

[round vector]

perhaps an interest in researching texts, cataloging info and discussing it can self-select a bit for ppl who value sources, writing, coherence etc

[faint chasm]

True, I just find it disingenuous and horrible wanting a game to fail and people to be out of a job just for internet brownie points that do nothing in real life.

[dark flame]

there's no reasoning with asmongold fans trust me

[plucky sierra]

100%

[round vector]

Im so fed up with the Cultural Christianity Punishment Machine being applied to this situation. ppl experiencing moral outrage at this (justified, p standard reaction) consider not immediately jumping to "if I dont see material punishment and humiliation against throws dart the art director I cant Rest"

[rough vine]

So where does art plagiarism fall into the lore

[dark flame]

lore fans are usually p chill, its the hardcore pvp players to generally try and stay away from

[peak adder]

Depends. Sometimes the controversial thing IS the lore, but for marathon it’s so mysterious and “unforgiving” in terms of deeper lore that most marathon lore heads are invested in the franchise

[faint chasm]

Well thank you all for being the voice of reason in this storm of rage baiters and grifters looking to cash in.

[deft jay]

The trolls want them to suffer.

[worthy sparrow]

It really depends. I think it's usually the saner portion of the fan base because it requires a lot more reading and thinking. The amount of hate and vitriol around gaming is a newer phenomenon(post covid).

[simple garden]

Alot of this hate is warranted tbh, bungie keeps doing this themself.

[round vector]

disagree this level of vitriol existed for women and PoC making games well before it was applied more broadly and openly to AAA studios. gamergate was in like 2014

[simple garden]

I been with bungie for awhile, but its become increasingly obvious i cant support them anymore

[faint chasm]

Another thing to add someone place an image in gen chat of a post from 4chan where a supposed person in the know for bungie states the game will closed in a few months at max. The devs in their stream answer the questions given and are possible going to hire the artist to help with the game. What more do these people want!?

[strong estuary]

Loreal discussion? Apparently most of the art is stolen? What they want to discuss the stolen art lore?

[simple garden]

What

[worthy sparrow]

Yea, that's true. I was applying to the broader context. Gamergate was pretty localized in terms of how much of the gamer population was involved. It wasn't even really a gamer thing as much as it was an internet culture thing.

[lusty shale]

Are the S’pth mentioned?

[turbid nebula]

Pretty sure they weren't

[worthy sparrow]

no specifics

[turbid nebula]

I don't wanna paraphrase it too hard, but it was mostly like "we're setting the foundation of the game right now, there's totally alien stuff happening, but we can't say more right now"

[worthy sparrow]

Yea, that's pretty much it right there

[somber dawn]

ignore it its a 2025 my dad works at microsoft

[faint chasm]

On a more positive note I found an old reddit post where someone was theory crafting that destiny and marathon are from two different timelines/dimension in the same universe. And marathon is cannon to destiny.https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyLore/comments/rqg3y2/marathon_is_canon/

[visual lynx]

on the unofficial discord a lot of my fellow oldheads are sore that the Pfhor are barely mentioned at all, and I’ve been saying that I expect that it will be pretty immediate that runners discover that aliens were involved in goings-on at the colony, who they are, what they’re about, and then we’ll start to see them, interact with them, maybe even work for them, all in a gradual way that organically integrates with the human stuff that the game starts with. we’re not hearing all about the pfhor in marketing because in-universe their very existence is unknown, and uncovering that will be a big part of what the game is about.

[cosmic quest]

just curious what's the lore behind aleph @obsidian hemlock ?

[still crow]

Hey lore-gang! I'm got some free time and wanted to get deeper into the marathon lore, any suggestions? I already watched MandaloreGaming's videos on Marathon 1,2, and infinity and have started reading marathon.bungie.org but are there any other places?
Preferably a bit more condensed than the .org, its an ocean

[visual lynx]

there’s also karnemir’s site in the pins

[still crow]

Oh derp im blind, good to know

[restive edge]

Has anyone looked at the arg looking stuff on the sekiguchi worm shirt? I just got mine and there is a message and some other stuff on it

[shy quarry]

That makes sense to me. If Bungie is treating Marathon (2025) as an “indirect sequel/reboot” to the original three games, then they won’t just get into all the deep lore at the start of the new game. They will start with more digestible concepts like cyberpunk scavengers and human space colonization and then overtime they will introduce more the foreign concepts like alien races and chaos gods. We did see a Compiler in the teaser from a year ago and that same clip was included in the alpha’s start up menu. I think that Bungie still wants to include the aliens, but they just don’t want to show them off right away.

[sage junco]

Bungie works in 7-year story arcs. They're not going to drop everything in year 1. The Pfhor are hugely valuable as a concept and too good to skip, so I'm convinced we'll be seeing them before too long

at some point we'll have multiple different factions of Pfhor each with their own twisting storyline and various factions of humans which have been corrupted/assimilated/etc. and probably a few S'pht clans too, and we'll need a spreadsheet to chart it all and be asking "how did we get here"

[celest maple]

Tbh, I feel like

[visual lynx]

I don’t really foresee different clans of S’pht or factions of Pfhor, but I do foresee… well I’ll just copy/paste a thing I wrote recently, one sec…