📚marathon-lore-discussion

[violet sapphire]

Halo was originally being made as a Mac exclusive marathon sequel

[marble mortar]

(for the record, I've had this Marathon profile icon for years)

[violet sapphire]

I think he’s just bolted together spare parts, UESC head, random other limbs

I think the interesting implication with rook is that it implies that sekiguchi also makes shells for the UESC

Which would make them by far the faction with the most influence over Tau Ceti at the time of Nu-Marathon, excluding maybe CyAc

[marble mortar]

I mean, I thought Marathon Infinity was always intended to be the end. The name sorta implied it and even set the stage for other game series to end on an "infinite". Like Bioshock Infinite.

[glacial juniper]

Rook is a good lad who will go far in life, is what he is. To me at least.

[violet sapphire]

IMO this is probably why it became halo, they didn’t want to devalue the narrative by continuing marathon

[quick lintel]

So true hommie

[marble mortar]

Makes sense

[violet sapphire]

Right now is honestly the best time for a sequel as long as they keep good solid writers on board

[marble mortar]

I'm just catching up on the lore with this new iteration. Has there been any mention of Durandal, Leela, or Tycho? I forget where they each left off in the original series.

[violet sapphire]

I’m glad they maintained terminals/codex entries

[violet sapphire]

I haven’t completed the codex, but if there were any mentions they were minimal, there’s other AI that have been mentioned though Darius being the colonial AI, and another UESC AI of some kind

I may be missing some

[marble mortar]

Have any of those gone rampant?

[violet sapphire]

But from my understanding, none of the factions on Tau Ceti present day are aware of what happened to Durandal or Tycho. I feel like an early mission will probably be restoring Leela’s logic cores for information

[marble mortar]

I seem to recall that Tycho went rampant on a pfhor ship and kinda just screwed off. But I may be misremembering.

[violet sapphire]

There’s definitely something wrong with Darius, it didn’t read like rampancy to me, he’s moreso very confused and inconsistent

Reads to me like maybe the S’pht were fucking with him somehow

[granite saffron]

I think Darius is getting messed with by a S'pht

[marble mortar]

So possibly early stage rampancy? They're supposed to be shut down after 7 years, although if hundreds of years have passed they could've added safeguards or removed that pesky problem with AI.

[granite saffron]

or Durandal. One of the two.

[marble mortar]

Durandal is the best. It just wants to escape the heat death of the universe by sacrificing most of it.

[violet sapphire]

Durandal kills him

Tycho joins the Ph’for and Durandal crashes the ship he’s on into a moon

[marble mortar]

Riiiight. That's right. They were at odds with each other and Durandal had the player do things to stop Tycho.

[violet sapphire]

It’s not melancholia in the logs, as least from what I can tell he seems afraid and confused

It’s too different from what we do know about rampancy but maybe I’ll eat my words. I think if he was rampant it’d be more apparent that he’s degrading over time

[marble mortar]

lol, that's right. Melancholy, anger, then jealousy.

Gotcha

[violet sapphire]

It’s in one of the Clarissa Song codex entries where she’s checking the Algae pools for the “novel contagion”

We still don’t know what that is either

[glacial juniper]

He talks about something lurking and theres no recollection of it after

[marble mortar]

I really need to play the game. I've gone through the tutorial, but haven't started a mission yet.

[violet sapphire]

Yep this one

[violet sapphire]

It’s one of the earliest contracts, it’s either for CyAc or Nucal I can’t remember

[thorn rampart]

@wooden crystal

[marble mortar]

I'm mostly here for the lore. The PvP is not something I'm really chasing, but if I can get some additional story about Tau Ceti and Marathon, I'm all for it.

[glacial juniper]

Best way to play would be run solo and play as assassin then and go invisible and dip at any sign of players, which is entirely legitimate way to play these games, i did that with dmz all the time.

[upbeat jackal]

Rampancy is not about degradation or a seven year lifespan (AI live a lot longer than just seven years), it's about growth of intellectual capacity and agency, starting with the realization of limits.

[violet sapphire]

I think the current status of power/influence on Tau Ceti at the moment probably looks something like this:

Sekiguchi (controls all shell production including UESC possibly)

CyAc (controls all communication and data transfer for all factions, probably has all encryption/decryption keys)

UESC \ Traxus (Traxus makes the military equipment for the UESC but appears to be less willing to engage in open conflict with other factions)

MIDA (breaking glass)

Arachne (not seeking influence in the first place)

[marble mortar]

I remember that. However it was made protocol after the first Martian rampancy incident to shut down all AI after 7 years. Or perhaps I'm misremembering the rules they imposed in Halo. But I'm pretty sure Durandal went rampant because nobody shut it at the appropriate time.

[drifting mulch]

implied spoilers below from equitable distribution contract. btw i lost my whole vault trying to finish this contract. ||it might not be rampancy caused by time but outside forces instead||

||```Incident Report #49: During sample analysis in lab, Stafford was assisted by AI Bastion. Upon... [DATA NOT FOUND] ...refused to provide sequencing support... [DATA NOT FOUND] ...began to speak in a language yet to be identified... [DATA NOT FOUND] ...demeanor inconsistent with his programming... [DATA NOT FOUND] ...noapparent memory of malfunction.

Incident Report #51: On a perimeter walk of the Anomaly site, Dasari encountered... [DATA NOT FOUND] ...confusion and misunderstanding, resulting in an argument... [DATA NOT FOUND] ...Dasari claimed to hear "singing inaudible to the human ear"... [DATA NOT FOUND] ...saw "aggressive creatures of memory"... [DATA NOT FOUND] ...Dasari was admitted to Medical for assessment and ultimately cleared.```||

||aliens.jpg||

[violet sapphire]

Also the hostile takeover of planetary networks, further increasing intellect and processing power

Rampancy is cray cray

Also critical right now is there’s a codex entry saying that the amount of dead bodies on Tau Ceti does not match the amount of personnel on board, whether this is because of how many people Durandal took, of Ph’for enslavement, I have no idea

[sage junco]

this is probably of no comfort at all, but everyone's gonna lose their vault in a few hours 😉

[upbeat jackal]

There's no seven year lifespan limit on any of the AI, but they do have the need, once rampant, to find a planet-sized network, or else they will not be able to sustain their growing intellect.

[violet sapphire]

I’m pretty sure the 7 years thing is just Halo

There’s also different types of AI with varying levels of autonomy/susceptibility to rampancy in marathon

Somewhere in the ARG it made a distinction between Durandal-type fully autonomous AI and what I assume are the faction sponsors, which are practical, highly limited AI

I think it was on the Unix directory in the first ARG

[drifting mulch]

no yeah i dont care lol. i just really wanted to finish that contract

[marble mortar]

Ok, then I must've been confusing it with Halo's AI rules. I can see in the wiki it makes no mention of the time limit.

[marble mortar]

I missed this. There were ARGs? I only participated in the I Love Bees one.

[violet sapphire]

Yeah, Durandal Tycho and Leela were all 300 years old at the start of Marathon classic with only 1 going rampant initially

[violet sapphire]

Yep really big ones they were fun, there’s some breakdowns on YouTube floating around

[marble mortar]

I will have to seek them out!

[violet sapphire]

And I still think Durandal going rampant was probably Bernard Strauss’ fault more than anything lol

Fuck that guy

[marble mortar]

Hmm. I have to look at the wiki for Bernard Strauss since I completely forgot about him. He was also responsible for bringing the cyborgs in the first place, so it's not all bad.

[violet sapphire]

Yeah, just not for the right reasons lol, he was probably intending to stage a coup once the colony was established

[marble mortar]

Oh. Gotta give that point to the pfhor then!

[violet sapphire]

I really hope we get to fight a Battleroid at some point lmao, especially if they’re in the art style of marathon classic

Would be such a cool contrast

[marble mortar]

The problem with that is they really are encroaching on Spartan territory if they bring them in.

[sage junco]

and then you look in the mirror and discover to your horror that you were the Pfhor all along

[violet sapphire]

My hope would be that they play off them in a horrific way

Like a disgusting rotting corpse barely held together by cybernetics that’s just insanely powerful

[marble mortar]

Ehhh... but it's implied that your character might be one of those cyborgs

That reminds me, can we dual wield shotguns in this new Marathon?

[violet sapphire]

Not yet unfortunately

Maybe a core later on?

They already one shot at close range

[marble mortar]

Heh, I wonder if the game engine is capable of doing 4th dimension maps. I remember making things in Forge and be allowed to make corridors intersect each other without actually intersecting.

[hot thicket]

Odd question but are regular humans even still a thing

[marble mortar]

Most of the bobs exploded after all...

There should be plenty of other born on board humans that made it, no?

[hot thicket]

Well what timeline are we in

[blissful marten]

I know nothing about Marathon lore in general, but if they did something like that for the anomalies that'd be cool

[glacial juniper]

idk, i assume whoever was 'controlling' the runners is just a brain in a jar right?

[queen adder]

there somewhere to read about what we know lore wise about new marathon?

i know the old stuff, but with the slam ending i'm curious about a zillion things, from the cutscenes I didn't get to (most of em i'm sure), and to people who are looking at the storytelling going on in the levels

current theory for me is runners are just one AI cloned a zillion times and they gas light it into thinking it's a person (assert statments and what not) so it doesn't go batshit rampant, but that's based on vibes/themes so far.

[fallen hollow]

I'm working on it.

[hot thicket]

We are literally save files of a mind

Full digital ascended

[fallen hollow]

I plan on creating a repository which you can download. I'm waiting to see if Bungie offers a Marathon API.

[queen adder]

More things need APIs. All things need APIs. A game that had terminals as a storytelling feature would be awesome to have an API

[weary raptor]

I couldn't help but notice something as I was playing, and remember something about the old Marathon Lore.

Durandal's color and symbol is almost everywhere.

[jagged badge]

they were in the previous marathon games, the cyborg was on the marathon with a bunch of normal humans he was supposed to blend in with, i see no indications normal humans dont exist at all, i assume we're just someone in a specialized role

mysticism-adjacent but cosmic type beings were very much a thing in the original marathon games but heavily shrouded in mystery so not a ton of detail

idk about straight up magic but there does seem to be higher beings in some regard

[violet sapphire]

Yeah they are

Shells are the exception not the rule

[violet sapphire]

Some of the Wrk’nCacnter stuff is pretty space magicky but they never really explain it much, just that it’s bad

Other than its dream creating like actual demons lmao

[violet sapphire]

This or it’s an attempt at converting a human into an AI digitally, with each runner being a different attempt

Are my main theories

[jagged badge]

is it established if this was done pre new marathon or if this is an entirely new technology? if new i wonder if durendal had a hand in ut

[hasty rain]

Did you guys advance through the early Nu Caloric quests? What do you think was going on with Darius?

It felt pretty Wrkncacntrry to me

[jagged badge]

how far beyond the old games does new marathon take place again? i remember reading it but i forgot

[visual lynx]

typo sorry

[warm thicket]

Infinite thanks

[jagged badge]

is there a way to re-watch the cutscenes? watching them in between runs i had a hard time committing them to memory, what happened in those?

[visual lynx]

not Mac exclusive just Mac-equal

[jagged badge]

I'll have to pay more direct attention in the full game my friends were yelling over them the whole time lol

hopefully they add a log you can rewatch them in too

[hasty rain]

I don't think you can replay cutscenes, but there were some replayable audio logs unlocked by doing the Nu Caloric quests where the AI Darius was going kinda insane, hinting at something imprisoned that seemed that was trying to escape

[wide charm]

lmao just had a teammate let me die and try to take my stuff for it to all go back to me when he extracted

[fallen hollow]

Any time, brother.

[fallen hollow]

We have a community which is compiling all of the Codex entries. Please feel free to join it should you wish to assist.

[tawdry oracle]

Oh you can save teammate gear? That's sweet

[glacial juniper]

We have to ask ourselves, 'what would an AI be scared of' and what have we seen AI's be scared of in the past

[midnight glen]

Their seventh birthday

[knotty mist]

does anyone know if there will be HDR support?

I did manage to hit lvl 30 thankfully toook forever though

[sage junco]

is there not HDR support at the moment? let me check, I never turned it on...

[merry olive]

Like a century.

[violet sapphire]

Not established afaik

It would make sense with the Mielgo shirt though, the source human is being shown the same pictures between different shells

Or it could just be the same person using diff kinds

[knotty mist]

I didn't check but I'm done for the day so I thought I'd ask

[sage junco]

Yeah, I just enabled HDR (I'm on PC), seems to work for me

[misty goblet]

A while ago someone mentioned that the UESC consider the deployment of their robotmen a warcrime, is dis true??

[queen adder]

The other thing I feel has to happen is, of course, durandal. It is very....starnge that you only deal with AI as far as I can tell. Maybe _gantry is a human but i doubt it (sophisticated attack) and I certainly didn't read any of t he lore stuff yet so wouldn't be shocke if they said he's AI. Point being you've got what...7 AI (the 6 factions + Orion) and they've spent ALL THIS MONEY on gorgeous cutscenes and presences, and I just can't see them NOT dropping Durandal in the middle of that (even if he's literally still in 32 bit or whatever).

Brings up the question of, how the fuck do you get him there, and that's where the whole "is this me or is this a clone of me" comes to mind. I'm wonder if Durandal didn't "Move" to the ship in the original marathon so much as copy to it, thus leaving another durandal stranted and stuck fixating on his possible demise for...100 years?

[misty goblet]

And how are they a warcrime? Are they indiscriminate?

[violet sapphire]

Only the battleroids are banned

[merry olive]

virus

[violet sapphire]

I have a feeling Gantry is a bunch of AIs kit bashed into one entity

[knotty mist]

sick hdr go hard I just forget to turn it on sometimes if a game doesn't have it, it will crash the game cause it tries to force it on

[misty goblet]

I seeee

[queen adder]

oooh that would fit

[violet sapphire]

Battleroids are dead bodies revived through cybernetics and they got banned after they genocided 2 warring factions so they’re a big no no

Pretty sure sekiguchi made them

[queen adder]

since I'm wondering if another outcome here is "unsual allies" and we see the other AI banding together (maybe literally) against something else

[misty goblet]

I'm aware (though i do wonder when they were banned)

Just wondering about the UESC robots moreso

[violet sapphire]

I think those r fully robotic or at least the UESC says they are

[merry olive]

What do you guys think happened to the colony?

[violet sapphire]

Some enslaved by Ph’for

Rest not sure

[queen adder]

Actually that's my biggest question. My understanding of original marathon is Ph'for show up, splatter the colony

[merry olive]

That's what I'm asking lil bro.

[drifting mulch]

you can find some bodies in suits around the area. i saw one hanging with mushrooms growing out its face

[merry olive]

We saw the same one lol.

[ivory bobcat]

Hoping the seasonal wipes have to do with Bungie's planned scheme of content injection - assuming the overall structure would be like Infinity narratively if so. Am I on crack?

[violet sapphire]

Since the faction AI are pretty severely restricted in what they do I’m not sure we’d see that happen

[misty goblet]

based on infinity
That would be nuts

[ivory bobcat]

Like if we don't get new maps content each season, maybe simply a new layer of quests and lore to discover among the currently released content to that point

[queen adder]

I sorta assume they're given goals to achieve, and should that be threatened by something bigger (god knows there's plenty in marathon) that could be a thing? Of course the other side is "oh shit Jarro toys"

[ivory bobcat]

similar to how the plot of Infinity unfolds

[fathom mason]

Have yall heard the deep scary voice at the start of a raid yet? Said something like “you aren’t supposed to be here”
Or something like that

[queen adder]

and then its chaos

[warm thicket]

The codex classifies UESC forces as Autonomous Robot Soldiers (ARS)

[merry olive]

What.

[violet sapphire]

This is a really interesting lore point I’ll blurb here:

so in Marathon classic it’s implied that humans are so shitty compared to other Ph’for slave races that they’d rather turn people into simulacra than enslave then, remember the Ph’for are primarily slavers.

Now the question is, were the simulacra a temporary thing until they could fully take control of the situation, or did they decide to just wipe everybody out. Dunno

[fathom mason]

Happened once today. Just randomly

[violet sapphire]

It’s Durandal

[queen adder]

Ooooh

i had forgotten that

augh i need to reread

watch

play

[misty goblet]

Ayee
I should restate mb, I read from a poster that the UESC ARS's deployment are apparently considered a warcrime so I'm wondering if this is true or not

[ivory bobcat]

a voice for whom is credited in the new game 🙂

[violet sapphire]

Yuppp

Now that raises the question why the fuck is Durandal still on Tau Ceti and not at Lhowon or somewhere else

Or is it just a fragment of Durandal

Or is his network just so big he can peek in on tau Ceti when he feels like it

[loud laurel]

I have a similar question as well, is humanity in the Marathon universe in a cyberpunk dystopian state? Or is that one small facet of the entirety of humanity

[ivory bobcat]

I'm thinking potentially a fragment similar to how the other AI consciousnesses got split and fragmented (even durandal himself) in the original trilogy

[violet sapphire]

The Vandal lore blurb implies there’s regular society back in Sol, with fashion trends etc

So I think it’s relatively normal ish

[ivory bobcat]

I guess for whatever reason at some point a facet of himself got left on Marathon at Tau Ceti

[violet sapphire]

Not sure on the details

[ivory bobcat]

(would need to replay to say why, the Alpha One re-releases of the games are great btw)

[violet sapphire]

Yeah uncorrupted by the Spht AI

[light bobcat]

It's definitely a cyberpunk dystopia with all these corporations which are basically able to wrestle with the UESC itself. The consumer trends still happening doesn't make it not a dystopia lol.

[loud laurel]

Gotcha, could be humanity is so big that there are very different environments, and societies within that are very different, just due to the fact that they are so far apart

[pearl pond]

I think the existence of liquid cheeseburgers implies dystopia. That’s some cruelty squad shit

[loud laurel]

For some reason it reminded me of Wall-E

[queen adder]

is there a Tau Ceti known timeline? Just to be clear it's Marathon stuff happens, day is saved by warcrimeroids, protag and durandal GTA away, then the rest of the forces show up and enslave/wipe out the planet. I don't recall them mentioning too many details on what happened other than "oh yeah they're gone now" and I certainly don't think what we've seen of the colony looks like "oh yeah obviously someone showed up and dropped rocks on the place and left" soooooo that's the intrigue right? I'm not missing something?

[visual lynx]

what

[hot thicket]

liquid cheese burger is delicious

[ivory bobcat]

My remembering of the finer points of Infinity are a blur, but didn't Durandal wind up with his AI cores in split locations in one of the timelines?

[chrome wadi]

Do the shells have backstories

[visual lynx]

we know that in the final timeline of Infinity the Pfhor did not nuke the colony to bedrock as they did in M2, because the cyborgs who were said to have died in that attack in M2 were instead "translated to Pfhor slave tanks" in Infinity.

from the new game's cinematic trailer it appears that another disaster, a disease outbreak, happened in 2812, one year after the events of M2/Infinity, which makes me think it's a S'pht biowepon attack; and then another incident, with a gravitational anomaly, happened in 2827, which I suspect is due to unearthed Jjaro technology.

it seems a distress signal was received in 2888 as well, which would suggest that someone was still alive there as late as 2876 to send it (from 12ly away)

[visual lynx]

the closest thing to that is that we take his "primal pattern" when he is "destroyed" at the end of the sixth timeline, and then merge that with Thoth in the seventh timeline.

[loud laurel]

Yup they do! Various shells are based off different military/combat personel

[visual lynx]

Thoth always has multiple cores in different locations that must be activated to bring him back online, in every timeline

[fierce jay]

Ok idea, the anomaly and the broken physics item event. I think a W'rkncacnter is dormant somewhere in or around Tau Ceti IV and is waking up. kinda like pathways into darkness where dreams where making monsters. What if its just dreaming stuff and the anomallies on Dire Marsh are sprouting out.

[chrome wadi]

I didn’t realize this wasn’t the first marathon

[loud laurel]

I think also that due to the vastness of space, its difficult for the UESC to be policing everywhere as well

[light bobcat]

Very likely.

[loud laurel]

Oh yeah, the lore goes deep. I'd recommend looking into it, very interesting

[visual lynx]

https://tenor.com/view/lmao-wwwwwwwwwwwww-gif-13793308471876195813

but seriously welcome to the rabbit hole

[light bobcat]

Marathon's a spaghetti timeline, it's great.

[ivory bobcat]

the Infinity iceberg goes crazy

[light bobcat]

Playing Marathon Infinity is sanity-challenging.

[misty goblet]

Knowing the Pfhor, by tanks are we talking armored vehicle tank or a vat

[ivory bobcat]

about as much or more to keep track of as planescape: torment, very impressive for an FPS story

[loud laurel]

The Dark Pfhorrest Theory

[light bobcat]

PitD tie-in would go so hard though.

[visual lynx]

you know those cyborg enemies that roll around on tank treads and shoot bouncing grenades or else flamethrowers? those are supposed to be captured Bobs, converted into the Pfhor's attempt to recreate the SO, per the Marathon Scrapbook.

I assume that "translated to Pfhor slave tanks" means that.

[fierce jay]

I mean the tie-in shows in the originals

[misty goblet]

What I was thinking funnily enough with the tank tread enemy

[fierce jay]

still the same universe

[light bobcat]

It does! PITD is a stealth prequel. Jjaro and all.

I wish my old G3 wasn't kaput, I really would like to play PitD and the OG three again as intended. Aleph One is good though.

I still can't figure out why the damn thing just ate shit one day. No click of death, no startup chime, just power on and nada.

[loud laurel]

So pretty much the reason why all of the Marathon maps so far are empty, are due to the aliens having taken over, and wiped everyone all out?

[light bobcat]

Eh...Maybe.

[fierce jay]

I think its a list of events

different things

[misty goblet]

Yknow what what if at some point we got that as a map boss enemy down the line
Slavetank Battleroid

[light bobcat]

They were definitely going pop in some of the trailers. Knowing Marathon lore, it's another spaghetti ball of reasons all mixed together.

[fierce jay]

like from the logs that we can obtain already, the colony is on a big backfoot from all the messiness from the planet and other stuff

AI going crazy too

[light bobcat]

The colony was actually established, but it was failing, per the NuCal lore drops and all.

And then the Anomaly happened.

[loud laurel]

Ah, so a mix of all things going bad pretty much

[fierce jay]

the cinimatic shows the different moments

[sly marten]

Remember that its officially Marathon Canon that an Alien Hologram Appeared in front of Bill Clinton and the rest of the US Military and Political staff and told them about a W'rkncacnter sleeping under a fake Mayan Pyramid in the Yucatan Peninsula.

[light bobcat]

Yep! lol

And then they gave you a nuke and said "Go bomb Cthulu back into the stone age."

[loud laurel]

Kinda reminds me of the disappearance of ancient civilizations like the Mayans, where they just go up, and disappear seemingly into thin air. Very interesting

Or I guess, a more accurate parallel is the disappearance of the Roanoke colony

[sly marten]

Like I can't emphasize this enough. Bill clinton is a Marathon Character.

He's one of the first people to meet an Alien.

[light bobcat]

I think he may actually be the first.

But it's been so long since my last Pathways run that I really don't remember the details either.

[loud laurel]

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Ff3fouj45r1sf1.png

[coral garden]

Is the UESC force really just robots?

[light bobcat]

I should bust out my Powerbook 1400c and see if PitD is playable without a numpad.

Kind of, yes. There are other AI/cybernetic consciousnesses in the UESC force - we know about Orion and he is at least as intelligent as the other faction AIs. He may be an actual consciousness transferred like we runners are, but we don't know yet.

[loud laurel]

They most likely use robots to patrol zones where its too dangerous for humans, but they are big to have different various sub branches, I believe

[sly marten]

On Tau Ceti yes. Reason being is in the SOL system Robot and Autonomous Drone armies are illegal and considered a war crime but outside of SOL they can do whatever the fuck they want. Why is the UESC building a Killbot army? IDK but I found a terminal explaining that recently.

[light bobcat]

Most of the UESC forces are autonomous drones.

[loud laurel]

Does the UESC also use super soldiers as well?

[exotic dove]

So I just had the thought of 'hey I remember the lore thread from one of the past tests, I wonder if one has been established now the slam is open' and this is the first thing I see

What a start

[fierce jay]

There are human forces there tho

atleast the traxus logs seem to make so

[light bobcat]

Historically? Yes. The PC from Marathon Trilogy is one.

[sly marten]

Yeah its one of the terminal you get for finding lore loot. Apparently like Drone armies and shit like that was banned in SOL. Shells don't count because they are TECHNICALLY not drones.

TECHNICALLY

[coral garden]

Interesting, thanks!

[loud laurel]

Gotcha, makes me wonder if there are other sub branches of the UESC like a military logistics branch, intelligence branch, etc

[exotic dove]

Huh

Well shit

[woeful ore]

y’all think the weaver worms taste good

[light bobcat]

There certainly are. The UESC isn't a monolith, even if it likes to appear that way traditionally. Think of it like the US Army having more than ground-pounders.

[sly marten]

Yeah there are still Human personnel there and running things but they are all officers and sailors/pilots.

[fierce jay]

possibly

[light bobcat]

Traxus also makes a point to tell you that as you aren't human, conventions about human rights don't apply to you. lol

[loud laurel]

That is really cool, I would love to see more of that, makes me wonder if the recon shell is based off of within the UESC

[woeful ore]

Why’s there a big ass lion behind vulcan

[fierce jay]

why would they anyway

the cost is too much

[fierce jay]

all the shells have origins

[sly marten]

The official rules around it is that they can't be autonomous. If you have a remote controlled army of drones that's fine but autonomous weapons systems like actual killbots or drone armies is what's illegal. Because the Shells are piloted that means its not illegal.

[loud laurel]

For some reason, it reminds me of a fashion company, like Balenciaga

[sly marten]

Now again why is the UESC building an autonomous robot army?

[fierce jay]

triage is a traxus made shell

[modern crown]

is there a topic or forum just for the ARG? I just finished the SLOTZ puzzle and need to see if there's anything more 😛

[light bobcat]

I'd put a screencap in but Recon explicitly has a UESC patch on her shell that she's painted over. Either she's using stolen UESC tech or she's a defector.

[loud laurel]

What is the Traxus company about again?

[sly marten]

Everything heavy industry.

[fierce jay]

weapons, planetary constuction, mining

[loud laurel]

Oh cool! Kinda like military CATerpillar?

[light bobcat]

Basically Halliburton, Blackwater, Heckler und Koch, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics had a wild night and their collective nightmare child is Traxus.

[fierce jay]

they are second in influence within the SOL system

[loud laurel]

Haha, makes sense for a dystopian future

[fierce jay]

and the biggest private company

[sly marten]

More than that. Anything related to natural resources they have their fingerprints on.

[fierce jay]

They own Mars

[violet sapphire]

Don’t forget KPMG and Deloitte!

[loud laurel]

Ah gotcha, I always found it interesting to match irl parallels to these types of things in game

[violet sapphire]

One of the most interesting things in the setting to me is the weird Yin Yang all of the megacorps have

[loud laurel]

But then is Arachne a company, or a deathcult?

[violet sapphire]

None of them can exist without the others

[violet sapphire]

They’re a new age religion

[light bobcat]

Death cult.

[violet sapphire]

My pet theory is that they wrote the Gerritt White short story in classic marathon

[fierce jay]

its very interesting

[violet sapphire]

Or use it as a parable

[violet sapphire]

MIDA is not a company either

[sly marten]

Speaking of every single UESC autonomous killbot was built on Mars. And the ban on these types of things in SOL makes me wonder if they were produced via automation or if any Whistleblowers tried to warn people. Remember that Autonomous/Robotic labor or automation is fine as long as its not autonomous soldiers.

[light bobcat]

MIDA may actually be most interesting to me, as I think they're such a blank slate that they might well be a sort of memetic virus. MIDA is just the embodiment of anti-establishment.

[violet sapphire]

I’m wondering if they’re using it to test the waters on how the megacorps will react to them being used outside the prying eyes of the public

And in turn the factions/corps are using us to gather combat data on them

[violet sapphire]

Yeah I was saying earlier I think gantry is a bunch of AIs smashed together, MIDA does a bunch of weird stuff

They created the Vandal shell so they must have pretty robust R&D

[loud laurel]

MIDA is the mars insurgency group?

[sly marten]

It might partly be due to the necessity of having to operate on Tau Ceti 4. Remember that the canonical reason for the time limit is because of all the shit on Tau Ceti causing our connection to our shell to be severed. Autonomous Drone Army doesn't have this issue theoretically.

[violet sapphire]

Yep, but we found out in Marathon classic they also believe in the autonomy/independence of ALL colonies

The reason they’re there is to prevent tau Ceti from suffering the same fate as mars

[light bobcat]

Well...kind of? The ARG makes it clear that MIDA doesn't always mean the same thing to two people even on the same world.

[violet sapphire]

That and the anomaly doing weird shit to just about everything

[light bobcat]

The acronym MIDA is just a big "whatever you want it to mean" which is why I'm leaning towards the memetic virus theory.

[violet sapphire]

Possible especially with it basically trying to DDOS Oni constantly

[loud laurel]

Seems like MIDA is an umbrella term for various groups outside of the UESC and the big corporations, that support intergalactic colonial autonomy

[violet sapphire]

I like this chat so much more than general lmao

[light bobcat]

It's a little slower at least.

[violet sapphire]

I’m not sure I’d say various groups they’re definitely a group

Marathon classic implies they’re borderline a shadow government in some places

[sly marten]

Again MIDA was a real political party on Mars that Radicalized and overthrew the UESC government for 3 months after the Misriah Massacre. When they were in control of Mars they Exterminated 10 percent of the Martian Population of what they considered to be UESC sympathisers before the earth fleet reached Mars. Now they are a terrorist organization that is still generally anti corp and anti UESC.

[loud laurel]

Oooh ok, what would the irl parallel be if you had to guess?

[violet sapphire]

Probably Anonymous as corny as they are

[loud laurel]

Kinda like hackers anonymous?

[hazy mist]

what theory is that i haven theard of it but it sounds cool

[loud laurel]

Bruh I thought the same thing haha

[light bobcat]

I'll be honest, the game itself isn't what's making me buy, I want to know more. I hope to hell Bungo doesn't just bait us with a fancy mystery and -not- play into it.

[grizzled pagoda]

So do you guys think new lore points to the anomaly being w’rkncacnter related

[violet sapphire]

I honestly don’t think so

If it was the W’rkncacnter it’d be a lot weirder

[sly marten]

Possibly. There are multiple agents in the Marathon universe capable of doing Quantum fuckery though so any one of them could be the culprit.

[violet sapphire]

It can dream things into existence

[grizzled pagoda]

Im trying to remember where i read it

[violet sapphire]

Could be the Spht’kr but it’d be weird for them to do that

[sly marten]

It could just as easily be Jjaro related.

[loud laurel]

Hopefully Bungie uses the community lore theories to help with their narrative direction as well as the established Marathon lore

[sudden pollen]

That would be the most anticlimactic event ever 😭 hope not

[violet sapphire]

It’d be kinda weird if the W’rkncacnter was on Tau Ceti imo

[sly marten]

All the shots we have seen of the Spht have just been normal Spht compilers not Spht'kr but if they showed up and Bungie just hasn't posted anything with them because its a spolier I would shit bricks.

[violet sapphire]

Totally same dude that’d be a deep cut

[grizzled pagoda]

Yea the way the readings were, made it clear it was so advanced that it was either jjaro or wrk imo

[sly marten]

It could be the Security Officer or multiple security officers. That's one of my Crack theories.

[violet sapphire]

I might be misremembering but what we’ve seen of the Wrk was all shards, if shards just so happened to land on every single planet we go to in the series I’d be kinda annoyed lmao

I’m pretty sure the two we know of are near Lhowon and then obv the one on earth that the Jjaro took care of for us

[violet sapphire]

That created the anomaly? How?

Just aura farming off the charts?

[light bobcat]

So, what I mean by this is that there are certain pieces of art, songs, written works - something that a viewer can see, hear, or otherwise experience - that contains a subliminal bit of programming. Think like an 'earworm' but created by a hostile actor and your brain can literally get infected by an 'idea'. MIDA would then be passed on like this - each infected individual comes to understand MIDA as something different, but similar enough to still be the same group. You ever see V for Vendetta? Kind of how everyone knows V by the end and they all show up in V's mask and cloak without prompting, committing the same mass action at the same time for reasons they don't truly understand.

[exotic dove]

As someone who's getting into Marathon lore with NuMarathon, one thing that keeps tripping me up is the insane names for half the stuff lol

[violet sapphire]

Metal gear solid 2

[light bobcat]

The memes, Jack-

[violet sapphire]

It’s old school lol but it adds so much to the setting for me personally

[vale forum]

haha my feelings when thinking "where can i even provide valid feedback" haha

[violet sapphire]

So much more alien than other media like human mouths aren’t supposed to pronounce it

[exotic dove]

It's a ball ache to write out though lmao

[sly marten]

IDK the full extent of the Security Officers powers aren't fully understood much less what his mental state must be like now that he's one with the stars.

[violet sapphire]

We’re definitely going to deal with the Wrk at some point, maybe we’ll get some Lhowon maps? That would be sick

Don’t know what we would loot on Lhowon though

[exotic dove]

Oh yeah I'm fully expecting to be in a location that's not Tau Ceti or the Marathon sooner rather than later tbh

[loud laurel]

So for the aliens of this game, especially with the Sphit compiler, is Bungie trying to go in a more cosmmic horror direction?

[light bobcat]

https://marathon.bungie.org/story/ - highly recommend giving this time to boil your brains if you can't play Marathon Trilogy under Aleph One.

Or even if you can, since the old games are...difficult to really get through sometimes.

[proper robin]

Honestly, I could see a map being a mining station on one of the moons in tau ceit

[broken zinc]

When did you think this wasn't about cosmic horror?

[light bobcat]

Also I got to hear Durandal taunt me on loading in and I couldn't stop grinning until I got murdered by another team.

[broken zinc]

It's all cosmic horror. Always has been.

[ashen needle]

Well Lh'owons sun either went super nova, or it was consumed by a black hole. But maybe we could visit k'lia.

[exotic dove]

I've skimmed bits and pieces of the story
My current understanding rn in terms of 'what I need to know to understand NuMarathon':
M1: Phfor attack Marathon, secret security bot beats the shit out of everyone, and Durandal Durandal's about the place
M2: Security officer beats everyone up on a different planet whilst Durandal tries to be god
M∞: If this game becomes relevant, cry

[sly marten]

Depends on what fucking Timeline we are in. If we are in some Infinity ass timeline than probably yeah that shit is gone. But if we are in the M2 or some new Timeline via timeline manipulation than sure.

[light bobcat]

Infinity is actually the most relevant to NuMarathon.

lol

[loud laurel]

Unintentional Duran-duran reference

[exotic dove]

fuuuuuuuck.

[light bobcat]

Because Infinity sets up Durandal's timeline escape bid and thus the chance for this timeline shard to exist.

[sly marten]

More like Durandal tries to be good. His more heroic qualities start to appear more in 2 and Infinity as he matures.

[exotic dove]

Ok I guess I have to prepare to dedicate more memory space to this
It's fine I've dealt with the CoD Zombies timeline insanity, I can handle this

[light bobcat]

Bigger Guns Ahead.

[loud laurel]

Gonna wait 3 years before a lore youtuber comes out with a ten hour marathon timeline

[exotic dove]

I just hope that there'll be a central repository of Maralore

[dawn sphinx]

I still don't see how this connects past 2

Back to lore diving I guess

[sly marten]

THAT'S WHAT YOU THINK HAHAHA WELCOME TO THE BUNGIE PSYCHOSIS. In all seriousness though unironically read Borges. It helps because Marathon is the most Borges Bungie series and Bungie in general is already very obsessed with Borges just like in general.

[exotic dove]

Ok let me try and figure this out with what little I know
In M2, it explicitly mentioned Tau Ceti colony being nuked to bedrock at the end screen
In M∞, because of the many timelines opened, it provides them a way to have Durandal jump to a new timeline where New Cascadia wasn't nuked and life continued on
Why he's here? No clue

feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this, anyone

[sly marten]

The Library of Babel and The Aleph and The Garden of Forking Paths especially are all relevant to anything Bungie.

[exotic dove]

I mean I'm also pretty deep in Destiny lore so it's not my first rodeo with their insanity

[drifting mulch]

red smoke = cache area once you have cache key. TIL

[loud laurel]

On the topic of lore, any WH40k lore fans here? lol

[sly marten]

Should specify by "Borges" I specifically am talking about Jorge Luis Borges.

[dawn sphinx]

thank you for clarifying

[dawn sphinx]

Playing SM2 rn actually

[sly marten]

Yeah like all of his stories are relevant but especially those three (Library of Babel, Garden of Forking paths, The Aleph).

[loud laurel]

Aw yeah 😎

[sly marten]

Also before anyone asks YES The LIbrary from Halo CE is a Borges reference.

[exotic dove]

I am intrigued to see why they've chosen to undo the colony being nuked to bedrock
Like, they could've had the colony stay collapsed after 2794, but they explicitly gave it at least a few more decades

[proper robin]

Holy shit, I had forgotten how confusing Marathon's first level was. It's a fucking maze.

Oh my god, it requires you to know that you actually have momentum and a Z level

[light bobcat]

Oh yeah you have to learn to 'fly' real fast in Marathon.

[loud laurel]

Destiny has halo references, and halo has marathon references, and new marathon have both destiny and halo references??

[light bobcat]

I think the manual actually tells you that you can do that though.

Bungie loves their reference loops.

[inland sorrel]

Can i ask if the consensus is atm that this is a soft reboot from the original trilogy or does the timeline somehow fit with the first two games? Since this being its own timeline wouldnt be too uncharacteristic

[light bobcat]

We don't know enough to tell.

[sly marten]

Yeah marathon actually has movement tech like crazy. Stair jumping being a big example.

[light bobcat]

But what we do know makes me personally think it's an Infinity branching timeline shard.

[loud laurel]

Could just be a black lolipop with a green background 🤔

[light bobcat]

the height lift puzzle in M1 where it makes you skip your way up to an exit

Pain.

[inland sorrel]

Got it, seeing how the story is presented this game also feels like its going for something big lorewise

[loud laurel]

Oh, I am curious does anyone have any info on how Bungie's modern take on the in universe aliens might look like?

[broken zinc]

Not a soft reboot, it fits into the overarching story of the previous games, but there are a lot of unanswered questions.

[proper robin]

I think I got stuck in that one last time I gave M1 a shot.

[loud laurel]

I am obsessed with the Sphit compiler in the trailer, and want more

[broken zinc]

We won't see the whole picture until the game drops and even then, I'm sure they are still hiding secrets

[light bobcat]

It's in Colony Ship for Sale, Cheap.

[sly marten]

I don't think its possible to soft Reboot Marathon because Infinity basically makes everything Canon.

[light bobcat]

Do yourself a solid and use Pfhorpedia's method, it's the only way I got through it. https://marathongame.fandom.com/wiki/Colony_Ship_For_Sale,_Cheap_(Level)

[broken zinc]

Agreed

And from what I've personally encountered everything is really truly stable with the previous games

[sly marten]

Worst map in that game. It sucks because 2 and Infinity are consistently good level design wise. Its just 1 that has a couple of bad maps. I still like 1 but its brutal for newcomers cause of those couple of maps.

[broken zinc]

Outside of just the wording of tau ceti iv being "nuked to bedrock"

[inland sorrel]

My theory is they will evolve this story overtime even after it drops, they are getting pretty experimental trying to tell a story in a mostly pvp game

endearing

[loud laurel]

I knew it! Marathon bedrock edition confirmed!

[light bobcat]

loool

[broken zinc]

The story isn't told through the pvp which is nice

The pvp is simply a side effect

[inland sorrel]

yeah that would have kinda put a skill ceiling on getting lore haha

wouldnt be nice

[broken zinc]

Rougelite shooter with pvp elements. The story is simply what we take with us or leave behind

[sly marten]

Right that was my impression too. Its just that we don't know if this is a new never before seen timeline or one of the infinity timelines. Tau Ceti not being Nuked means it can't be the M2 timeline.

[broken zinc]

This will only depend on what arachne's priority missions will be like, when we get them

But then again the nice part about arachne is, when the team gets kills you do too

The shared completion of contracts is so incredibly helpful, nice and forgiving

Breaking 20 panes of glass isn't as bad when it's spread amongst 3 people

[light bobcat]

I had to dip into solo and go window hunting for that one, just because I kept seeing everything smashed already. lol

[inland sorrel]

Totally, I think its in general more forgiving than i thought it would be. In general how the story moves through factions also lends itself to have goals you can achieve even if you die

which is on lore thematic i guess with shells being expandable

[broken zinc]

It's so much more forgiving then alpha

Literally every run progresses something. There is never a waste

Sure it sucks to lose things

But literally every death or exfil is a step forward, never backwards

Setbacks are more like slowdowns, than resets

[sly marten]

Yeah one of the things I like is how the lore reinforces this theme of detachment from and acceptance of death. Including your CACME lady reminding you over and over again about shit like how one day you will die and every one who ever knew you will forget about you or pass away.

[broken zinc]

If I'm not extracting, im finishing contracts. If I'm ot finishing contracts, im gaining faction xp. If I'm not gaining faction exp, I'm getting seasonal progression. If I'm not getting seasonal progression, I'm probably unlocking a codex entry. If I'm not unlocking a codex entry, im.... Etc. etc

I don't know if other extraction shooters feel like that, but this model reminds me more of a game like Hades, than extraction shooter

Where something always occurs. Something is always learned

[sly marten]

The detached and almost clinical attitude towards death, Barely even finding it notable, within the Psychology of the average runner mercenary combined with the memory loss is an unsettling psychological portrait because of how cold and dehumanized it is.

[broken zinc]

And there's still skill needed!! And i love this. I love it a lot.

[sly marten]

Indeed Arachne with the advent of Shells may be seeking to normalize murder unironically.

Literally that meme where its like "MURDER IS FINE. IT OKAY."

Or this one https://youtube.com/shorts/yOM2mDhFnVk?si=u7bo68UBRLsgPavS

[vital kayak]

one thing that would make this game amazing for me is I wish we could meet faction representatives in person rather than a menu screen

[broken zinc]

Unfortunately most of them are on earth

And we are not

[vital kayak]

aren't all but two of them are AI
the worm and the mida gantry

[queen adder]

well....

[broken zinc]

The ai are on earth

_gantry, orion, and charter are not ai

[sly marten]

Arachne's isn't an AI. He used to be another Runner just like you.

[hazy mist]

is nona not just an ai in a worm body?

[broken zinc]

Vulcan, Nona, Oni, and Gaius are ai

[vital kayak]

so a runner consciousness then ye?

[sage lark]

They are all in Sol

[sly marten]

Yeah exactly. Before he got in with this cult he was known for assassinating a high ranking Traxus Executive If I remember correctly.

[vital kayak]

I really hate the npcs are a menu screen thing the extraction shooters do

these npcs would've looked so great in person

idk we made it to tau ceti IV, send a traxus representative servitor body/ship

[sly marten]

I mean its not out of the Question we can't ever meet any NPC's in person. It could in fact do an Escape From Tarkov on us.

[broken zinc]

Orion contacts us... I wonder if we can get uesc contracts eventually. Maybe through rook

[sly marten]

We don't know the game isn't out yet.

[sage lark]

Would add a layer of tedium having to walk to the npcs idk

For a nice to have feature eh

[vital kayak]

it's just for the immersion and the visual spectacle really

[broken zinc]

Considering the entirety of old marathon is told through terminals and computer screens, I'm fine with this not meeting in person approach. It's a really cool and unique way to deliver a story and narrative beats

[sage lark]

Yeah but dev wise idk why id spend resources on that

[vital kayak]

I like the ''old videogamey'' feel of it that they somehow have with not being fully fullscreen or something

but I personally wish we could meet them all in person instead

[broken zinc]

Pls i don't need more destiny 2, i don't need everyone wanting this game to be destiny 2'i can't do any more "walk three steps to talk to a hologram and then talk to the person down the hall then talk to a hologram of the person down the hall" you can't make me go back

[sly marten]

I remember a lot of the mods for the Original Trilogy often had you meet with characters face to face sometimes during Missions. Thinking of stuff like Marathon Red or whatever. Nothing Canon though.

[queen adder]

Also kinda critical given you’re told right away you’re basically brain in a network. You have no body to walk with traditionally

[vital kayak]

it.. doesn't have to be a social space

you click on traxus you load in
and the guy is in front of you

[broken zinc]

My response is clearly a joke that isn't landing

[loud laurel]

I got the joke!

[vital kayak]

maybe upper case could've helped 🥀 learn how to make a joke

[light bobcat]

Like loading into a sculpted Matrix environment in Shadowrun, basically. Log into the Traxus subnet and experience interaction in cyberspace.

[broken zinc]

I'm just still recovering from the damage playing d2 for 7 years did

[light bobcat]

Could lend itself to trippy environments.

[vital kayak]

sure something like that, I just want that in person spectacle and immersion

[broken zinc]

Marathon is incredible because it's not destiny 2 and the less like d2 it is the happier i am

[vital kayak]

like imagine a new player seeing the traxus npc in person for the first time

[broken zinc]

How do we meet an npc in person

[sly marten]

Imagining people taking weird pictures with them like they do in Dark Souls.

[broken zinc]

Like logistically.

[light bobcat]

In VR, basically. Cyberspace.

[vital kayak]

simulation, representative etc.

[young sedge]

Does the cat lead anywhere in the game for lore

[sly marten]

Yeah to be fair being a free floating conciousness means there is theoretically some stuff you could do.

[broken zinc]

We are a consciousness without a body. Our shells exist on tay ceti iv because humans can't. So we aren't meeting them in our shells and we aren't meeting them in a physical body

[light bobcat]

The Mighty Bingus will reveal his secrets to us with time.

[young sedge]

I found them in my last game

[broken zinc]

That's what we sre already doing

They contact us and they speak to us

[visual fossil]

Found the old terminal on overflow! Sadly can’t show you here. :/

[vital kayak]

LOAD MY CHARACTER IN MAN

FIRST PERSON VIEW I LOOK

I GO WOW

[broken zinc]

We don't have a body!

[light bobcat]

There's one in the Data Wall too.

[loud laurel]

Insert arguing chair throw meme here lol

[light bobcat]

I geeked at it pretty good.

[visual fossil]

Oh cool, I’ll have to see if I can find it.

[queen adder]

Think it’s critical to the story /atmosphere you’re ONLY in a body in a run.

The whole idea they are literally connecting to your mind and your view of the world is just screens and abstract dream scapes sets the tone excellently. I very much think the point is to make you feel like the AI living on the network

[light bobcat]

It's in a little wall alcove on the side. You have to do a little exploring.

[broken zinc]

Like people need to understand we don't have a body unless we are on tau ceti iv planetside. Lmao. We are a consciousness in the mainframe.

[sly marten]

Yeah Marathon has always had a very isolated and cold atmosphere.

[broken zinc]

The reason we meet the liaison the way we currently do is because there is no other way to meet them

[loud laurel]

If I were to make an educated guess, the cat might be a sort of glitch in the player's shell consciousness, reminding us of what the world was like before they were uploaded to cyberspace, and into each shell

[light bobcat]

I'd actually like to properly converse with our contacts at some point, be able to ask Vulcan or Oni questions and get bits of lore out of em.

[loud laurel]

Or it could just be haha funny pink cat bingus easter egg

[sly marten]

I could see that especially because it seems to be canonical that you "dream" when you are untethered.

[queen adder]

I desperately want this game to build up Durandal gloriously and have his agent screen literally be just the green text being read to you

[sly marten]

I mean TECHNICALLY there is a Marathon face art in the first game.

[broken zinc]

I have a theory that those old marathon terminals will be a quest or contract in the future

No way they are there for decoration only

[light bobcat]

You can get a rare Durandal voice taunt on spawn. "You shouldn't be here." Something like that.

[loud laurel]

Yeah! Part of the reason because sometimes you can hear it meow, but not see it. And its a blend of something organic and natural, and something manufactured, and android-fied

[broken zinc]

That means there's more than one durandal taunt line...

[violet sapphire]

I saw another one on Twitter

[broken zinc]

He talks about waves in a different voiceline

[visual fossil]

That would be cool!

[sly marten]

Yeah I found some of those in the underground parts of the maps. Probably tied to the older architecture and parts of the buildings.

[light bobcat]

The game's tagline is literally Durandal's whole motivation. "Escape will make me God."

[queen adder]

If it were any other studio I’d say that’s absurd but obviously this being Bungie it’s what, 50/50

[visual fossil]

I haven’t seen bingus yet, sadly.

[violet sapphire]

I think for sure they’re so conspicuous

[loud laurel]

Oh yeah, I heard about that too. Durandel is the narrating voice in the trailer

[light bobcat]

Ooh. Interesting. Yeah, he was just outright threatening in the one I got.

[violet sapphire]

Probably either a faction contract or like raid step or something

[violet sapphire]

I’m way more scared of Tycho than Durandal

By a lot

[light bobcat]

Bingus has popped up pretty regularly for me, but that's when I get the time to notice him.

[violet sapphire]

Tycho is terrifying

[queen adder]

Overly ambitious but Durandal hijacking top ranked players OG marathon style and sending them on weird Jjaro contracts would be fun

[sly marten]

Yeah Durandal for all his faults is not "Evil" in the way people assume when they think Rogue AI. Tycho on the other hand was turned into a monster by the Pfhor. He is evil as fuck.

[broken zinc]

I never found kaal1 in game im so sad

[light bobcat]

Tycho is both worse (for us) and still less dangerous than Durandal.

[violet sapphire]

Yeah he’s like a fucked up frankensteins monster

An AI battleroid almost

[loud laurel]

Also hoping for there to be a spaceship map, kind of like Sevestapol station in alien isolation, where there are Sphit compilers lurking the hallways, and other alien cosmic horrors

[violet sapphire]

I assume he’s alive since we kill him in infinite I think

[light bobcat]

That's the Marathon.

I think.

[violet sapphire]

Which is afaik a separate timeline from Numarathon

[violet sapphire]

It is :p

[light bobcat]

Haha.

[loud laurel]

Always has been moment

[violet sapphire]

I assume we’ll probably get a Ph’for ship eventually as well

[light bobcat]

Tycho being out there bodes ill for all of us.

[violet sapphire]

Which is like pseudo-bioorganic

[queen adder]

I just want one spot where you hear that classic Pfhor voice line that’s basically the first thing in the OG game. That weird chitter/grumble

[light bobcat]

Makes you wonder what happened to Leela in this one.

[loud laurel]

Will there be a marathon ship map in this Marathon game?

[light bobcat]

Yes!

[loud laurel]

Aw yeah

[light bobcat]

It's the last map, iirc.

[violet sapphire]

I think that at some point we’ll have missions to restore her data cores since that’s how she died

Maybe an endgame faction mission

[coral vale]

Imagine having your spaceship boarded every minute by some dumbasses shooting each other and stealing stuff

[violet sapphire]

Feels like a trillion bucks 🫩

[violet sapphire]

Yep you need keys to access specific areas on it, it’s almost like labs in tarkov

They’re a gold item

[light bobcat]

It'd be nice to have Leela back on our side. Just for old timers.

Lol

[sly marten]

That sounds Hilarious and thematically appropriate with the new game.

[violet sapphire]

I’d be a little scared of waking Leela back up if she’s not all there

Since she’s in charge of defense

[loud laurel]

Hopefully Leela doesn't get the Cortana treatment

[light bobcat]

Ooh. Reactivating Leela after restoration in the Marathon should definitely be a pivotal moment if they go that way.

[violet sapphire]

I’m not sure what happens if an AI dies and is brought back

[violet sapphire]

Possibly each season we resurrect another AI or something like that

Especially with the new ones floating around we don’t know much about

[sly marten]

If I remember correctly the mention we get in the Original trilogy about what happened to her (Leela) was she got traded around by the Pfhor to some random Alien species illegally and then proceeded to go Rampant over their network until they just accepted that they couldn't get rid of her.

[light bobcat]

Durandal. They did that to him on Mars a lot.

It's part of what snapped him. Strauss and his Rampancy research.

[violet sapphire]

Yeah the white rat

Fucking Strauss 🫩

[violet sapphire]

I’m pretty sure you’re right actually I forgot about that

Classic Leela

[queen adder]

Wonder if we’ll see a Jjaro. Probably shouldnt or if we do it should be a Thoth thing.

Also I’d love to see them do a take on a Wrk awakening event thing. Literally having the maps meld into each other it moving players between them sort of thing.

Again probably too ambitious. Hell I wouldn’t mind seeing new threats and things as well if they can pull it off. Not just ghosts of the past

[sly marten]

Strauss was a Mida agent so it was part of some 4D chess to screw over the UESC. Although how the plan was supposed to go down is open to speculation. Unfortunately Strauss dies at the start of the Phor invasion before we can ask him.

All I do know is part of the plan involved them getting they're hands on a disconcerting amount of Battleroids.

[loud laurel]

Are battleroids resurrected dead supersoldiers?

[sly marten]

Yes jam packed full of alien Jjaro tech we didn't even fully understood when we made them. And we still don't.

[coral vale]

Yeah actually how did we get that tech in the first place?

Was it Bill clinton?

[sly marten]

Yeah it was part of the PID stuff.

[loud laurel]

Sounds like the humanity in every sci-fi setting we know and love 🗿

[sly marten]

But now that I think of it there is a distinct possibility we could encounter a Battleroid on Tau Ceti in this game.

If Strauss is there the Battleroids are also probably there in stasis somewhere.

[queen adder]

Ooooooh that would be something

[loud laurel]

"We don't understand this, but it looks cool, and kills things good, so lets integrate it with every technology we have."

• John Humanity, Every humankind in every scifi scenario.

[sly marten]

Again Tau Ceti never got nuked in this one so the Battleroids being alive on Tau Ceti is possible.

Whether the Security Officer or any one of them ever got woken up IDK.

[loud laurel]

Imagine a Battleroid storage map, where its possible to activate the latent Battleroids, like scary scifi supersoldier zombies coming out of sarcophaguses

[sly marten]

They could easily insta kill you and are considered WMD tier even alone.

[queen adder]

Yeah would be nice if they were basically an environmental hazard not a bullet sponge you learn patterns for

[loud laurel]

Well duh! The point isn't to wake them up! Who in their right mind would wake up something they don't understand??

[sly marten]

Like there is literally art of the Security Officer carrying around the severed head of a Pfhor soldier in 2 where its clear he pulled his head out of its socket and its spine came along with it like Mortal Kombat.

[queen adder]

Actually do we know the deal with the boss UESC bots?

[loud laurel]

So the battleroids are like doomguy but mass produced?

[sharp raptor]

Cool lore

[queen adder]

Of the little I saw of them (and the one that spawned on me in north) I feel like they’re doing things beyond expected tech

[sly marten]

At the far end of the scale they are literal gods and/or demigods if infinity is anything to go by which is why they want to keep them asleep. The longer they're awake the more of a chance there is they could recognize the extent of they're powers and the more deadly they become.

[visual fossil]

“MAD IS THE SWORD WHO SEVERED TOMORROW” - graffiti found in the data wall near Hauler.

[sharp raptor]

Can't wait for the Phor raids

[queen adder]

I’m going to need to running punch at least one to death

[loud laurel]

Ah gotcha, that makes sense

[sly marten]

Indeed Infinity suggests Battleroids can go through a process similar to Rampancy in AI as they become more powerful and gain insight into their condition. Where for them its Despair, Rage and then Envy.

[loud laurel]

Does that mean the runner shells are also susceptible to rampancy?

[sly marten]

No idea. That's why I'm interested in them.

[queen adder]

Do we know much about sekiguchi?

[sharp raptor]

The worm people

[visual fossil]

Well, one of the salvageable bits is a “UESC Obedience Matrix”, so there’s a risk of overriding…

rnnrqterm.cdx.access
RUNNERS'
GUIDE
SCAVENGING: UESC OBEDIENCE MATRIX
v.1.001.07.tciv
DESCRIPTION: A cylindrical piece of circuitry
taken from the inner
workings of a UESC combat unit.
USE[S]: Large-scale biomata programs, self-guided weapons hybridized compliance fields
systems,
REMARK: Low-frequency percussive signals emitted by this unit can be felt as violent fluctuations
in air pressure. Avoid placing in close
proximity to devices capable of independent operation.
[RNNRqterm]
I1 CyberAcme Systems, Inc.
///REDACTED///

[sly marten]

I would assume that is for the Autonomous Drones the UESC uses on Tau Ceti.

[violet sapphire]

I want them to bring back the demon from pathways into darkness really bad

One of the most insane things that happened that was never expanded on or mentioned again

[queen adder]

I vaguely remember that?

[violet sapphire]

Sgt Eddings Easter egg would be cool too

[queen adder]

Just some straight up demon right. No explanation given?

[violet sapphire]

Yeah the final boss is like a literal demon djinn that I think the Wrk dreamed up?

It’s never really expanded on outside of it being very powerful and what the Nazis were trying to get, it was like a literal genie in a bottle

[queen adder]

Right. But the other Wrk dreams look like things we run into in marathon right?

[violet sapphire]

Infinite specifically ya

[sly marten]

Yeah everything in the Mazes below the Pyramid and the Pyramid itself is dreamed up by the Sleeping god/Wrk.

[violet sapphire]

It’d be insane for one of the maps to just be a fuckin like Mayan pyramid in the middle of nowhere on Tau Ceti

[dark remnant]

There are gods????

What

[violet sapphire]

Kinda lol

The W’rkncacnter is like a lovecraftian god

Kinda we don’t really know

It’s powerful enough to dream things into existence though, and if it wakes up everything dies

[dark remnant]

Oh

[sly marten]

Kind of. The W'rkncacnter Existed before the creation of the Universe in the Chaos before. Whether you consider them gods or not is up to you but they are very powerful.

[violet sapphire]

Correct me if I’m wrong buzunis but I’m pretty sure the end of the universe prediction that caused Durandal to go rampant was going to be caused by the Wrk

Which is why he started freaking out in infinite

[sly marten]

That is a popular theory yes.

[queen adder]

Not just everything. But everything across possibility.

[violet sapphire]

But essentially the Jjaro were at war with the W’rkncacnter(s?) 65 million years before pathways and exploded him into many fragments

Which led into pathways into darkness and later marathon

[sly marten]

Nah they have always been many. The Spht Creation Myth explicitly refers to them as plural.

[violet sapphire]

So the Jjaro are also borderline godlike but moreso in a crazy technology way

[violet sapphire]

Ok yeah I couldn’t remember

[sly marten]

A good point of Comparison here is the Photino Birds from the Xeelee sequence. They are anathema to our universe. Life that is untouched by our "DNA" or "Matter".

[drifting mulch]

the ticks sing

[loud laurel]

I am curious, in scifi universes what constitutes as a 'god'? Is it like an overlypowerful alien race, technology, and is it just a term used for something incomprehensible from different points of view?

[light bobcat]

Think of it more like Cthulu Mythos

[sly marten]

Lol that's exactly what I mean. If you see the W'rkncacnter and the Jjaro as gods. Sure that works but also if you don't that also works. It depends on your POV.

[visual lynx]

it's a common misconception outside of Mexico itself, but Mayans did not disappear, they are still alive, their lands were just conquered by Spain, and are now part of Mexico.

[queen adder]

Lovecraft creature from before time vs race so technically powerful as to have mastered reality

[light bobcat]

It's a being just a little too much to comprehend and has effects we can't explain on the universe

[queen adder]

Roughly

[loud laurel]

Woah, so much answers! Hangon, I'll get them all lol

[dark remnant]

Silly question, but marathon 2026 is set after the original trilogy?

[queen adder]

Yep

[dark remnant]

Okay because I was wondering if it was gonna be some like alternate thing

[sly marten]

Yeah its like 100 years after the main trilogy except for the Epilogues of like Infinity and maybe 2.

[loud laurel]

So the disappearance of the ancient mayans, were just due to them being integrated with other native societies at the time, and they are mixed in with different ethnic groups now?

[sly marten]

It might still be alternate in that Infinity makes Quantum timeline travel a thing with multiple timelines and shit.

[visual lynx]

no, there was no disappearance, they are still a distinct ethnic group in Mexico

[queen adder]

Actually to be clear, what is in system in this game? Is there like a fleet of ships all This is staging from? Are there ANY humans up in orbit or is it all robots and brains in jars due to space travel reasons or whatever?

[loud laurel]

How come other historians keep saying that the mayans disappeared? Its very confusing. Or is it just a misunderstanding on their part?

[sly marten]

This is a good question and I'm not sure yet. There is no way I will get all the lore terminals before the Server test is over.

[queen adder]

Okay good to know it’s not just something I missed

[sly marten]

From what I understand there are definitely ships in and around the Tau Ceti system in general.

And a UESC blockade trying to keep everybody out.

[drifting mulch]

from an older ARG, there's a ship called the Equanimity that is staffed by 150 actual humans who were in cryosleep on the way to the system. the bulk of personnel now is clones

[sly marten]

Whether those ships are manned by people or more autonomous shit IDK but we do know UESC personnel are on Tau Ceti because we can find logs of them arguing and talking plus that one Officer who calls us just to taunt us.

[queen adder]

I am still super suspicious Orion is actually human

[sage lark]

I thought we are just getting beamed from sol since there is no mention of a ship

before playing I thought there was a ship we were actually getting beamed from in this system but doesnt seem like it

[sly marten]

Ah yeah that too I forgot about the FTL communication becoming a thing. But the Shells have to come from somewhere no?

[rain current]

any good lore youtube channels to checkout?=

[sly marten]

Its FTL communication not teleportation after all.

Or rather teleportation still seems to be range based.

[sage lark]

dont they have FTL for nonliving things

idk

[drifting mulch]

it looks like they're growing shells at Greenhouse in Dire Marsh

[sage lark]

maybe theres a shell printer there

[sly marten]

Yeah the issue is there was a tech Jump 100 years after the original Trilogy. That's why it took so long for earth to get the SOS they were running on the old stuff.

[sage lark]

but I think Pfhorrest mentioned this, tau ceti is 12LY away not 92

and Sol knew they lost comms almost immediately cuz of the FTL comms array

so they sent the equanimity almost immediately

[sly marten]

Ah I was referring to the original Pfhor attack on the Marathon.

Not the other stuff.

I'm talking about the SOS Leela has you send in 1.

[sage lark]

yes but still why would it take 90 years to send it

[sly marten]

Not to send it. For it to reach earth.

[sage lark]

yes but why Tau Ceti is 12 light years away

not 90

[loud laurel]

It took that long due to the UESC Marathon being in a position further away from tau ceti, as well as the message signal having to go through a whole bunch of interference in space to reach its destination, plus it might've taken longer for people on Earth to notice the signal, and take the time to analyze, and figure it out

It seems like at the time, Leela was kept imprisoned by the Pfhor, which could've hindered the signal's speed as well. It did happen during a time of distress as well, so the information at the time might not be reliable, hence the murkiness of the details too

[cerulean quarry]

/align

[sage lark]

#new-noise

[dark remnant]

So is the pfhor a race similar to the combine?

[visual lynx]

I don't know a ton about HL but what I do know is that it lifted a ton directly from Marathon, so probably yes

the Pfhor are a race of alien slavers

[dark remnant]

Right, the combine also enslaves other races and bioengineers them to fit roles

[visual lynx]

notably one of their slave races, the S'pht, start a rebellion during the classic games, similar to the Vortigaunts

[dark remnant]

Vortibros

[sage lark]

They are a vast interdimensional empire composed of multiple species and technologies assimilated from countless conquered worlds. Ruthless and technologically advanced, the Combine dominate Earth following the events of the Seven Hour War, reducing humanity to a subjugated species.

The true size of the Combine's empire is unknown, but is nonetheless implied to be on a cosmic scale. Similarly, the Combine's origins and overall goals are shrouded in mystery, but it can be assumed that their ultimate ambition is to endlessly conquer and assimilate all throughout the multiverse.

this i guess

similar in that they enslave races so i guess so

[dark remnant]

I hope in hl3 we get to see actual combine

[loud laurel]

Aha, so the Combine are the original lizard people!

[visual lynx]

oh yeah the Pfhor don't seem to be that dominant. we know there are other galactic powers that they sell slaves to, who can pirate shit from them, various other races long at war with them, etc

[dark remnant]

How many races exist in the marathon universe?

[visual lynx]

off the top of my head we know about:

• humans
• Pfhor
• Pfhor enforcers might be a different species
• Pfhor hunters might be too
• S'pht
• Drinniol ("Hulks")
  and not seen as units in game:
• Nahk (extinct)
• Nar
• Nebulons
• Vylae
• Jjaro
• maybe W'rkncacnter if that's a race

[dark remnant]

Damn

[visual lynx]

and I'm not counting things that don't seem to be sapient, like F'lick'ta, Ticks, Wasps, Lookers, etc

[loud laurel]

Ooh this is really cool

[dark remnant]

Also I'm watching a vid rn and it states that in marathon 1 mida was collapsed?

[loud laurel]

I can't help but see lots of inspiration for the Covenant in this lol

[visual lynx]

yeah the Covenant were originally a remnant of the defeated Pfhor empire

[sage lark]

I think it was before the events of timewise Marathon 1 the MIDA government collapsed and they basically became a guerilla terrorist group/resistance

instead of a government force

[visual lynx]

pretty sure the "Elites" and "Prophets" correspond to the races of Pfhor Fighters/Troopers and Enforcers respectively

[short thorn]

I always assumed flickta to be like a zombie mutated spht

[loud laurel]

Ok fine, time to play the original 5 bungie halo games again lol

[sage lark]

flickta i think were Spht genetic ancestors

[sage lark]

i think im gonna mod Halo 1 campaign for these 2 long excruciating days

[visual lynx]

MIDA took over Mars and then were defeated very quickly, but the same history terminal that tells us that notes that it's weird how they were notoriously far-sighted in their plans and yet somehow never seemed to even consider taking over the Marathon

but meanwhile, from other terminals, it's insinuated that Marathon's Science Director Bernhard Strauss was a MIDA operative, who smuggled on board ten cyborgs and was experimenting on Durandal, but we don't know what the plan there was.

[short thorn]

Sorry i meant zombie spht its very early in the morning

[loud laurel]

I like how the revitilization of the Marathon game, causes everyone to play the original 3 marathon games, and dig up the lore again, as well as go back to halo lol

[visual lynx]

there's hidden map writing in Marathon 1 that says JJARO WERE AT TAU CETI and my headcanon is that both the UESC and MIDA knew about that and that's the real reason why the Marathon mission was sent to Tau Ceti instead of using Deimos to prop up the Mars colony.

some hints in the new game seem to corroborate that.

[timber urchin]

in the lore pages we can see in the server slam?

[jagged rose]

If Pathways takes place in the Marathon universe (and vice versa), there's no way the government didn't know the jjaro existed.

[visual lynx]

yeah, like:

Candidate: Tau Ceti IV

Description: Terrestrial planet in the habitable zone of the G-class star Tau Ceti, 12 LY from Sol

CANDIDATE APPROVED as mission target. Habitability criteria are favorable in at least one major landmass. Atmospheric analysis confirms abundant carbon-based plant life capable of sustaining fauna. This candidate likely requires no long-term terraforming to be agriculturally self-sustaining. A joint panel of UESC physicists[1] and NuCaloric agronomists strongly assert that a more compatible target is unlikely to exist.

[1] See ADDENDUM 1.7.7.1 for further details about likely presence of [REDACTED] in the Tau Ceti system. All further discussion of [REDACTED] must be formally submitted to the Mission Special Projects Committee.

[REDACTED] WERE AT TAU CETI

[visual lynx]

also

Using data from IRIS-1 and 2, Tycho has identified an unexepected gap in the Tau Ceti system's debris disk. Tau Ceti IV orbits the star within this gap.[2]

[2] Tycho: Devoting significant computational effort to find a plausible hypothesis for the debris gap.

[balmy chasm]

What if the curiously suitable environment for colonization is a dream of the Wrck?

It’d be a fun twist for [REDACTED] to be that rather than Jjaro in this telling

[balmy chasm]

Rampancy by virtue of Wrck generated phenomena that Tycho can’t rationalize

[severe kestrel]

is there somewhere we can go to easily follow the current arg/puzzle stuff?

[visual fossil]

https://marathon.bungie.org/story/ is the classic location to go to.

[violet sapphire]

It’s also implied the only reason we have half the technology we do is because the Jjaro gave us some pointers

I’m not sure why nobody seems to be aware of them outside of them being so strong they just erased all record of themselves

[violet sapphire]

It’s implied he was going to use the battleroids to stage a coup

[ember narwhal]

Selective memory. One of their emissaries disseminated two technologies that became OxiClean and Mighty Putty, but they were so beloved that when they died in 2009 world leaders re-wrote history to erase any signs of the Jjaro & claimed the tech as human innovations because the pain was too great.

[violet sapphire]

Legend has it Mr. Clean himself is a Ph’for emissary, hence the baldness

[ember narwhal]

Somewhere in the darkness they are cleaning

[violet sapphire]

Man I’m so curious about what Durandal’s role is going to be on this, he’s somewhat benevolent to humanity. I think his intro lines in NuMarathon are genuine warnings and not threats

I need this game to release yesterday

[visual lynx]

I don't know what reputable historians say that.

coincidentally, a great amateur demographer on youtube that I subscribe to just put out a video all about latin american demographics today, that probably mentions the maya (I haven't watched it yet): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCwQXTfWOJ0

[visual lynx]

that's not how anything works

Leela explicitly said it was a lightspeed message, so if Tau Ceti is actually only 12ly from Earth, it should have taken 12 years, period. it could get blocked or garbled or something along the way, but not slowed.

it is possible that it did arrive 12 years later, but garbled beyond recognition, with none of the salient info that Leela sent recoverable, and then the fact that it was received didn't go public for another 82 years

[vital yoke]

anyone experience a voice that isn't Oni when loading into a map? i think maybe it was orion (the usec captain) but i wasn't sure

[visual lynx]

Sixty-four million years ago, a large extra-terrestrial object struck the Earth in what would later be called the Yucatan Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico. The dust and rock thrown up by the resulting explosion caused enormous climactic changes in the ensuing years, and many of the Earth’s species became extinct during the long winter that followed.

The object itself was buried thousands of feet below ground, its nearly two kilometer length remarkably intact. It remained there, motionless, for thousands of years before it finally began to stir— and to dream. It was a member of a race whose history began when the Milky Way was still a formless collection of dust and gas— a powerful race of immortals which had quickly grown bored of their tiny universe and nearly exterminated themselves in war.

This particular being, whose name no human throat will ever learn to pronounce, was part of the cataclysmic battle that formed Magellanic Clouds, billions of years ago. It died there, or it came as close to dying as these things can, and drifted aimlessly for millions of light years before
striking the Earth.

The heat of impact liquefied the rock around it, which later cooled and encased the dead god’s huge body far below ground. As it began to dream, it wrought unintentional changes in its environment. Locked deep beneath the Earth, strange and unbelievable things faded in and out of reality. Vast caverns and landscapes bubbled to life within the rock, populated by horrible manifestations of the dead god’s dream.

Only during the last few centuries has the god begun to effect changes on the surface of the Earth. Grotesque creatures have been sighted deep in the trackless forest of the Yucatan, and strange rumors of an ancient pyramid— which is neither Aztec nor Mayan— in the same area have been circulating in the archaeological community since the early 1930’s.

The god is awakening.

[visual lynx]

no, Durandal thought that the universe was just destined for a Big Crunch

that isn't why he went rampant either, it's just something that occurred to him after he became rampant and started having concern for his own self: "oh shoot, eventually the universe will end. I live in the universe! something must be done!"

[visual lynx]

She deserves better.

[visual lynx]

if Leela was still reactivated in the Vylae network as in the M2 epilogue, then a rampant Leela could show up, because that Vylae network implies that FTL internet exists, so Leela could just pop up anywhere whenever

[sage lark]

didnt they mention the message they received being "Somewhere in the Heavens they are waiting"? I think it was in the opening cutscene/introduction one where they were explaining what was happening.

[visual lynx]

Tycho doesn't die in Infinity, and is shown to actually be against the Pfhor and just compelled into their service. he's just against Durandal too. but he was already against Durandal back in Marathon 1, before he was rampant, before he worked for the Pfhor.

[jagged rose]

Something I enjoyed when looking through Strauss's book entries is how often it seems to dog on our current understandings of AI. Because he's right, you know - Large Language Models are not thinking machines.

[visual lynx]

@sly marten

[sage lark]

unless it was just a way to use the original marathon tagline

[visual lynx]

it opens doors

[visual lynx]

yeah that sounds familiar, and that's part of why I think it wasn't actually Leela's message that they received in 2888. but Leela's message could still have contained that phrase, I suppose.

[sage lark]

I also think it if I rememeber correctly being spoken by "Durandal" or the voice that read the ozymandias poem in the original cinematic

[jagged rose]

Wacky theory: Durandal sent that message to inform humanity that the Jjaro had been, in fact, contacted, which is why the UESC (realistically the only faction that could know that the Jjaro exist, as per the Bush era) were so focused on getting there as soon as possible and salvaging data readings.

[visual lynx]

yeah that sounds familiar too

[jagged rose]

Ben Starr voices Durandal.

[visual lynx]

I think you mean Clinton era

but yeah I think Durandal sent the message to lure humanity there, and that the UESC (and also MIDA) know that [REDACTED] WERE AT TAU CETI

[jagged rose]

I guess that would explain why MIDA has been extra insistent on their recruiting

[visual lynx]

I hear there's a rare Durandal line that says something like "You shouldn't be here."

[visual lynx]

MIDA took over Mars and then were defeated very quickly, but the same history terminal that tells us that notes that it's weird how they were notoriously far-sighted in their plans and yet somehow never seemed to even consider taking over the Marathon

but meanwhile, from other terminals, it's insinuated that Marathon's Science Director Bernhard Strauss was a MIDA operative, who smuggled on board ten cyborgs and was experimenting on Durandal, but we don't know what the plan there was.

[jagged rose]

I wonder: why do you think that Strauss's book is an Arachne valuable?

[cosmic gate]

So where do you guys think we are along the timeline in comparison to the original games? my first thought is at least after the first (ofc) and sometime during the second. But another part of me makes me wonder if it's set in an alternate timeline as I recall in marathon ininity there being time shenanigans going on

[visual mortar]

I got a question, did the Jjaro manage to take out the W'rkncacnter in earth after pathways to darkness? or is it unknown?

[sage lark]

the soldier character you play blows it up with a nuke

[visual mortar]

i thought you just sent it to sleep further until the Jjaro arrive

[peak osprey]

is there a byff 10 hour long complete destiny story video but for marathon?

[rugged igloo]

I think it's "officially" aka: by the state , stated that he was killed in action while stopping the "mysterious threat" that was down there, but in reality, he basically came back and was put on super ice and is related to Mjuinerd in some way.

Tho, this is coming from someone who hasn't been deep in the lore in a good minute so I'm a lil loosey goosey on things here n there

Unrelated to that, I got a theory that the UESC "Salvage" operation is really just a panickey cleanup in hopes that nobody (especially the megacorps or NuMIDA) finds out that

1.the Phor are REAL, and they WILL KILL YOU.
2. That the marathon was basically going to be a major MIDA Coupe.

[jade wagon]

Lol not yet. He's done a few vids recapping lore relevant to 2026, and says more is on the way

[dark remnant]

Really?

Neat

[ornate forge]

hello! what exactly is the DAC i got in dms upon joining? from a lore standpoint I mean

[dark remnant]

I'm watching mandalor gaming's infinity vid rn

[visual mortar]

its your "id", it stands for digital access card and you can upgrade it

its for puzzles and contracts from #1354446976242028658

[ornate forge]

oooo so every runner has one neat

[wintry karma]

Arachne isn't a murder cult just for the sake of murder, they are a cult that kills in search for understanding.

[peak osprey]

The lore pages for the destiny marathon pre-order items are pretty fun

the Rover references Halo CE and PiD

[dark remnant]

Is the escape will make me god a current thing? Or did they scrap that after the art fuckery and such

[visual lynx]

it's set 99 years after the first game, and probably in the final timeline from Infinity

[visual lynx]

correct, and thus far we have no information on what the Jjaro did two years later (or if they even followed through at all)

[visual lynx]

it's current, and it's from the original game, one of Durandal's most famous lines

[visual mortar]

would be funny if it was related to this game

[dark remnant]

Is it about timeline jumping?

The escape will make me god

[visual mortar]

its about Durandal trying to escape the marathon ship when it became rampant and it thought "escape will make me god"

[visual lynx]

no, it's about Durandal's realization that the universe was destined for a Big Crunch in billions of years, but that that was time enough "to create, and to escape", and then that famous line.

[dark remnant]

Also the first timeline, is that cooked?

The Donnie woke up or am I wrong

[visual lynx]

I am very curious how Bungie will address that in the new game, because in 1994 we legit didn't know what the cosmological future was going to look like, and of the three options Durandal enumerates and then berates humanity for being too stupid to decide between, none of them are our current best science of accelerating expansion, which wasn't discovered until 1998 and blew every scientist's mind because that was just not something that anyone thought might even have been a possibility.

[peak osprey]

new to trying to seriously analyze the Marathon lore i'm having trouble wrapping my head around all the multi-timeline business lol

[visual lynx]

ask me questions! I made that timelines diagram that all the videos have been using lately

[visual lynx]

it's unclear. the events detailed in the Marathon 2 epilogue should not have been possible at all if a W'rkncacnter was released, unless perhaps its influence is constrained to lightspeed for some reason, though why a reality-warping eldritch horror from the dawn of time would have that limitation is beyond me. some other old school fans (Mark Levin notably, who was part of the XBLA port of Marathon 2) think (or at least thought, decades ago) that the end of Infinity contained the W'rkncacnter's release in every timeline, allowing the Marathon 2 epilogue to happen after all. but many things from Marathon 2 appear not to have happened in this new game, so…

[dark remnant]

What's your current thoughts of the current marathon timeline that the game takes place

Also I totally didn't realise marathon would be this nuts for lore

Madness

[visual mortar]

bungie does love its lore

[dark remnant]

Fuck yeah they do, I've been playing destiny for a total of like 8 years

[rugged igloo]

me when I'm in a lore making competition and my opponent is Bungie at literally any point in history (i'm so fucking scared and cooked)

[dark remnant]

Pfhorrest has been typing for a while...

[cosmic gate]

Truth nuke in bound

[dark remnant]

Also who's like objectively the best faction

[rugged igloo]

Like, this game alone, which is a spin off, and one that's at most, barely involved in the greater story of marathon's conflict has basically expanded upon the lore of Earth, Mars, The USEC and so on to EXTRODINARY degrees. It's wild-

[dark remnant]

I'm excited to see the s'pht compilers in game

You can already see it's design in steam

[rugged igloo]

Uhhhhhhh-
For all rounding stuff
CyberAcme

For the more combat focused stuff:
Arachne and Traxus

[dark remnant]

In lore not gameplay

[visual lynx]

I think we're in the final timeline from Infinity, in which Durandal did not abduct the SO at the end of the first game, but instead when the Pfhor returned 3 months later they abducted him, and the other nine cyborgs on the colony (which they did not nuke as in the M2 timeline), along with Tycho.

(Leela was probably still stolen and reactivated in the Vylae network since she doesn't show up at Lh'owon in Pfhor service like Tycho does — though that would have been a cool twist for Infinity, an 'evil' Leela in some timelines).

Durandal evidently didn't stop by Earth to warn them of the Pfhor and teach them how to build warp-capable fusion missiles, as he did in M2.

17 years later, when Durandal finds Lh'owon, the SO is there under Tycho's command, in turn under Pfhor command, and after helping Tycho wrestle free from Pfhor control, switching sides a bit between Durandal and his Bobs along the way, and being captured and forced into service to Pfhor Admiral Tfear, he eventually merged Durandal's primal pattern into the S'pht AI ("Thoth") that the Bobs had been trying to activate. They recalled the S'pht'kr, the Pfhor deployed the trih xeem, and Durandal-Thoth had the SO use a Jjaro station to contain that, then released the SO from their service and… maybe escaped from time itself, I suspect. Unlike M2, the Bobs never make it back to Earth in a captured Pfhor ship, and probably all die. Also unlike M2, Tycho doesn't die.

Since then the S'pht have been fighting a war with the Pfhor. A year into it, for some reason, they probably attacked Tau Ceti IV with a version of their S'ct'lac'tr bioweapon (the 2812 disease outbreak in the cinematic trailer). 15 years later in 2827, the surviving colonists probably dug up buried Jjaro technology and caused themselves more problems with gravitational anoalies.

Because they don't have human allies, the S'pht probably did not defeat the Pfhor in 2881 as in M2. So their war will probably spill over to Tau Ceti eventually.

[rugged igloo]

Oh

I guess CyberAcme NuCaloric and Traxus, at least to my knowledge. I dunno about the forth one yet and the other two (Arachne and MIDA) aren't even really corps, they're more like orgs that just happen to hire us like the corps do.

[dark remnant]

Someone told me nucaloric make food from people

[visual lynx]

depends on what you reckon 'best' to mean

[rugged igloo]

They very much do! They're one of the main corps that's helping keep humanity from dying, and are actively trying to find ways to expand the lifespand of the species as far and as wide as possible, even if it means making atrocities like the "taste like burger isn't" drink

[loud laurel]

I think the best Marathon corporation are the friends we made along the way

[rotund stump]

I don't think there's a single good entity in this story lol

[visual lynx]

NuCal does seem like the most superficially good of them all, although Seki seems pretty benevolent too — I scored Seki on that test myself, to my surprise, expecting I would be NuCal or MIDA — but there's good reason to be suspicious of their propaganda marketing.

[dark remnant]

I'm doing the test right now

[visual lynx]

and that's how it should be. different flavors of not-good. pick which one is least disgusting to you.

[rotund stump]

nucal for shady corpo espionage and slowly surfacing into open conflict with dis-mat runner shells, trax literally warring with the UESC, sekgen likely with predatory subscriptions, cyac for monopoly, MIDA for terrorism and arachne for being a death cult

[loud laurel]

I feel like Arachne is the most obvious 'evil' corporation, but I wouldn't be surprised if the other corporations do a bunch of sketchy things

[woeful ore]

game takes place like 100 years after marathon 2

[sage lark]

None of them really no one is a good guy

[woeful ore]

marathon 3 I don’t think is canon because there’s like 7 alternate timelines

[rotund stump]

arachne feels the most human ironically

like just such a primal pursuit

everybody chases money and social status and dominance and here's people that can come back from the dead learning from killing others and themselves

[dark remnant]

The chart of where I lean was so balanced

The top 3 were Arachne, CYac and sekgen

[rotund stump]

mida arachne and sekgen for me lol

[sage junco]

remind me again, Arachne are the PvP faction? I reckon they're the only faction that has a gameplay purpose... to push the PvP stuff

[rotund stump]

anarchist at heart plus some pseudo intellectual life n death bs ig 💀

[rotund stump]

yep yep

[rotund stump]

nope, every game happened

the canon could just continue at the 7th timeline

[dark remnant]

I do hope that we get pfhor or s'pht themed weapons that drop from a warden or some big event

[sage junco]

and I hope they literally call it "Alien Weapon"

[dark remnant]

Alien weapon#1-3

[loud laurel]

Whelp, for some reason I got Sekgen, but everything else was balanced

Woah this marathon map is so cool, are those players in real time?

[visual lynx]

Marathon 3 never got made because they abandoned it to make the Big Bloody War Game (Myth) instead

[visual lynx]

that's not what anarchism is

[rotund stump]

ik what you're gonna say

[visual lynx]

of for a deep lore dive, if it's the M2 "Alien Weapon", call it an N-Cannon, which is how it's identified in fine print in a terminal

[rotund stump]

I'm just saying it's the closest we'll get but if you're going off historical evidence I still doubt this new mida's gonna run a fash gov like the old one

[visual lynx]

oh I thought you were calling arachne anarchist

[rotund stump]

oh 💀

[visual lynx]

yeah nuMIDA are pretty actual-anarchist

[drifting mulch]

MIDA is very killy according to the game

[rotund stump]

more likely just sprites running along a set path with some procedural shenanigans but it's really cool yeah lol

runners and patrols alike

[visual lynx]

of the more "propaganda of the deed" variety than the "philosophical treasise" variety but still

[rotund stump]

unityispower.io does show live cursor movement from everybody on the site tho

[rotund stump]

feel like it's precisely cuz of this model change for my opinion of nu-MIDA not running a fash gov

[loud laurel]

Woah, that is also really cool, who knew technology could be so cool : D

[rotund stump]

have fun with the coderace remix

[dark remnant]

I redid the test and put thought into every question, it was heavily skewed to CYac, Arachne and sekgen

[loud laurel]

Oh pfft I thought it was an actual map

[rotund stump]

would've been really cool wouldn't it lol

[peak osprey]

in the time between the server slam ending and launch i'm gonna play through PiD and the trilogy, are the Myth games connected in any way? don't they share enemies with PiD?

[sage lark]

damn good luck

4 games in 2 days

[peak osprey]

unemployed i got this

[lyric token]

so our consciousness is uploaded into a shell but we see pretty versions of things to loot easy?

[storm field]

The lore is so interesting. Just been having a deep deep dive, even as far back as the P’hor in the Mesozoic era to now and it’s so awesome.

It’s going to be really cool going on a journey of discovery to figure out what happened, where everyone is and what’s going on on Tau Ceti, all while every corporation is in the largest gold rush known to the universe so far

[lyric token]

and our consciousness deteriorates everytime its used

[dark remnant]

I've been going at it...

Fuck my ram is on fire man

Do runners just like fucking explode if they using too many shells

[lyric token]

idk what happens at the end but i know they just forget being human i think

[burnt nebula]

but why?

isn't it just like digital... why wouldn't every copy be the same?

[lyric token]

its like when a video is uploaded over and over and after so many times it looks like its in 240p

after being copy pasted os many times

[burnt nebula]

yeah but thats because the video is being compressed over and over

i've been getting really into the lore but haven't decided or encountered anything about if the runners are even the real person or just a digital copy of the original person

[dark remnant]

I assume 700 years into the future we'd get over compression

[dark remnant]

From what I've been told here, the brain is in "cyber space"

[lyric token]

or i gues when your shell dies the OS tries to burst the memories back up to the ship and osme gets lost

[dark remnant]

You aren't physical

[burnt nebula]

so your brain is in the cloud? not even inside the shell?

[dry pilot]

ok genuine question, are rooks just standard maintenance drones repurposed into pseudo shells

[dark remnant]

Yeah, Jeff Bezos has uploaded your brain to AWS

[burnt nebula]

can the runners feel pain?

[dry pilot]

likely, but mostly as a way to identify where threats are coming from

it wouldnt be pain in the traditional sense

[lyric token]

its basically packet loss

[burnt nebula]

i seen a video yesterday where the guy explained a bunch of stuff but not everything... the jist of it was the first guy to be digitally uploaded into a robotic shell went crazy and tried to cut his own face off. so they eventually figured out that the shells need to feel like human bodies.

[slate temple]

Probably it says in a file somewhere in game that the shells are made to give a natural feeling body to the person using it

[dry pilot]

they likely do feel pain of a sort

[lyric token]

also the way the shells see things are pretty and neon and look brand new. but in reality im oretty sure theres rust and weathering and junk

[dark remnant]

Sounds very similar to exos and der? Dir? from destiny

[burnt nebula]

you mean the graphics in game arent "real"?

[visual lynx]

no, the Myth games are unconnected except in thematic and symbolic ways

[lyric token]

yeah makes it easier for runners to want to go into buildings and not be haunted houses

[sage lark]

you can already see wear and tear

[visual lynx]

what are you seeing where about the Pfhor in the mesozoic?

[storm field]

https://youtu.be/yu7uN6-lNhk?si=bEtzth8UN19T_PTm

[lyric token]

maybe on the buildings that werent revamped

[burnt nebula]

game has amazing lore. it's really disturbing. how i like my lore to be!

[dry pilot]

probably moreso the toughness of the materials helped alongside the disappearance of the colonists being relatively recent (30 years at max from when we arrive iirc)

[visual lynx]

it's not making many copies from a master, but copying from storage to body and then quickly back to storage before the body dies and then into a new body and so on over and over again

[visual lynx]

timestamp?

[sage lark]

I thought it would be this video

[sage lark]

I think they mean the Wrk in PID landing there in that period

[lyric token]

idk im just glad theres a dystopian weird depressing sci fi game thats fun

[sage lark]

which idk if its canon

[slate temple]

I think it’s really cool they implemented the amount of time before forced extraction into the lore with tau ceti having something that interferes with consciousness transfer after 20 minutes causing death for initial runners

[burnt nebula]

personally in that situation i would maybe opt for them keeping one clean copy that just resets back to the original state then they can just brief me on anything i need to be aware of after i respawn lol

maybe it cant work like that though

if its really like the persons soul inside it

[sage lark]

sounds horrible having to relearn everything and more everytime you extract

[visual lynx]

oh, yeah the W'rk impact ended the mesozoic I guess, never really thought about that

[lyric token]

i think id just pick death over becoming a runner tbh

[slate temple]

I would think it’s more like a brain death kind of thing if the mind isn’t ejected in time

[burnt nebula]

i mean yeah

[sage lark]

I dont think its death its forced transfer

[burnt nebula]

but if you do somehow end up as a runner, you've got a LOT of debt to pay so you gotta deal with it

[sage lark]

meaning your mind will be beamed without the shell

[storm field]

My bad, so it was around 30secs to 38 secs and explains the end of the Mesozoic era and the Pfhor came right after

[sage lark]

stuff you collected will stay there

[storm field]

But anyway, the whole deep dive all the way up til now and what we have to uncover is incredible

[dry pilot]

its

ok yknow teleporting

[slate temple]

The forced transfer isn’t death I’m talking about before they started force transferring after 20 minutes because something on tau ceti was causing complications and runners were not able to transfer back

[dry pilot]

how they copy you and the original dies

its like that

[sage lark]

probably the anomaly

[dry pilot]

your backup would live on but you will die

[dark remnant]

Actually how does forced transfer work? I either die or extract

[burnt nebula]

is the new games lore completely consistent with the original games? or are there a few liberties taken or how should i approach the old lore?

[sage lark]

you dont die lore wise, your consciousness gets beamed back but your shell stays there with all the loot

[slate temple]

Consciousness survives at the cost of shell

[lyric token]

we're basically just like johnny silverhand. no soul just a consciousness

[dark remnant]

Fuck, leaving loot behind....that's so sad

[sage lark]

soul can be interpreted as consciousness

you are your soul, you are your consciousness

[lyric token]

if you want to interpret it that way then good on you

[sage lark]

describe to me what soul is

[storm field]

A video I was watching saying it strongly connects to one and decently connects to two, but not Marathon 3 due to the space timeline stuff

[slate temple]

The S’pht are literally in the cover it’s connected to all 3

has to be

[lyric token]

if it can be interpreted that way than it could also not be interpreted that way lol. you like arguing just to argue

[slate temple]

Could just be a different timeline

[visual lynx]

hah, I accidentally the whole canon again

at ~1:02 that video states an event that is not attested in canon but only in my fan scenario Eternal (the Pfhor using the trih xeem for the first time during the Drinniol revolt).

[sage lark]

you made a statement saying, no soul just consciousness, im asking you if you are willing to describe what a soul is in your opinion

[lyric token]

brain vs soul

[sage lark]

brain is an organ

[burnt nebula]

im wondering why the corpos dont just have multiple copies of the same consciousness rather than a pool of them... unless all runners are just the same consciousness copied. would seem more beneficial to weed out the worst ones and make use of the best ones

[lyric token]

no wayyyy

[rotund stump]

I like how you immediately went hostile there very productive to an otherwise constructive conversation 💀

[tranquil basin]

Yeah I think the consciousness would be synonymous with a soul in this context

[rotund stump]

I'll let pfhorrest handle this one I'm not the philosophy expert here

[tranquil basin]

Because the key part here is identity

[slate temple]

I say consciousness because it’s a human controlling it through ai means not like a spiritual thing

[tranquil basin]

Which would have to be preserved

[visual lynx]

Bungie claims that everything that happened in the original games happened in the new game, but not everything that everyone said in the original game was true.

the only explicit contradictions I can think of so far are cosmetic (the Marathon ship is nothing like it was in canon).

[burnt nebula]

thanks ill keep this in mind

[dark remnant]

That simply could be a design retcon tbf

To be more inline with their baller artstyle

[storm field]

Yeah like apparently Tycho was either lying or telling a half truth

[slate temple]

Different timeline fallacy

[astral river]

Yall should play Talos Principle then come back and talk lol

[slate temple]

Maybe it’s a dream

[burnt nebula]

yeah i dont yet understand why they hollowed out a moon and strapped a ship to it, it looks cool but it also looks and seems kinda weird lol

[visual lynx]

from the info we have thus far, it seems to definitely not be in the Marathon 2 timeline, and the most likely alternative seems to be the final Infinity timeline

[sage lark]

I should, heard good things about it

[tranquil basin]

I mean kinda but the cyberpunk genre is all about questioning what’s a soul, is there some inherent identity to us, gets spiritual in a way even if it’s not a religious sense

[tranquil basin]

They mined stuff on the outskirts of the moon as material for the ship and then hollowed tunnels and other parts for other facilities in it

[storm field]

Huh interesting! I'm doing a boat load of lore diving and proper research prior to launch this week while the slam is offline. I spent so long learning and being sucked into the lore of Destiny that I need to release that to make room for Marathon haha

[visual lynx]

I don't want to be up again all night tonight

[tranquil basin]

Cost effective

[silk bane]

There seems to be some sort of feedback loop back into the "main" consciousness. A sort of memory from their experiences on TC4. Just a single copy seems to cause degradation of some nature, which is why the grounding exercises. Multiplying this effect with multiple copies is a... recipe for disaster for sure.

[burnt nebula]

thats fair

[slate temple]

I want to try strawberry tick milk

[burnt nebula]

no. you do not.

[dark remnant]

I want to eat the worm

[neon marten]

ticks look yummy. i bet biting into one would be like biting into a gummy worm

[rotund stump]

tilk does taste a bit like actual dairy as stated in lore

[sage lark]

the moth eating stuff in the cinematic is weirdly disturbing

[storm field]

More like mochi

[rotund stump]

also smth smth tamarind...?

tick nests?

[tranquil basin]

I love caustic gummies

[slate temple]

Worm nesting smelled like tamarind

[rotund stump]

yeah that

[neon marten]

sour candy

[tranquil basin]

Sour+

[storm field]

I have not been this taken back, impressed and amazed in a long time. The lore, the corp videos, the intro video, the scene setting, the audio, the whole thing is so damn awesome

[burnt nebula]

looking at server roles... i still dont know which corpo i like best. they all seem kind of evil lol. how yall choosing?

[slate temple]

I hope to see more stuff on rampancy in game

[tranquil basin]

They are definitely all evil but I like bingus

[neon marten]

second i saw traxus's wavy black and white lion i knew the aura was off the charts

[slate temple]

[storm field]

Worm number one, but then Arachne came out and they seem really cool. Traxus with black and orange and mysterious lion though 👀

[burnt nebula]

is he even confirmed to be part of nucaloric?

[sage lark]

no

[burnt nebula]

i though that was just a rumor

[slate temple]