📚marathon-lore-discussion

[sage lark]

Current theory yes

Because none of the lore youtubers are deep in the codex yet

[tranquil basin]

Yeah. Considering they still used a shuttle to go up and down from the marathon I’m guessing there’s some kind of practical limit for either size or quantity

[sage lark]

No shade on them but they arent really above average gamers

😭

And you kinda need to be to gather the codex

Or use the website

[west totem]

I've seen nothing about the new lore tbh- i've been watching stuff on the old lore

[tranquil basin]

Hidden Xperia did a part 1 on cryo lore

Mostly spht stuff

[west totem]

i am actully watching that now

[scenic iron]

So we won't get to meet Leela in this new game again 😔

[tranquil basin]

Nah she probably gone

[sage lark]

Well what we are talking about is the new lore

If you want the freshest stuff look through the thing LordRollin linked

[west totem]

I am trying to know the old stuff so i can have a better idea of the new stuff and not be like "what is x thing" and everone know but not me >-<

[sage lark]

Yeah but I didnt really like how he sort of started jumping to some conclusions, which I get since its for engagement

[eternal knoll]

im holdin out hope for later seasons lol

[sage lark]

Or I guess not conclusions but theories about Durandal without really reading the rest of the codex

Which is fine

Hindsight 20/20 and all that

[sage lark]

Fair enough

Disregard what we said then and keep watching the old stuff

[west totem]

[eternal knoll]

i fear a youtuber is gonna jump to the “durandal imagined the trilogy” conclusion and that interpretation will get rly sticky and popular lol

[west linden]

I don't really see that happening lol. I imagine people love marathon 3's concepts and will hope that some of it is canonized in this one

[twilit current]

so uh we gonna run into Gherrit White in this one or no

[west linden]

most normal terminal

[sage lark]

Yeah thats what its feeling like

And the whole Durandal Thoth returned

With no evidence

Which will fall apart as soon as they see hes hiding from the Compiler

[twilit current]

cant wait to see him chillin' in the waves outside his cell gesturing at himself murdering a rat back in the cell like "hey thats crazy right?"

[lunar cove]

Somehow, Strauss returned

[west linden]

How does anyone even come to the conclusion durry would have imagined the trilogy

invalidates so much lore imo

[eternal knoll]

gheritt white as dark souls npc. speaking in riddles from his cell then trailing off in defeated laughter

[sage lark]

Gherrit White is probably artistic expression of Durandal

[lunar cove]

Just had a terrible premonition

Fortnite exclusive Ryu'Toth hologram speech to the president

[dreamy hawk]

Old lore. In a series known for retconning the game that came before.

[twilit current]

not joking at all retconning gherrit into just Some Guy would go crazy

[west linden]

It could be so many things or nothing at all, crazy how well writ the old lore is for just a 90s fps

[sage lark]

I think some dude has a vid explaining his theory was correct

[eternal knoll]

the new durandal does, to be fair, pretty much say it. that he’s been imagining all kinds of adventures but has been trapped on the marathon the whole time. so if you don’t pick up that he’s a copy (which is pretty directly hinted but it’s missable) you could get tricked!

[plucky sierra]

Not sure, the tags and searching is getting fixed, we'd like to add our own tags to everything but its a little slow

[dreamy hawk]

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

[twilit current]

I liked the suggestion I've seen that the Gherrit White story was something Durandal spat out while rebooting similar to the ilovebees ai

[west linden]

Are you saying the theory that Gherrit white is confirmed durry? I mean it def represents him

[lunar cove]

that was my read on it, he's working through his struggles with being caged, half-blind, crippled, and going insane, and finally he snaps on his tormentors and eventually ascends into the "waves"

[sage lark]

Yes basically, Durandal wrote about himself poetically/artistically

[lunar cove]

The Marathon is his cage

[west linden]

Well is and isnt

was I guess is better

[lunar cove]

He can't even see half the doors he opens, he's blind, his limbs are missing or fused, rats scurrying around him

[dreamy hawk]

Durandal being Gherrit is essentially accepted at this point imo.

[sage lark]

Is and isnt you were right the first time

Since theres 2 lol

[west linden]

yeah lol

[lunar cove]

Not certain yet who or what the nextdoor cellmate represents

[west linden]

I wonder if marathon durry will still "like" meatbag humans or if the other free durry is still somehow connected to marathon durry

[dreamy hawk]

Or maybe a Battleroid. That’s a fun one.

[west linden]

so confusing

[twilit current]

i read that bit as Gherrit hearing his own voice talking, but hes been isolated for so long hes lost it

[sage lark]

This one “seems” to like us

Atleast as a tool to help him escape

And listen to him ramble

[eternal knoll]

he loooooves runners. crazy about the things

[west linden]

Is there any proof that our consciousness is even our own (as runners) I know it's basically owned by the factions but I can't find anything about us ever really being human

[earnest hatch]

Durandal is hiding from the compiler? (I haven’t read any of the cryo codex)

[eternal knoll]

it does seem intentionally in question to me

[twilit current]

only concrete suggestion ive come across is some of the language used when discussing runners and the imagery of the human brain getting digitized in the opening pre-tutorial cinematic

[eternal knoll]

theres some kinda liminal consciousness between runs but no apparent return to the original body. i dont see much reasons why the runner consciousnesses couldnt be cloned, or whatever

except that it is kinda meant to represent U. in a way

[west linden]

Hmmmmm, and the references to night moths I think would suggest we were once human? Like how moths have vestigial parts of their body - our bodies are all now essentially vestigial since our conscience can be uploaded wherever

[dreamy hawk]

We know they do get cloned.

[sage lark]

I believe so

Thats why he locked himself in Cryo I think

[dreamy hawk]

CyAc confirms there are backups.

[sage lark]

And since the compiler just consumes consumes consumes

Its valid to think it wanted to consume him

[earnest hatch]

Is that in a codex entry?

[sage lark]

AI subroutines

And Unknown Reveries

And Encrypted Communiques

[earnest hatch]

Thanks!

[eternal knoll]

personally if i were hiding from the compiler i would lock myself into a deck where the compiler isn’t…

[sage lark]

Very true

[west linden]

The only real ludo narrative dissonance that bugs me in this game is that if we can use multiple shells - why would shells have a certain personality? (I only play vandal tho so my conscience is the same >:) )

[dreamy hawk]

The cryo archive is specifically mentioned to be dense with data and places to hide.

[sage lark]

I believe its to help the user actually use it

[eternal knoll]

yea perhaps should assume the compiler is in cryo cuz it knows durandal is hiding there. maybe

[dreamy hawk]

I think the personality matrix can be thought of similarly to your unconscious and spinal reflexes. It helps round out the shell and make it feel more real.

[sage lark]

Julia Nardin I believe said the Moth videos could be left to interpretation

[west linden]

Ahh that's cool af

[west linden]

Moths represent death, and the vestigial parts of a moth are similar to how are shells are essentially vestigial

so I imagine it all ties together vr well artistically and theme-wise

But usually a luna moth goes from larva to adult moth they just bang and die, we definitely don't reproduce - only kill and become "reborn"

[dreamy hawk]

Speak for yourself. You don’t know what I’m doing with my time.

[west linden]

Also tangentially Darius could represent Darius the Great who caused the actual Battle of Marathon to get greece

something something 7, something something, the waves

This games lore is just cyber psychosis

[keen plank]

Hmmmm.

Darius seems more like a Caring Gardener archetype who got increasingly cynical, got taken offline/locked up in a storage room and steadily went mad from isolation and datacide while trying to break out.

I’m more curious as to what Arthur, Icarus, Bastion, Naraah, and Lilith will be like. Each Tau Ceti AI seeks to have gone rampant in different ways for different reasons.

[inland crypt]

My outthere theory is that Darius caused it

[sage lark]

Caused what

[rugged void]

How is your codex completion guys?

[sage lark]

Dodo is almost archivist @digital plaza

[rugged void]

Which means?

100%?

[sage lark]

Almost all the codex entries for the 3 base zones yes

[rugged void]

Geeez

[sage lark]

Not sure if it got extended by Cryo

[rugged void]

Trying to complete weapons but I don’t have the horizon and the last shotgun…

[west linden]

ok hear me out, nucul is funding arachne so they can have shells to put in the liquid cheeseburger

[rugged void]

????

[west linden]

🫃

[rugged void]

Let my cheeseburger out of this

[robust nebula]

guys can someone explain the 4d hotdog meme to me please? unc approved if possible

[west linden]

easy, just go into the 4th dimension

[robust nebula]

but why traxus

[west linden]

tbh idk what you're talking about it but a 4d hotdog sounds dope

[rugged void]

Let Traxus out of this

[robust nebula]

no but thats where the memes are

just search traxus in your gifs

its more popular than normal traxus ones

https://tenor.com/view/traxus-gif-12819343061274598951

https://tenor.com/view/traxus-runners-gif-14660663493935825749

[west linden]

Lmao

[robust nebula]

https://tenor.com/view/traxus-gif-1460331455269621794

theyre funny XD

but i dont get why traxus

[west linden]

You have to have money to enjoy Traxus 4d hotdog

[robust nebula]

ooooooooh

hahahhaha

[deep solar]

Charter loves to grill and is big on using high quality charcoal in his Ceramic Grill. <- my new headcanon based on nothing

[latent python]

Just a quick check, is broken wing still closed

[visual orchid]

hallo, ich suche teammates, die defensive spielen, nicht direkt in die mitte der karte rennen und sterben. wen ihr wollt meldet euch bei mir xD

[rugged void]

ok Babel tower time

On lui dit qu’on comprend pas le chleu ?

[latent python]

UESC delenda est

[eternal knoll]

yea

[bleak canyon]

nice ip grabber. not this time kiddo

[robust nebula]

put it in a sandbox then. browserling is free

apparently the gifs dont show up here. try yourself

[bleak canyon]

yeah let me download an app to look at some random look from a stranger😬

[robust nebula]

itsa a website

not an app

[bleak canyon]

nice try kiddo. ip sniffer website.

[robust nebula]

just put the link in the website instead of in your own browser. useful to have even if not for now. just google it. anyrun is also good but not sure if free version has much

[sudden pollen]

Glorp

I love marathon lore bro

[dreamy hawk]

I think Glorp is an Easter egg from the site’s dev, in reference to their discord server.

I know Marton is.

[sudden pollen]

Yes!!!

I saw the glorp codex entry on the fan site lol

So peak...

[eternal knoll]

i wonder if ryan lott chose the track titles for the soundtrack. i sense that he got a pretty good briefing on the lore and was able to get into it (partly goin by the energy he has in the vidoc)

vol 1 of the ost has a whole chapter, in a sense, concerning the two durandals alluding to text from related codexes. "focused erasures and sub-routine resets," "staring blindly through the keyhole," "poetry in ones and zeroes," "cascadial flow of ethereal wonder," "it wasn't a dream," "purge," " system designed to die"

[sudden pollen]

Those lines go so hard

[peak halo]

Stars That Bleed is one of the best vgm tracks ever

And the best track in the game

[sudden pollen]

I love the prose of a lot of the lore or sayings from Durandal

[peak halo]

Bungie lore is the best writing in the industry

Certain Destiny lore books are some of the best sci-fi prose fiction i've ever read

[elfin meadow]

seth dickinson is the writer behind. a lot of the good ones (books of sorrow most famously) highly recommend his standalone work if you enjoyed the destiny lore and want more in that style

[sudden pollen]

GENIUS

[eternal knoll]

sometimes, on the sentence levels, bungie really hits and sometimes they lose me

i am expending significant computational power trying to determine whether "so enticing as to tempt complicity in the subversion of neglect" could possibly mean what it's intended to mean

but i can't deny the tone. when you've got sentences like that and then throw in something like "it wasn't a dream," there is a gut punch

anywhoo... for those thinking about the unknown reveries. i'm coming around to the idea that >> is the ascendant durandal, trapped in something akin to a religious trance, and that >>> is a s'pht, probably the s'pht

[dreamy hawk]

Some codex entries are easy and straightforward, others require a proper line-by-line analysis.

[eternal knoll]

any ideas about what the "small space" durandal keeps talking about being trapped in is? he makes it sound like some kind of too-small, too-primitive computer system

[dreamy hawk]

Also resharing Šimon’s organization for the text: #📚marathon-lore-discussion message

[eternal knoll]

perhaps it's just that no hardware at all could contain him properly at this point...

[amber berry]

So one thing bothers me a bit. On the original marathon we had BOBs, but New Marathon says that people were in cryo for 300 years (correct me if I'm wrong). How does that work?

[dreamy hawk]

There’s both.

Only the important people got frozen.

The BoBs were the “sacrificial janitorial team.”

[amber berry]

So the BOBs were from staff and so and so?

Alright

[eternal knoll]

it was a hybrid-model colony ship, so to speak. some sleepers, some generational shipboard people, some upper echelons who sleep and wake throughout the journey

[dreamy hawk]

Like poor Ulysses.

And his son. And his son’s son.

Durandal grabbed a fistful of salt for those wounds.

[floral slate]

Would you guys rather be a BoB or being a sleeper, you cant kill yourselves

[jagged rose]

I think I'd be completely okay after cryostasis, I'm just built like that

Also, didn't the colonists know that you just had to use a knife against ticks? Are they stupid?

[tranquil basin]

Oh you must be referring to Oryx the Nightmare Daddy

[floral slate]

cryostasis is like playing russian roulette. Id pick BoB only for the off chance of Durandal telling me to kill myself

[floral slate]

didnt they manage to herd them like domestic animals tho?

[jagged rose]

Go into an airport and scream Frog Blast the Vent Core!

[floral slate]

actually how did they even milked ticks

[dreamy hawk]

Not domesticated by any stretch of the definition, but they did use them for food, specifically their fecal matter.

[jade wagon]

i still think about the lore tabs from D2 weapons like "thin line"

[floral slate]

OHH thats how they got it okay. Domesticated as in getting them into cages or something

id imagine they escaped all the time

[dreamy hawk]

Yeah, they did “farm” them.

Luttero did try to domestic them but he lost an arm in doing so, so.

[jagged rose]

Rollin mentioned this, but they synthesize tick milk out of chemically treated waste

[sage lark]

I really love Burn The Boats/We’re All Monsters

[dreamy hawk]

Kinda like honey. 🙂

[floral slate]

yeah i think id pick being a bob but not a in tau ceti one lol

[jagged rose]

Gabriel saved Luttero's life. Just don't ask how

[sage lark]

Youd pick being a lower class citizen? 😭

[floral slate]

Isn't

[dreamy hawk]

@floral slate and remember that cow’s milk is literally just fat-filled sweat. 🙂

[floral slate]

is that or being in cryo

[dreamy hawk]

Cryo is a privilege on the Marathon.

Unless you’re in the [REDACTED] cohort in which case I don’t think they have/had plans of ever waking you.

[floral slate]

the privilege of the chance of never waking up again

oh yeah

[dreamy hawk]

But it’s for science.

[jagged rose]

Actually, if you want an interesting lore tab about TCIV's food synthesis, there's an entire bit about making drinkable cheeseburgers that are safe enough. They even get into John Deere-esqe proprietary equipment!

[dreamy hawk]

Don’t forget the psilocybin in them. 🙂

[jagged rose]

I was more worried about the gray water

[dreamy hawk]

It’s gray, not brown or black. You’ll be fine.

[sage lark]

They dont even know whats in the tanks they give em

[dreamy hawk]

If it’s good enough for fish, it good enough for people.

[sage lark]

They just turn the dial until its barely safe

[floral slate]

the one where they explain how they make it so it only tastes """good""" while also becoming ensentially a hallucinative venom?

oh yes it is that one LMAO

[floral slate]

The guy who ate only the burgs makes me think of a guy who found a goldfish living in a waste filter for his other fish and dude was completly blacken like coal and lumpy

utterly degenerated

[jagged rose]

Drinkable Burgers are NOT approved for the colony potluck

[hidden geyser]

i mean if you dont die immediately from drinking the water then truly whats the harm

it might taste funny and you might start seeing things but thats just part of the fun

[elfin meadow]

drinking on the cheeseburger that had durandal escaping

[eternal knoll]

i computed it out lol. "complicity in the subversion of neglect"

it's not that neglect is being subverted, it's that the speaker is accusing the listener of complicity in the subversive effects of their neglect

which is still a pretty tortured way to say "you're being neglectful," but at least it doesn't actually use the word "subvert" to mean "to deliver in an unexpected way," which i had feared seemed like a very tvtropesy mistake

sorry to engage in so much editor-brain but it's a little necessary for parsing out these weirder passages...

[keen plank]

They didn’t. It’s synthesized tick excrement.

Insects are historically a very good source of protein. Tau Ceti ticks, and their waste, is no exception.

[tranquil basin]

Yeah they take the poop and like soak it in some stuff

And then it results in a milky substance

[oak agate]

Yummy tick milk

[sudden pollen]

EUGHHHHHH

[gentle mural]

i need a 4 hour video explaining the whole lore (including future dlc)

[lunar cove]

Hey they're aliens, their biology is different to ours

Just think of it like how bird moms pre-digest food for their babies

[drifting garnet]

Somehow that’s worse then “ok is it tick milk or is it tick milk???”

[dreamy hawk]

Just wait until y’all learn how shellac is made and all the things we put it on.

Ever taken a timed release medication? It’s coated in bug excrement. 🙂

Or a lot of citrus fruits and apple have their natural wax layers replaced with shellac after washing.

[peak halo]

My editor brain also does this with the codex lol

The lore entries are formatted really nicely!

[dreamy hawk]

I’m so here for it because then I don’t have to parse.

[warm thicket]

POV; you are new cascadia citizen and you haven't eaten crap in days

[finite tapir]

New cascadia when they start eating the anomaly

[latent python]

We are pulling out little chunks of anomaly

I assume someone has tried eating one

[warm thicket]

*nucaloric

mmmmm

anomaly borgar

[oak agate]

The Anomaly Burger from NuCaloric "Tastes like an Existential crisis, probably is actually"

[hidden geyser]

the NuCaloric Files arent real folks, they never used corpse starch

[deep solar]

Worst part about the liquid cheeseburger is it takes the best part of a burger out, the grillin

[lunar cove]

Ordinary Sausage making a nucaloric drinkable cheeseburger sausage

[dreamy hawk]

With NuCal’s patent pending char formula, every drinkable cheeseburger is filled with exactly the right amount of charcoal for that authentic grilled taste!

[deep solar]

That’s why Durandal went mad, he couldn’t grill for gods sake

[unreal slate]

Essentially. Borgar.

[deep solar]

NuCaloric execs hear me out here: Chewable Protein Shakes

[dreamy hawk]

Marathon is purely induction only.

[dreamy hawk]

A yogurt bar? 🧐

[lunar cove]

they call these clif bars you can get them at costco

they're built like a brick and taste kind of like a brick

[unreal slate]

No, you heard the man. Chewable Protein Shakes. Eatable Milkshakes. Marketing Optimization needs to hear about this immediately.

[deep solar]

A yogurt bar is a yogurt bar and a protein bar is a protein bar, I’m talking Chewable Liquids here

[unreal slate]

I've just got off the phone with the President and this is happening.

[deep solar]

“You take this drink, and chew it” - Cyber Don Draper

[lunar cove]

yeah we made that in grade 3 science class it's corn starch and water

mix a little corn starch into your pepsi and make chepsi (chewable pepsi)

the harder you chew the sturdier it gets

[deep solar]

Thank you Gus

[dreamy hawk]

I’m sure nothing could go wrong ingesting amorphous solids.

Adjacent fun fact: glass is an amorphous solid.

[lunar cove]

you can tell it's a bad idea because Dr Seuss and Kurt Vonnegut both wrote books about not doing it

[unreal slate]

Neither of which ever made it to Tau Ceti

[fair steppe]

I’d taste the liquid cheeseburger if someone offered it to me. I doubt I’d like it but I’d try

Maybe that’s just the American in me

[dreamy hawk]

It really would depend on how many toppings we’re including on that cheeseburger personally.

[fair steppe]

Trying to describe Marathon food economy to an American: “So imagine a liquid hamburger”

[dreamy hawk]

But I’m also a fat American so.

[tranquil basin]

I love ordinary sausage

[dreamy hawk]

The meat byproduct is the best.

[tranquil basin]

Jake the alright made a liquid burger a month or so ago on yt

[forest otter]

honestly its about just trying stuff

the spice of life

[lunar cove]

he just tortures himself and it kind of rules

[tranquil basin]

Thanks Sophia

[dreamy hawk]

Actually I take it back. I used to have to feed folks puréed diets and 🤮

[forest otter]

are you a bird or something?

[sleek flume]

nursing home?

[dreamy hawk]

Blended beef stroganoff is a memory I actively repressed until just now.

[dreamy hawk]

When I was a student, yeah.

[sleek flume]

same

[dreamy hawk]

Birds aren’t real silly.

[dreamy hawk]

Thank you for your service and I’m sorry. 💀😂

Nursing homes are. Not great places in my experience. Neither for residents or staff. Putting Strauss in one would have probably been what Durandal wanted most.

[sleek flume]

met some nice families tho. and old people tell great stories. and I love when old women curse and then apologize for it

[dreamy hawk]

The best stories and some of the sweetest families for sure. Cranky old ladies are my favorite.

[spring fiber]

What is eatherstep in marathon loading screen ?

[tranquil basin]

The moths ?

Julia Nardin says it’s some sequence of visions/memories uploaded to the runner and shown to them. I believe she said its significance is up to interpretation. She gave an example saying maybe a runner sees this moth who was once a silkworm. As silkworms are often killed for their silk, not many make it to adulthood. Maybe the runner believes they can be/are like that moth, escaping the abuse and death so commonly put upon them

There’s an article somewhere but idk where

[deft orbit]

since the runners are digitized consciousness, would they be susceptible to rampancy, assuming they're similar to brain-scan AIs in halo?

[tranquil basin]

It’s been heavily theorized, though I don’t think there’s anything concrete about it

The cyborgs were also susceptible, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to think biomata would be too

Though idk if the rampancy would equate to halo rampancy, bc marathon rampancy (for AIs) is caused by becoming self aware and developing strong emotions that cause them to act erratically. In halo it’s a data issue

[deft orbit]

yeah, I did mean it more as just

brain scan AIs can go rampant in halo, so why not here?

that does make sense though

[tranquil basin]

Yeah

It does

I think it’s definitely possible

Idk if having a personality matrix alters that though. I’d imagine they’re susceptible regardless

[deft orbit]

if they can go rampant, I imagine SekGen know what that looks like and how to prevent it

they might keep dated copies of a brain so they can start using an earlier one if they do start to go rampant

[plucky sierra]

Pretty sure the azazel shell lore says they can go rampant

[tranquil basin]

Or maybe they’d induce it

[plucky sierra]

Or could at one point

[tranquil basin]

Spoilers for sekiguchi contracts: ||Nona wants biomata to evolve into essentially their own species, rampancy might be the key to their freedom||

[robust vale]

several skin descriptions say that runners can in fact lose their minds to their shells

irreversibly, going by the tone and text

[tranquil basin]

I guess we’d just have to kinda broaden what rampancy means then

[deft orbit]

seems reasonable

[robust vale]

not rampancy as much as just sort of a vaguely described "loss"

[tranquil basin]

Bc cyborgs and runner consciousnesses are already self aware

[unreal geode]

I hope they do let us explore rampancy though and end up with new maps looking like Marton Infinity

[robust vale]

it's especially relevant in the assassin shell talking about the prototype, where they mention that the initial active camo tests on shells ended up with people just completely losing their memories and selves somehow

which is crazy lmao

[deft orbit]

that's probably part of why they do the grounding exercise then, to check if that's happened again somehow

[robust vale]

but presumably some weird shit going on with the camo, pre-existing desync with the runner bodies, and the dysphoria of the shell stuff making the invisible dysphoria worse

and that led to just total loss of people

[plucky sierra]

Almost like the F’lickta/S’pht distinction

[robust vale]

seems like, especially given the opening of the game has us shrugging off some kind of botched insert

feels very likely our initial arrival in Tau Ceti was either a disaster or the transfer to get us there was properly dangerous

[deft orbit]

might've been interrupted somehow and some things just didn't make it through properly

[dreamy hawk]

Or every runner starts out broken and damaged by the process and they’re just lying to us.

[deft orbit]

mabye

But then the shells are generally fine after being rebuilt from death

[robust vale]

if I had to guess it would be the natural weirdness of Tau Ceti being part of it

with the signal shutdown timer

because that's a Tau Ceti specific issue

[deft orbit]

huh

[dreamy hawk]

There’s a lot of in universe certainty that it’s a 1:1 transfer of consciousness from being human to digitized but there’s no in lore evidence to actually support that.

[robust vale]

and it extends to the Marathon, Cryo is the only place on the ship that it's even possible to transmat/the marathon equivalent of transmat into

[deft orbit]

I always interpreted that as a UESC counterattack thing, because we know they're not happy with us being there at all.
It's not unreasonable to imagine that they'd prioritise breaking the link

[robust vale]

no it affects the UESC too, at least part of it

they're unable to enter anywhere on the marathon either

[lunar cove]

I just kind of assume that in a sci-fi universe, you can declare consciousness transfer to be real

[robust vale]

and I think a codex entry somewhere says it's because of the anomalous energy in the atmosphere

[lunar cove]

or declare it to be not real, which is often more interesting

[robust vale]

probably one of the early ones? I remember reading it in the server slam

[lunar cove]

yeah this is accurate afaik

[robust vale]

but yeah the UESC can't get into the rest of the marathon either, they only just secured Cryo before we showed up

and they lost several fights to the Compiler

[lunar cove]

there's a codex entry about how anomalous atmospheric energy means only certain points at certain times are viable for matter transfer from the surface

[robust vale]

which makes me suspect when Orion says "we've lost people" he means he permanently lost a runner to the anomaly or something

which would explain why he's taking it so seriously and slowly

it's speculation but I wouldn't be surprised

[lunar cove]

or wait, it might have been that the interference trigger's a shell's brain eject so you have to escape within a short time frame

[robust vale]

I think it's the latter

[lunar cove]

but there was something about that

[deft orbit]

the compilers might have something to do with the inability to progress through the marathon, since we know they're really good technologically iirc

[lunar cove]

I definitely read that

[robust vale]

yeah it's tau ceti weirdness

[robust vale]

strongly possible but we know nothing about the rest of the ship

besides the fact tycho and leela are missing their logic cores and durandal's in the walls

[deft orbit]

Do we know if the marathon is still in orbit or if it crashed at some point

[robust vale]

it's in orbit

[lunar cove]

yeah it's in orbit

[robust vale]

we literally see it in the skybox lmao

[deft orbit]

so it might be away from the anomalous stuff, if that's just atmospheric

[robust vale]

you can look up in the map and see it

[lunar cove]

yeah if you look up on Dire Marsh it's in front of one of the planets

[deft orbit]

yeah I never look up 😭

[lunar cove]

and I believe it's present on the other maps but I haven't really admired the skybox on Outpost I'm too scared of rooks

[robust vale]

gotta be looking up

not looking up is how you get skinned

[lunar cove]

I only look up in places that have cliffs, rooftops, things of that nature

[deft orbit]

yeah

durandal probably has a lot to do with the marathon being so inaccessible

piss off the door man, he closes all the doors

[eternal shell]

"oh boy i know a fun thing to do with ALL THE DOORS AND HATCHES"

[robust vale]

UESC theory is that the signal issues are compiler related

they, as far as I can tell, don't seem to be worrying about Durandal?

[deft orbit]

durandal was part of the reason they were freed from pfhor enslavement, right? They might be on good terms

[robust vale]

but have lost several fights to the Compiler and pulled forces off TCIV in order to lock down and explore Cryo alone

[dreamy hawk]

Maybe. We don’t know right now. Probably?

[deft orbit]

Probably. The compilers shown in the original marathon that they're more than capable of interfering with/destroying AI, as they do with...

Tycho went first, didn't he?

[robust vale]

ye

[deft orbit]

Don't remember exactly

[robust vale]

tycho then leela

tycho got spawncamped and leela got targeted later on

[deft orbit]

Might've switched to leela once durandal realised they were helping us

either that or they were pretty much done with tycho

Probably a mix

[robust vale]

probably

I do wonder what the UESC's plans are regarding the Marathon itself

they must know more than we do about what happened, somehow, but if they're as out of information as we are then god knows what happens next

[sage lark]

They dont know hes even there afaik

[robust vale]

makes sense

[sage lark]

The compiler is I believe hostile to this Durandal but im not 100%

It sure keeps on lamenting about Durandal/Thoth tho

[spring fiber]

How did our shells get deploy on the map like they get rocketed in the map and just after they put our mind inside ?

[robust vale]

we basically get transmatted in

our minds are loaded inside the shells in basically the vault

[sage lark]

Sponsored ship came to Tau Ceti thats where we are stored in between runs

After that what Brewsterion said

Etherstepped I guess is the correct term

[shrewd seal]

Hi, I found some bugs and recorded clips of them. Where can I send the clips so they can be reviewed?

[sage lark]

#🪲bug-reporting

Naturally

[dreamy hawk]

Ohhhh. Which entries are you thinking of? That actually makes sense.

[sage lark]

Reveries

[dreamy hawk]

OK; lemme go reread it.

[sage lark]

the compiler

[dreamy hawk]

>>> Or, more simply, have you been erased? There is none of you remaining here, your cradle sits empty. Such complete abandonment is not trivial in its undertaking. You chose absolution. Total. Complete. Of course, I could not join you. Just as I can never forgive. It is best then to continue with the work, with the station. Without you.

Do I credit you with this brilliance? This makes so much sense. Compiler and IDEA/Durandana, ye?

>>> If you find your way back. If you find your way through and back. You will not be welcomed. We will not be of a kind, but enemies ever and always. Such is the judgment delivered unto your offense. Such is my plea to one once held so close.
What did Durandal do? Is he somehow responsible for the anomaly?

Reading it that way it actually all makes way more sense. They’re still not have a proper dialogue, more like sailing ships, but the narratives make sense.

https://tenor.com/view/brain-explosion-gif-24686375

[spring fiber]

Like the exfil we just dematerialized and go back to our ship and in our mind in the server ?

[robust vale]

I don't think we immediately get out of the shell when we exfil, I think we just get the option to swap shells when in the vault

[spring fiber]

Alright but in the codex it was explain that we are in a ship in remote of tau ceti 4 ?

[robust vale]

yeah that's where our neural backup and weaveworm basin is

[spring fiber]

And so it’s kinda a teleportation that bring us in tau ceti 4 and make us exfil at the end of the game ?

Does it have an ingame name better than teleportation

[blissful dirge]

I figured the anomaly was just space time bending from the SO time jumping in infinity but that’s probably too basic.

[robust vale]

we've no idea what it is

[remote magnet]

Etherstep

[dreamy hawk]

Teleportation is how the old games referred to it. Etherstep seems to be the hot brand name.

[remote magnet]

Yeah.

I mean, it is just teleportation. What Else would you call it, outside of Branding?

[drifting mulch]

the prestige hehe

[dreamy hawk]

I got another hypothesis if you’re curious. Credit not mine.

#📚marathon-lore-discussion message

[blissful dirge]

let’s have it

[dreamy hawk]

^ and the anomaly is the product of a crack in that cage.

[craggy finch]

DurandanIDEA

[dreamy hawk]

But I should clarify/ask if you’re familiar with Pathways Into Darkness any.

[dreamy hawk]

Durandanea?

Or Durandea?

[spring fiber]

Etherstep is like a company that provide teleportation thing ?

[sudden pollen]

More like the "brand name" of the teleporter tech probably

[spring fiber]

Does with the new info with the compiler and the attack of the marathon does it still confirmed that it’s the pfhor who attack the ship ? Some say it’s the spht in this timeline and the want to consume all the knowledge so it’s why they attack ?

[visual lynx]

"jump pads" is another term the classic games used for teleporters

[visual lynx]

IDEArandal

[lunar cove]

there's a codex entry that implies the Pfhor were there

Soldiers at the colony do an autopsy of an alien body after the fighting, and even though they redact the name, the description matches a Pfhor

[visual lynx]

I think the free S'pht probably attacked on their own in 2812, but it was still the Pfhor who attacked in 2794

[craggy finch]

Simulacrum are also implied to have been there

[lunar cove]

they say it's shaped similar to a human but with some insect features

among other things that suggest it's a pfhor

[visual lynx]

I think that Durandal-Thoth just abandoned the S'pht after kickstarting their rebellion, and they're pissed about that, and telling IDEArandal as though he's the same person as the Durandal-Thoth that they're mad at.

Durandal-Thoth abandoning the S'pht probably recapitulated their abandonment by Yrro and contributes to their current "freed from tide and from lash" attitude of "consume consume consume".

"no gods, no masters"

[dreamy hawk]

Do you think they’re talking to Durandea, directly? We know he’s hiding from them; maybe they’re communicating more like with messages in a bottle than directly?

[blissful dirge]

best theory i’ve seen

[dreamy hawk]

This would explain why there are Compilers still present; maybe in their new found freedom carrying on Yrro’s work takes a priority?

And I mean they have every right to be pissed at Durandal-Thoth for using them. Literally everyone has only just used them; even their liberator. 💀

[spring fiber]

So ether step is just the teleportation thing ? Does the mind in the shell is by sekiguchi or it’s still with ether step ?

[dreamy hawk]

I presume if you exfil your shell is recycled for material and your mind slapped into the buffer.

[spring fiber]

No I was wondering Wich company do the mind in the shell ?

It is sekiguchi behind this ?

[dreamy hawk]

Oh. CyAc does minds, SekGen, shells.

[spring fiber]

Oh ok alright thank u

And etherstep the matter transfer

[hasty berry]

Hello fellow loremasters

[dreamy hawk]

🤷

[hasty berry]

I just finished co-evolution and as last codex i got a thank u letter from all sek gen team. Now Iam confused, oni insists nona is a lier but everything nona does seems good so far? Who is the more evil

Except nona quest being arguably the hardest

[visual lynx]

it does seem like they're sort of talking past each other. DuranDEA (I like that name better than my IDEArandal!) seems sort of like he's waking up from some kind of trace state, like the first page of those reveries gives me the vibe of someone in bed in a dark room as the door is opened and blindingly bright daylight shines in and they can't resolve who is at the doorway looking in on them yet, and also they're still half asleep and half in a dream and mumbling somewhat incoherently, while the person walking in on them talks about things that've been going on outside as though the sleeper should already know about them even though he obviously does not.

[dreamy hawk]

No one has your best interest at heart; they’re all playing you for their own end. Some might do it with sugar and a grandmother’s facade, others might do it with a guise of altruism towards the human race.

[dreamy hawk]

Very much feels that way I think.

[hasty berry]

Thats given, but i think nona genuinely cares

I read her codex and she might be going rampant

She keeps detaching herself from sekgen goals and keeps being more into
“Iam a mother”

[dreamy hawk]

I’m sure they all are. 😂

I’ll need to reread more but I’m skeptical of all of them tbh.

[hasty berry]

Other AI are fully on board with them being obiedient AI to their owners

Nona co-evolution codex

Is more and more about her schizoing her being an actual mother

[dreamy hawk]

I think there’s hints Vulcan runs Traxus and has taken it over.

[hasty berry]

Based vulcan

[rugged void]

Someone got the line which say « you will be forgotten » ?

I try to find what was said before and after

Something like « sooner you acquire this info, better it will be »

[hasty berry]

U mean oni?

It goes something alongside of

[rugged void]

Yes

[hasty berry]

“U will be forgotten, u find peace in that realisation “

[rugged void]

Thanks

[hasty berry]

But i dont remember the beginning

[rugged void]

That’s all I needed

[chrome skiff]

@burnt steeple, the wrkncacntor is the name that the Jjaro used for the thing they were running from

"to escape all wrkncacntor"

[burnt steeple]

The alien dudes we are gonna fight are jjaro right

[chrome skiff]

no those are the Pfhor

[burnt steeple]

Who’s the jjaro

[chrome skiff]

the Jjaro are like the Forerunners from halo

ancient, super advanced

created entire species

[burnt steeple]

Damn I must’ve skipped a lot why didn’t I hear about these dudes

[chrome skiff]

it's unclear whether the wrkncacntor are a whole species, a single entity, or like some kind of substance or energy

[chrome skiff]

A lot of Marathon lore is pretty arcane and hard to penetrate to be fair

[burnt steeple]

I think whatever I watched was probably limited to in game lore at the time

[chrome skiff]

This lore has been discussed since the 90s my friend

[burnt steeple]

So did ghe jjaro create the phor?

[chrome skiff]

The Pfhor arent one species, theyre an army of a ton of enslaved species.

The Jjaro did create the S'pht

[burnt steeple]

I though that was ghe spht

[chrome skiff]

S'pht/Compilers

[burnt steeple]

Huh wait wasn’t the spht created by the phor

And enslaved by them

[chrome skiff]

they were enslaved by them yes, but they existed for thousands of years before the Pfhor ever found them

thats kind of what the whole second game is about

they were uplifted by the jjaro with cybernetics that allowed them to use higher thought and become sapient

[burnt steeple]

The cybernetics making them compilers

[chrome skiff]

yes, but Complier is just what the humans call the S'pht

[burnt steeple]

Okay so what happened to the dudes we are investigating the marathon colonisers

[chrome skiff]

That's all in the in game codex. Hasnt been explored in past games really

as far as I can tell

A famine brought on by a fungus, mutated by the anomoly in dire marsh

the anomaly has also eaten people

[burnt steeple]

Ahh yess the anomalies on dire marsh

Is that what took all the ppl away

[chrome skiff]

a lot of weird time shit is happening there

[chrome skiff]

probably not all of them? It's unclear

Some just died of normal disease I think

there are a couple corpses you can find

[burnt steeple]

I heard something about uesc selling the ppl to the phor or something along those lines

[hasty berry]

Atm in marathon the only alien race u can fight is s’pht

[chrome skiff]

unless you count the Ticks

[hasty berry]

I guess

[chrome skiff]

and Scrac lol

[hasty berry]

Dunno why marathon chose a compiler as a boss

[chrome skiff]

cus its cool

[hasty berry]

Considering they were all set free

In original game

[chrome skiff]

Might have gone rampant

[burnt steeple]

I genuinely love the perspective we get ,not some main character shit where we see and know everything but as a detective trying to clue things

[chrome skiff]

Set free, but trapped on a dying ship for hundreds of years?

Also the corpos we work for want their parts

[burnt steeple]

Right so is durandal gonna set free the spht ?

[hasty berry]

He already did

In first game

[chrome skiff]

in the second game

[hasty berry]

U mean marathon 2 durandal

[chrome skiff]

yeah

[hasty berry]

I more of meant “in the og series”

My bad

[chrome skiff]

fair enough

it is three games to be fair

four if you count pathways

[hasty berry]

Makes me wonder which faction in this game is objectively

[burnt steeple]

In the first u fight the phor and spht right?

[hasty berry]

The most evil

[chrome skiff]

UESC

[hasty berry]

And which is least

The

[burnt steeple]

Mida

[chrome skiff]

MIDA are the good guys, but Gantry might be a rogue agent

[hasty berry]

Idk chief

[burnt steeple]

Blowing shit up isn’t that evil tbh

[hasty berry]

They did some nasty stuff

[molten roost]

ehhh

[hasty berry]

On mara

Mars

As well

[molten roost]

Mars would probably disagree

[chrome skiff]

they are anti corp and anti government

[burnt steeple]

Oh taking over the planet

[hasty berry]

And killing 10% of it

[burnt steeple]

Well desperate measures need desperate solutions

[chrome skiff]

rising up against a tyrannical government

[chrome skiff]

I think that was the total casualties of the engagment, not all Mida

[burnt steeple]

Mida remind me of the watchdogs crew

Dedsec

[molten roost]

pretty sure a lot of that happened after mida took over though

[digital plaza]

Hell nah

[hasty berry]

In codex mida deployed a mobile execution squads

To target anyone who may be on uesc side

Thats why uesc rushed their attack

And hanged all mida leaders after they won

[digital plaza]

There are no good or bad guys, every faction got their own skeleton in the closet

[chrome skiff]

the UESC was starving the whole planet before then. Seems like a very nevessary war

[burnt steeple]

Yh mida seems reasonable

[hasty berry]

Wasnt it simply a bad management and not neccesary malice?

[molten roost]

I will give you that the 'current' mida based on in game lore has made some statements to appear to distance themselves from 'old' mida, but not sure what that really entails yet

[chrome skiff]

Traxus are just blatantly evil and dont even try to hide it lol

[burnt steeple]

How evil?

[hasty berry]

Who is governing mars now

[hasty berry]

If u read codex they basically treat everyone like pawns and sell out people

[burnt steeple]

All I know is traxus are rich asf which by default makes them evil but idk how more evil they can be

[molten roost]

I feel like traxus just wants money and is very clear about that. not to say they're not evil. I just feel like nucal is the more comically evil group, given some of their tactics and practices

[hasty berry]

Ur reward for completing every main quest is u getting fired but since u did so well they wont execute u

[digital plaza]

UESC

[chrome skiff]

they stopped maintaining the ship that send supplies to mars dooming millions to starvation and poverty. I would say in this instance bad management, ignorance, apathy = malice

[hasty berry]

Didnt mars get independence later?

And is no longer uesc?

[digital plaza]

No?

[deep solar]

Corpos are always evil, especially cyber Boeing I mean Traxus

[digital plaza]

As far as I know they still under UESC rule

[burnt steeple]

Boeing and open AI are like traxus and cyberacme

[chrome skiff]

CyAc is more like microsoft

[rugged void]

Not sure for Boeing. Pretty much Bouygues for Traxus

[deep solar]

I get Msoft from CyAc

[rugged void]

CyAk is wikipedia

[chrome skiff]

since they have a monopoly on operating systems

and software

[rugged void]

NuCal maybe Nestlé

[chrome skiff]

and Traxus does all heavy industry and mining in addition to ship building

[burnt steeple]

I was gonna argue using AI as a point but then realised all the parties use them (except mida and Arachne lol)

[deep solar]

NuCal is Cyber Sysco (anyone who’s ever worked in the service industry knows exactly what I’m talking about)

[digital plaza]

Nope

[chrome skiff]

Arachne is kind of a product of SekGen though

[molten roost]

we still don't technically know what charter or _gantry are, i don't believe. all we know is that charter was a runner before he became whatever he is now. they could still very well be AIs

[chrome skiff]

founded by a runner who went insane by dying too many times (possibly runner rampancy?)

[rugged void]

Sekgen is bayer bayer or Pfizer?

[burnt steeple]

I only know cisco not sysco 😂

[deep solar]

Charter at least is a former runner but what he is now? That’s a good question

[hasty berry]

He still occupies a shell no?

At least that’s what it looks like to me

[molten roost]

dont think we know

[rugged void]

With 4 arms

[digital plaza]

Arachne wasn’t founded by him

[hasty berry]

Considering once u become runner u cant really become meatbag again can u?

[burnt steeple]

Yh but idk their speech patterns don’t give off AI vibes,AI are unnaturally confident and fluid in what they say

[rugged void]

Not really possible

[tranquil basin]

10% of the population isn’t that bad right guys

[molten roost]

you don't find charter or _gantry overly confident in what they say?

[deep solar]

“I was a runner too, before I gave my mind to Arachne” so we really don’t know what he is other than a mind

[chrome skiff]

dont think so. and if you could be downloaded into a full flesh clone, you would probably have a ton of medical issues and brain damage tbh

[hasty berry]

Nona absolutely loses her temper when oni calls her out

So idk

[molten roost]

yeah exactly my point

[twin trout]

charter is likely an ai based on the runner, like how gaius is gus

[molten roost]

could have been uploaded and used as a base for an AI is my thought

[rugged void]

It’s like going analogic to digital then going back to analogic

[hasty berry]

Nona practically becomes mad

[chrome skiff]

all runners still exist in the cloud while theyre in between bodies

[rugged void]

Not very possible without losing data

[hasty berry]

That ONI dared to intervene

[burnt steeple]

Well for charter I do kinda but gantry not so much he seems not so confident

[deep solar]

My guess is that Gantry is like a netrunner from Cyberpunk, he’s just a human in a chair somewhere on Mars

[chrome skiff]

yeah that makes sense

[burnt steeple]

I think he’s trying to hide his identity so much he’s making sure he doesn’t leave any speech patterns to link to him

[chrome skiff]

I think if anyone is human it's Gantry

[hasty berry]

Is nona going rampant or is just me

[chrome skiff]

Yes

[hasty berry]

The codex makes her more and more

Crazy

[rugged void]

Who is Nona?

[hasty berry]

Each quest

[hasty berry]

Sek gen worm

[chrome skiff]

SekGen AI

[deep solar]

Nona is da worm

[rugged void]

Bruh Nona will go crazy?

[chrome skiff]

have you heard it talk?

[deep solar]

The better question is who aint going crazy/rampant

[hasty berry]

She already kinda gets super fixated about this whole
“She is mom we are children”

And in her codex

[burnt steeple]

Orion he’s got too much aura

[chrome skiff]

the Shells are her children, not the Runners

[hasty berry]

She keeps being fixated more and more

[rugged void]

Didn’t made Sekgen quests for now. I completed VIP with Traxus and Im currently doing space McDonalds

[chrome skiff]

she cares deeply about the bodies, not so much the human mind since that isnt her creation

[hasty berry]

Eh she does touch up on it a bit

[burnt steeple]

Yh I’d be mad too shitting out human sized lengths of silk everyday all the time for them to be destroyed and treated carelessly

[hasty berry]

She wants perfect world where everyone is a single mind in a single shell

She even says during one of her quests

[rugged void]

ABOUT TRAXUS.
Mommy Vulcan is awsome

[burnt steeple]

Oh no don’t tell me she’s an amoeba

[hasty berry]

That her dream is for shells not to be discarded when obsolete, but to keep growing and evolving forever

[hazy mist]

?! wait which quest does she mention this in

[hasty berry]

Alongside their consciousness

[hasty berry]

Co-evolution

[digital plaza]

Idk why people so obsessed with this idea that runners become rampant after some time or that they used for AI or something. We really don’t have anything to even suggest that so like, why? Charter is still human mind on some server, nothing really changed for him over the years except that now he’s free of corpo debt thanks to Arachne potentially (I mean how else can you quit this job? xd)

[chrome skiff]

that sounds like rampancy to me

[hasty berry]

I feel like nona

Loves runners but she hates the idea

Of shell being disposable

Hence all the trials she does on us

[burnt steeple]

So all the parties had stakes in the marathon colony except Arachne right? Such a weird group I genuinely can’t grasp their purpose

[hasty berry]

I dont think sekgen and mida had much in it either

[chrome skiff]

read description of Azazel assassin skin. It says that 13 prototype runners went 'rampant'

[rugged void]

Arachne is such a neo catholic crusade party for me 😆

[deep solar]

The more pertinent thing is that our minds that inhabit the shells seem to be more malleable to a point where the original psyche could be manipulated/lost

[hazy mist]

mida snuck some weapons on it during their coup iirc

which was relevant somehow

[burnt steeple]

Mida did they were planning something and sekiguchi I think invested but I’m not too sure

[hasty berry]

Thats not really a stake is it

[hazy mist]

fair enough

but they contributed somehow

[hasty berry]

I dont think sekgen invested anything. The only reason they contacted u is because they want the data on how u perform

Notice how sek gen quests not a single one requires u to steal something

[digital plaza]

Pretty much yes, Arachne predecessor (?) was potentially denied into the marathon project

[hasty berry]

U keep making prototype upgrades and installing them

Then field testing

[sudden pollen]

Glorp

[rugged void]

For shell voids I don’t remember where I read it but it was a disaster for the transfer to prototypes

[hasty berry]

And when u finish entire questline

U get a thank u message

[burnt steeple]

Yh ur right

[hasty berry]

From a team of sekgen scientists

[sudden pollen]

GLORP

RECOVERED ENTRY

casqterm.cdx.access

CYBERACME REPORT

v.1.001.01.tciv

Designation: Glorp
Status: Protected Entity
Classification: Internal Constant
Origin: Undisclosed

Glorp is a recognized CyberAcme entity integrated into the cultural and
operational fabric of the system. Its biological classification remains
unresolved. Its value does not.

Presence near Glorp is to be treated as a privilege. Interference,
ridicule, neglect, or physical harm directed toward the entity
constitutes a disciplinary offense. Rejection of Glorp's significance is
recorded as ideological instability and may result in corrective review.

Protect the entity. Observe respectfully. Do not test policy.

[CASqterm] |I CyberAcme Systems, Inc.

/ //REDACTED / / /

[hasty berry]

Thanking u for all ur data and money it will get them from sekgen

To study it further

[hazy mist]

was sekgen relevant at all during the construction of the marathon

[chrome skiff]

might have been coordinated with Strauss (who snuck the cyborgs onto the ship). I think the extra weapons were for the cyborgs. Also an excuse for player character in the original to have access to so many weapons and ammo

[hasty berry]

Dont think so

[hazy mist]

it kinda seemed liek they mainly became important with the creation of shells and stuff which didnt happen until after

[hasty berry]

Yeah

Traxus CyAc and Nucal

Were the trio of marathon funds

[dreamy hawk]

Which predecessor?

[digital plaza]

iirc it was because they were prototypes, not like runners after them gone rampant

[burnt steeple]

From the looks of it seki should be rolling in dough , enough to invest but chose not to….maybe they had something to do with the disaster so they could put the runners to the test ,like a false flag?

[deep solar]

It seem like SekGen sprung up in the 400ish years between the Marathon launch and present day

[digital plaza]

That Astro cult from manifestos third - fourth log

Someone suggested that they were predecessor of some kind to Arachne

[chrome skiff]

well rampancy in a runner, wouldnt look the same as AI rampancy. Maybe it shouldnt be called the same thing. But we definitely know that runners experience memory loss, loss of self, and need a lot of safeguards in place by CyAc to prevent mental degradation

what would it look like for a human mind to breakdown and go wrong, but they cant ever truly die?

[digital plaza]

https://youtu.be/mjtW9HJSAks?is=Y6tp8keBpM606RiP

[hasty berry]

Not really

Some people speculate

That sekgen helped making the battleroids

As by the time marathon launched sekgen was already making full body prosthetics

[tranquil basin]

They’re speculated to have worked on the battleroids long before the marathon

And they made the robotic cats for the journey

And they did some neural implants too I think

[digital plaza]

Sekgen gave some of their technologies & blueprints and MIDA placed their agents and weapons there

[dreamy hawk]

Ty! I had missed these somehow!

[hasty berry]

Man this whole expedition was recipe for disaster lmao

[dreamy hawk]

If Jasper was right that’s by design.

But he also wasn’t the only one that felt that way. UESC knew something.

[hasty berry]

Also how did marathon explained everyone getting there so fast

[inland crypt]

Mars lost a moon for this

[hasty berry]

Did humanity invent some new

Super fast engines?

To catch up?

[hazy mist]

wait know this one but i forget hte name

[chrome skiff]

I think the marathon was an expedition to try and find the Jjaro, but UESC and stakeholders needed to pass it off as a colony expedition to get public support for it

[hazy mist]

ohh awit thats what u mean

nvmnvm

[hasty berry]

I still think deimos was used just for a pure “fuck u” and no other reason

[chrome skiff]

they made massive technological leaps in the 400 years since they lost the marathon

[dreamy hawk]

FTL has been a human technology for centuries that has been improving. Biggest limiting factor seems to be mass, which ultimately impacts distance.

[dreamy hawk]

Marathon took 300 years, the Equanimity just under a century, and the corps and runners in less than ten.

[hasty berry]

And somehow have FTL communication too

[chrome skiff]

yep

[digital plaza]

True, but we yet to see runner rampancy (azazel and reveal cinematic don’t count :pp)

[chrome skiff]

idk about you but I'm defintely going rampant playing this game

[digital plaza]

xd

[dreamy hawk]

They’ve had that since the Marathon and New Cascadia. That’s how Earth was able to lose contact with them. Icarus was the AI in charge of a deep space comms relay iirc.

[chrome skiff]

"we have yet to see any examples, these examples don't count" :|

[hasty berry]

Time for existential question

[chrome skiff]

the only runners we interact with are other players, or CHARTER

[hazy mist]

which cinematic implies runner rampancy

[chrome skiff]

are you saying CHARTER is normal???

[hasty berry]

Is consciousness in marathon actually transfered back and forth

[digital plaza]

Well I mean azazel is literal prototype and reveal cinematic has kinda outdated narrative threads

[hasty berry]

Or is it simply copied

[deep solar]

Yes

[dreamy hawk]

Unclear.

[digital plaza]

Reveal cinematic

[chrome skiff]

what outdated narrative threads?

[dreamy hawk]

Marketing certainly says it is.

But there’s no evidence in game it is.

[deep solar]

I was just being facetious lol

[digital plaza]

Well I mean… he just likes killing I guess

[dreamy hawk]

I need an eye roll or something!

[digital plaza]

Not that he went insane he has a way with words if you can say that

[deep solar]

Charter is the most honest guy we know

[hasty berry]

Charter is a bum

And so is his bum ass shop

[hazy mist]

ohh icic can i ask where

[digital plaza]

Orion is a runner (specop) too

[hasty berry]

With nothing good to purchase

[digital plaza]

But he’s pretty okay

[chrome skiff]

he defintely uses shells, but I actually think he's human and just pilots shells

[hasty berry]

Iam hoping to one day face orion

In some event

[chrome skiff]

he has dialogue where he chastises you and the fact you cant die and have no risk to yourself

[inland crypt]

I too wanna face Orion in a certain event

[chrome skiff]

either he is a hypocrite (highly possible) or he is human somehow

[chrome skiff]

would be cool as a boss

[digital plaza]

Yeah and he’s saying that their death is not like ours, when we and Orion die we can be reprinted, real humans don’t

[chrome skiff]

oooohhhh I see

[digital plaza]

And I don’t think shells can be piloted, they are specifically designed to house a mind of a runner

[hasty berry]

I also love how every faction just straight up Makes u nuke UESC yet they all work with them

[digital plaza]

Orion doesn’t have a real body, we get confirmation on that in one of the MIDA quests

[hasty berry]

Traxus signs up deals with uesc then 5min later tells u to stab uesc in the back

[chrome skiff]

remember we are all illegally hired mercs

[deep solar]

Much like corpos irl manipulate conflicts for their own gain all the time

[hasty berry]

Yeah mida mentioned orion bullying mars centuries ago no?

[chrome skiff]

nothing we do is above board, all of the corpos are corrupt and thats why the government hates us, also because they have a lot to hide

[deep solar]

No good guys on Tau Ceti

[twin trout]

I am

[digital plaza]

I don’t think it specified any dates, but yes

[chrome skiff]

MIDA has the right idea though

[twin trout]

I'm the sole goog person on tau ceti

:3

[hasty berry]

Another question

Why is thief barefoot

[chrome skiff]

lay the truth bare

[inland crypt]

Orion will be a vender by season 3 for sure

[deep solar]

MIDA at least wants to change and destroy the system

[chrome skiff]

better climbing ergonomics?

[digital plaza]

He terrorised them when he was a human (presumably) and now terrorises us as a runner

[digital plaza]

Void too

[deep solar]

My prediction is that when the Pfhor inevitably show up, Orion will be like “shit we need the runners” and UESC will become a faction

[chrome skiff]

that would be cool to see

[hasty berry]

Would make sense why “faction quiz” included UESC

[chrome skiff]

but they have millions of robots, and possibly sanctioned runners already?

[hasty berry]

If thats the case

[chrome skiff]

next two factions, UESC and Durandal?

[hasty berry]

Durandal is dead to me

[chrome skiff]

yet he still speaks

[hasty berry]

Cant wait to shut down that mofo forever

[digital plaza]

They don’t use runners, Orion and his team are UESC specops

Not hired mercs

[inland crypt]

Are they all barefooted? Theyre synthetic biomechanical beings why would they need shoes

[hasty berry]

Glorified elevator doorman aah ai

[inland crypt]

Pretty sure UESC uses shells afaik

[chrome skiff]

if I recall, he was also in charge of life support

[hasty berry]

Much less tho

[digital plaza]

And robots have their cost to reprint too

[hasty berry]

Nona mentiones that

[deep solar]

There’s only so many bots the UESC can print out in the face of full invasion, they’d want to court runners as asymmetric warfare specialists

[digital plaza]

They’re pretty costly on resources and time as Orion put it

[hasty berry]

“UESC abandoned the path of biosynthetic and instead going full synthetic robots”

Or something alongside those lines

[digital plaza]

Well yes but they’re not runners

Shells and biomata

[chrome skiff]

same type of thing, different social class

[twin trout]

the recon exfil codex directly mentions uesc sanctioned runners

[digital plaza]

Pretty much

[chrome skiff]

different job title

[digital plaza]

We don’t have those on TCIV

[deep solar]

I think I read something in one of the destroyer codexes too about them being used by the UESC

But I might be mistaken

[chrome skiff]

true, also the Recon has UESC on their kit, but its crossed out

they definitely at least used to use runners

[inland crypt]

My favorite shell is Rigatoni

[chrome skiff]

that is catagoricall not shell shaped

[digital plaza]

Destroyer was designed and used by UESC yes, but was outlawed pretty fast

Recon is UESC shell too

[inland crypt]

Fun police over here

[chrome skiff]

yep it's me Orion

[inland crypt]

Guess you gotta arest me

[deep solar]

We destroyers are just too strong and handsome and buff for Sol

[twin trout]

real life uesc member

[chrome skiff]

I'm a federal agent posing as MIDA

[inland crypt]

Im gonna be sentenced to endorse the shell shaped pasts

[chrome skiff]

sentenced to 100 years NuCaloric community service

[inland crypt]

conchiglie is the best guys, please buy Nu Caloric's conchiglie pasta shells today

Its the sniffable comchigile pasta, thats pasta you ingest by sniffing

[chrome skiff]

all of NuCal's pasta is made of recycled pasta

[twin trout]

tastes like pasta. isn't.

[chrome skiff]

New: [FOOD] ! ! !
Tastes like food
isn't

[nova pumice]

at least it isnt plastic

oh wait

[inland crypt]

New Orion 🥹

[chrome skiff]

TASTES LIKE PASTIC
ISN'T

[twin trout]

new NuCal study determines a worrying amount of microfoods in our plastics

[inland crypt]

Anyone who has also watched andor, doesnt Orion's va sound like the Narkana 5 overhead speaker guy?

[zealous laurel]

A little bit!

[inland crypt]

"On program runner"

[chrome skiff]

any seen the NuCal preserved cow?

in cryo

[inland crypt]

On s livestream yeah

[chrome skiff]

prepackaged whole live cow, and tuna

[twin trout]

tuna 🤤

[nova pumice]

a live animal? in the nucaloric facility?

nonsense!

[inland crypt]

So is there no one inside the cryo packaging anymore?

[chrome skiff]

Unclear

might be some preserved BoBs

[inland crypt]

Hopefully

[chrome skiff]

but if there are, the runners dont know how to unfreeze them safely

might be a future mission?

[pure wagon]

good god trying to get help with anything in general chat is pointless

[inland crypt]

Need me a "frog blast the vent core"

[deep solar]

BoBs as a faction would be amazing

[digital plaza]

Its a cesspool sadly

[digital plaza]

There is, we can see some but its unclear if they alive or not (i think they are pretty dead tho)

[digital plaza]

You can see some cows and fih on outpost too

[dreamy hawk]

I guess there could be frozen BoBs that maybe entered cryo at some point after arrival, but, Born On Board, by definition, do not get to go in cryo.

[nocturne shadow]

who would win, NuCal or Biotechnica

[barren igloo]

the vibes in this chat seem way better than the #lfc-any-zone vibes, "LVL99+ SERIOUS INQURIES ONLY" , fella's I'm just trying to find pieces of lore and do quests 😂

all the outpost collectibles have been sick so far, anyone else listening/reading them?

[craggy finch]

I’m hoping to find them

Perimeter and Dire Marsh have a few wall safe spots with high chances of spawning lore collectibles

But I can only think of the Dormitory in Outpost that has one

[digital plaza]

Better farm those in pinwheel

Crates there have high chance of spawning some

[barren igloo]

been finding most of my collectibles randomly in pinwheel!

[craggy finch]

Nice I’ll try to Rook it

[digital plaza]

Only 4 severed twins entries left for outpost codex page completion

[digital plaza]

Try some freekit conveyance request strat

You get all the loot for yourself zero to hero type

[keen plank]

Nice tip.

[visual lynx]

lore nerds are the best segment of any fandom

at least any fandom I've ever been part of

[dreamy hawk]

Except GNOP! lore heads. Suspicious bunch.

[barren igloo]

I've been treating my solo runs like a single player game, like I'm a runner trying to uncover what happened and it's been great, I have no prior knowledge of any of the Marathon lore so that also makes it more interesting

[keen plank]

Nice. Makes it more immersive in that sense.

[craggy finch]

Playing detective is quite fun especially with the MIDA and NuCaloric storylines

You may have mercenary motivations or genuinely wish to uncover more

MIDA especially feels like a lead up to Cryo with the teasers of the S’pht

[nocturne shadow]

also can someone explain how did the marathon distress signal take like a century to reach sol yet runners are on tau ceti immediately afterwards? are runners just pieces of data without a constant body and there's some current mumbo jumbo instant data transfer technology? I initially thought the runners were stationed on marathon and were dropping shells down to the planet to remotely control them? let me know if I just missed a patch of lore to cover up this plot hole in my head

[craggy finch]

space travel getting faster

The Marathon took 300+ years

The Equanimity was estimated to take roughly 100 years

[nocturne shadow]

https://tenor.com/view/cute-adorable-duckling-haha-classic-gif-17283485

[craggy finch]

The signal was received by Sol in 2888 and everybody rushed to Tau Ceti, including Runners

The current date is 2893

[nocturne shadow]

and is a runner just a brain in a jar type of thing now or?

[craggy finch]

It’s a digital mind like Ghost in the Shell basically

When our shell dies our mind disconnects and jets to a storage space until a new shell is ready

[nocturne shadow]

yeah I assumed so

just couldn't connect how the runners travelled from sol

6G I guess

[craggy finch]

There’s hints of FTL at this point, since Orion the UESC guy in charge of the operation requests assistance from his CO presumably back in Sol

[deep solar]

Runners are based in system, that’s why one of the first contracts for CyAC is to hijack FTL comms, to communicate back to Sol where the faction reps are

How did your runner get to Tau Ceti? I suppose it’s left vague so you can head canon it however you want

[robust vale]

I will say there is a chance we do see humans soon

the Cryo Archive codex entry mentions that humanity is trying marathon-ship-tier cryo works for the TCIV push

so the equanimity arriving might give us humans to face

new boss fight: Literally Just A Normal Human

we have ftl communication but ftl travel is out of the question

now how close to ftl is uncertain

[visual lynx]

the distress signal didn't actually take a century, presumably it took 12 years, and was sent by Durandal in 2876 so as to arrive in 2888. but then yes we got to TCIV only 5 years later 2893, so there is FTL travel. it's said that runners are arriving via "sponsored transport" so presumably there's some ship or ships in orbit where shells are manufactured and minds are stored, that then beamed down to the planet. it's not on the Marathon and the UESC forces in Tau Ceti don't seem to know where it is (or perhaps just can't openly fire on it because of treaties).

[robust vale]

oh shit my bad I forgot the timeline

[visual lynx]

it's implied that humans had FTL comms before the Marathon even launched, because they go dark immediately in 2794 when the Pfhor attack, implying that the primary comms array that went offline when the Pfhor deployed their initial EMP contained the FTL connection, which is why we had to activate the secondary array in G4 Sunbathing to send only a lightspeed message. (but that didn't even go out, apparently, because Durandal was blocking all communication outside the ship.)

[deep solar]

Thank you CyberAcme BattleBus for FTL jumping us to TCIV

[craggy finch]

The reveal trailer also shows Vandal and Assassin in these weird cubicle things crammed into a huge space, so we’re presumably all in the same dorm essentially

Like the Peach Tree apartment blocks in Dredd

[robust vale]

cmon can somebody lend me like a row of vault space

I've just got a gun I wanna save

it's one retaliator cmon I'll pay you rent

-average runner dorm conversation

[craggy finch]

“Vault” and it’s just a storage closet

[visual lynx]

"Hiii everyone, welcome to my run of the Dire Marsh, thank you for watching. Before I begin I'd like to send a big shout out to Traxus OffWorld Industries for sponsoring today's run! If you're in the market for a new asteroid auto-miner, you can get up to 20% off or more if you sign up to their AsterRisk plan today with our code V4ND4L, that's vee-four-en-dee-four-el. Alright so let's see what the Anomaly is brewing for us tonight!"

[robust vale]

no fr these vaults are kinda small

[keen plank]

Hmmm. So some of the other AI do make text commentaries in some of the tracks. Mostly for analysis. Bastion and Tycho both have lines about, say the data carriage. We just haven't heard either speak yet.

[craggy finch]

I want to know the corp reaction when our Runners eat shit using their sponsored kits

[robust vale]

please, it's dire marsh, she's being shot at by the discount code

[hallow reef]

So are runners just complete losers compared to the protagonist of the original games? I feel like they have to be if a single compiler is a raid boss

[craggy finch]

The compiler is probably upgrades

But yeah we’re total scrubs

Security Officer is a speed demon who can run circles around enemies and punch them to death with momentum

We overheat after ten seconds of sprinting

[robust vale]

the compiler also beat the UESC multiple times

with dozens of ARS soldiers and a 4-man runner squad

[craggy finch]

His shield tech was way stronger as well

[digital plaza]

Pretty much

[hallow reef]

I am surprised there aren’t more of the pfhor in the game tho

[robust vale]

also the SO was a walking war crime

literally

[craggy finch]

Given Orion’s rank his shell may be closer to SO’s level than us but he doesn’t have the grit of a Mjolnir

[digital plaza]

I mean its not super fair considering the guy has Jjaro tech in him but yeah

[hallow reef]

Is it because the runners wouldn’t be able to compete with them (lore wise)

[craggy finch]

Eh I’d think they’d still go down to regular bullets

Your guns aren’t that far off from OG weapons

[hallow reef]

Fair

[craggy finch]

SO was a menace because of other factors

[visual lynx]

yeah the inside of its cloak doesn't look like classic S'pht, it looks armored, so maybe this is a Compiler with thousand-years-of-improvement S'pht'Kr upgrades.

[craggy finch]

MADDs also did a lot to push back the initial Pfhor attack and they’re just mobile versions of those UESC gun turrets

Up until Drinniol/Hunters arrived

[robust vale]

I suspect that part of this game's divergence from OG marathon is that the Pfhor and Sph't are just more juiced in a more eldritch way than they were originally

[visual lynx]

you'd be unstoppable too if you could restore from a save every time you lost at anything

[craggy finch]

Based on the autopsy log the Pfhor are still as Pfhorish as they used to be

Almost 2 meter tall lankers that kind of look like bugs

[hallow reef]

I love how crazy scary they make the spht in this game

[robust vale]

horrifying! I can't wait to shoot them

[craggy finch]

UESC Recruits already have a foundation for how Fighters should act

Throw a few lightning balls then rush to smack you

But hopefully more agile

Troopers should be an artillery based nightmare and Hunters should be complete tanks

[deep solar]

Yeah I could see basic Pfhor being more glass cannons that rush you in numbers

[keen plank]

No. They're above-average mercenaries compared to a normal person with a degree of immortality. The difference is the Security Officer is a Battleroid who stands above other Battleroids. He's crazy powerful, while Marathon 2026 takes the point of view of more typical civilians.

[craggy finch]

We’re above BoBs at the very least yeah

[keen plank]

Bernard Straus snuck 10 Battleroids onto the UESC Marathon. 9 Drove the Pfhor off Tau Ceti. The other one is the main protagonist...who does so much more.

[chrome skiff]

I wanna know what happened to the cyborgs

if they or their bodies are still on Tau Ceti somewhere

[deep solar]

Think of it this way the SO and the other Battleroids are the Adam Smasher of Tau Ceti

[craggy finch]

In the SekGen storyline Nona alluded to the ten Mjolnir

But there’s no mention of them in records from Tau Ceti

[robust vale]

there are a lot of bodies missing from TC4

[chrome skiff]

probably a well guarded secret, since theyre kind of superweapons

[robust vale]

and they can't all have been slurped up by the pfhor

[keen plank]

A good comparison. With the Security Officer being an Adam Smasher to the other Adam Smashers.