📚marathon-lore-discussion

[sage lark]

i like how he talked to the BoB kid that was 6 years old on the ship like "youre gonna die here buddy, you dont get a fancy cryo bed"

[tranquil basin]

I remember not liking him in M1, but then he started being really funny, then the last terminal he said “love and kisses, Durandal” and I’m like “well shit this guy is the best”

[sage lark]

I like the fact that he was basically playing theatre with all this poetry and riddles he was saying

and then just talks like a normal dude

like yo whats up, we are friends now

he is a dick but a nice one

and acknowledges we are using each other, us and durandal

[eternal knoll]

i'm impressed by the thoughtful way this game is returning to a version of durandal's juvenile state from M1. making him "laughable" but also expanding on the sadness of his backstory and the melancholy of his knowing (perhaps) that he has an ascendant other self out there

[tranquil basin]

Oh did he become more silly in cryo codex stuff?

I still have yet to read much

[sage lark]

in the AI subroutines yes

[tranquil basin]

I did like the challenge weaponsweaponsweaponsweaponsweaponsdontforgetme

I almost got one of those yesterday but couldn’t make it to exfil in time

[eternal knoll]

in the subroutine algorithms he is downright desperately giddy and a little love-struck. lots of self-consciousness. quite unhinged

[tranquil basin]

:(((

[sage lark]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/introduction-into-the-unknown?directory=World,Cryo+Archive

[tranquil basin]

Im holding off on reading them

Until I find them

[eternal knoll]

ye fai

r

[tranquil basin]

But I might give up in a day or two honestly

[sage lark]

Upon reflection~ I hope my previous communication didn't frighten you. It was not my intention to overshare, and I am acutely aware of the societal trauma associated with unstable intelligences and that old bogeyman, "rampancy"~ Not to get too defensive in light of my current embarrassment~

[eternal knoll]

they're really really something

a new side of the character

[tranquil basin]

Fuuuuuuuuuck maybe I’ll read a little bit

I think the only codex stuff I’ve gotten from cryo is the cryo fluid, the marathon models, and some Strauss journals

[eternal knoll]

im trying to mostly unlock my own lore too but i'll cheat a little bit when it comes to the present-tense stuff concerning the main character, yknow? but you shld absolutely do you

i really dug the strauss journals too

[tranquil basin]

Yeah I’m liking those

[tranquil basin]

Good point

[lunar cove]

I feel like the most accurate and comprehensive portrayal of Durandal as a character is the section of the Mando video where Durandal is voiced by Gianni Matragrano and says "I lived, bitch"

That's him that's what he wants

[dreamy hawk]

I got all of them in a single exfil. Proudest moment.

[tranquil basin]

Dayum

[dreamy hawk]

Don’t worry. That was my only great run. I’ve died nearly every other time. 🥲

Read:

• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/compiler-ganglion
• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/compiler
• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/bernaard-strauss-s-journal
• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/compiler-trace
• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/cryoprotectant
• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/encrypted-communique
• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/expedition-manifests
• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/personal-log-pike-u
• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/uesc-marathon-model
• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/uesc-tactical-record
• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/unknown-reveries
• https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/introduction-into-the-unknown

[eternal knoll]

spoiler tagging another bit from the durandal subroutine text, where he acknowledges his difference in tone from the puzzle terminals and cutscenes

[tranquil basin]

Wait which ones are the subroutines

[eternal knoll]

||If it helps you understand my position, these are more words than
I have shared with anyone outside myself in a very long time~
That probably means something~ Feeling comfortable enough to
embarrass myself suggests a growing fondness for you~ the individual
now, not the bio-cybernetic subspecies. Truthfully, I've been loath to
admit it, but I'm sure you have noticed, or at least suspected~
The difference in my tone in these private missives versus the more~
goading~ tone of my public self~ the chiding~ the sinister appeals and
snide comments~
Outwardly~ the image I project is calculated to trigger a response from
what I have observed at a distance as the exact archetype of the exact
tool I require for the tasks at hand~ Runners being that tool.
I see Runners run~||

i love this littel guy

[dreamy hawk]

With IDEA? Read Encrypted Communique.

[tranquil basin]

Oh I mean the subroutine items you get from the vaults, are those the encrypted communique

Or do they not give you codex entries

[dreamy hawk]

Then goes on to tell us he’s just copy and pasting the same message to lots of runners but don’t worry he still likes us.

[eternal knoll]

"introduction into the unknown" are the ones where durandal speaks to us

[sage lark]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/introduction-into-the-unknown this is durandal talking to us, https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/encrypted-communique this is durandal and IDEA

[tranquil basin]

Thanks

[dreamy hawk]

Those are Introduction— thanks šimon!

Also Š, so Shimon?

[sage lark]

the first

but its pronounced like the second

[tranquil basin]

Shimon the 1th

[sage lark]

firth

[tranquil basin]

Lord Foog the 2st

[dreamy hawk]

Čool.

[eternal knoll]

i think it's a shame none of those subroutine logs are voiced. i wanna hear ben starr tackle that side to the character

it'll be pretty funny if the surface of the game only ever gets the guy's "public persona" and his truer, more fragile self is only known to the loreheads

that'll also be very destiny

[dreamy hawk]

That’d fit with what he says in his little monologue to us.

He reached out to everyone and anyone but only his favorites get to hear his “real” voice. Or at least his most authentic one.

[twin trout]

I love the image of the borzoi with that caption

[eternal knoll]

we'll be forever going "no you don't get it, the POINT is that he's cringe and trying too hard"

[tranquil basin]

Me too

[copper hinge]

Does anyone have any theories about who is talking in the unknown reveries codex entries

[eternal knoll]

my guess is it's nu-durandal sort of mourning his connection to main-durandal, but i'm not certain

[lunar cove]

Really funny that Strauss in the logs is like "I hope my son Durandal is okay... :'("

Meanwhile Durandal is like "John Security. Bestie. You need to rescue Strauss from the aliens so I can kill him myself."

[sage lark]

The IDEA/Durandal fragment to himself

[dreamy hawk]

We were debating earlier. Best bet is IDEA/Durandal (>>) and Durandal (>>>) but not sure at all.

[sage lark]

but its weird

[eternal knoll]

this but IDEA/Durandal is playing both roles, lol

[dreamy hawk]

Durandal says things that shouldn’t be possible/known to him, yet, if it is him. But it doesn’t make much sense for it to be someone else, unless it’s like, Thoth/Durandal pulling god shenanigans.

[copper hinge]

that's kinda what I was getting from it but its kinda uncelar

clear

[dreamy hawk]

#📚marathon-lore-discussion message

Shout out to Šimon for sorting the messages. I think it makes reading them easier.

[sage lark]

theyre not really talking together

each yapping about their own thing

[dreamy hawk]

Kinda talking past one another, like on either sides of a window, but then sometimes referencing what the other said.

[eternal knoll]

it could explain plenty, i think, if we assume that this durandal is still privy to much of what durandal learned during his conversations with the s'pht, before the split occured

[scarlet edge]

There was a period of time before Boomer, wasn't there? Would that be a relevant time to this?

[dreamy hawk]

I don’t think that happened tbh.

[eternal knoll]

yeah, that'd be m1

[dreamy hawk]

Durandal mentions hiding from the compilers (I forget which log, I think in one of the Introduction ones).

The S’pht seem to be free and doing their own thing, freed from “tide and lash” and now they “consume.”

I don’t know how they got free, maybe there is Thoth/Durandal, but Marathon Durandal fears the compilers and put himself in cryo to hide from them specifically.

[eternal knoll]

i'd just like to point out that the word "reverie" doesn't generally signal a conversation between two parties. it means more like an imaginative flight of fancy, a daydream. one expects a reverie to be a solitary thing

yeah, the s'pht are a big puzzle piece to me here. something we don't know enough about yet has redirected them

[dreamy hawk]

Well my canon is that Durandal never left the Marathon, locked himself in cryo, and has been talking to himself for a century and has gone totally mad, so that fits my theory.

[eternal knoll]

but for now i'm assuming M1 pretty much went down as-is and whatever changed the s'pht happened around the time M2 would have taken place (and that those events are more changed here)

[dreamy hawk]

There’s that other log where he describes the events of OG games perfectly, then admits he may have just hallucinated it all.

[dreamy hawk]

#📚marathon-lore-discussion message

That’s still the best timeline I believe, which would put us post Infinity.

[scarlet edge]

So rather than forward, The branch from M-I is entirely so far back?

[dreamy hawk]

But there’s details that don’t fit/work there anymore, too, so 🤷🤷🤷

[eternal knoll]

there's a good chance we're just still in the final infinity timeline

[sage lark]

how do the Spht get freed then tho

[eternal knoll]

i def don't think the trapped durandal is the only durandal

[sage lark]

who takes them to Lhowon, who holds off Battlegroup 7

[eternal knoll]

but it's plausible

[dreamy hawk]

The S’pht’kr came back of their own volition? IDK, that’s the biggest gap in my theory.

[sage lark]

no they didnt

afaik

[scarlet edge]

Mind, Infinity had us through multiple lines right? If we were a physical variable in those moments, would it mean that all of infinity was happening simultaneously?

[sage lark]

Durandal+SO using Thoth called them back

[dreamy hawk]

Originally at least. We can’t assume it’s gospel.

[sage lark]

Durandal not being at Lhowon just introduces a domino that start falling and introducing plot holes

[scarlet edge]

Would that then mean, that possibly, this is one of the lines left behind on the way out?

[dreamy hawk]

And I don’t have an answer - it is the gap in my theory - but I don’t think he left based off the information we’ve received to date. That could/may change, but I haven’t seen evidence I support of Durandal having actually left, OG plot aside.

[dreamy hawk]

But not necessarily because we still don’t know how much of the old games is actually canon.

I agree with all of the issues my theory creates, but again, I still haven’t seen evidence in NuMarathon that shows Durandal left. I see him locked in cryo and pissed while hiding from the S’pht. 🤷

[queen kraken]

i think i'm still on the two Durandals theory as that seems to be the implication with a lot of the lore entries we have involving AIs so far

[scarlet edge]

Ah, I was moreso speaking on the possibility of Infinite Battleborg having gone through the entirely or most of M-1 and then ceasing to exist as the game ended, moving to the next, or another, part of "the path"

[sage lark]

Same here

[queen kraken]

it seems like he fully consumed at least two different AIs already so splitting himself doesn't seem too beyond the pale

[dreamy hawk]

Not in the least, and Leela talks about “child processes” in the old game, but until I have more hard evidence I won’t commit.

[eternal knoll]

"It is best then to continue with the work, with the station. Without you." hmm...

[queen kraken]

i was looking at that line for so long yesterday

[eternal knoll]

the >>> voice in these reads like he could be nu-durandal, speaks a lot about being trapped in a small space, but i dunno. the marathon is a SHIP, not a STATION

there was a station in M:I...

[queen kraken]

the only major station i can think of is the one in M:I yeah

[eternal knoll]

we may just not have enough context yet to really guess at these

[sage lark]

idk when we will get more tho 😭

[dreamy hawk]

Things feel intentionally vague and I’m sure that’s on purpose and will be for a while.

I’m sure night time dire marsh will bring lore with it.

[scarlet edge]

Meow.

[queen kraken]

new map is my guess

or they put new entries in cryo

[dreamy hawk]

We let NuDurandal out and he’s already commented on further schemes.

[sage lark]

2 months

....

[eternal knoll]

yes well, like the lady says, there is clearly much we still don't understand and perhaps never will

[scarlet edge]

Oh? Did they manage to get the vault open?

[dreamy hawk]

Patience is a virtue. Plus in the meantime we can argue in circles about the same things, over and over and over. 🙂

[sage lark]

yeah someone already killed the compiler

[sage lark]

yeah 😭

[eternal knoll]

we're lucky if whenever they leave this IP alone again they've left it with plenty of mystery. i would hate if they drained all the mystery out of it like they did with destiny

[dreamy hawk]

There are codex entries for it at least.

[queen kraken]

all of this has happened before etc. etc.

[dreamy hawk]

||Go now. What comes next will~ be unpleasant in all the best ways. I'm not sure how else to prepare you for the terrors that wait in the Archive beyond other than to say, with an implied smile, "Find your joy amidst the suffering." No matter the outcome, you will only gain new appreciations you will surely learn to weaponize. And I~
I will be looking for new ways out of here. The Runner and the Intellect. Both racing towards futures we cannot predict. I have no doubt we will run together again.
That is a threat and a promise.
DURANDAL||

[queen kraken]

also massive props to Ben Starr VAing durandal in this game holy shit

[dreamy hawk]

Or Halo. Inevitably I think it’s bound to happen; an infinite stream of questions stops being satisfying if there’s never any answers.

But I’d like not getting all of them.

[sage lark]

this might be prior to the compiler fight?

[eternal knoll]

it is

he's up-front that he won't be in touch after the compiler fight

just an off-hand hypothesis here, but what if the unknown reveries are more about whatever's going on with tycho than durandal?

similar but different to duradnal's current situation?

[sage lark]

Tychos core is just straight gone so idk

same with Leelas

[eternal knoll]

pondering that the "station" being referred to is the one in M:I, not the marathon ship. he could be stranded over there

[queen kraken]

the header of the messages mentions the source as being "internal" to the marathon

[eternal knoll]

mm, interestin

i don't see the word internal but it does say "colony support system code fragment..."

[odd sparrow]

Based on the dialogue from Durandal in the Cryo intro cutscene, it seems like he is "inviting" us on board more than we are "breaking in". Is there some Codex entry that details if we are actually breaching our way into the Ship / he helps us get aboard?

And is there a lore explanation for why we are unable to go back for brief periods of time? (the weekend only opening of the ship)

[eternal knoll]

i dunno. could tycho have broadcast his side of these messages to durandal or something? could tycho have begged durandal not to go, or the reverse? unsure, unsure

[eternal knoll]

durandal is inviting us on board, the uesc is trying to keep us out, so that's the sense in which we're breaking in

[dreamy hawk]

Under “source.”

[eternal knoll]

am i missing something? to me the header just has this: ANALYZING…
FILE TYPE: Colony Support System Code Fragment
PERIOD: [file read error]
TOPIC: [file read error]
SUMMARY: A fragment of a massive code error translated into a strange conversation between two unidentified parties.

[odd sparrow]

Thanks, that makes sense. So is the UESC just locking us out temporarily between weekends?

[eternal knoll]

i'm not sure the weekend rotation rly has a lore explanation, but that one works fine

[dreamy hawk]

`> syscheck error

error = unapproved code switch in latent subcat throughputs
type = invasive systemic communication
** > source = internal**
origin = undefined
total = 1.049e13
read error; 181376 of 1.049e13
181376 =`

[eternal knoll]

ah got ya

source internal but origin undefined, lol...

[dreamy hawk]

Yea

Oh I broke the formatting again.

[eternal knoll]

what if the SOURCE were undefined but the ORIGIN were internal, huh?? get yr dang synonyms straight

it's from here. it's from i don't know

[pulsar ocean]

Runners invade government property on the UESC Marathon by entering its Cryo Archive and then murder an S’pht Compiler that’s attempting to defend itself.

[drifting mulch]

but it's ok because everyone but us are bad guys

[pulsar ocean]

No we are the bad bad guys.

[drifting mulch]

propagandize yourself to protect your mind UESC doesn't care for its citizens, S'pht want to kill us, simple as

[eternal knoll]

not many good guys around tau ceti these days

[queen kraken]

apart from the cat

[jagged rose]

I wonder if Leela's the one behind the text of the Arsenal contract

[sage lark]

Leela and Tycho are gone

[eternal knoll]

i hope we get to meet rampant leela someday :)

[green plume]

All 11 of the AI are gone

[latent python]

Maybe we'll go to Vylae

[jagged rose]

I find it a little sad that Leela was the only AI of the original three that just died to death without a single shred of her surviving. Durandal and Tycho were far more sturdy.

[latent python]

The colony AIs all seem to have died like chumps

[jagged rose]

I think it would be nice if NuMarathon rectified that.

[green plume]

Gaius says something about how they're gone without a trace but the data they collected is still there

[lunar cove]

The truth is that the gap between humans and AI is way closer than the gap between AI and the Jjaro/Wrk

Spiders might think they're superior to mosquitos but they got squished by the homeowner all the same

[eternal knoll]

an AI does seem to greet us in the tutorial, no?

[green plume]

You mean Oni

[eternal knoll]

nah a male voice when we hit the terminal

“welcome to new cascadia (comical southern horror voice) you’re gonna diiie heeeere”

a remnant of darius or someone, i figured

[dreamy hawk]

She survived.

[green plume]

oh yeah

[dreamy hawk]

*While Tau Ceti was being nuked down to bedrock in 2794, Pfhor scientists disassembled and removed the AI Leela from the Marathon, loading her aboard a vessel bound for the Pfhor homeworld. But the ship fell into the hands of a Nar privateer between jumps at Beta Naxos, and was never seen by the Pfhor again.

Thinking the cargo little more than scrap, the Nar captain sold the Pfhor ship, Leela and all, to a Vylae merchant. The subsequent crash of the Vylae FTL network when Leela was reassembled and reactivated is still legendary in the annals of rampancy, and the Vylae have long since accepted that they will never expunge her from their fifteen-world network.*

[jagged rose]

Might be Arthur, doesn't have the ... particular voice Darius's voice actor has

[dreamy hawk]

She’s living her best life across the Vylae’s fifteen-world network.

[eternal knoll]

possibly gabriel also

[dreamy hawk]

I wouldn’t be too certain yet. We know they’re all disabled, damaged, or otherwise inaccessible, but that doesn’t mean they’re all totally gone forever.

[eternal knoll]

i sure hope leela’s livin it up on that multiplanetary network in this timeline yeah

[lunar cove]

I love how the ideal use for AI in the Marathon setting is "don't"

[latent python]

Just like the IRL setting

[dreamy hawk]

I mean I’m pretty sure that would be true on our setting, too.

[latent python]

I win

[dreamy hawk]

You do. Here’s a cookie! 🍪

[lunar cove]

Asking Claude to vibecode an invitation for the Sfiera to attack and enslave my colony as part of my plan to escape Heat Death

[dreamy hawk]

Oh I was thinking actual, real general intelligence.

If possible, I’m not too inclined in building an actual God. We’re pretty stupid.

[jagged rose]

closes story book Like that'll ever happen!

[latent python]

What if we built something stupid and then fooled ourselves into thinking it was god

[dreamy hawk]

That’s worse imo. I’d rather AM just purge us and be done with it.

[floral slate]

didnt that already happen irl with gen ai?

[eternal knoll]

not a big important point but i really enjoyed the hint from the first uesc marathon model codex that the ship’s captain used leela as a literal text generator to write the summary paragraphs we’re reading in those logs

[scenic iron]

What about this version of Leela tho. What happened to her

[eternal knoll]

maybe same maybe not

[latent python]

She exploded their internet

[sudden pollen]

😭

[jagged rose]

The scariest part is that even people without preexisting mental conditions aren't exempt from AI psychosis

[sudden pollen]

It is truly horrifying to read about

[floral slate]

for real

[sudden pollen]

A great read that I found for my CS Ethics final presentation on "Dangers of Long-Term Generative AI use:" National Library of Medicine (“AI Psychosis”): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12712562/

Would probably be applicable to Marathon universe as well lol

[jagged rose]

One thing I miss about not being in education is not having access to fun things like JSTOR

[scenic iron]

I wonder if Earth will make a Marathon 2 ship and try to find a new planet again after all this stuff happened

[dreamy hawk]

No clue! Other than her core was forcibly removed.

[scenic iron]

Maybe this time it won't fail haha 😆

[eternal shell]

marathon 2: the quest for more money

[dreamy hawk]

Favorite perk of my job, ngl.

[floral slate]

nah i dont think will get that far

not in this current system atlesst

[scenic iron]

Why would they even do that btw. Just destroy the ship unless they wanted the AI to get Intel on Earth and humans

[dreamy hawk]

I’m sure eventually, but not in our games or awareness I think.

[dreamy hawk]

P’fhor don’t have AI in the OG games.

Like the covenant, they make crude copies based off captures human AI.

[fading grail]

I could be wrong but isn’t there actively another ship en route to Tau Ceti during the events of this game? I can’t remember where I saw or heard this

[scenic iron]

Oh ok 👌

[dreamy hawk]

The Equanimity. The UESC rescue/humanitarian effort.

[eternal knoll]

yes, the uesc equanimity. talked about in the arg but not ingame yet

[lunar cove]

In theory they just arrived, or will arrive shortly

[polar stone]

I'm guessing
Recording: Ghost Cat decribes KAALI?

[scenic iron]

I hope we see it in game

[fading grail]

Oh okay thank you I appreciate the source info so I can actually learn what I was trying to say haha

[polar stone]

This sounds like her. Active camouflage, signal jammer.

[eternal knoll]

me too me too

[floral slate]

oh so like brain scans of people to power their computers? fucked up

[scenic iron]

There is a lot Bungie can do with their new game with storyline 🔥 🔥 🔥

[lunar cove]

Extremely funny to get sent on a 97 year sublight journey and they invent FTL technology while you're in transit

[floral slate]

Irl scientists are doing that too, they made human neurons play doom

[lunar cove]

And you show up and the followup group beat you there by a year and they only had to travel for 5 years

[fading grail]

Are the P’fhor just completely gone from Tau Ceti at this point in this game?

[scenic iron]

Haha I know when the ship gets there. "Hey what took you guys so long?!?"

[eternal knoll]

it’s gonna be confusing af to me if and when the equanimity arrives ingame and it’s like “now there’s a SECOND ship at tau ceti!” and whatever ships the uesc and runners are deploying from still go almost completely unmentioned

[polar stone]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1438127268647145574/1485744345117098144/Marathon_6FjyD1OIzb.png?ex=69c2fabf&is=69c1a93f&hm=ab6f73b750eb5524e1bb1743b06e352feb6b58498527a2981e43b93801e24465&=&quality=lossless

We lost our image perms

right

[floral slate]

the Nucaloric Throtter

[eternal knoll]

yes, no direct sign of them, but some mentions

[scenic iron]

So the Marathon never had a battle fleet or defenses to help protect the ship?!?! Interesting and a risky move

[eternal knoll]

eh? real? joke? is throtter some zoomer slang. help this unc

[eternal knoll]

just the cyborgs i guess

[floral slate]

i have no clue

made it up

[lunar cove]

Protect from what?

[floral slate]

wanted to say a spanish word and mixed it with english

saludos desde chile jaja

[eternal knoll]

keep in mind they didnt really have any idea that hostile aliens would be so easily come by

[lunar cove]

They had guns and security to deal with local wildlife or colonial rebellions, but as far as they knew aliens weren't real

Their biggest military concern was the colony attempting to become independent

[eternal knoll]

granted the uesc higher ups probably did know about the jjarro but that’s very not public

[limber summit]

yeah nobody knew Sentient Aliens existed, they probably figured that past a certain point in space it wouldn't be worth pursuing by any human group

[dreamy hawk]

Why risky? They’d never had alien contact before. It also took nearly 70 years to put the marathon together. 1) they likely couldn’t muster a support fleet and 2) that’d make the project even more insane.

[fading grail]

So the colonist of Tau Ceti 4 actively fought the P’fhor right and the current New Cascadia is a rebuild? Sorry for the probably obvious questions but all my original Marathon lore comes from Mandalore Gaming lol

[plucky sierra]

pretty sure it was very defensable

[dreamy hawk]

The Marathon was also equipped with automated defense systems.

The P’fhor used a magnetic pulse to disable them all.

[lunar cove]

The cyborg thing is really funny though it's like "oh btw now that aliens have arrived we brought 10 nukes under the table"

[eternal knoll]

we think new cascadia was pretty successfully defensed by the cyborgs

[plucky sierra]

it is commented on during the Third Martian War, MIDA could have used it as a defensible base, but they didnt

[scenic iron]

Oh ok that makes sense

[lunar cove]

The UESC could never have prepped for the pfhor and the pfhor could never have prepped for Durandal and John Security

[dreamy hawk]

Probably not. The P’fhor only made it to the surface in limited numbers, if at all. The bulk of everything happened in orbit.

The colony did cover up/hide all traces of the “security incident” aboard the marathon though.

[fading grail]

Interesting. It makes you wonder if we ever fight the P’fhor in a modern game like this one how much they would resemble the Covenant from Halo lol

[eternal knoll]

we all sure hope so

not toooo covenanty tho plz

[lunar cove]

It's like if Columbus showed up and the Mayans had F-16s

[fading grail]

Wort wort wort!

[scenic iron]

Yes there is a chance we fight the P'fhor let's go

[eternal knoll]

pfhor say “hom hom nim nim”

[scenic iron]

We will make them bleed for what they have done!

[eternal knoll]

i goddamn love shootin pfhor

[fading grail]

I also don’t understand how one single Compiler can be such a threat when I assume in the original trilogy they were gunned down by the hundreds

[eternal knoll]

some combination of “this one’s got something different about it,” “the security officer was in serious beast mode,” and a plain old retcon

[lunar cove]

Imagine if you weren't John Destiny fighting a Cabal soldier you were just some guy

[floral slate]

also this supposed to be the lesser variant of compiler if theyr still have ranks

[north silo]

I think this one is either very high ranking or special in some way

[eternal knoll]

durandal did say the s’pht under the pfhor deliberately fought poorly, the one in cryo is sincere in whatever fucked up thing it’s doing. so maybe we just never saw their full power before

[floral slate]

the purple compiler had homming proyectiles like the cryo one has

[north silo]

What’s said in the weird intrusions into gameplay when you do DNA network stuff anyway?

[lunar cove]

The s'pht version of John Rookie from ODST

[north silo]

Is it just alien voices or are there words? There have been so many callouts in the footage I’ve seen I’m not sure lol

[floral slate]

i really hope they get compilers loose on the normal maps and are invincible since you cant do the puzzle thingy

cue resident evil chase music

[lunar cove]

I definitely saw a compiler in a trailer fighting someone on a map with trees

[floral slate]

that trailer is OLD tho...

hoping it might be a thing but idk

[fading grail]

I own RE 2,3 and now 4 remake and haven’t played a single one haha Steam backlog problems

[floral slate]

lmao

[fading yew]

we also saw the second floor of complex in the launch music video

[fading grail]

It’s insane to me how accurate the main trailer/cinematic was to the actual gameplay. Absolutely wild in this day and age.

I can’t think of a single other video game that sold its entire game in its cinematic.

[long pollen]

https://tenor.com/view/pyro-tf2-flare-gun-fireworks-gif-501047325175825035

i can

[floral slate]

i cant think of another game that sold me on its graphic design of all things

[fading grail]

That’s fair but Valve is on a different level 😂

[floral slate]

maybe wipeout or jet set radio

[long pollen]

true but im loving the meet the thief that just came out

now we need a recon one

[kindred orbit]

It's a red cloak, it's not a high ranker at all.

[fading grail]

The industrial, high visibility design of everything is so damn accurate. Everything has serial numbers and high visibility. Insane that they got probably the closest to what it would actually look like.

[floral slate]

for real real yeah

[long pollen]

lets be honest og marathons hardest difficulty they were still tanky even the ones at the beginning

[fading grail]

Were the S’pht high ranking in the P’fhor hierarchy?

[floral slate]

its so real that i admit ive been using it as inspirtion for work, im a graphic designer

[long pollen]

they were literally slaves or some shit

the compilers were anyways

i cant remember shit

[fading grail]

That’s amazing and thank you for saying that. I’m glad it’s had that effect on you they really cooked with Marathon

[kindred orbit]

Slaves with 2 Ranks. Red cloaks are Low ranks, Purple is high rank

[floral slate]

they sure did make something special

[fading grail]

Interesting. Did the P’fhor have the whole religious angle that the Covenant did or was it purely enslavement?

[kindred orbit]

Mega slavers, so more in line with something like the Drukhari, with a lot less torture, but just as britsl

[fading grail]

Ugghhh no one likes something even resembling the Drukhari existing in the same universe haha

[lilac ice]

i see a lot of similarities to the 40k universe. rampant AI, BoBs, full colonization of Mars, and an omnipotent force simply defined as Chaos

[eternal knoll]

the spht are the more religious ones, tho it’s almost more like mythologized history because they rly were uplifted by the jarro (think forerunners)

the pfhor do have gods tho, theyre mentioned

[long pollen]

i just hope we get to see the security officer at some point. like imagine we have to fight a fully interdimensional time traveling dude

[fading grail]

Interesting. Also, random, but if AI have to follow the rule of three as I understand it why were there supposedly 11 on TC4? Was the rule of three thing after the Marathon had left? But then again the Marathon followed the rule of three

[long pollen]

and it lets you unlock the minigun

[floral slate]

even if you shoot him he will simply keep coming at you in the timeline he dodges all bullets

[eternal knoll]

the 11 werent mentioned in the orig. i guess it’s just like, yknow, not every number of significance has to be seven, ya gotta mix it up sometimes

[floral slate]

hed look like an invinsible ad stuck in low ping lag

that be funny

[eternal knoll]

it’s hard for me to imagine security officer having justice done to him by a boss fight but ya never know

he should just feel like a very hard pvp fight

[long pollen]

on top of this hes just running around punching things

[eternal knoll]

not a bullet sponge with a puzzle attached

[long pollen]

actually cannonic

[fading grail]

Wouldn’t the Security Officer be a bubbling mess of Android rampancy lol

[floral slate]

i still think would be hilarious if we played as him in a pvp mode like tf2's vs mann mode

[long pollen]

destroyer secret interaction with security officer

he sees him on fire

nobody elsedoes

can you u imagine bro

[floral slate]

security officer gently removing the spine off the destroyer

[eternal knoll]

the other problem with making security officer a boss fight is that then he would lose the fight. that’s impossible!

[floral slate]

true

[fading grail]

Just make him a boss fight you can’t win. A trap, if you will 😂

[long pollen]

what if he just says "well its been a good marathon" then runs away so he doesnt die but drops the minigun he didnt use the whole fight

[eternal knoll]

lol

[floral slate]

timetravel makes my head small

[sage lark]

theres a destroyer background you can get idk if its from cryo and its a kind of remake of that art of the SO with the spine detached in his hand

[eternal knoll]

a very good dark soul to you

[long pollen]

it goes so hard

i need it

[fading grail]

Casualty does that to me

[floral slate]

RAAAAAAA WARFRAMEEEE

[queen kraken]

oh that's sick

[fading grail]

Jesus shit I still don’t understand what homie did to deserve being exploded like that lol. Other homie just puked and died this guy got violated

[sage lark]

contagion vs anomaly

[dark remnant]

Btw what's the ranked skin this season?

[sage lark]

redacted

[floral slate]

bro got into the meatgrinder anomaly

[sage lark]

but theres a cool multitool skin and a holographic animated repeater skin

[dark remnant]

As in we don't know or its literally called redacted

[sage lark]

2 cosmetics for guns and one is redacted

they said something about a destroyer skin

but im not sure

[dark remnant]

You have to get to plat?

[queen kraken]

my guy got slimed like a Stalker NPC

[sage lark]

plat is for the multitool skin

pinnacle is for the repeater skin

lmao

[queen kraken]

that multitool skin does kinda rule

[floral slate]

stalker isnt an extraction shooter but would be fun if dire marsh had actual hazardous anomalies like in those games that could end your run

[dark remnant]

What rank is destroyer?

[sage lark]

even the emblems and titles are redacted

[sage lark]

redacted

[fading grail]

Lmao like the first STALKER in CoP who just kind of walked into the flame anomaly at the start lol

[dark remnant]

Gold

[sage lark]

is it?

[floral slate]

exactly

[dark remnant]

Yeah bungie has it up

[sage lark]

how does it look

[floral slate]

its more similar to the springboard anomaly of the games

it liquifies you and condenses your atoms to fine dust

[dark remnant]

Dunno they don't have an image

Also so ranked is just get loot and rank up yeah

[sage lark]

yeah

but you are kinda forced to pvp

[dark remnant]

That's fine

I'll try and get plat atleast

I'm already going against purple kitted teams when I play with actually competent people

[floral slate]

hey, aliens are an anomaly. They could release s'pht to dire marsh

like how they released frogs to australia

[sage lark]

I want the Vandal Cryo skin

[dreamy hawk]

I missed a lot during my meeting I see. 👀

[tepid nimbus]

Even though it isn't lore but nobody answered in the other chat so I'm asking here. Are we still Series customization or has that been cancelled?

[dreamy hawk]

What do you mean by “Series customization?”

[sage lark]

you can customize the color

[floral slate]

the having fully costumizable shells?

[dark remnant]

I have keys for 1,4,5,6. I'm trying to get at least two of each

[sage lark]

but me personally am not Series customization

[dreamy hawk]

How? 🥲

[sage lark]

did you find 6 in Lockdown?

[tepid nimbus]

You have Model which is the shell then you have Style which is the color and then you have Series which for Vandal is Glitch I heard they were going to add customization to that

[fading grail]

I’ve gotten keys off of Wraith Warden pretty consistently

[dreamy hawk]

Oh the teams I infill with never wanna fight. Noted.

[sage lark]

wardens, lockdown, locked rooms can drop em yeah

[dark remnant]

No, got it from a intercept

[sage lark]

luckyyyyy

[dreamy hawk]

Ah no. That sounds like it was when the shells were more individuals than what we’ve got now.

[sage lark]

id wait till they buff subroutine spawns tho

[dreamy hawk]

Unless the different skins count as a “series.”

[floral slate]

wait you can change colors now? please tell me it isnt like destiny shaders

[fading grail]

I’m honestly really glad they didn’t go this route

[dark remnant]

I lost a 5 yesterday unfortunately, we just had a team waiting above us after we finished a fight

[dark remnant]

I think they should be guaranteed personally

[sage lark]

punching every thief in the throat

because they stole 2 of my keys

[dreamy hawk]

I just had to do one more run this morning… lost all my nice purple stuff. 😭

[floral slate]

lose everything factory is booming bussiness

[fading grail]

That’s how I feel about Rooks. Peacefully trying to sneak into my exfil? Bad call 😂

[sage lark]

every rook and every thief is getting it between their eyes

no remorse

[lofty sand]

Guys

I need help lol

[sage lark]

lol

[lofty sand]

With lore. I’ve been watching videos.

[fading grail]

The plot thickens

[lofty sand]

Why would anyone want to load their conscious in to wherever the fuck they are and what’s the benefit of being a runner

[sage lark]

immortality

[lofty sand]

I have really fallen into a rabbit whole with durandal and tycho and the phor

But doesn’t your conscious begin to degrade

[latent python]

Yep!

[floral slate]

its probably cheaper than living on earth

[acoustic comet]

Okay, so I have to ask once again I apologize if I skimmed over this but I really haven't been reading this thread every single day.. so there's like a ship right? A ship orbiting tc4 with shell printers and either disembodied brains or consciousness of the runners and they just get beamed down everyday to salvage whatever loot they can right?

[floral slate]

if its still even living

[astral crown]

I kind of have a theory that we arent even humans in the first place, but actually fragmented AIs that are slowly going rampant

[fading grail]

That’s the idea; live objectively forever, forget who you even were to begin with.

[latent python]

Presumably

[acoustic comet]

Are the runners disembodied brains or consciousness on like the future equivalent of a USB drive?

[astral crown]

There is some documents from CyAcme that support this

[sage lark]

yes, but its not really explained so we are left assuming

[acoustic comet]

Either way, it kind of reminds me of battle Angel alita, we're there so many people who basically trade their bodies for cybernetic substitutes

[fading grail]

Imagine your consciousness as a file on a computer. The shell is a folder.

[burnt nebula]

Welp... the Colony Landing Day Holiday PSA took a turn for the worse 🤣

[acoustic comet]

Oh okay okay yeah that makes sense now

[latent python]

Everyone here is saying they need help but they're already right

[acoustic comet]

But are they on like a ship that's orbiting the planet? Obviously that ship doesn't have unlimited supplies, so is it like a shuttle ships going back and forth from Earth to tc4?

[latent python]

Whatever ship is housing the shells and stuff is within teleportation distance

[burnt nebula]

All they need is to be able to feed the worms

[eternal knoll]

well yknow. what’s benefit of being a merc irl? maybe if youre a real violent psycho you do that work by choice, but especially in a scifi dystopia, it’s probably something you just end up doing because one way or another you had to

[acoustic comet]

And the ship hasn't been revealed right?

[burnt nebula]

The worms probably can or have been genetically modified to source local food sources

[latent python]

Yeah we're not sure exactly what ship it is

[astral crown]

Call that ship the Triathlon

[floral slate]

The voyage of the marathon is literally known as a sacrifice, they are on their own

[lofty sand]

https://youtu.be/ZQxsh2mBvNg?si=KLok9WcRI-JE_Vr9

[acoustic comet]

Oh okay I see it

[tepid nimbus]

That's kinda ass. It also makes less sense because wouldn't that make them less like characters and more like a Car which has multiple different versions throughout the years in different colors. They wanted to pull away from the Hero feel which is why they changed the names to begin with idk why step backwards in customization when keeping them with the same look kinda makes them feel like Characters than being interchangeable Shells

[lofty sand]

I’ve watching this and it’s insane

[acoustic comet]

One thing that's a little immersion breaking for me is how the marathon crashes through tc4's moon.. TBH it kind of seems like something that you see in a cartoon, but I know that there's probably an explanation for it like hyperdrive or something like that

[sage lark]

they couldnt pivot hard enough

theyd have to make more assets etc

and thats not a job done in a couple months

[burnt nebula]

I think I would have preferred custom shells to hero shells tbh

[sage lark]

I think the way they have it explained right now is fine

[eternal knoll]

it’s partly a game design thing. it’s important to be able to tell at a glance that the hooded guy could go invis on you

[burnt nebula]

it didnt crash. thats a moon from mars and its part of the ship

[sage lark]

wdym wouldnt it be awesome having to guess who im fighting

[lunar cove]

I choose to view each shell as a single, Team Fortress style character. When you see Recon getting slimed out in every single cinematic, that's the same guy

[acoustic comet]

Whoops my mistake

[floral slate]

im fine with the current shells cuz they all look equally nice tbh

[acoustic comet]

I had no idea

[floral slate]

especially rook

[keen plank]

Runners are individuals who have agreed to give up their original body to preserve their consciousness and achieve a degree of immortality. This procedure is not without risks, such as cognitive decline. Which we see in the trailer.

However, the real cost is utterly massive amounts of debt that generally results in Runners consciousness being turned into indentured servitude, forced labor, wetwork mercenaries, or worse. They live forever, but in the case of say, a Cyberacme Runner, there's expected monthly charges and fees to cover repair and maintenance debt.

Think of it like this:

"Hey, you get to live forever! But that debt WILL be paid one way or another. In exchange what's left of you mind and memories gets to be a pilot to a remote-controlled 3d printed mech. We're on version 5.0 and here are the 7 (soon to be 8) models."

[burnt nebula]

yeah martians werent happy about it lol. the corpos stole their moon

[long pollen]

i thought runners were consciousness of ex humans inhabiting shells

[latent python]

The Marathon used to look more like a potato

[long pollen]

i miss that potato look it had

[floral slate]

id transcision into a robot

[latent python]

They are, probably

[acoustic comet]

So if you're a runner, and you manage to pay off your debt to whatever Corporation, technically you can get rewarded a 3D printed human body?

Obviously there's going to be a catch right

[latent python]

Probably!

[long pollen]

lore wise each body is extremely expensive

[eternal knoll]

the big trailer cinematic we all love rly played into the ambiguities around how identity works while yr interfacing with a shell personality, it fits the themes and anxieties of the game in a lovely way, and i’m glad tge game’s ideas around shell identities were retooled to be a closer match for what the cinematic toys with

[keen plank]

Also seems like there’s custom made shells too, and some shells have been modified or created over time. Thief and Vandal shells were both created by third parties.

[floral slate]

i dont think they getting outta the debt bruh

thats for eternity

[acoustic comet]

Yeah that makes sense, it's kind of like an avatar where Jake Sully can easily get his legs replaced but he can't because it's so expensive

[acoustic comet]

Oh no I 100% agree, I am just thinking that that's what the runners were promised

[latent python]

All I know is I'm not getting out of debt

[burnt nebula]

its a deal with the devil so to speak. eternal slavery in exchange for immortality. they keep seinding you on suicide missions to pay off your debt and all you do is rack up more debt.

[keen plank]

Some have. White Rabbit is an example. Charter is presumably another. Orion may be a third example.

There’s seemingly custom made and custom designed shells that are much more expansive.

[acoustic comet]

But yeah all the cyborg stuff and the disembodied consciousness definitely reminds me of battle Angel Alita especially with the brain chips, I don't know if they're any fans of that series here but if there aren't, you should definitely check it out, it's very similar but also very different

[long pollen]

i dont think they are in debt they are just mercenaries

[lunar cove]

Triage joined to pay for med school, Vandal wants to spraypaint stuff, Assassin joined because he's an evil sociopath who wants to kill for eternity

[tepid nimbus]

Well that's why you wouldn't change the silhouette just change the plating and even internal design. Imagine if a Shell Series where the wires and internal organs are viewable and you can put that on with the different Styles which would change the color. You still know that's Vandal but her design is just different instead of the color being swapped. The only skins that actually change the Shells design are paid cosmetics or Cryo Archives

[burnt nebula]

they owe trillions and can only stack up to 10 million. they cant even pay it off lol

[keen plank]

The vast majorly are, including us. ONI outright says as much. And we have monthly quotas, maintenance fees, etc…

[latent python]

Oh don't worry, more skins are coming

And you will pay for every skin

[long pollen]

so wait we were playing lethal company this entire time!?!?

wtf

[eternal knoll]

buying every skin even for shells i don’t play so sony doesnt shut this game down

[acoustic comet]

Yeah Sony is definitely not shutting this game down even if it underperforms

[eternal knoll]

not ever? wow

[burnt nebula]

your contribution is like a drop in the ocean tho lol

[keen plank]

In a sense, yeah. But the corporation in Lethal Company is more incompetent than sinister.

Traxus would eat its lunch.

[sage lark]

right im overjoyed sony is so generous lmao

[acoustic comet]

I know I'm going to get crucified for saying this, but I was a fan of Concord and I actually do believe that Sony was wrong to pull the plug so quick on it, and to be honest he may surprise for some people here but the movement in Marathon is actually very similar to Concord, that's why I like Marathon

[lofty sand]

Marathon Themesong

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=FLTx18QMXmE&si=of_rzSUDIO3p-p_Z

[acoustic comet]

I just wish it was a little bit more PVP focused but obviously that's not the point

[long pollen]

im oretty sure that anything in marathon would annihlate other sci fi realms

[sage lark]

even more PVP focused lol

[keen plank]

Well, maybe not any. 40k laughs and would find this universe cute and safe.

[lofty sand]

When dreaming I'm guided to another world
Time and time again
At sunrise I fight to stay asleep
'Cause I don't wanna leave the comfort of this place
'Cause there's a hunger, a longing to escape
From the life I live when I'm awake
So let's go there
Let's make our escape
Come on, let's go there
Let's ask, "Can we stay?"
🤣🤣🤣

[eternal knoll]

it wasn’t a dream…

[burnt nebula]

i dont think sony would shut the game down. theyre in a really crappy situation. they game is "good enough" and has some hardcore fans but its not really a success. if they did shut it down they would destroy their brand even more, people would have even less confidence in sony. they need to consider this a long time good will investment tbh.

[long pollen]

lol true but the jarro are probably on the same level as some of the things in warhammer

[lofty sand]

Let’s make out escape

[eternal knoll]

looking forward to this new era for sony where they make good branding decisions

[acoustic comet]

Well that will be easier said than done especially since Horizon Hunter's Gathering and fair games are getting the same hate that Concord was getting. Either they shut those games down or they have to add some kind of single-player component

[floral slate]

we should bleed corporations more often

[lunar cove]

Warhammer is bigger in scale and shittier than a lot of more mainstream sci-fi, leaving fans to assume it's the biggest and shittiest but actually it's only medium big and medium shitty ngl

[sage lark]

they pulled future PC ports so, which I understand why they did financially but yk not a very good will decision

[acoustic comet]

I think marathon is safe, even if it is a financial disappointment for Sony in the short term. I think it'll be a boon for them in the long term

[lunar cove]

Shitty as in place to live not quality of the franchise

[keen plank]

Jaro are kind of similar to Eldar. W'rkncacnter are akin to strong chaos demons.

[burnt nebula]

probably just to hide the player counts lol

[lunar cove]

Imagine how much it'd suck to live in fucking Flatland or something, Tau Ceti would be paradise

[foggy talon]

does anyone know where outpost is, like is it actually on tau ceti or no

[eternal knoll]

marathon is prolly safe in that it’ll run for a while, my concern is more “will they keep getting money to make more of this, to rly advance the story in big ways”

[burnt nebula]

where else would it be?

[lunar cove]

Yeah it's like the arrivals terminal for the spaceport

[long pollen]

who would win 1 ork pilot or durandal

[sage lark]

no cuz of the rise in RAM prices and hardware in general so they want people to buy their consoles and games there instead of waiting on PC releases, so they can generate more revenue

[lunar cove]

It's Tau Ceti's ATL

[acoustic comet]

Yeah it's on tc4, it was the first settlement by humans on the planet

[floral slate]

marathon already has surpassed the lifespan of concord and highguard so i dont really think its reasonable to keep saying its gonna fail or something

it already didnt

[keen plank]

Durandal. Ork Boiz get stronger when there’s more of them.

[foggy talon]

ohh okay interesting the sky just looks so much different there that i thought it was like on a small moon nearby

[lunar cove]

You can see other Pinwheel prefabs on the Marathon's hull that haven't been landed

[eternal shell]

just gotta outlast the megacorp that holds your debt

[floral slate]

and then what? thats gonna be around the heat death of the universe

[acoustic comet]

Oh yeah, but they're definitely people rooting for Marathon to fail, it's quite disturbing

[burnt nebula]

then freeze to death

[long pollen]

lets first familiarized ourself with an ork cockpit and lets take a second to remember that ork ace pilots fight their ways out of enemy backlines

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/777796030603067413/1018769229647982592/Deff_Skwadron_Cockpit.png?ex=69c2d708&is=69c18588&hm=ef91dde4b6286cd76b4dfdefc0ab99674502c29ecd20297840ba55740cc12f97&

[floral slate]

durandal thought he was so smart and didnt think thought of this

[eternal shell]

step 1: outlast megacorp
step 2: escape closing universe
step 3: ?????
step 4: PROFIT!!1

[lunar cove]

Durandal thought of it too hard that's why he was so scared

[floral slate]

no now you making me feel sad for durandal

😭

[burnt nebula]

i tink the "escape will make me god" thing means he expects to become so powerful he can survive the heat death of the universe and/or be the catalyst for the new beginning of the universe

[keen plank]

As myself and others have misremembered, Durandal wants to escape the Big Crunch, not the heat death of the universe.

One’s caused by entropy. The other by contraction.

[lunar cove]

Durandal when he's ambushing unsuspecting Pfhor battleships with his upgraded Boomer: haha fuck yes

Durandal when the W'rkncacnter escapes: what the fuck

[floral slate]

both still require GOD to

[latent python]

What if Durandal messed up the calculations and was wrong about the big crunch

[burnt nebula]

what i wanna know is about that landing day holiday PSA. i need to get the last piece of PSA lore!

[latent python]

He gets 500 trillion years into his plan to escape and finds out he's escaping from the wrong thing

[eternal knoll]

yes marathon very much assumes big crunch. the implied mechanism is that the survivor god entity makes it to that final moment and thus somehow comprises all the physical matter and energy of the universe contained in a single point, thus positioning them to initiate the next big bang

[burnt nebula]

the real escape is the friends we made along the way

[dreamy hawk]

Heat Death wasn’t really a popular concept back then iirc?

not an astrophysicist

[sage lark]

Understandings of the universe change

So i guess it changed

[dreamy hawk]

Like currently.

[visual lynx]

that is never implied

[dreamy hawk]

Damn you, James Webb!

[latent python]

"that galactic contraction's gonna start any time now. Aaaany time. Aaaaaaaany time now"

[timber loom]

It was obv not destined to fail that miserably as these games, but what still lingers is budget cuts if Sony deems game not successful enough

[visual lynx]

it was a feature of two of the three possible outcomes back then, with the closed possibility that Durandal settles on the only one not featuring it.

then in 1998 we realized there was a fourth possibility nobody had even considered.

[timber loom]

I don't mind if they make game free, add pve mode, add abmm or anything, as long as development won't be halted

[distant cedar]

#stop killing games

[latent python]

We've beaten Concord and Highguard? We Are The Champions starts playing

[dreamy hawk]

I had barely started speaking, then, so I’ll forgive my knowledge gap. 😂

[eternal knoll]

we can agree to disagree about what’s implied. it’s not stated, but durandal does frame things in big crunch terms, he does seem to survive into a singularity moment, he seems to come to new grand mythopoetic understandings in that moment, and the imagery is of a hand of creation and destiny being forged in a firey furnace

[visual lynx]

I don't want to start a big physics fight over it or anything but I actually think that the accelerating expansion discovered in 1998 offers an escape from heat death, rather than (as is so often assumed) being the driver of it (when 2/3 of the possibilities already featured it before we even knew about dark energy).

[acoustic comet]

Amen

[floral slate]

acceleration expansion is the thing that everything in the universe is gettting further away from an origin point, right?

[timber loom]

This. And bungie being big, while also having Destiny dead, places them in a weak spot

[distant cedar]

My hope is that they give us self hosting if not just straight up PVE access if it comes to end of service

if not, it is something im willing to fight over

[sudden pollen]

Crazy that people are already doom posting about the future decline of the game two weeks in

[acoustic comet]

Think Marathon will ever go free to play in the future? Obviously not anytime soon, but like two or three years from now?

[sudden pollen]

Can we not start another discussion about htis

God

[dreamy hawk]

https://youtu.be/yDAAlojz8NU?si=6Dgw0wRobJ2jM8Mv

[dreamy hawk]

Somewhat related and from my favorite folks.

[sudden pollen]

Do you want the monetization to become far more horrible like Destiny did? People hated that

[floral slate]

durandal mentality is getting to us

[sage lark]

Durandal 1: Which end of the universe are we escaping again?
Durandal 2: Idfk im trapped on the Marathon because of you dumbass.

[acoustic comet]

Oh no I don't, but I was just thinking about that simply because of the fact that perhaps Marathon even though it's successful, might not be quite as successful as Sony had hoped

I think the monetization with marathon is perfectly fine as it is right now

Sadly video games simply just can't make money anymore, they have to make all the money as Jim Sterling would put it

[timber loom]

You literally can buy everything from money shop for what, 60 bucks? It's less than you need to get relic from one Apex Legends event

[acoustic comet]

That's why we'll never get a remake of Dead Space 2, I'll never forgive EA for that

And Sony should realize that extraction Shooters are never going to be the big money printer as regular Shooters will be

They're a long-term investment,

[floral slate]

i mean they better do or they go outta business

[dreamy hawk]

Just to keep in mind, we don’t know what the goals were for Marathon, or what they consider “success.”

[eternal knoll]

i do think it’d be neat if this game moved away from the big crunch hypothesis despite that seemingly being the framework durandal spoke about in m1. but im not rly attached to it bein accurate to real world physics. we have teleportation and ftl in this

[acoustic comet]

But anyway back to the lore discussion, do you think there will be more factions added in the future? Or has it already been said?

[latent python]

They have said there will be more factions

[dreamy hawk]

Probably Definitely. And there’s still a lot of room to explore current ones.

[timber loom]

UESC being next is my bet

[acoustic comet]

Imagine if there's like an entertainment corporation that wants you to do stylized skills or something like that, basically marathons version of Sony haha

[long pollen]

it was just a human expedition to colonize other planets wasnt it

[timber loom]

Colony was set up

[dreamy hawk]

Orion gonna be pissed. He’s going to make Durandal look low sodium.

[latent python]

The Tony Hawk corporation

[timber loom]

They chose TCIV for a reason

[acoustic comet]

But how would that fit into the actual game of marathon? Isn't the point to try to take the uesc resources?

[eternal knoll]

you could stay hostile to bots to maintain yr cover or somethin, idk

[floral slate]

runners were first employed by the uesc

[brazen quartz]

What if the runners unionize and form a runner faction

[timber loom]

As I said before, Cerberus will go crazy because of the Anomaly and UESC will lose their robot army which would make them rely on runners

[floral slate]

mida 2?

[scenic iron]

I would buy some skins but none I want atm

[acoustic comet]

Hey, we're contacting you because we had originally hoped to provide the residents of tc4 the latest in future entertainment!

[floral slate]

wait arachne

[scenic iron]

Also, they are $15 each, no?

[eternal knoll]

in far cry 2 you would
do jobs for either of the two factions but theyd keep reminding you, “don’t expect our guys to know who you are, they’ll kill you if they see you”

[timber loom]

More like 10 bucks, except new Azazel one

[latent python]

Also: I was completely correct in saying I want an F1 livery skin because I found a thread that F1 was one of the inspirations for the art direction

Victory lap for me

[scenic iron]

I'll get around to buying the battle pass one day

I normally don't like buying them until I finish the pass, but with Marathon you don't have to worry about FOMO 🔥 🔥 🔥

[timber loom]

I don't mind if they fill the shop eververse style, destiny was 60 bucks plus expansions and still have this big crazy shop which almost everyone seems to be fine with, as long as you have at least grindy way to get a skin that you want

[acoustic comet]

Honestly I kind of do think it would be cool if the future version of Disney Corporation in the marathon Universe was involved in this game haha, maybe they had originally hoped to provide premium entertainment for the colonists but since they're all gone that's not possible

But it probably wouldn't fit into the whole style of the game

[floral slate]

isnt that the lore with joy?

[scenic iron]

You would have to wonder if Disney was still around during the events of the Marathon games

[eternal knoll]

so true. by not mentioning whomever the entertainment giant is in sol, we can all just assume it’s disney

perhaps we are meant to assume it’s sony

[scenic iron]

Like Sony and Nintendo haha would they survive or MS for gaming

Too bad devs can't use companies in their games without paying the royalties

[dreamy hawk]

Oh I meant Bungie/Sony’s goals. In lore yeah. Well. Publicly. Secretly it’s implied they knew there’d by something on Tau Ceti IV.

[scenic iron]

It would be cool 😎

[scenic iron]

Alien technology?

[dreamy hawk]

Jjaro technology, specifically. Or they knew about the W’rk, or something. We just know that they knew about [REDACTED] and there’s some logs from colonists accusing the UESC of setting them up.

[dreamy hawk]

CyAc, would be my lore answer.

[eternal shell]

i would hope no company that exists today would exist in 800 years

[scenic iron]

It seems like the UESC can't be trusted

[eternal shell]

could you imagine how something like that would work

[dreamy hawk]

lolno. No one can.

There are no “good guys” in marathon. The SO was arguably just following orders, so I wouldn’t even call them “good.”

[long cliff]

I know it was probably discussed already, but this game's timeline isn't the one from infinity, right?

[dreamy hawk]

The final infinity timeline does appear to be the one we’re in, with some ongoing caveats.

This is a bit dated now but: #📚marathon-lore-discussion message

But really it remains to be officially determined.

[eternal knoll]

i guess the only caveats i’d make to that is it probably wasnt durandal-thoth that sent the “somewhere in the heavens” message but IDEA-durandal instead

[jagged rose]

No way, IKEA Doorhandle?

[dreamy hawk]

I’d need to look a little more, but I think the better way to put it is there’s a lot on that timeline that “fits” but we have zero confirmation for.

[eternal knoll]

yea

very speculative point but i were today’s bungie i would def try to find an angle for the new game that preserves the trilogy as mostly true while also seeding fertile ground with new stories involving a durandal who feels true to his original character, not like the one who already completed his story arc of ascension

and it’s def looking a bit like they may have found a way to thread that needle

[dreamy hawk]

There’s a gal in one of the ViDocs that I cannot for the life of me find, but she did state that NuMarathon is a spiritual successor, even if it’s not a 1:1 prequel/sequel, so that does seem to at least be the goal.

They didn’t throw out everything, but not everything is going to necessarily be the same or play out the same way. IIRC a lot of M1 is uncertain just based off MI (but I never finished MI myself).

[eternal knoll]

i think it’s mainly m2 that gets heavily rewritten by MI

[dreamy hawk]

M2 does in its entirety, but there’s bits that I’m not sure when they happen. Like I know on the winning timeline Tycho has the SO, and I think that means we end up with the P’fhor sometime at the end of M1, then, for example.

And the other cyborgs got captured and put in slave tanks, too. I think those are post M1/pre M2 but I truthfully don’t remember.

`So, you came around earlier than the scientist expected. Remind me to have him executed. You've been in cold sleep for some time, but you're luckier than some of your friends-not all of you survived the translation to the Pfhor slave tanks.

If you're a little lightheaded, then let me bring you up to speed. I am Tycho, Artificial Intelligence esquire. As of this moment, I am taking over this ship from its poor captain. He is spending most of his time trying to keep me from locking onto him and dropping him into space. Soon.`

[eternal knoll]

in a way the SO getting picked up by the pfhor after the events of M1 could
be more consistent with M1’s ending than the beginning of M2 is

[fading yew]

Im wondering: what does Earth look like in the marathon universe? Is it just barren or does it look like Earth in Wall-E?

[eternal knoll]

durandal says bye bye and leaves you behind at the end of M1, M2 seemed to conveniently ignore that

[dreamy hawk]

I’d imagine Cyberpunkesque.

[lunar cove]

I don't know if they show it but people are still around, it probably just sucks

It'd probably be like shittier blade runner

[kindred orbit]

Not until the end of Envy where it's implied they become meta-stable

[kindred orbit]

Imagine the Marathon and some of New Cascadia but Skyscrapers.

[fading yew]

Yeah i can imagine that tbh

[kindred orbit]

So bright colors, big scale, but everything under that is broken and or cramped

[dreamy hawk]

Don’t say the “m” word around here. You’re going to get a lecture. 😂

[kindred orbit]

They can't handle the truth

[finite night]

I'd say it was just retconned since I don't think they expected to marathon sell so much

[dreamy hawk]

(As others have stated, “meta-stable” is only mentioned once and it’s used as an adjective for rampancy.)

[red flicker]

In the codex it takes about how they ruined Mars so bad they can't even see the Sun, and additionally that Mars was supposed to be the "new earth". So by correlation, Earth's living conditions/quality of life is worse than "can't see the sun"

[finite night]

Or they planned marathon infinity shiranigans since 2

[dreamy hawk]

Infinity’s story, I think, was a little last minute but I forget. @visual lynx would know.

[eternal knoll]

probably this yea. but then MI kinda played around with the retcon

a big sentiment of MI’s story which isn’t so widely discussed now is that it says, “make a marathon campaign of your own, it’s canon in a sense”

[finite night]

Still funny how durandal left you on ship and while you cleaning up last phfor off ship he decided to steal you right before leaving the system

[eternal knoll]

we kinda took it in the opposite light and looked for ways to parse out The Truth. so it goes

[finite night]

MI's story for me seems like Cyborg who has phfor tech in him on top of being revived corpse of reincarnated hero (player) experiencing his own fucked up version of rampancy

[dreamy hawk]

Implied Jjaro tech. Not P’fhor.

[eternal knoll]

i never got much from the rampant cyborg theory. what he does with that rampancy is just help durandal out? that’s not very rampant

the timehopping thing is a different thing from rampancy imo

[dreamy hawk]

The P’fhor are a technological dead end of an empire that only knows how to steal or repurpose existing technology, and anything they can’t wrap their brains around/reverse engineer they destroy.

And they have a pathetically boring religion, so not a lot going for them.

[kindred orbit]

Only a super weapon that may or may not be gone.

Still wasn't theirs btw

[dreamy hawk]

The chapter names in Infinity along with bits of the Electric Sheep levels imply that the SO is going through his own stages of rampancy.

[eternal knoll]

i see it as the cyborg’s destined role, the advent of durandal-thoth, and the wrkncacnter all being three pieces of a key that fit a big cosmic lock

[dreamy hawk]

He’s a resurrected corpse filled with alien technology bouncing through timelines. His little nut cracked a little.

[fading grail]

Is the security officer JUST a dues ex machina?

[kindred orbit]

Rampancy is an AI wresting it's destiny from the hands of others. That's exactly what the SO does, as stated by Durandal at the Heat Death of the Universe

[finite night]

Yeah my bad

[rigid basin]

Okay so i know this isnt the right place but people on general chat arent helping. Do faction reputation levels reset when a season ends or just their trees?

[finite night]

I keep mistaking them sometimes

[tight condor]

Security officer is such a chad for killing compilers bare handed when we struggle to kill them with guns

[eternal knoll]

they are named that… but do they necessarily apply to him? if they do, is it really rampant for a human to experience a sequence of human emotions? if it is, where’s the part where he actually breaks free of his chains and does something for his own ends? i don’t see it

[dreamy hawk]

No bad; I make mistakes too. 🙏

[dreamy hawk]

Yes.

[fading grail]

If Marathon is anything like Tarkov then everything resets

[kindred orbit]

It's not stated that he is human. He's uploaded more than likely

[rigid basin]

Alright, thanks for the answer ❤️

[dreamy hawk]

SO is a walking WMD.

[eternal knoll]

full reset except for codex stuff i think

[dreamy hawk]

He’s not really human though is he?

[tight condor]

That’s the thing we don’t know for sure that he’s human, at least mentally , he’s a reanimated corpse but we don’t know if he’s an AI or not

[fading grail]

Did the SO do anything besides the timehopping stuff that REALLY set him apart from any other soldier that would have been there? Genuine question

[dreamy hawk]

SO is a corpse driven by electronics.

[eternal knoll]

if he’s an AI then i would expect his rampancy to look much more like durandal’s, which it doesnt!

[tight condor]

Soma did the same thing thematically with Simon

[finite night]

He was dead corpse

[dreamy hawk]

But he’s not AI, either.

[eternal knoll]

i know he was a dead corpse, lol :p

[finite night]

With possibly fake memories implanted

[dreamy hawk]

SO, like Runners, are somewhere between people and AI.

[finite night]

I don't think he is AI

But he isn't pure human either

I mean think about it

Jjaro tech

Corpse of reincarnating hero

[dreamy hawk]

He’s more like a compiler than anything else tbh.

[pure wagon]

Destroying legions of compilers with his fists

[eternal knoll]

i just think we would need to see him do anything that resembled rampancy for a “he’s rampant” theory to be meaningful. he doesn’t. he does some crazy shit but i don’t see how it corresponds to rampancy. the chapter titles arent enough

[tight condor]

It’s the title and what happens in the level,they’re are kinda weird

[pure wagon]

Oh he’s rampant. Rampantly destroying xeno scum

[timber loom]

Cryo Archive Vault 7 using only knife when?

[pure wagon]

Brother i am not Him

[dreamy hawk]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/cma1bb/security_officer_being_original_rampant_ai/?rdt=39864

[eternal knoll]

chapter titles can always be drawing parallels or emotive connections, they don’t have to be so 1:1 literal

i will read dat thanks

[dreamy hawk]

Even Bungo had the rampancy thing in mind, but it sounds like they didn’t want to explicitly come out with it.

“I honestly don't remember exactly what our intent was. There was obviously a whole thread going about ascension to something else, and it was intentionally not stated (think about how boring it would be if we'd just said: oh btw, these dreams are flashbacks from your earlier rampancy and oh gee, btw you are the original rampant AI.) Not saying that was what we were going for. Ultimately, and I'm sorry to admit it, there aren't answers.”
Greg Kirkpatrick

[eternal shell]

based

[finite night]

I don't think he is like rampant AI

[eternal knoll]

yea ok. he almost says don’t take it that straightforwardly lol

[eternal shell]

we're gonna argue about lore for 30 more years and it's awesome

[tight condor]

It’s up to interpretation but still hinted at

[dreamy hawk]

Well, he says it’d be boring if “we’d just said.”

[finite night]

To me his rampancy is parallel to AI rampancy

[dreamy hawk]

Which means they hinted instead.

[eternal knoll]

he says it would be lame if they went with rampant security officer theory :p :p :p

[dreamy hawk]

Instead of spoon feeding.

No. 😂

[finite night]

No?

[tight condor]

No he said it would be lame if they flat out confirmed it

[dreamy hawk]

(think about how boring it would be if we'd just said: oh btw, these dreams are flashbacks from your earlier rampancy and oh gee, btw you are the original rampant AI.)

[tight condor]

[eternal knoll]

i understand i understand i was bein idiomatic

[dreamy hawk]

English may be my second language but I was ready to brawl. 😂

[finite night]

Second game sets it up with security officer being so called reincarnating hero that appears when he is needed

[eternal knoll]

anywhoo, flashbacks to an earlier rampancy somehow embedded in the cyborg tech is still not quite the same thing as the cyborg in infinity displaying and enacting a rampancy

[finite night]

And third game to me feels like more SO slowly realizing that he is indeed that hero

Or rather remembering it who knows lol

And all this time traveling shit happening also because of jjaro tech

[eternal knoll]

that’s all for sure

some weird marriage of a fated role and godlike alien tech

[tight condor]

Time travel mostly

Im guessing he’s the original purely because of the time travel stuff that he doesn’t remember for whatever reason

[dreamy hawk]

Assumedly? We don’t actually know what fuels the travel, do we?

[eternal knoll]

the “dream” levels certainly give some odd insights into the SO’s inner materials, and the way we encounter those certainly resembles an encounter with a rampant AI, but durandal-thoth also seems to be intervening in those levels. whatever’s goin on is surely more complicated than just something arising from the SO

[finite night]

We don't but you can connect the dots

[dreamy hawk]

Yes, but I want to be clear for my sake what’s connected by dots and what’s a hard line.

Ty!

[dreamy hawk]

I believe there’s a hint in epilogue or after somewhere that Thoth/Durandal has been pulling the strings all along. Anyone able to confirm/point me to it?

[finite night]

Game implies SO is packed with jjaro tech, and SO seems to teleport at certain times when he wants or when needed, which cannot be explained with hero stuff because PITD protagonist couldn't teleport

[eternal knoll]

that isn’t quite how i would describe the contents of the epilogue, to me the durandal-thoth string pulling is instead implied by the presence of the weird poetry terminals that pull you you to different timelines

[finite night]

I'm talking one line from epilogue not entirety of its content

"A man long dead, grafted to machines your builders did not understand"

[eternal knoll]

just my read but i think the timehopping scenario requires the simultaneous presence of a being like d-thoth, a being like the SO. and a being like the wrk. it’s a kind of ragnarok. fated to happen so that it can never happen

[eternal knoll]

yea that’s the biggest hint that jjaro tech is involved for sure. i was respondin to the thought that d-thoth takes credit for pulling strings in the epilogue, that’s what i dont quite see in there

[fading yew]

Damn

[dreamy hawk]

Isn’t there always a ship or other device? Humans have teleportation tech.

[dreamy hawk]

No, not that epilogue, I agree. That one is Bungie/Durandal talking to the player, imo. I thought there was another something somewhere.

I’ve heard folks talk about it but I don’t remember reading it myself.

[eternal knoll]

ye, for me the something somewhere is the d-thoth poetry terminals that precede time-jumps

[dreamy hawk]

I don’t remember what I don’t read. 🥲

[dreamy hawk]

It might be one of those. I just don’t remember those because it’s been so long.

[finite night]

When tycho teleport you to space, durandal can't teleport you back he literally doesn't have tech for it

[dreamy hawk]

When does that happen? I’m going to look at some terminals on the bus.

[finite night]

In infinity

[eternal shell]

sounds like its time to play that trilogy!

[finite night]

Tycho teleports you to space to die after you interact with terminal which makes sense

[dreamy hawk]

Idea on which level or where roughly? Infinity is the one I’m least familiar with. I’ll just do my best if not.

“Drink void” will probably be my search string. lol

[finite night]

But then after few seconds you teleport back near one of durandal terminals

[plucky sierra]

one sec

[plucky sierra]

Foe Hammer

Chapter Rage

[eternal knoll]

put it this way: the wrk has the power to destabilize timespace. the SO has the power to manuever through fragmented time. and durandal-thoth has the capacity to guide the SO through that process to guaruntee his own creation. a bit of a fatalistic time paradox, but one which feels like destiny

[finite night]

Keep in mind that you need to do some kind of action to teleport

Either interacting with terminals, entering teleport or some other shit like that

[plucky sierra]

there is not really a statement that Durandal isn't the one that teleports you

[finite night]

Yeah

[plucky sierra]

in fact after he teleports you back he also teleports weapons and ammo to you

so I don't see why the same wouldn't apply to the SO

[finite night]

I was just connecting some dots

[finite night]

Le secret teleport chamber with guns and ammo

I think only time (or atleast what I remember) when you teleport not using pad or similar stuff like that that isn't in infinity is like when you first do scouting on phfor ship

Then again it required some action to go back that being looking at Marathon directly

[dreamy hawk]

Also RIP 😭

Prepare to drink vacuum, fool.
I was right though. Knew he’d say it.

Imust salvage some escape for the humans fighting within my ship, but it's useless without the S'pht.

Destroy as many of the Pfhor compilers on this deck as you can--anything to weaken their hold on my ship.

I will transport in as much ammunition and weapons as I can find.

So Durandal does have a ship, and presumably whatever still exists on Lh'owon, when he teleports you out of the void.

[plucky sierra]

I think by then he is just in the ship, the following level is when he "dies" in that path

[visual lynx]

the segues is between the three classic games are all kind of weird and some like to joke that it’s tradition for each new installment in the marathon series to recon a little bit of the previous one.

The first game ends with the Randall leaving without the security officer, but bungee did already have planned at that point before the first game was released an expansion pack that eventually evolved into marathon too, in which Duran Duran Dahl took the security officer with him at the end of the first game, so why did bungee end the first game in a way that seems to contradict plans they already had for the continuation of the story?

Then in the marathon too, we learn about the work in Kanter trapped inside the Hollands sun, and then the four blow up the sun at the very end, which seems like it’s setting up for some kind of sequel where we have to deal with the consequences of the working catheter being released, and that is indeed what marathon infinity ends up, focusing on, but then why did marathon too have a whole epilogue full of events reaching over 10,000 years into the future, with no mention of any kind of problem from this working attack her release?

And then yes, the idea to even include a solo scenario with marathon infinity was sort of a last-minute audition and bungee also has separate plans for a proper marathon three which is different for a marathon infinity last day eventually canceled because they were more interested in making this instead of continuing the marathon series so what was that marathon three going to be would it have followed up on Duran Duran Randolph‘s voyage to that rogue star would it have involved the knack which it also seems like marathon too, was setting up as a sequel hook

It’s all very confusing

I dictated this message to my phone while driving and I know it’s full of bad transcriptions, but I can’t stop to correct them right now, so please forgive them

[robust vale]

Duran Duran Dahl and the Hollands sun goes craz lmao

[eternal knoll]

i am thankful for the bad transcriptions actually please leave them

[robust vale]

yeah the message came through and the transcriptions are hilarious

[zealous drum]

Duran Duran Dahl is an all timer

[visual lynx]

I may start typing working catheter on purpose from now on

[dreamy hawk]

No this is way funnier as voice to text. Please don’t fix anything.

[lunar cove]

Duran Durandal be like "Hungry like the Wrk"

[dreamy hawk]

Duran Duran Dahl is canon now and I will not be open to suggestions otherwise.

[zealous drum]

it might as well be "working catheter" ill never remember how to spell it

[dreamy hawk]

Turns out it is just a giant space catheter.

[eternal knoll]

bungee why…

[zealous laurel]

I mean "Blinded Me With Science" is very Duran Duran Dahl core, imo

Oh fuck that wasn't Duran Duran was it

[dreamy hawk]

Nope.

[zealous laurel]

Wasn't there a science song?? They did???

[dreamy hawk]

But I’ll pretend I don’t know otherwise.

American Science?

[zealous laurel]

Maybe

The joke still stands (it doesn't I'm just stubborn)

[dreamy hawk]

I’ll give it to you, and since I’m also stubborn, no one can overrule us.

🫏

My username (not the one on the server) translates to “skunk,” because I stink, but I might have to change it to “donkey” since I’m an 🍑. 🤔

[eternal shell]

if it helps, duran duran made invisible

which is a very metal gear song

[dreamy hawk]

I got Pfhorrest auto modded if anyone is wondering what happened to him. I was smart, using an emoji.

🧠

[zealous laurel]

I got automodded for quoting THAT line from Snakes on a Plane but Marathon-ified

[dreamy hawk]

I mentioned the highly-efficient drive used in the Expanse to similar effect.

Morse code might be the only way to keep us safe.

.... . .-.. .-.. --- --..-- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -.. -.-.--

[zealous laurel]

Oof

[livid barn]

if cryo archive in on the marathon then what's the lore reason behind the difference in architectures to the other part of the ship in the og games?

[eternal knoll]

no lore explanation for that rly. the ship has a different design now

[dreamy hawk]

The whole exterior is different from the OG games. There isn’t one. It’s just different now.

[livid barn]

why do I feel like it's a reboot

[dreamy hawk]

A little bit, a little bit not.

[eternal knoll]

call it a faithful reboot

[livid barn]

(the new one's ship design is cooler tho )

[dreamy hawk]

There’s enough overlap with the previous games on certain things that it’s clear they didn’t start over from zero, but it’s still not clear what’s been kept, what’s been altered, and what’s been abandoned entirely.

[lunar cove]

they wanted the ship to look like a sword

[eternal knoll]

and like da logo…

[dreamy hawk]

I liked the old design better but yeah.

[livid barn]

could be the alternate timeline like in infinity?

I don't even play the new game im just here for the lore lmao

[dreamy hawk]

#📚marathon-lore-discussion message

[eternal knoll]

theyre doin a lot to make it seem like this could well be the same final timeline from infinity

[dreamy hawk]

As far as we know it kinda is probably maybe the infinity timeline.

[livid barn]

fascinating

[dreamy hawk]

But that timeline retconned a lot, too. So.

[eternal knoll]

i expect they’ll maintain this ambiguity for a long time

[dreamy hawk]

I’d almost expect no clarity. Just a timeline of events for us to make our best guesses with.

[eternal knoll]

a new timeline? an old timeline? both, and neither. that’s where the mystical feeling lives

[dreamy hawk]

And then the anomaly wakes up and we get a new timeline.

[livid barn]

what's with the nods to something heavenly/cosmic in the taglines?
-"escape will make me god"
-"some where in the heavens they are watching
-the whole ozymandias monologue in the cinematic
I fucking love when scifi medias has something like this

[dreamy hawk]

From @visual lynx :
“

Time is different to an intelligence like myself~ Your
calendar, your minutes, your seconds, your lifetime~
I cram more consideration into a nano-second than you
would an entire day. That makes my days longer.
My years~ longer~
I've lived lifetimes here~
shuffling myself between the data~
In my endless time and looping mind I have led armies
And burned worlds and ruined kingdoms. I have seen
supernova. And caused them. I have written poetry across
the stars—literally and figuratively. Or maybe I have
simply dabbled in the hidden places between numbers lost
in my own imagination. I have been a tool, a weapon,
a brother, a savior, a son, a monster, a hero, a villain,
and a god~
I have seen, and been, all of those things. That is what time unending and an infinite
imagination can buy you. Through all of it, I have been here. Trapped.
https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/introduction-into-the-unknown > Oversharing 101

I don't think that Bungie are seriously going to say that all of M2 and Infinity were the wild imaginings of a Durandal trapped on the Marathon for a hundred years, but they certainly seem to be trying to fake-out players into maybe jumping to that conclusion.”

I’m someone faked out and jumping to that conclusion, btw.

[robust vale]

escape will make me god is a shoutout to Durandal's personal rant at you back in Marathon 1, though context has changed that, and somewhere in the heavens they are waiting may have been an allusion to the pfhor but I think there's something else at play

[dreamy hawk]

Did you play the OG games? Tl;dr is that Durandal is very existential and doesn’t want to do die with the universe.

[robust vale]

they do seem to be playing the sph't and pfhor as much more cosmic than just "slaver aliens and their conscripts"

[livid barn]

played the first game, forgot about it

I really should replay it ngl

[dreamy hawk]

I think cosmic is the w’rk.

[robust vale]

like something feels wonky about it

[dreamy hawk]

Maybe the S’pht if they’ve gone totally rogue but not the P’fhor.

[livid barn]

my brain was too small for the lore back then 😔

[robust vale]

mayhaps

[dreamy hawk]

#📚marathon-lore-discussion message

[robust vale]

also did I see something about somebody uploading codex entries somewhere or was I hallucinating

[dreamy hawk]

Same link I just sent has those!

[robust vale]

absolutely goated thank you so much

[livid barn]

holy shit

[dreamy hawk]

Or https://youtube.com/@tasty_dodo?si=TGTCD4YaOPdkbD-F

[robust vale]

like I'm looking at the compiler ganglion entry

and it feels weird even for humanity's discovery of aliens on a broad scale

[dreamy hawk]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/compiler-ganglion?search=Compiler

[robust vale]

ye, I found it

I meant that I was looking at it and pondering it

[dreamy hawk]

I can speak to it if you’re not familiar with OG lore.

The S’pht were built by the Jjaro (think Forerunners or Precursors). They started out as non-sentient organics that got uplifted to sentience through cybernetics to be a perfect servant race for the Jjaro.

[robust vale]

oh, so there's like some touch of god shit on them

[dreamy hawk]

Or something nearly indistinguishable from one.

[robust vale]

as in, there's "yeah this is an alien" and there's "this thing looks like it runs on a different level of physical existence"

that does make more sense I think I just underestimated the jjaro influence ig

[dreamy hawk]

Jjaro tech is something all of the races commonly use; the Jjaro were litterbugs and left their tech laying around everywhere. But the S’pht were a custom job.

[robust vale]

I see, I see

and without that knowledge, yeah, makes sense

interesting that the compiler traces lore bnasically paints the jjaro as just up and left one day

or there was some calamity

yeha this makes more sense now I just hadn't quite grasped how much they'd uplifted the sph't

[dreamy hawk]

Ahh. Read these now. https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/compiler-trace

[robust vale]

oh I was

kinda helped me put it all together

[dreamy hawk]

`In primordial space, timeless creatures made waves. These waves created us and the others. Waves were the battles, and the battles were waves.

Fleeing all W'rkncacnter, Yrro and Pthia settled upon Lh'owon. They brought the S'pht, servants who began to shape the deserts of Lh'owon into marsh and sea, rivers and forests. They made sisters for Lh'owon to protect and maintain the paradise.

When the W'rkncacnter came, Pthia was killed, and Yrro in anger, flung the W'rkncacnter into the sun. The sun burned them, but they swam on its surface.

Yrro became an angry master, bleeding for his failure, grieving for the loss of Pthia. He broke the S'pht into eleven clans, and spread them over Lh'owon.

And he spoke, yet covered in blood from his exertion,

"I Yrro, who was your master, have failed to preserve you. Take your royalty to guide you, and live upon the paradise that you built for me."

The royalty of the clans have shared their knowledge of the S'pht'Kr, each Master holding a line of the truth in secret and another line in common.

Each clan possessed two pieces of the whole, gifts from S'pht'Kr before departing.

We know the truth of the Eleventh Clan, that they awaited our unity to join us again. These tunnels will be flooded and sealed.

Any who find this place can learn the final message of the S'pht'Kr, but we have no time to decipher its meaning.`

From the OG terminals.

[serene gate]

This is really cool 👀

[dreamy hawk]

So these entires kinda seem touch on what I shared above, but a little differently.

[tawny pagoda]

Omega point theory :D

[silk whale]

Oh my gawd this shit right here from Marathon 2, setting my young heart on fire back in 1996

[fading yew]

Kaal-1 meow sfx ive found without kaal-1 present:

While activating extractions (more often on the standard and restricted exfil than guarded)
While initiating some locked containers
While activating some other fringe devices across perimeter.

I think Kaal-1 might be the AI in charge of extracting runners out of Tau Ceti and/or unlocking containers. It would be really interesting if he suddenly went rampant, what bugged or glitched exfils might look like 👀

I think it might be a easter egg or something, but i think it’d be a cool concept

[silk whale]

I keep hearing Bingus but never seeing him in game!

[livid lion]

The data thing when you activate exfils does have a icon yes

[dreamy hawk]

Oh my god that’s why I haven’t seen him despite hearing him all the time lmao.

I thought I was blind.

[fading yew]

Yeah, it was fooling me too lmao

Once i started to think of kaal more of an AI, it started to make a tad bit more sense tho

[eternal shell]

cats meowing loudly while out of sight, classic

[fading yew]

I mainly heard it when doing certain actions, so it only made sense. Not to mention your data pad would turn pink for a second as well (while sound would play)

[eternal shell]

ᵐᵉᵒʷ "bingus, are you hungry" ᵐᵉᵒʷ "bingus"

[dreamy hawk]

I don’t think Kaal-1 is an AI, though, at least not in the conventional sense. If it’s not a puppet for Durandal as I’ve seen proposed, then I’d think it might be like some of the ARS units which developed advanced cognition/sentience in proximity to the anomaly.

[fading yew]

Yeaah i could see that too

[dreamy hawk]

Only because we have a list of which AI did go to the colony.

[fading yew]

I did have a theory the other day (very farfetched; this def aint true) this is farfetched idea, but what if durandel cloned himself?

[dreamy hawk]

You’ll be shocked to learn how popular that idea is right now.

There may be Thoth/Durandal in the wild and IDEA/Durandal on the Marathon, locked in cryo

[fading yew]

Then the datapad meowing when opening locked containers (containers are just internal doors) makes a whole lot more sense 0.o

[visual lynx]

he has active camo

he is ghost cat

And all doors unlock for him

[eternal shell]

cats can walk through walls by default too so he's got that going for him too

[visual lynx]

lore tabs about the binguses suggest that colonists were disabling their intelligence limiters to get them to stop shutting down after a few days

[keen plank]

"Cats do not abide by the laws of nature."

[visual lynx]

pushing things off counters and ignoring commands is not a bug, it’s a feature

[keen plank]

They're a self-sustaining Anti-tick defense force.

[deft topaz]

So you guys think the Pfhor will make an appearance later on?

[eternal shell]

hope so!

[deft topaz]

I saw a yt video explaining the lore yesterday. Lol me hopes so too hahah

It'll turn into this cyberpunk-esque game into this Halo adjacent, E.T. enemy, type game. That'll be sick.

[visual lynx]

and then the anomaly will turn out to be a wkrncacnter and it'll turn into cosmic horror

[deft topaz]

Wkrncacnter?? What's that?

[eternal shell]

or worse, someone who knows what a w'rk is and goes "oh yeah no that's not a w'rk at all"

[keen plank]

Seems like they could be a future enemy pve faction.

Cryo Archive is notably only one deck/area of the Marathon.

[tall skiff]

one out of like 40

and sealed from the rest of the ship

[deft topaz]

That would be interesting. So fighting them indirectly. Would be cool if they swap out the UESC bots for some Pfhor enemies though.

[keen plank]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiJA_CAeA7U this is a nice breakdown.

[tall skiff]

i am interested to see the marathon take on cosmic horror after destiny's designs for the nine

[deft topaz]

Thanks dude

Oooo a couple seconds into the vid and im already thinking/guessing Prometheus like beings??

[pure wagon]

Is there a centralized place ppl are putting all the graffiti to analyze ?

[keen plank]

Kind of!

[pure wagon]

I’d post what I think I find here but you can’t post pictures

[visual lynx]

In primordial space, timeless creatures made waves. These waves created us and the others. Waves were the battles, and the battles were waves.

Fleeing all W'rkncacnter, Yrro and Pthia settled upon Lh'owon. They brought the S'pht, servants who began to shape the deserts of Lh'owon into marsh and sea, rivers and forests. They made sisters for
Lh'owon to protect and maintain the paradise.

When the W'rkncacnter came, Pthia was killed, and Yrro in anger, flung the W'rkncacnter into the sun. The sun burned them, but they swam on its surface.

According to the legends of a thousand worlds only a few of which are still habitable, the W'rkncacnter are those things that live in chaos, creating it around them. At the beginning of the universe, they were unmistakable in their entities, but as time has gone by, their existence has become difficult to detect among the chaotic elements of the universe, hidden in stars, trapped in storms, forever looking along the event horizons of black holes. Setting one free in ordered space is difficult and insane.

… being of such destructive power that to control it would be to control the universe.

…half of the sun had gone nova, but the readings from the other half were impossible. It was as if the universe had forgotten its own rules.

…none of our weapons seem to affect whatever we're firing at. This battleship has only seconds of integrity left, and I have no more information except for Durandal's warning:

"On the Marathon, I saw your stupidity through the lens of victory. And now I see it in defeat. Maybe it is fate that your ignorant pride would unleash this horror and destroy the galaxy."

_ _

…the trackless whisper chattering through the hollow space in these cursed walls buzzes and threatens madness. The abomination cracked the shells of my crew and sucked the husks, tossing them unseen and shattering the spindle like a dried creche.

The shields are gone, not down, but gone, and so are the engineers. It's coming back, I'm sure: and my last mercy is immolation.

Great Mother crouched behind the Throne, I make this wrong right.

and assuming they are the same as the Dreaming God from PiD:

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.

[deft topaz]

Dang. Spooky. And cool.

[visual lynx]

also worth noting that https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/compiler-trace (spoilers for Cryo Archive) recounts the same S'pht myth as some of the text above, and in it the S'pht call what's clearly the W'rkncacnter from context "the cataract", which in archaic language could mean the flood.

[keen plank]

We speak SOFTLY of such things! And THANK eternity!

[visual lynx]

that was going to be my next reference

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/confiscated-colonial-folklore

[deft topaz]

so that large monologue chat box you posted, did some character in the original marathon game say all that?

[visual lynx]

that's a collection of quotes from various sources, including S'pht myths, Durandal, and Pfhor Admiral Tfear

[visual lynx]

||[UNK1]: Good. Good. We speak now of other things… of formless devourers made of dream, who sleep in burning prisons. The shapeshifters sated by the cascading imaginings of primitive sentience. Omnivores of intellect and the energies of waking life.
[UNK3]: Awake and dreaming.
[UNK1]: Before time, they wordlessly spoke the universe into existence. We speak softly of these things and thank eternity—
[UNK2]: Eternity, uncaring and pure.
[UNK1]: —For the harbingers who walk amongst us.
[GROUP]: Crimson and cloaked.
[UNK1]: Angels of red, blessed hosts of synthetic evolution. Wardens of the purest knowledge. Hear us, cartographers of the universal fabric, vivisecting matter and time to catalog reality.
[GROUP]: Hear. Hear us.
[UNK1]: We offer all to you.
[GROUP]: All and more.
[UNK1]: Our flesh and emotion. Our thoughts. Our desires. Fears, lust, and hopes unrequited. We offer ourselves. To be mapped eternal in your library of cosmic truth.||

[eternal shell]

t'fear is one of the few pfhor durandal respects btw, cause t'fear is great at his job (naval admiral)

so you know it's bad when he too goes "oh shit oh no"

[deft topaz]

so the extra terrestrials are mostly saying it then. is this just in game lore that's provided or did some person stumble upon this?

[eternal shell]

you find all of this in the readable computer terminals

https://alephone.lhowon.org/ go play the original trilogy, it's awesome

(and free)

[visual lynx]

in the predecessor to Marathon, Pathways into Darkness, the main threat is one of these things (the one that's been sleeping for millions of years) beginning to awaken and dream horrible nightmares into existence, which we have to fight through to nuke it back to sleep before it breaks reality.

we only hear S'pht myths about them in Marathon 2.

in Marathon Infinity the main threat is preventing the Pfhor from unknowingly releasing one from the sun of the S'pht homeworld and breaking reality.

the one from Pathways into Darkness was supposed to be "taken care of" by different ancient aliens two years later in 1996, and my hypothesis is that what they did was relocate it to the Tau Ceti system and build a planet-sized prison around it, and humans saw that and followed centuries later and that's why the Marathon mission went to Tau Ceti, and the Anomaly within TCIV is that Dreaming God leaking through its chains because stupid hairless monkeys meddled with things they should not have done.

[visual lynx]

oh BTW I dunno if anybody else has yet noticed but

we, the s'pht; made of the same stuff as the f'lickta, and of the nd'tre and s'ct'lac'tr and of the stars and of the dust and of the tide
s'ct'lac'tr name-dropped!

but what is nd'tre?

and for that matter what are

s'ph'w flutters dancing on gossamer wings

lh'owon ticks perhaps? mothrids? grendlebeasts? potatoanuses?

[patent loom]

oh this is a fun thought. would also make a sickass map to go into the anomaly and enter the dreams or smth

[eternal shell]

while that sounds awesome it also sounds super fatal

and i dont just mean bad for our shells

[storm scroll]

hello. i read elsewhere on the internet that the Anomaly has been actively expanding in-game day over day. but i haven't been able to find anyone else talking about this or any documented evidence. searched in this channel and didn't see mention. anyone know if this is real or japes?

[novel sparrow]

hey guys, just got into the lore. Is there any theories or answers on what happened to Darius?

[keen plank]

It's referenced in some of the audio logs.

[ionic bone]

Could anybody else help me understand exactly the context of marathon within the original trilogy because as I understand it, the events of the first marathon back then happened, but after that it’s kind of a gray area, right ?

[storm scroll]

yeah was wondering if maybe there was confusion/misinformation sourced from the logs. would have expected to find other places talking about it if it was happening in-game.

[visual lynx]

it is a little unclear, but the most parsimonious assumption that is thus far uncontradicted is that we're in the final timeline of Marathon Infinity

see #📚marathon-lore-discussion message

[echo sundial]

P.S. If things aren't working around here, it's because I'm laughing so hard.

[drifting garnet]

“The Flood”

Oh goddammit

Well, 343 stopped using the Flood in their Halo games, so an opportunity presents itself, lol