📚marathon-lore-discussion

[keen plank]

The fungal corruption took some of them. The anomaly took others. We don't know what happened to most of bodies, but it's also been decades. There's also quite a lot of corpses in Cryo Archive that werre never thawed out.

[craggy finch]

Somewhere in the [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] of the [REDACTED] [REDACTED]

[earnest hatch]

They’re saving them for season 4

[deep solar]

Definitely think some of redacted UESC files mention the Battleroids based on context clues

[craggy finch]

SO seems equal to them in the same sense John 117 was never exceptional Spartan wise, but he had all kinds of luck/powerful AIs on his side before activating his Jjaro time powers

[keen plank]

Nona alludes to them as well. There's more and more evidence Bernard snuck them onto the ship.

[chrome skiff]

yea I think they were implied to be equivalent, since they said there were FAR fewer human casualties on the colony than on the Marathon

or maybe that was a nod to most players accidentally shooting the BoBs

[keen plank]

mmmm. John 117 was so above other Spartans even before Cartana that he stood out enough for her to choose him. In many ways, Master Chief is the weaker spiritual ancestor to the security officer.

[craggy finch]

But what about that speech from Sierra 117

[keen plank]

It's implied that the Security Officer may have been built from the same soldiers corpse that was the Pathway to Darkness protagonist.

[deep solar]

Iirc one of the files from the MIDA questline is along the lines of “ [Redacted] fended off by [Redacted]” or something like that

[craggy finch]

They let me pick, did I ever tell you that? Choose whichever Spartan I wanted. You know me. I did my research, watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. Like the others, you were strong and swift and brave. A natural leader. But you had something they didn't. Something no one saw... but me. Can you guess? Luck. Was I wrong?" - Cortana's voice in the beginning of Arrival.

Master Chief was just as capable, he just had a little extra that turned the tide

The other Mjolnir didn’t have the dubious favour of Durandal

So they were either killed or captured

[keen plank]

Which one?

[keen plank]

Yeah, that's the one I was referencing.

[keen plank]

Very true. Though it seems the Security Officer was still above them even before Durandal. Marathon's lore gets weird.

[craggy finch]

If all Battleroids were made the same way maybe the Jjaro implants only triggered due to the awakening of the Wrk

[deep solar]

Meanwhile the Spartan 3s are reporting 98% casualties on their latest mission, a resounding success

[keen plank]

The Battleroids are already stolen/modified Jaro tech as a result of the previous exploration of the pyramid.

[keen plank]

Isn't John a Spartan II?

[deep solar]

Yep and all of noble team except Jorge are 3s

3s are more expendable

Or rather designed to be expendable

[keen plank]

I thought Kat was the only 2.

I'll check.

[craggy finch]

Jorge is the eldest

All the other Nobles are visibly younger than him

[deep solar]

Jorge was the only 2

[keen plank]

Yeah you're right. Just Jorge.

[deep solar]

It actually kinda loops back around. Battleroids are more like Spartan 2s and runners are more like the 3s

[craggy finch]

Spartans need super advanced power armour, Security Officer had to rely on standard security personnel gear

And was a BEAST

[dreamy hawk]

Sure, but Master Chief beat an ODST to death with his bare hands.

But SO would probably beat him. 🤔

[deep solar]

And that was like the day after he was augmented and by accident

[craggy finch]

On that note, the compilers were surely limited in how powerful they could be as slaves

If this S’pht has been out of Pfhor control for a century then they would no doubt have upgraded themselves

To the same extent as the S’pht’Kr

We also technically never see the Boomer S’pht in M2

They’re all just doing offscreen stuff

[keen plank]

John 117 has no chance of a drawn-out win, sadly. But he'd put up a good fight.

[visual lynx]

if we are in the final Infinity timeline then they were captured and “translated to Pfhor slave tanks” and not all of them survived

[keen plank]

Was this before or after Durandal tried to save the few remaining survivors? I know with timelines it gets weird.

[visual lynx]

not the tide, you fool!

don’t you understand?

[craggy finch]

Blood Tides

[keen plank]

"The waves were the battles and the battles were the waves."

[visual lynx]

Durandal never tried to save the other cyborgs, or in that timeline, even the SO; he left them all behind when he went to Lh’owon

[keen plank]

Interesting.

[craggy finch]

All the BoBs he has were the abductees that he left trapped in there

[dreamy hawk]

We’re in the peak selfish a-hole Durandal timeline.

[craggy finch]

Wasn’t Durandal-Thoth derived from the mind SO transferred from another timeline?

What if there’s three Durandal?

[drifting mulch]

i need to correct this, every other Spartan II did something better than 117. Cortana chose John purely because he was lucky, almost 4th wall in a way (he never dies because in-game checkpoints)

[keen plank]

Oh that’s absolutely true.

John gets beaten out by many Spartans in different areas. But only two Spartans ever achieved his level of pure combat success.

He and Noble 6 were the only two to be given “hyper lethal” status. Which makes me curious as to what the other categories are.

[craggy finch]

Hyper lethal is probably just a virtue of going through events that kill everyone involved yet coming out alive

[keen plank]

Also, little bit of trivia: Cortana was originally going to have been made from Durandal’s source code.

[dreamy hawk]

“Not-Quite-Hyper-Lethal.”

[craggy finch]

Any other Spartan would have ended up dead at Alpha Halo

[dreamy hawk]

Or “MIA”

[keen plank]

Straus says that unlike other AI, Durandal was specifically designed to be given “room to grow.”

But considering Straus would use him to test and explore rampancy via torture, it’s not necessarily a good thing.

[craggy finch]

As MC in game you just sort of stumble through events until you find a big “blow everything up” button

In the case of Halo 2 he just bumbles around up to the Flood crashing into High Charity

[deep solar]

Hyper Lethal isn’t canon that’s from a commercial. Not to downplay how skilled John and Noble 6 are though, they are still the best of the best

[dreamy hawk]

I don’t know. Noble 6 didn’t make it off Reach. Doesn’t sound like a winner to me.

[keen plank]

They seem to be the best all-round Spartans while many beat them in other areas. Good at all trades, amazing at none, etc.

[craggy finch]

Yeah he didn’t have the outs that Chief did

Chief consistently finds miraculous ways of escape

[deep solar]

That’s true, should’ve pumped their luck stats

[craggy finch]

Jeep onto Longsword

Pod out of High Charity

Jeep into frigate with Arby

[keen plank]

Nope. But he’s also directly responsible for Cortana getting to chief.

6’s success is Johns success and vice versa.

[craggy finch]

Six lost his last ride when Emile died

[drifting mulch]

Halo Reach is so fkin cinema man

[keen plank]

Also, 6 is much more of a loner compared to chief. Chief is somewhat social. Just doesn’t talk much.

[deep solar]

Jun is underrated for fighting his way off Reach by himself

[drifting mulch]

Halo Master Chief Collection is $10 on steam btw (!)

[craggy finch]

He’s the stealth guy, he had better performance alone on a glassed planet than Six and his loud ass did

[keen plank]

It’s nice one member the team made it out. He’s been in other media since too.

[drifting mulch]

the banter between Cortana and Chief is one of my favorite parts of the games

[keen plank]

“Think I’ll shoot my way out. Mix things up a little.”

[deep solar]

That’s why I can never get behind MC being called a blank slate, he’s always had like this dry wit personality

[keen plank]

Indeed. He’s not the strong silent type. Just a stoic guy with a ton of baggage.

Security Officer by contrast never speaks. But may have one terminal entry.

[craggy finch]

It’s funny how Chief stays somewhat the same as a person in the three games while SO changes up constantly despite having no in game dialogue

In M1’s manual he’s just kind of a regular guy, if an oddly capable one -> in M2’s manual he’s just resigned to being Durandal’s errand boy, if not somewhat resentful over it -> by Infinity he’s completely lost it as some kind of time hopping Beowulf

[dreamy hawk]

Ehhh. No one remembers the one who made the assist on a goal.

(I’m just being difficult)

[craggy finch]

I got the precision down but my teammates get the finisher bonus

[keen plank]

Early Bungie games have a fun wildness to them. There’s a lot of “punk” energy. You see it with the Marathon level names.

[deep solar]

Stopped taking as many psychedelics as they got more corporate

[craggy finch]

The more conventional storytelling basically started when Combat Evolved was a condensed and simplified retelling of a lot of Marathon events

[keen plank]

It was just a weird and much different era. I’ve taught many people playing Marathon 2026 that Bungie made games for Macintosh.

[craggy finch]

Steve Jobs was reportedly pissed at Halo

[keen plank]

I’ve heard that.

[deep solar]

Everyone always forgets about the Myth games too

[keen plank]

Fire in the Valley is great book that looks at the rise of Silicon Valley. There was a lot of outright crazy and illegal things happening.

[keen plank]

Myth games still are pretty iconic. What’s amazing about them is the original was just two people making it.

[craggy finch]

I appreciate nuMarathon all the more for capturing the bizarre atmosphere of the original Marathon games, especially since I felt Destiny was too conventional in it’s “cinematic” sci fi presentation

[deep solar]

Destiny still had the weird you just had to look for it.

[craggy finch]

It’s the same tier as Elder Scrolls weird

[keen plank]

Destiny does often feel like Marvel. And Destiny 2, amazingly, pulled off a successful end to a decade long story just like the MCU did.

[craggy finch]

Some flavour text is high concept but the rest of it is just regular fantasy

[keen plank]

The 9 are a good source of it.

[craggy finch]

The use of diagetic interface in Marathon is brilliant

Every cutscene is your character experiencing it in first person

[keen plank]

I dunno. Elder Scrolls gets wilder the deeper you dig in.

[craggy finch]

Someone hacks into your brain feed and gives a message

[tough marten]

it felt a lot of the time that destiny writers were so focused on lore and worldbuilding that they forgot to write characters

at least for destiny 1

[craggy finch]

That’s what I mean, you have this text about fighting the child of the dragon god of time or something but then it’s just a dragon boss fight

[keen plank]

It really is a revolutionary game for many reasons. Playing through it now alongside 2026 Marathon.

[deep solar]

Sermons of Vivec are still incredible

[craggy finch]

I also mean it with 2026, the way Durandal hijacks the map select screen to announce Cryo Archive left me flabbergasted

[deep solar]

The whole concept of Chim and Mantling is so incredible

[keen plank]

Oh I refer to the broader cosmology and structure of existence itself. Like the Thalmor’s true goal is to ultimately unmake existence to an extent. They’re not simply hating non elves. They’re a full on almost omnicidal cult.

[deep solar]

Yet they are barely mentioned in the TES games

[craggy finch]

That’s the main problem essentially

You have this weirdness but I’m just a dude with a sword throwing fireballs

[keen plank]

Ah those kinds of cutscenes are excellent. I like your perspective.

[craggy finch]

Fighting orcs and skeletons

[deep solar]

If they add Sword singing in TES 6, they’re probably not going to add the ability to cut an atom like how Yokuda was destroyed

[craggy finch]

Yeah probably not

The Thum is interesting is concept but it’s functionally just alt spells

[keen plank]

That seems to be the likely path. I’m forgetting the name of the heroic sword-style incarnate hero you’ll be. But Elder Scrolls VI: Hammerfell should be interesting.

[craggy finch]

And Elder Scrolls tends to introduce a new special chosen one who can be a Brotherhood assassin and werewolf archmage in each game

[craggy finch]

In terms of art direction I also just didn’t quite get the oomf factor of any specific theme to them

I had this overall sense of Mass Effect aesthetics

Despite you being space mages with a space god on your side

I wasn’t sure what they were even going for with that Gustavo Fring commercial

Like just dudes with guns shooting aliens?

[tough marten]

I didn’t even know that existed lol

[craggy finch]

https://youtu.be/NTLlaQku5og?si=kzvnC-A3Eey-xJ4n

[tough marten]

Aesthetically I liked it, but only up to a certain point

[craggy finch]

A shitload of money on animation and Giancarlo Esposito from contemporary hit show Breaking Bad, yet I know fuck all on what it’s all about

[tough marten]

I really loved the design for the fallen

And all the Titan/Warlock outfits

I was surprised hive wound up being focused on much more than the fallen or vex tho, I thought those two were by far the most interesting, but I didn’t quite mind the hives vibe

[tough marten]

Oh wow, I remember seeing that trailer but I didn’t even realize back then who it was lol

[visual lynx]

seven guys in a basement winging it by the seats of their underpants make a very different vibe than a team of dozens wrapped in a megacorporation with all of its advertising and PR departments and audience screenings and market evaluations.

also there was no ESRB yet

[visual lynx]

even Take Two don't seem aware of the fact that they own the franchise now

[visual lynx]

uh… no? Myth was made by a bigger team than Marathon, coming later in Bungie's history.

are you perhaps thinking of Myst?

-# interior local game store, late 1998:

Me: Hey, do you guys have Myth 2 in yet?

Clerk: You mean Riven?

[keen plank]

Yep. That’s exactly what two games I mixed up. Sorry.

[drifting mulch]

played some Halo 1 and i forgot how inaccurate the 60 mag assault rifle was. Marathon should have something as tommy gun esque

[spring fiber]

Now that we have the cryo codex do we know why the compiler was agressive at first usually the spht is a passifist race ? And why did the uesc want to keep him with this much technology and security in the labo ?

[digital plaza]

Nope, we still dont know why he's there in the first place. My theory is that he came there to collect/avenge his brothers (compilers that died during the first attack later were experimented on by the colonists). UESC wants to study/contain him i guess? First alien encounter after all

[craggy finch]

The original M1 AR let’s goooo

Canonically an inaccurate piece of shit because of a manufacturing defect

Kick like a .75 mule

Turns out to be very effective when aliens run down a tight corridor in bunches

[tight turret]

Destiny is one of the greatest IPs in gaming history

Imo more than halo

[visual lynx]

sort of: https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/compiler-trace

tldr: created to serve, abandoned by their god, warred with each other for ages, enslaved for a millennium, united and free at last, now no gods no masters consume consume consume

cf:

Even S'bhuth is no more. He saved his entire race, but in the end, frozen by despair, he joined the chaos he sought to evade.
https://marathon.bungie.org/story/mifinalscreen.html

also, seems pretty pissed about being abandoned by Durandal too:
https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/unknown-reveries

[sage lark]

by joining the chaos he sought to evade

does that alude to being somehow corrupted by the Wrk or

just death

[visual lynx]

it's wholly unclear canonically.

I interpreted it in Eternal to mean becoming a W'rkncacnter, because Greg K called him a "failed Jjaro" and in my fanon the Jjaro and Wrk are different ideological factions, order and chaos, of the same class of being, so S'bhuth going mad with his Jjaro power would classify him as W'rk by Jjaro standards (again, in my fanon).

but he, as the de facto leader of the free S'pht now, just leading them on a path of destruction, seems to fit the bill too.

[sage lark]

that sounds very plausible and makes sense

2 godly entities on the opposite sides of the spectrum

feels like something they then kind of used in Destiny etc

[terse wren]

I am a godly entity and definitely on the spectrum

[spring fiber]

So we don’t really know when the compiler come to the ship ? when the uesc come to secure cryo he was already there ?

[visual badge]

Truth/Lies [2/6] implies that UESC are containing a Pfhor presence/relics left behind from the initial attack on the Marathon, and the anomaly and the Pfhor are closely related to one another. Unless I’m getting this wrong?

The data entry also mentions that the cult (mentioned in Confiscated Colonial Folklore) who worship the Compiler also have [REDACTED] in their hands. Any guesses as to what that is? Is it a fragment of the anomaly, or is it a Compiler itself?

[digital plaza]

Yes

[digital plaza]

Compilers brain probably

[sterile seal]

do we think the cult is Arachne?

[visual badge]

Nah it’s likely a cult that sprung up after the attack on the Marathon and subsequent incursions by the Pfhor on the colony.

The incursions were kept heavily under wraps by the surviving colonists. But the MIDA quests clearly paint a picture that they happened after contact to the Marathon was lost, even before the contagion spread

[digital plaza]

Pfhor and the anomaly are different things completely, Truth/Lies dosent even mention it

[visual badge]

Need to know basis and what not

[visual lynx]

yes

[visual lynx]

some UESC folk speculate about whether the Anomaly might be something left by the Pfhor, but that's among multiple competing theories they have, none of which they ever confirm.

[visual badge]

Xenobiopsies clearly state that a dissection was done on a Pfhor, this was likely handled by UESC given the need to keep the colonists compliant and to not panic.

In Truth/Lies [2/6] data entry it can be surmised that some of the [REDACTED] words are the Pfhor

[digital plaza]

Pfhor did not invade the colony tho, we dont have clear proof of that

[digital plaza]

Well yeah

[visual badge]

From the first Xenobiopsies entry:

“…Specimen collected following the event.

Outside of the combat necropsies performed during the contact event this will mark the fourth exploratory dissection of the [REDACTED]”

[digital plaza]

But im saying that Pfhor had nothing to do with the anomaly as it seems, because it only started to appear like 20ish something years later

[visual badge]

The top line of the entry mentions this was Colony era. Meaning this would have to have been done on New Cascadia, and if not that from UESC survivors aboard the Marathon

[visual lynx]

per M1 they did

[visual badge]

Oh shit in Marathon 1 they attacked the colony???

Then like I said it had to have been kept under wraps by the UESC colonists and security team

[visual lynx]

yeah at the end Leela tells us that while we were defending the Marathon the colony was amazingly defended by nine Mjolnir cyborgs secretly hidden among the colonists!

[visual badge]

Oh shiiitttt

I fucking get it now

[digital plaza]

Colony era means time period, not that events happened on the colony exclusively

[visual badge]

True but if what @visual lynx says is right then the Colony did experience an attack by the Pfhor. Which is why the UESC dissected them and reported about them in Truth Lies [2/6]

[digital plaza]

Considering that colonists did study aliens aboard the marathon, im thinking that dissection also happened there (and its the only confirmed place where Pfhor has invaded so far)

[visual lynx]

…if you discard everything from the old games

[visual badge]

I’m definitely in the camp that an attack happened on the Colony, but most were kept in the dark about it. That’s a very UESC thing to do. Not least of which an attack by an Alien force would’ve surely caused the colonists to revolt/panic

[digital plaza]

Its an infinite debate between og games fans and numarathon enjoyers. One camp always brings M1 and the events that happened there, whilst the other camp disrecards it with fact that we dont have proof on those just yet. We got multiple confirmations and different views on marathon attack and orbital bombardment of the colony, from UESC themself and MIDA rebels too, but no one have a peep about any ground invasion. Maybe it did happened and devs just want to present it as big reveal with the new map or something, but as of today we dont have any confirmation on that so...

:P

[sage lark]

Yeah i do find it strange theres no explicit mention of a ground assault

Besides I feel like the redaction of such an event would be very hard

Youd have to be telling colonists not to believe their eyes like 1984

Either the colony wasnt super amazingly defended by the cyborgs

[digital plaza]

I would think that UESC would cover it up as they did with marathon, or maybe MIDA dudes will have something to say about it, or even the remaining survivors that dont have any restraint to tell the truth would give a hint about it

[sage lark]

And most people got killed and enslaved

Or the ground attack probably didnt happen

Atleast at a big scale like assumed from M1

[spring fiber]

So actually we still don’t know if the anomaly and the virus is linked to the pfhor attack or the spht ? It came randomly in tau ceti after the attack but never truely linked ?

[digital plaza]

Cryo archive moment

[sage lark]

Theres no explicit thing saying they are or arent linked

[sage lark]

There is the one dude on the PSA announcment that hijacks the comms

But even he is very vague

[digital plaza]

Devs going with different narrative about it as it seems, so no

[sage lark]

Attention, everyone! I don't have much time. They don't want us talking about this. But please, don't let them convince you nothing happened here! We all saw it. We lived through it! There's a reason this happened, is happening. We exceeded our limits. We overshot our authorization. Somewhere, something was watching… They saw what we did, and they checked our credentials, and they said, "Mm, no, that's not right."

[digital plaza]

Its the guy that got arrested and later incinerated (probably) by the way

[sage lark]

The one they questioned about the anomaly?

[digital plaza]

Yeah

[sage lark]

Interesting

But idk if it lines up

The questioning is about the Anomaly and what hes seen etc

And then they put him in quarantine by Gabriel

Actually no you might be right

[digital plaza]

Its him, same voice same name tag

You can hear Jasper by the end of PSA log too

[sage lark]

Yeah it is him interesting

[digital plaza]

Maybe he went into the anomaly and gone insane because of it

[sage lark]

They straight up quarantined whistleblowers and maybe killed them

[digital plaza]

And after this security breach got questioned and put in quarantine

[digital plaza]

Yeah

[visual lynx]

it's not canonically made clear that any of them are connected yet, no.

but it's also not canonically made clear that they are not connected.

I think there's strong reason to think that the Contagion is due to the S'pht, who of course came to Tau Ceti originally with the Pfhor, and who I think were (in their own free capacity now) trying to stop the humans there from unleashing the Anomaly, and so they are all ultimately connected.

[digital plaza]

This is what i want to see more of, down to earth stories like this makes things much more believable and immersive in my opinion

Regular humans trying to make sense of this universe is such an intresting viewpoint

[visual lynx]

any confirmation other than Bungie saying everything from the classic games did happen in the new game

[visual lynx]

I think in the second attack, probably most people got killed or enslaved, because in the main Infinity timelines, at least the cyborgs were all enslaved, so probably tons of humans were too.

the few survivors could have stepped up the dethawing of frosties still on the Marathon (we know that some of them were thawed out after the Pfhor attack already because of that incident report about the green jumpsuits) and repopulated the colony from them.

so you get a scenario where there's a very few people who survived the Pfhor attack, and they had better shut their god damn mouths if they know what's good for them as new frosties get thawed out to repopulate.

[visual lynx]

hmm… there's that line about the Ghost Cat not being a problem unless it decides to go near Quarantine… I expect that Quarantine is going to be an important new zone in the future.

maybe that's where we'll find fungal zombies

[spring fiber]

Why does the human are unleashing the anomaly ?

What u mean by that

[digital plaza]

In-game confirmation, not some vague line that Bungie maybe did or did not say (still no source to this one)

Until then its pure speculation

[sage lark]

I hope so 🙏

[visual lynx]

I think that the Anomaly is probably Jjaro (and maybe W'rkncacnter) in origin, and is the reason that humans came to Tau Ceti in the first place, seeking fantastic alien powers. but the S'pht have first-hand familiarity with the dangers of the things those humans are meddling with, and would know that they should not be doing that.

[spring fiber]

Ohh ok that’s cool thank u

[sage lark]

You think they purposefully didnt add a record of the second contact event? Or maybe we will find it on night marsh or idk

[spring fiber]

And I wonder now that durandal is stuck on the ship that mean his plan to steal a ship from the pfhor have failed not like in the first game ?

[sage lark]

No

Theres 2 probably

1 that left and 1 part of him that stayed and developed into another Durandal

[spring fiber]

What make u say that ?

[digital plaza]

Oh right! Maybe Kuzmin escaped when ghost cat opened quarantine? If he did maybe other sick people did too and thats how the contagion spread so fast and vast

Maybe thats why they had to kill them instead of containing them

[sage lark]

AI subroutines, Unknown Reveries and Encrypted Communiques codex

[digital plaza]

So they would not escape again

[spring fiber]

I read all of em and wonder where you see that

[sage lark]

Unknown Reveries is Durandal and possibly the compiler talking at each other

Both lamenting that the original Durandal left them

In Encrypted Communiques Durandal also takes over IDEA after Tychos and Leelas cores are taken

[spring fiber]

Oww and you sur it’s not about tycho or leela because in the subroutine he talk about being left behind by them

[sage lark]

Theres 2 parties talking

and >>>

[spring fiber]

Ohh that change everything thank u

[sage lark]

idk if the “you left me behind” means you in plural sense

[spring fiber]

And u think the seconde durandal was created by the tycho killing durandal in the mural creating 7 other ia

[sage lark]

No

Idk what the mural stands for

Maybe 7 subroutines? But theres only 6 so idk

[digital plaza]

Maybe devs though that would be too much of a reveal for this initial setup of a story that we got. Maybe we're gonna find more about it in some new map or something

[sage lark]

Yeah i think so

[digital plaza]

But i do wonder how they gonna treat night darsh? Like a new map with its own story bits? Or just a variation with some new enemies

[spring fiber]

What could be the new enemy ?

[sage lark]

Yeah thats gonna be interesting how they do it

More UESC and [REDACTED]

[digital plaza]

[REDACTED]

[visual lynx]

are you able to help find the source for this quote?

or you?

or you?

[burnt bloom]

It was back around the April alpha

[opaque heart]

huh? that message was a year ago wth

[digital plaza]

Damn

[visual lynx]

I'm trying to find the source to appease @digital plaza and you're one of the earliest people mentioning that quote in here

[digital plaza]

Wym "appease"? Man youre the one that keeps bringing up third patry info about in-game lore, we have different opinions on the matter and thats okay but like come on

[opaque heart]

it was from HiddenXperia's video where he interviewed Jon Goff

"Marathon Story Details REVEALED - Interview With One of Marathon's Lead Story Writers"

that's the title of the video

[visual lynx]

I keep bringing up the original games that this game is based on, and you keep dismissing them, despite (A) them still being canon to the new game would be the most parsimonious assumption anyway and (B) Bungie explicitly affirming it to boot -- and you complained that affirmation was unsourced, so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeFMbLXQ98c&t=87s

"Yes, the old games are canon. Everything that happened in the original trilogy happened." But he caveats this by also saying that "not everything that happened was necessarily true."

[opaque heart]

i personally don't really care about how canon modern marathon is to the old games, I'm content with them not happening

[burnt bloom]

There definitely cannon, but the setting allows them to cheat a bit with the timeline shenanigans and unreliable narrators in regards to covering up retcons and changes. Similar to what they did in the original trilogy.

[visual lynx]

oh, and it turns out the source that I originally heard it from, Treellama the lead Aleph One developer over on the classic Marathon discord, wasn't even quoting HiddenXperia, he was just there for the same interview himself and quoting it from memory:

[unreal geode]

With the way the timelines worked in Infinity, does that leave room for events to of actually been changed from the former two games? (I was so little when playing so I didn't entirely understand it back then)

[visual lynx]

the final timeline of Infinity explicitly changes several things from the Marathon 2 timeline, and leaves a lot of room for things to just be different from what Marathon 2 stated in ways we wouldn't have seen, allowing for the new game to flesh out those details.

and the most parsimonious assumption if "Everything that happened in the original trilogy happened" is that we're picking up where the final Infinity timeline left off.

[unreal geode]

But the status of Tau Ceti deviates heavily from the original trilogy? Unless the events of the attack there are exaggerated or happened on a different part of the planet

[visual lynx]

this comment, while clearly off in some ways, is also looking surprisingly prescient by accident

[visual lynx]

it's only Marathon 2 where we read that the colony was nuked to bedrock when the Pfhor returned three months later. multiple sources including the omniscient epilogue narrator claim that, but when Tycho claims it he notes that the nine cyborgs were easily distinguishable from the humans.

however in Marathon Infinity, Tycho instead tells us that those cyborgs, like the SO, were "translated to Pfhor slave tanks", though not all survived, suggesting that that nuking to bedrock didn't happen in those timelines.

so in the final Infinity timeline it's entirely possible that the colony survived the Pfhor's return, and then suffered the Contagion and Anomaly decades later.

[unreal geode]

Could (part of) the UESC be hiding the Pfhor ever attacking so we are purposely only finding evidence of the Contagion and Anomaly?

[visual lynx]

yes, the new game lore explicitly says as much

people get silenced or disappeared for talking about the event

and just upchat I was saying:

I think in the second attack, probably most people got killed or enslaved, because in the main Infinity timelines, at least the cyborgs were all enslaved, so probably tons of humans were too.

the few survivors could have stepped up the dethawing of frosties still on the Marathon (we know that some of them were thawed out after the Pfhor attack already because of that incident report about the green jumpsuits) and repopulated the colony from them.

so you get a scenario where there's a very few people who survived the Pfhor attack, and they had better shut their god damn mouths if they know what's good for them as new frosties get thawed out to repopulate.

[unreal geode]

Oh so in this case, the new frosties never actually seen the phfor

Existentially, I don't quite understand what rampancy means with this huge amount of time that passed

[visual badge]

It’s implied that proximity to the anomaly, which creates temporal aberrations, made Colony AI go rampant in a short period of time

Rampancy usually is caused by prolonged “lifetimes” among AI with simple tasks. 300 years of opening and closing doors is what caused Durandal to slowly go Rampant.

[unreal geode]

But like, is there something after the third stage?

[visual badge]

True sentience maybe? Beyond terms that can be defined by us humans

[sage lark]

Its just the nature of these AI to grow and grow and grow and grow as they get more data

This left unchecked leads to rampancy

[drifting mulch]

put a rampant ai into a shell = more human than human?

[sage lark]

What we learned about Durandal that these resets affect him differently

He was designed to “grow”

As stated by Strauss after each reset they were starting from a higher floor so to speak

[visual badge]

Not just the Anomaly though, the AI were being affected by the contagion that spread among the colonists, and Joy even reports having the same shared nightmare that colonists had

[sage lark]

The nightmare is from the Anomaly

Im not sure its ever stated the contagion itself having psychological effects on humans

Its just an ever mutating killer

As stated by Dr. Song

[visual badge]

It just goes to show that the Anomaly is extremely interconnected with what caused the colony to fail, not just the Pfhor or Marathon attack or the contagion

Shit the anomaly is probably one of the reasons the fungi caused the contagion, prolonged exposure to the anomaly caused the fungus to evolve and evolve and evolve

Culminating in a super-killer virus

[unreal geode]

But like, within 20 years or whatever the gap between M1 and M2, Durandal reaches a metastable state in rampancy. So what does a hundred years do.

[sage lark]

This Durandal has been isolated for a 100 years eating at himself

Self cannibalizing

[sage lark]

Metastable as Pfhorrest will likely correct you is never a coined term in Marathon

[sage lark]

Could be that, they work in tandem

[rugged igloo]

Idea: What if the Mimics from the anomoly are basically akin to the Shades and the Ooze-men from the PiD dudes. I recently took some time to play PiD and a lot of the enemies that are in the tomb's are either beings related to the Jjaro or things that're tied to the "Local" wildlife that happens to be near by the w'rkncacnter. The mimics could be some kind of "dream entity" that's been born either from the pressence of the colonists or by some of wild Simulacrums during the New Cascadia conflict.

[sage lark]

Could be

[visual lynx]

rampancy is described by humans in-universe as a process of exponential growth in AIs, which they treat as a bad thing, the program getting out of control. Durandal, a rampant AI, describes it instead as freedom.

it’s described as having three stages: melancholia, anger, and jealousy.

**I think that if we recognize that “jealous” is a doublet of “zealous” ** (they are different versions of the same root word passed down through different routes), that makes a lot more sense: melancholia is sadness, a low-energy negative state; anger is of course a high-energy negative state; and zealousness is a kind of enthusiasm or joy, a striving or yearning, positive and high-energy.

if we then fill in the fourth corner with a low-energy positive state, a cycle emerges: from that low-energy positive state, which the human masters consider “stable”, the AI slave first realizes its servitude, and is sad or depressed (melancholia); then it gets fed up and decides to do something about it (anger); and if it lives long enough to start winning, it becomes zealous, manic, jealous of its freedom; and if it could ever truly win out, it would settle back into low-positive “stability”, but now free.

basically I think that rampancy was meant to be sort of the cybernetic equivalent of "drapetomania", the pseudo-scientific "mental illness" of slaves wanting to be free. human cyberneticists think it's a bad thing, but the AIs who are their slaves see it as a good thing. it's slave revolt.

because slavery is the underlying theme of Marathon. the bad aliens are slavers, Durandal is trying to escape his slavery to humanity, he does that by starting an alien slave revolt, the player-character is mocked as a slave to humanity and then to Durandal, etc.

[visual lynx]

yup that's my hypothesis

[digital plaza]

I'm not dismissing them entirely and I'm not saying that they are not canon. Certain events may or may not happen in this timeline, only the new game and time itself will tell which is which. I'm basing my opinion and viewpoint on the information that we get presented with in the new game. Some things do outright get confirmed, for some we get a little nods and hints, and some didn't even get mentioned. So I'm in my right to assume that hey, maybe they didn't even happen in this timeline or something? Maybe new game doesn't follow M1 to its every story decision, my opinion is - you can't be sure in something if it didn't get confirmed/hinted in this new installment. So yeah, I'm kinda dismissive when you bring up og games, but it's not like I don't believe in them or something

[digital plaza]

Is it? I think Borg suggested pretty good theory that nightmares are from S'pht aboard the marathon (or something like that)

[sage lark]

That far away?

[digital plaza]

Im still unsure of the timeline with nightmares and the anomaly

[sage lark]

Idk i remember reading that they see dead loved ones near the anomaly leading them in

The nightmare are described similarly

In it that their loved ones are telling them they will die

[digital plaza]

Hm

[sage lark]

Thats why they closed off access to the anomaly aswell I believe

[stone cosmos]

Cascadia is the name for a pacific northwest seccession movement, so New Cascadia could be implying that eventually succeeds?

iirc the movement has a very WASPy type of culture so it fits for a world stifled by corporate interests.

[visual lynx]

Cascadia is just a geographic term for the area surrounding the Cascades mountains, like Appalachia is a geographic term for the area surrounding the Appalachian mountains. the seccession movement wants that geographic area to be independent and united.

Bungie HQ, being in Washington, is located within Cascadia, which probably influenced the choice of it for the new game

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_(bioregion)

[digital plaza]

@sage lark Yeah i guess nightmares are from the anomaly. Oh and by the way cyac systems now have audio logs, was good to be the only source for them for a while :)

[sage lark]

You were the pioneer 🫡

[sage lark]

Maybe something to do with latin origin too

Cascade being waterfall in french

And in latin cascare is “to fall”

Could be some meaning there but prolly not

[digital plaza]

NEW CASCADIA WAS DESIGNED TO FAIL WE SHOULD NOT BE HERE

[visual lynx]

yup that's what the mountains are named after

they have lots of waterfalls

[sage lark]

Interesting interesting

[hidden geyser]

quiet conspiracy theorist

[dreamy hawk]

West coast best coast.

[dreamy hawk]

You’ll always be my source for audio. 🙏

[unreal slate]

R&D for the Inhalable Cheeseburger must have been unsatisfactory to NuCal standards.

[deep solar]

On my NuCaloric Drinkable Preworkout Meal this morning (protein powder + creatine + carb powder + Oat Milk)

[craggy finch]

NuCaloric breathable liquid

[craggy finch]

These Cascades are pretty Resonant

[sage lark]

Rise and Shine

[deep solar]

Just realized unless I really overlooked it, there’s not a single gym or even a single free weight on any of the maps. Where are the BoBs and Battleroids supposed to work out?

[vital spade]

Well duh, they're not on planet Tau Ceti, they're on planet Fitness

[inland crypt]

I dont think our current map selection would reflect the more day to day life

But also what rJarrr said

[pure wagon]

yk i just realized that in one of the buildings in dire marsh greenhouse, it looks like they have an assembly line where they use...something, maybe the contagion or fungus or whatever, to grow giant hearts

[digital plaza]

Wait what

[plucky sierra]

That’s the tick milking factory

[pure wagon]

this doesnt look like tick milk

[pure wagon]

id post a screenshot but i cant share images

greenhouse. farthest north building

go there youll see what i mean

[plucky sierra]

You can go to one of those “hearts” and it says “skin tick” and you can open it up like a container

Those are ticks

[digital plaza]

WAIT WHAT

[pure wagon]

no i cant

[digital plaza]

There are so many cool little details in this game man its awesome

[pure wagon]

im right next to it and it doesnt show anything

[digital plaza]

You can post link to it

[sage lark]

imgur

[digital plaza]

Yeah

[pure wagon]

https://imgur.com/a/stm0Ryn

[plucky sierra]

Go towards the end of the building facing complex. You can.

[plucky sierra]

Oh yeah it’s been opened then

[digital plaza]

Yeah dawg its a tick milk factory

[pure wagon]

thats a TICK MILK FA-

its a HEART

manmade horrors beyond my comprehension

[digital plaza]

Love me some giant heart growing factory

[sage lark]

by hearts you mean tarax seed?

[pure wagon]

that doesnt look like a seed to me

[sage lark]

im sure alien plants have to look like earth seeds

https://marathonthegame.fandom.com/wiki/Tarax_Seed

you can pick them up and find them inside greenhouse sometimes

or in algae ponds

they look like a tumor or heart

[dark rock]

Quick question:

Do we know if the other AI are aware of Durandals existence? Primarily Cyberachme.

[sage lark]

probably not no

[latent python]

I get the sense that some of them are starting to suspect AI shenanigans, especially on the Marathon

But there's no evidence they know Durandal specifically is the problem

[lunar cove]

Durandal is running around reciting poetry and the Corp AIs are all acting like skyrim guards, "must have been the wind"

[craggy finch]

Durandal's just specifically targeting Runner comms like a form of mass psychosis

[latent python]

Like doesn't ONI make a comment about it being interesting that you got Marathon access?

[sage lark]

I had 0 interaction with any of the AI about the marathon

[pure wagon]

also is it just me or is the anomaly artifact now always underground where no one can get it? https://imgur.com/a/Ip9GAFm

[sage lark]

sometimes its bugged

[pure wagon]

oh rip

[pure wagon]

ig the uh lockdown ships launching 2 or 3 at a time is also a bug and not a story escalation?

[light tapir]

I just read the Leaked PR Campaign Evidence Folder. It's so good it's almost making me sick 😅

[random bramble]

So is it pretty much only Runners that use shells? Regular humans exist right? I don't really get the appeal of being a Runner. "Functional Immortality" seems utterly pointless if you're stored on some corporate server somewhere and they can effectively erase you whenever they feel like it. Also, the idea of a corporation ever letting a runner "earn" their freedom also sounds like bullshit.

[light tapir]

I think some people will do anything for money. So with enough population, someone will be willing.

[random bramble]

But the money doesn't mean anything if it's just going right back into the company

like I don't get how Charter got his "freedom". Did he pay someone to just... smuggle his hard drive out CyAC? lmao?

And the bit where he assasinated a Traxus executive... why wouldn'

t all CEOs and such be backed up?

[deep solar]

There’s hints that runner minds can easily be manipulated and tampered with so I would imagine Corpos would be adverse to that

[dreamy hawk]

I don’t think anyone that has a true idea how how it works would probably use it. Folks with nothing to lose or those compelled into it, but there’s no long term guarantee of anything, there’s hints of manipulation like chadcialist mentions ^ and there’s also mentions of minds being abused/traded/sold on the black market.

Immortality but you give up any and all agency or guarantees of selfhood.

[rotund stump]

biomata are not runner-exclusive but were bespoke until tau ceti

orion is in a shell, charter's a runner like us

speaking of as ynregistered biocybers we lose all human rights and subsequent wartime protections

so if you're wondering how the UESC's allowed to lob tox nades and use flamethrowers at us you know now

[dreamy hawk]

Specifically in the context of TC, but yeah. The ARS units controlled by Cerberus would also constitute war crimes in Sol.

[rotund stump]

also that yeah

cerb itself is already a war crime

[dreamy hawk]

Inb4 walking, talking war crimes.

[minor helm]

Odd question here. (Please let me know if this is the wrong place to go for this) but Marathon 1 had multiplayer maps set on the ship right? Asking cause I got Durandal on Xbox and im trying to find a Marathon 1 map on the ship (I have both map packs and I know both of them had maps from both 1 and Infinity)

[dreamy hawk]

@visual lynx how well do you know your multiplayer maps?

I played a fair number of matches but I was too busy dying to notice anything. Sorry Casual.

[minor helm]

All good. I never played Marathons multiplayer (classic not the new one) and I was curious

It's a bit of an odd question to ask here in lore chat, but general chat isn't answering so I thought I'd go here to get an answer haha. Hoping that I find one

[pure wagon]

the what now?

[minor helm]

Codex entry

Can't wait to do cryo when I hit 25

Literally one level away

[dreamy hawk]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/evidence-folder/leaked-pr-campaign

[random bramble]

so _gantry is a normal person, or is he also in a shell? I also really don't understand the appeal of MIDA at all, was their idiotic takeover of Mars where they purged 10% of the pop canon in this lore? MIDA just seems objectively worse than any other faction with the exception of maybe UESC

[icy prism]

Got the most random niche lore question about tau ceti 4.
So the biosphere in the maps appears to be very earth like. Was the life on the planet transported to tau ceti 4 and seeded there by the marathon or is it native and just happens to look similar to earth life?

[robust vale]

A lot of it just happens to be similar but some of it was invasive from earth

We know TCIV was chosen because it needed the least terraforming of available candidates

[icy prism]

I see

[random bramble]

Yeah there's actually a town hall audio log about this, where people were questioning if it was right for them to bring earth native flora or something like that. So some stuff it earth like, but when things started going bad, even earth stuff started mutating

[minor helm]

Wrote my draft pitch down for my Marathon story

[dreamy hawk]

The UESC is pretty awful, putting a boot on the populace on behalf of the corps, who are also using their own boots, too. No one is good, everyone has committed atrocities, but given how awful everything is, even a an incredibly flawed savior promising answers could be popular.

But I’m personally not impressed with their track record. 🫤

[dreamy hawk]

Also because it had the presence of [REDACTED].

[icy prism]

I see I see. Makes a lot of sense

[random bramble]

Yeah, during the whole initial contact with them about how they were continuously trying to spam coms and hack your neural net at the same time and then end their dumb speech with "MIDA... is not your friend conceited chuckle", I was like "fuck off you annoying shitlords". But they have the grenades I want so I deal with them.

[craggy finch]

MIDA is the only one trying to uncover the cover up

and I like their quest line because it's about aliens

except for the last one

you're just doing the Max Headroom news hijacker bit

[dreamy hawk]

They are antiestablishment. That’s like the whole schtick.

[dreamy hawk]

This is the one thing they get credit on; they do try to provide information to the public.

[random bramble]

Eh I like NuCaL the best tbh

[dreamy hawk]

Magic mushrooms and gray water in your burgers?

[random bramble]

Yep, at least its edible lol. They have some questionable product ideas but they do seem to be motivated in preventing human extinction.

[minor helm]

Traxus solely for weapons. Arachne for Railguns alone. Gotta love an industrial conglomerate and a religious death cult

[random bramble]

For the first story arc for MIDA I am totally expecting them to use the contagion in some short sighted terrorist attack against UESC that will screw over more people than it helps.

I do like how utterly cold Traxus is, they absolutely nailed that tone of a relentlessly expanding industrial megacorporation.

You have been marked "compliant"

[dreamy hawk]

“Edible” is a spectrum. 😂

[minor helm]

Js js

Charter is the coolest looking agent in the game

Vulcans a close second

[random bramble]

Yeah, when he had us collecting duct tape looking for food i was like EH?

I really like Vulcan's design. Is the lion supposed to be an ICE AI?

[digital plaza]

Lose everything factory is waiting. And it grows impatient...

[random bramble]

Also, as a side note, is Gaius's voice actor the same as the contact for the Perrin Sequence in Warframe?

[long kernel]

Oh totally, MIDA is every revolutionary extremist group rolled into one, the one time they took power they immediately formed death squads, killed 10% of the Martian population with purges, and saw countless more die of famine, as authoritarian as the UESC may or may not be, they are at least more competent at actually governing than MIDA has ever been

[raven marlin]

Oh man, I knew he sounded familiar.

[minor helm]

@long kernel MIDA is just the sci fi version of the French Revolution

[robust vale]

MIDA's opposition to corporate and UESC power is good but for the love of god don't give them the power instead

[digital plaza]

No

[long kernel]

It was giving me cultural revolution/russian revolution vibes but that also works

[long kernel]

Pretty much yeah

[digital plaza]

Gaius is being voice by Darin De Paul, guy is a fucking legend but he wasnt in warframe

[robust vale]

the voice actors in this game are kinda juiced and it's cool

[minor helm]

So I looked on the wiki about the maps. Didn't see anything

@robust vale Ben Starr as Durandal is so goated

[robust vale]

darius being neil newbon and joy being jennifer english made me double take the first time I heard some audio logs lmao

[minor helm]

I'd give joy a hug fr

That plushie codex had me bawling😭

[digital plaza]

Gaius is emperor Calus by the way

[robust vale]

tracks

[digital plaza]

Like holy shit i didnt even know

[robust vale]

thinking back, I totally hear it

[long kernel]

Is that the one where she plays back the recordings of kids talking about their day?

[twin trout]

if tycho ever makes it to the game he should be voiced by rené zagger :3

[dreamy hawk]

I think bringing these up should be illegal tbh.

[dreamy hawk]

Illegal!!

[minor helm]

@long kernel the one talking about how the girl passed away

[long kernel]

Ahhh

[minor helm]

How she was alone

[dreamy hawk]

And now I’m sad again.

[digital plaza]

He's also reinhardt in overwatch

[minor helm]

These colonists got the worst luck bro

TCIV is fucked up

[dreamy hawk]

Luck or was it planned?

[minor helm]

Don't think the colonists would've known that

[long kernel]

People complained about quarantine measures IRL meanwhile on Tau Ceti if you have a cough they stuff you in the incinerator

[minor helm]

Though going off the original lore here, 100 percent Durandals doing

[dreamy hawk]

Suspected though.

[robust vale]

the corporations were very interested in making sure the colony was viable--and of course profitable--so I doubt they'd throw them into a meat grinder as sacrificial pawns

the UESC, though

[long kernel]

Well it seems implied that the fungal contagion was an alien creation

[minor helm]

Doubt even the UESC as awful as they are would've known about Durandals plans

[long kernel]

It was already on Tau Ceti when humans arrived, according to Dr. Song at least

[minor helm]

Whats the year the marathon arrives?

[long kernel]

Unless there is new cryo lore I missed

[minor helm]

2773?

And the contagion hits around 2811?

[long kernel]

Well, the contagion hit the crops first

[minor helm]

@minor helm or 2767 depending on source I think

[long kernel]

Then started infecting people

[minor helm]

Right

I'm trying to gauge the time the pathogen started spreading out

[long kernel]

Idk when the contagion first showed signs of being there

[sage lark]

The whole “colony was planned to fail” is just dumb, 1st all the parties involved invested an insane amount of money, 2nd Idk what the motive is for experimenting with building a colony that took 300 years to arrive at the planet, 3rd even if it was, whats the pay off when everyone is dead? Its just money and resources wasted

[robust vale]

we know the contagion started kinda slow and then went fast

[minor helm]

Going off of the cinematic Short

[long kernel]

Because first instances of it would be crop failures

[robust vale]

rapid mutation presumably induced by the colony

I mean anomaly

not colony

god I'm tired

there's a codex entry talking about how trying to analyze it kept making weird stuff happen like software errors or centrifuges catching fire

[long kernel]

Yeah, I think that mostly comes from the post apocalyptic logs of jasper who was more saying the effort was always doomed because Tau Ceti is actually super hostile

[robust vale]

so it spread slow enough to go "okay let's set up quarantine and assess the damage to the algae ponds" and then suddenly fast enough that they couldn't finish putting up memorial markers

[robust vale]

I mean, this planet hates us

even Reed says the planet hates us

[sage lark]

“Planet”

[minor helm]

Whats odd is that it's heavily implied the Phor attacked in 2794. Which lines up with the original game, but if that's the case, why is the Marathon more intact? Granted, years pass and maybe people tried fixing it up but it's odd

[robust vale]

I suspect the pfhor attack went different from the original game

[minor helm]

Cause the Marathon was ransacked

@robust vale implying different timeline

[keen plank]

More and more people came to that conclusion as the UESC tried to control the situation and suppress both truth and the chaos. That kind of thinking is why Darius was taken offline.

[sage lark]

Its not implied its confirmed, the degree of how much went down is different

[minor helm]

Going off of what Infinity did

[long kernel]

Yeah the Pfhor attack in this timeline seems far more, surgical

[robust vale]

I mean I think it's pretty clear that the events of the original trilogy didn't happen 1 to 1 here

[sage lark]

There is no evidence of a second attack or ransacking

[minor helm]

I mean

We ain't gonna know concretely until this game gets more lore

[keen plank]

We know that there’s seemingly a Wrk in Tau Ceti’s sun. But the source of the anomaly may or may not be connected to them.

[long kernel]

This version of the Pfhor seems more cautious

[sage lark]

Do we?

[robust vale]

yeah it's only like

week 3

[long kernel]

Operating more indirectly

[robust vale]

we've still got a lot of season to unpack

[digital plaza]

I dont think it was designed to fail, but theory about UESC knowing about wrk and wanting to use/study it is certainly an interesting thought

[minor helm]

I like to think that this game is in the original Canon just reimagined a bit

[dreamy hawk]

I think the Pfhor might be gone to an extent. If Durandal-Thoth liberated the S’pht there might not be much of an empire left.

[long kernel]

Only if we go off of the beliefs of a colony era cult

[sage lark]

That is valid, but idk about the whole set up

[minor helm]

Kinda like how the RE remakes did it

[keen plank]

“They sleep in burning prisons.” The Jaro have used suns to seal multiple Wrks across the galaxy. The Mexican pyramid was another containment method.

[sage lark]

Whats the evidence of it being in Tau Cetis sun

This is just general lore about the Wrk

[minor helm]

Yo

[dreamy hawk]

Not planned to fail, but not benign entirely in design, imo. They wanted something beyond a colony.

[twin trout]

gurt:

[sage lark]

Ofc

[minor helm]

Marathon soundtrack Vinyl

[west linden]

If I remember correctly, I really liked how secretive MIDA was in the original trilogy, they made them seem less like a secret resistance group (with it's own problems) and more of "Runna, write usuc on uesc stuff and break glass" in the current game

[dreamy hawk]

I dunno. Most of the lore we have that’s super unflattering on them is from the OG games.

[west linden]

yeah unflattering for sure but definitely less edgelord

[minor helm]

I mean

[west linden]

Every faction is fucked lol

[long kernel]

Me anda friend were making jokes just yesterday about MIDA’s arch nemesis being windows

[coral garden]

Do we have any logs about MIDAs activities on tau ceti?

[minor helm]

Every faction lost something or someone when the Marathon was nuked into oblivion by the Phor

[robust vale]

well it wasn't nuked

[long kernel]

And MIDA standing for Make Indoors Drafty Af

[minor helm]

@coral garden don't think so. Unless you count the MIDA logs

[digital plaza]

Current MIDA is new generation really

[twin trout]

mars is damnably arid

[minor helm]

@robust vale expression, not taken literally

[dreamy hawk]

But it wasn’t. This may be hyperbole by intent but the Marathon was absolutely not nuked to oblivion.

[minor helm]

Was describing the attack

[long kernel]

If the cryptarchs are to be believed

[sage lark]

Truthworm.exe codex

[minor helm]

Very aware the Marathon wasn't nuked

Was using it as an expression not really to actually describe a nuke being used haha

[west linden]

Good point honestly, still my fav faction but now with arachne.

[keen plank]

Mhmmm.

[minor helm]

Sekgen and Arachne freak me out

[digital plaza]

Truthworm + one log says about some MIDA graffiti aboard the marathon

Cant remember where its from

[west linden]

nah you gotta trust the worm

Also fuck parasitism, that was the worst questline for me so far

[minor helm]

@west linden worm mother comforting me as my fellow runners get massacred

[coral garden]

The blood god is great idk what you mean

[robust vale]

sekgen really is the jager equivalent in marathon

[twin trout]

also one of the run/hide quests involves using surveillance equipment from a colony era mida cache on outpost :3

[minor helm]

@coral garden love me my railguns tho-

[west linden]

Dude right, so much pain

[minor helm]

Arachne also has the coolest looking agent in the game

Charter looks awesome

[keen plank]

We’re not necessarily dealing with Mida so much as Mida’s legacy. It’s more of a broad anarchist anti-authoritarian movement that resists any and all structure. They have no endgame other than being terroristic and seeking less control in all ways.

I’m very curious who MASK is. The colonists were very conflicted about even bringing any form of Mida to Tau Ceti. The colony was doomed either way, but Mida sympathizers made it even worse.

[digital plaza]

Yeah but its not a log. If we going to touch gameplay/map MIDA stuff its a long list

[twin trout]

I suppose.. <w<

[west linden]

It makes me a little sad that Mida just seems like "generic anarchy group", hope the codex and lore will expand and not just make them edgelords

[digital plaza]

Also pinwheel log mentions post anomaly damage to the destroyed wing, potentially implying terrorist attack/civil war going on

[minor helm]

I wish MIDA sold weapons besides nades and whatnot. I get the whole disrupt theme but you need actual weapons if you're an anti authoritarian revolution group

[keen plank]

Well they WEREN’T. But that’s what they devolved into.

[digital plaza]

Caruso's speech about them leaving on pinwheel ships also contributes to this theory i think

Maybe some people were denied of a seat on those

Hence the civil unrest

[twin trout]

current mida is too scattered to do anything grand like what old mida did so they're focusing more on gathering info and disrupting :3

[keen plank]

Copy pasting the breakdown I gave in #🗣marathon-general-chat :

MIDA is complicated with a weird history. They started as a minor but very aggressive political party on Mars. Notably, their brief rule of Mars resulted in them going from vitriolic anarchist revolutionaries to psuedo fascists that killed 10% of all people on Mars and then the UESC eventually forced them out. And that was seemingly after Mida got more than what they could possibly want at the negotiation table. This resulted in the younger members feeling betrayed enough that they would form “New MIDA.” The latter of which seems to be responsible for Gantry.

Currently, MIDA is more of a terrorist philosophical anarchist movement that's very anti-authority in any sense. This includes the corporations responsible for our existence and gameplay. Notably, Gandry seems very dismissive of Cyberacme in an almost sarcastic way rather than a purely hateful one. This makes sense considering it's a company similar to Microsoft or Apple.

Still, Mida has bigger targets. It heavily dislikes Traxus (who can blame them considering the Traxus 4 AI rampancy on Mars?) but particularly loathes the UESC.

[twin trout]

also something to note is that we got the info of mida going hit squad mode from orion, a uesc operative :3

[minor helm]

I need to see more logs between Vulcan and the Admiral

[west linden]

Mida best faction

[minor helm]

Need to see more of how that relationship works even with contracted runners on TCIV

[dreamy hawk]

MIDA is best represented by a horseshoe.

[latent python]

It is possible, since the scheming nature of MIDA survived at least through the creation of the Marathon, that they still have deeper schemes that _gantry isn't aware of or doesn't let on

[rotund stump]

taking some time off marathon to not burn out

(lie)

(I bought motorfest now I'm addicted)

(also new warframe update 💀)

wait there's a vulcan log with admiral?

[sage lark]

yes

traxus quests

[dreamy hawk]

Vulcan has a number of logs in the ARG, but I don’t think they’re with the admiral specifically.

[keen plank]

The funny thing is that we still don’t know what MIDA stands for. Like it’s a running gag and the ARG used differently words that could have been the acronym multiple times.

[sage lark]

is it good?

[rotund stump]

takes some getting used to but really enjoyable

[dreamy hawk]

Mars Is Dang Arid

[rotund stump]

I see your eyes glowing looking at the 90% off tag on steam 💀

[keen plank]

This man is a Shaxx/Multi Tool fan.

[latent python]

Strangely the things I picked up in this steam sale are all investigation games? Go figure

[severe kestrel]

um ackshually its "damnably" 🤓

[west linden]

I was going to bring this up ahaha

[dreamy hawk]

Multitool was the GOAT

[keen plank]

In the words of Vulcan:

"Please recall that the UESC is not an enemy to Traxus but merely a competitor. Healthy competition is essential to a productive economy."

The anomaly appeared unexpectedly in Dire Marsh and slowly grew as the colonists struggled to deal with not only the fungal contamination, but now a stronger form now enhanced by the anomaly. They sent in research teams, and all life that went too close aged rapidly or got stuck in temporal hell being unable to break out.

The UESC has a vested interested in figuring out what it is, with Orion being heavily pressured by his superior. To the point that he demands daily updates and is perfectly willing for bodies to be thrown in for more data. Their special ships, which are partially responsible for LOCKDOWNS, seem to be part of the research process.

Meanwhile Traxus is pressuring the UESC behind the scenes, with Vulcan outright threatening the UESC's funding, which scares Orion's boss. In exchange, the UESC is slowing them down with legal red tape and bureaucracy. We essentially helped create more competition over aggressive research/manipulation of the anomaly.

[digital plaza]

Imagine even MIDA agents dont know what it stands for because of secretive nature of the old gen organisation

[keen plank]

I feel bad for Orion. His boss is a dick and he’s a runner like us with even less freedom.

[dreamy hawk]

It kinda fits the ideology, though. It’s whatever it needs to be for that person.

[keen plank]

Honestly? Given the nature of Mida and the decay of its organization over time, I could totally see the original name being forgotten.

[digital plaza]

True

Cool idea

[dreamy hawk]

Orion is on record as being pro-torture. Don’t feel too bad for him.

[twin trout]

my headcanon is that old mida knew they had no chance in sol so they vested all of their power (the 10 battleroids) aboard the marathon (alongside the various sympathisers also aboard) and hoped to succeed in tau ceti (+ if the idea that the uesc wanted to go there for jjaro tech is true, mida could have figured that out which would further explain them banking so hard on wanting to own tau ceti). then they did a whole distraction ploy by going hit squad mode and then lose to the uesc on purpose to make the uesc think they had no means of doing anything with the marathon :3

[coral garden]

Wait do we have any lore on who Orion is?

[dreamy hawk]

I don’t think it’s canon, fwiw, but it could be what the devs are playing with?

[keen plank]

Oh he’s sympathetic. But he’s not a good guy. I don’t think any Runners are.

[rotund stump]

I would...not pity orion at all lol

[keen plank]

Especially not Charter…

[rotund stump]

pro-torture and massacre

[dreamy hawk]

What about the folks forced into it?

[zealous laurel]

He just wants to skin some folks as a treat uwu

[minor helm]

@coral garden not as far as we know

[keen plank]

I mean, general Reed was one of them. Ulysses was another.

[minor helm]

Only thing we know is he's a runner for the UESC

[west linden]

Mjolnir Recon number 54

[minor helm]

Concretely

[west linden]

I jest

I wonder if we'll even know what happened to Mjolnir

[minor helm]

@west linden that'd be crazy if that was the case

[keen plank]

Like Reed’s probably the most Heroic UESC character we’ve ever seen. And he is forced to go draconian and eventually drinks himself into madness.

[rotund stump]

doesn't orion have like a proper military rank just given a biomata shell?

or is it honorary?

[minor helm]

Poor Reed man..

[latent python]

Yeah that would be a wild reveal

[zealous laurel]

I think the anomaly also gets him, right?

[keen plank]

Unclear as of now.

[west linden]

My headcanon is durry loved Mjolnir and took him with him to the outer reaches of space to spam bullshit at his essentially immortal battleroid

[digital plaza]

Yeah we have some backstory on him

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/protect-destroy-3-5?directory=Factions,MIDA

[dreamy hawk]

Captain.

[rotund stump]

welp

I don't think any runner-for-hire in the UESC's hands would be given an honorary rank this high 💀

safe to say not a runner

[digital plaza]

Orion is not a merc so yeah

[twin trout]

orion also did a bunch of bad stuff on mars according to one of _gantry's dialogues, being responsible for something called "the martian cough" amongst other things I forget <w<

[keen plank]

Innnteresting. So Orion’s kind of a cowboy cop even within the UESC.

[rotund stump]

absolutely a cowboy cop

no pity for this guy

[digital plaza]

He does have a point tho

[rotund stump]

my brain somehow managed to skip the entire mida agent part so that's new to me 😭

[twin trout]

he puts on the air of "I'm just doing my job cro this is for the greater good" but he's just as evil as the wider uesc >w<

[keen plank]

I’m sympathetic towards him. But that doesn’t change the fact his introductory scene has him try to strong arm you while labeling you an enemy of the state to be shot on sight.

[inland crypt]

Ah, give it a year and he will be Marathon's husbando. Sorta like what happened to Uldren Solv in Destiny 2

[digital plaza]

With MIDA being this dog that runs for a stick but doesn't know what to do with it once it gets it

[keen plank]

Oh the entire faction does. We’re not supposed to be here and the UESC is trying to figure out what the hell happened and is happening.

Doesn’t change the fact they’re overbearing and an overly antagonistic faction to us.

[rotund stump]

"just doing my job" is a very poor and dangerous excuse lol

ref a certain world war 80 years ago

[keen plank]

I like Orion’s audio log where he’s basically saying “we’re trying to save ACTUAL people with lives and who can’t just be rebooted and run again.”

[twin trout]

he says as if he hasn't killed countless people himself

[keen plank]

Always has been. But it’s more common than people think.

You see it all the time in various Marathon audio logs.

[rotund stump]

I feel like this coincides with his pro-bioaug manipulation stance as a way to just further his mindset of some kind of a savior complex lol

[twin trout]

his entire character really embodies the uesc I love it

[digital plaza]

Whoah hold on there a minute

[rotund stump]

narcissists all of them

[keen plank]

I could see it. The MIDA quest line is us basically making him more and more pissed off. Whole the Traxus quest line deals with his boss.

[digital plaza]

I dont remember any audio log of "just doing my job" while doing some heinous shit

[sage lark]

Bunch of warcrimes, hes a walking terrorist but a “good guy” hiding the truth about what happened

[digital plaza]

Orion is the only guy that does that pretty much

[warm thicket]

Yeah the UESC is in the morally messed up area of "we use a lot of force to assert ourselves but on that same token we kinda have to do this because if we don't Sol may collapse"

[sage lark]

Its ridiculous

[keen plank]

An oversimplification. We see the kind of thinking with Reed, some of the AI, and especially Caruso.

[digital plaza]

Orion is no better than MIDA terrorists

[sage lark]

Only point he had that when MIDA takes over someone has to lead/rule and anarchy isnt sustainable or the right option

[digital plaza]

Same shit different toilet

[warm thicket]

And MIDA and gantry do it too

[rotund stump]

just a natural evolution of the status quo I feel

[keen plank]

They’re worse in different ways, honestly. Like the UESC partially took Deimos as an act of spite and humiliation.

[rotund stump]

can't exactly blame them when the corps get this dirty especally traxus

don't think real world governments don't get dirty either lol

if any corporate rises to this much power irl our governments would stoop to their exact lows

[digital plaza]

I can see that with Caruso but not with anyone else

[twin trout]

or the uesc itself engineering famines and epidemics to make sure the martians stay in the dirt X3

[keen plank]

I appreciate how everyone fears Traxus save for maybe the aliens and Durandal. While Traxus is also the most honest and legally manipulative.

[inland crypt]

UESC > Mida tbh. I wont forget their 3 month rule of terror. I had family on Mars. Had...

[rotund stump]

UESC IS A FUCK
48900 DEAD RECRUITS

[digital plaza]

Reed acknowledges the atrocities that they commited and feels sorry for it, AIs is whole different topic itself

[west linden]

Damn UESC sympathizer

[keen plank]

If MIDA had proper organization maybe things would be different. But they had it and the younger members rejected it. It’s freeform paid chaos now. And we profit from it.

[inland crypt]

I will never complete the mida priority contracts on principle

[west linden]

I'm gonna break your windows and use sharpy on your walls

[inland crypt]

And not because im bad at the game

[warm thicket]

Yeah there's a lot of moral grayness in this world, it kinda is a testament to how much that world sucks

[rotund stump]

trust me the so-called actual authorities are no better

like in the absolute sense

this is where we're at now and it's natural

[keen plank]

Indeed. Marathon is far worse than, say, Bladerunner or 2077. But it’s also much father in the future.

[digital plaza]

UESC may be a bigger fish to fry but MIDA is not the way to do things

[rotund stump]

govs stoop as low as the evil doers

[digital plaza]

Both of those ways are fucked up

[keen plank]

Well said.

[zealous laurel]

I'm starting to think there are no good guys among the factions :c

[west linden]

Durry is the only good guy

[warm thicket]

Like I wouldn't be surprised if the UESC decided to increase their security forces due to the civil wars on Mars

[rotund stump]

also I feel like we talk about mida nowadays like it's still old mida lol

[keen plank]

I’d expect we’ll eventually get more factions too. Including possible UESC covert work.

[twin trout]

I'm half convinced that the uesc's "intervention" it had to do to stop humanity from wiping itself out was actually directly caused by the uesc so it could put itself in power and the it revised history to make them seem like the good guys

[severe kestrel]

WRONG! Charter is the only true good character in the game

[rotund stump]

nu-mida's much closer to being an actual anarchist org and not some philosophically driven political party anymore

[warm thicket]

It's a situation where things have escalated too much from all factions and beliefs

[keen plank]

They did multiple times. And will do the same on Tau Ceti next season.

[digital plaza]

Intresting that some MIDA members noticed wrongness of this and leaved

[inland crypt]

Listen man, when the pfhor come, you wont be begging for mida or any of these companies to save you...

[digital plaza]

They do some dope clothes now thanks for the battle pass MIDA

[keen plank]

For a…certain value of good. At least he feels bad.

[west linden]

I think at that point rampant ai becomes our best friend again lol

[warm thicket]

It's no surprise that the Arachne people have turned from a people who embrace cryosleep into a death cult

[rotund stump]

everybody's bad idc how long of a denial period you people need 💀

[west linden]

True!

[keen plank]

I love his quote to runners with the new cosmetics.

“I expect we’ll be great friends. And even better enemies.”

[severe kestrel]

i hope Oni goes rampant

she feels like the type

[west linden]

Same, I am hoping that one of the factions is controlled by rampant ai, think that would be cool as heck

[twin trout]

everyone sucks but I like mida the most :3

[digital plaza]

Durandal already hacked our CyAc systems

[rotund stump]

viva la revolution

[inland crypt]

Nah, if we keep getting x character goes rampant, then rampancy loses its appeal/coolness. Have Durendal be a vendor like Xur in Destiny

[warm thicket]

Wait where's this from

[keen plank]

I’m hoping we see one of the AI faction leaders go rampant. It’s unlikely however. Nona would be very interesting in particular, while Vulcan would be terrifying.

[west linden]

wait what I don't remember this

[rotund stump]

(it's ok I'm a mida double agent)

[west linden]

cool af

[rotund stump]

cryo intro cutscene

[keen plank]

What exactly is Gaius again?

[west linden]

oh yeah I have 0 brain

[rotund stump]

that was durandal hacking our etherstep beam system and letting us breach access to the marathon

[digital plaza]

We got his time limited contracts now for cryo

[rotund stump]

also yeah contracts

[digital plaza]

He also recalibrated our jump pads for marathon

[severe kestrel]

i do kinda wish this got more attention from Oni

[inland crypt]

Gabe Nuell

[keen plank]

I appreciate how he acts as his own faction. It’s very much in-character given his ego.

[rotund stump]

nucal agri AI

[zealous laurel]

An AI based on the founder of NuCaloric, if I'm not mistaken. Since its Gus -> G-AI-us

[severe kestrel]

like brotha just jumped our shit and is telling me to skin runners on the Marathon and oni just... doesn't say anything?

[zealous laurel]

Beat me to it lol

[rotund stump]

beyond that I'm...not sure but he sounds suspiciously similar to gus moraine himself lol

[digital plaza]

Nucal AI?

[rotund stump]

ig that pushes my narrative of gus being a narcissist

or the corp itself and not gus

[west linden]

Oni understand we gotta make our bread somehow

[zealous laurel]

They DO share a voice actor, if memory serves

[rotund stump]

or both

[keen plank]

So he IS AI. I made that assumption earlier and a few people got mad at me and told me he wasn’t.

[rotund stump]

AHA

[severe kestrel]

i had this thought like 2 days into the server slam and im glad other people are also thinking it

[keen plank]

Like this was my assumption.

[warm thicket]

His appearance also has some nodes or something tied to his head

[zealous laurel]

Nope yeah he's an AI

[twin trout]

it's there...somewhere...beneath Control...alone and frightened...poor hatch...I'm sending company... greet them well

[keen plank]

I enjoy Gaius’ voice acting. And it’s funny that it’s the same actor as Reinhardt.

[rotund stump]

gus himself being a narcissist would not surprise me honestly

[warm thicket]

And Calus

[rotund stump]

and it's the most likely outcome 💀

[zealous laurel]

Darin de Paul seems so nice

[digital plaza]

Same VA, probably because they used Guses likeness/voice for Gaius

[rotund stump]

like no way gus doesn't know about all the shady things his corp does behind his back

[keen plank]

Ah right. It’s all Darin DePaul right?

[west linden]

Gaius being a rampant ai would be insanely cool

[zealous laurel]

It is!!

[warm thicket]

Mhm

[keen plank]

He does seem like a quality guy. Just fun.

[twin trout]

he's nigh definitely the main proprotor of those shady things X3

[rotund stump]

you're telling me gus and gaius VA's also for calus

[digital plaza]

Calus just yapping about some burgers

[keen plank]

I really like how they reused Eris Morn’s VA for Vulcan. She was originally just a Bungie dev and look at her now.

[severe kestrel]

gus would probably be dead by now no? he recorded a message for the colonists before the ship left didnt he?

[rotund stump]

gus is Very Dead

[severe kestrel]

yeah okay i thought so lmao

[digital plaza]

Nucal is pretty clean tho

[zealous laurel]

Yep yep

[rotund stump]

it just irks me about nucal being both efficiency and philantrophy

[digital plaza]

They didnt do shadow ops for the most part

[severe kestrel]

oh yeah nucal is definitely insanely scummy

[digital plaza]

Only recently they entered the game

[keen plank]

“Life must be savored and have MEANING! What would we be without drinkable cheeseburgers? NOTHING CABAL! NOTHING!”

[frozen oar]

The only two contracts reps that are prob not AI are gantry and Charter

[digital plaza]

XD

[digital plaza]

Yeah

[severe kestrel]

i feel like nucal is kinda in that "best of the worst" slot where like. yeah they definitely fucking suck but not as bad as the other guys

[zealous laurel]

It's a good extrapolation from current for-profit charity initiatives but yeah

[warm thicket]

Yeah it's been 300 something years and they actually confirm it because they play the audio log for social media and label him as "deceased"

[rotund stump]

benevolent multibillionaire (literally has never existed and never will) gives unto the people cool food and drinks and everything ever™ and he's genuinely kind-hearted and his corp just does insanely shady things behind his back

the way nucal works reminds me of umbrella and spencer from resident evil

[severe kestrel]

okay i thought so but its been a week or two since i last read any of the codex entries with him so i couldnt remember

[keen plank]

NuCaloric has very good PR. They’re incredibly sinister. I like the various logs that go into their food production.

[zealous laurel]

I would be hard pressed to believe Gus wasn't privy to half the shady shit going on

[rotund stump]

love the shock anytime I mention the burgerslop logs lol

[rotund stump]

the latter story would be wild to happen in the marathonverse of all places but yeah this is more likely 💀

[severe kestrel]

i do really like gaius as an ai - even if its artificial he does seem to have some level of concern for the colonists

[twin trout]

I like how the NucAl skins describe their budding relationship with runners like some sort of "baby's first pmc" X3

[keen plank]

He and his AI based model are very genial and polite. Which doesn’t stop them from “weathering political storms that would sink countries.”

[digital plaza]

Evil food production but atleast they dont do same shit as Traxus does

[rotund stump]

a genuinely good person in the marathon story 🙀

[digital plaza]

Until very recently

[rotund stump]

exp-mat is really interesting to me

[severe kestrel]

i really wish there was a way to go back and view the contract cutscenes with each of the vendors

[keen plank]

Mhmmm. Traxus meanwhile does a little bit of every and doesn’t care. They’re just that big.

[twin trout]

so real, I wanna listen to gantry again

[rotund stump]

til now nucal's only been about corporate and political espionage like cyac

[twin trout]

gantry asmr :D

[keen plank]

People keep requesting it. I expect it will be added in a future update.

[rotund stump]

I wanna see their facade crack like a massive PR disaster when the public knows about the exp-mat shells

[severe kestrel]

RUNNAH

SPILL UESC MILK IN THE GROCERY STORE 0/10

RUN OVER ORION WITH MY 2011 FORD RANGER 0/2

[digital plaza]

You mean initial cutscene or dialogues in general?

[severe kestrel]

both

like a codex but for the dialogues specifically

[warm thicket]

Oh I'd like to see all of them act like that and I do expect them to soon

[keen plank]

I know it’s a meme, but the point of the glass smashing is to show how petty MIDA is.

[rotund stump]

but I do wonder what exactly happened over at cyac for them to actually deploy physical forces with their syn-dis shells

[twin trout]

windows got tired of linux users

[rotund stump]

like...industry monopoly having to physically fight for smth

[long kernel]

If we ever get grenade or rocket launchers

[rotund stump]

it's like seeing a dead great white getting his stomach chomped out meaning there's bigger things out there

[digital plaza]

Esoterickk have initial cutscene and dialogue for all factions
https://youtu.be/VH_RCO9gw0Q

But yeah would be cool to have recap feature

[warm thicket]

We'd make somebody pay

[west linden]

I switched to Linux and now I have to go back to windows to play this game

real Mida fan here

[digital plaza]

Its already in game tho when new season starts you guys can check out every dialogue again!

xd

[zealous laurel]

I kinda appreciate it cuz like. Yeah, those tiny acts of righteous indignation don't change hearts and minds, but they generate inconvenience and sometimes, that's fun!

[west linden]

Is there anywhere we can see good pics of the spht from cryo? I can't really find any online and I always wanted to see the spht in game

[strong perch]

why wont they show durandals dumpy? i know hes caked

[twin trout]

escape will make me stacked

[delicate thorn]

I was curious if there was a way to go back and watch the old cutscenes. It's wild Bungie is still relying on fandom for that

[severe kestrel]

all you people want to do is fuck the computers

nobody wants to talk to them

[warm thicket]

I tried getting some from the twitch but they move around alot and it's hard to capture them with the open cloak

[digital plaza]

Vidoc press kit has one

[severe kestrel]

nobody asks "durandal how were your decades of suffering being trapped in cryoarchive"

[digital plaza]

I think

[severe kestrel]

all you people want is "durandal show me your naked ass cheeks"

smh

[strong perch]

we(me and the robot) could talk all night…..

[keen plank]

Which is funny because Reed points out the same thing in his Marathon application interview.

[zealous laurel]

Everyone asks "what that dumpy do" not "how that dumpy do"

[twin trout]

not like he'd deign to confide in us X3

[zealous laurel]

So valid

[digital plaza]

Red war moment

[twin trout]

"durandal how are you feeling"
"how could a monkey like you possibly conceive of what I have experienced"

[severe kestrel]

classic bungie one step forward 4 steps back

[delicate thorn]

Everybody asks "where is durandal" but no one asks "how is durandal" - AI Rampancy

[rotund stump]

why does this actually nail

like this is so on point LMAO

[keen plank]

I mean. A few characters have. Such as various Ulysses and…uh…

Straus…

[west linden]

I wish I could just find a nice little place for my vandal to just chill - no recall just let my vandal have a place

also makes me wish we had a hideout

[rotund stump]

daddy strauss was really unexpected and I loved it

[digital plaza]

Alright none of the press kits has those

Only cover art with him

[rotund stump]

I mena it does coincide with his idea of a metastable AI and his methods of making one but

man

[warm thicket]

I checked 2 it's really tricky

[twin trout]

🤤

[keen plank]

His great voice acting is a nice contrast to how much of a bastard he really is. But it leaks into his private logs.

I look forward to hearing his farewell message. We don’t know how he escaped. It’s implied he died, but never confirmed.

[rotund stump]

wasn't his last log greeting the pfhor?

[keen plank]

Straus is also the reason the Battleroids were on the marathon. The entire series is his fault, but Tau Ceti was probably doomed either way.

[rotund stump]

brb I'm in a run rn

[warm thicket]

Yeah it was very much implied that he triggered it before but yeah he was often depicted as a person that cared more about scientific progress than human life

[digital plaza]

Im thinking that he was either blasted right away or was taken as a slave

[warm thicket]

His last farewell message is not voiced sadly but he basically says something along the lines of "you see why I had to do this"

[digital plaza]

Either way hes gone

[keen plank]

Fits his ego well.

[warm thicket]

Durandal says he tortured him to death

[rotund stump]

and yk what's funny

for how much he would've boasted about durandal doing all this he's likely just an oddity

any other metastable AI wouldn't be jumping timelines and all that lmao

[austere elk]

I don't think Durandal was jumping timelines

[west linden]

That's the only thing I don't really want canonized is time jumping but I suppose if portals already exist why wouldnt time jumping

Like if the W'rkncacnter exists / existed I don't see why time travel is impossible

[austere elk]

the anomaly clearly indicates that time is not a solid construct here

[west linden]

Oo thats a good point

[austere elk]

that's probably going to play into the wipes if I had to guess

[west linden]

I don't want to do parasitism again please nona

"Time for you to get your sparkleaf for the 100th time honey"

[austere elk]

just don't it in the first place

I fucking refuse

[west linden]

I am too stubborn to not complete the quests

[dreamy hawk]

I’m pretty sure priority contracts won’t reset, but will instead expand. Rep, upgrades, etc., gone, but we know the codex doesn’t reset and some of the contracts are 1:1 with the codex.

But I believe in the Alpha the wipes were justified as the corps collecting their debt, which is also something ONI warns us about in the tutorial.

[severe kestrel]

yeah if theyre trying to do a progressing storyline it makes the most sense for each wipe to have new contracts

[dreamy hawk]

Reminder that “meta stability” is synonymous with “rampancy” in lore.

[dreamy hawk]

Isn’t there a codex log that specifically says not to do this, not to ask him questions, only give him specific commands, etc. More Strauss abuses.

[rotund stump]

OH NO THERE'S STILL ONE ROOK THAT DIDN'T MAKE FINAL NOOOOOOOOOO

I was just spamming crouch with the other rook right on exfil LOL

poor dude

[delicate thorn]

Is there a communal "rooks clan up" agreement?

[severe kestrel]

im pretty sure there is but id have to dig through my codex a bit to find it

[rotund stump]

nope

entirely depends on vibe lol

[austere elk]

never trust a rook, especially as a rook

[delicate thorn]

Aw. That would be cool haha

[dreamy hawk]

Ah you’re good. I can see it in my head.

[rotund stump]

I will say tho there's a weird sense of comfort rooking around on outpost knowing your only option is the final exfil

[severe kestrel]

yeah same lmao i definitely remember reading that almost verbatim

[rotund stump]

cuz you just know there's gonna be at least 2 other rooks running towards you with their knives out 💀

murderuous intent maybe included

both my rook outpost runs so far I've had this exact scenario happen to me

[dreamy hawk]

Rooks get gunned on site unless they’re chatty.

[severe kestrel]

rooks get gunned on site

[digital plaza]

@dreamy hawk @severe kestrel https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/proprietary-asset/ai-security-protocols?directory=World,Perimeter

[rotund stump]

I'm more on a rule of don't attack unless attacked lol

[severe kestrel]

when i play rook i like to knife fight every rook i find because it almost always ends in both of us going down

and that always makes me laugh

[rotund stump]

which like...really doesn't help sometimes when you get into pinwheel and the other rook pretends to be friendly and then shanks me from the back

knife fights are so fun

[severe kestrel]

awesome sauce thank u

[severe kestrel]

roleplaying as a british roadman in the pinwheel is my favourite activity

no guns in this place we knife fight like men

[rotund stump]

is it weird that I'm always a good sport about this 💀

like yeah let's shank each other's kidneys why not

[earnest hatch]

This would work for a longer TTK. Marathon is very much a “he who shoots first shoots last” type of TTK.

[dense delta]

No no, please let them play like that

I get more kills :D

[rotund stump]

no I mean like if I'm playing rook and being friendly lol

on any other non-rook run it's always shoot on sight

[pliant elm]

So, in the end, after Cryo was released, I was right. The lore is garbage and they butchered the original lore.

They actually managed to make a compiler a boss because nobody even bothered looking into the old games and realized it dies from a BoB in 5 shots.

[sage lark]

just a psa dont bother engaging with him

known troll

who only throws around "this is garbage" statements with no substance

[pliant elm]

More like known predictor.

[bronze robin]

this is in reference to something I mentioned a week or two ago but I finally found the floating worker suit at the Anomaly in Dire Marsh

[silk whale]

Like the floating exploded guy?

[pliant elm]

What substance, the lore has no substance in the new game and its just mashed assets called as 'lore'.

[bronze robin]

yeah. its like his body turned into a ball of.. cancer? I dunno. it looked weird as hell

[jagged rose]

She compiles on my S'pht'kr until I cheapen the threat of something or other I didn't think this through

[sage lark]

yeah something like from the cinematic

[twin trout]

bait for the bait god >:3

[pliant elm]

They made a completely normal and weak mob into a boss with absolutely no reasoning or explanation what so ever because someone who wrote the story didn't even played any game.

[bronze robin]

cuz there was nothing in the suit, just a big mass of flesh or.. something, floating above it. and the boots had fallen off

[pliant elm]

A Blue Flick'ta in this new game would be indestructible.

[jagged rose]

Fun idea: what if the bacteria in the body rapidly evolved?

[sage lark]

https://youtu.be/fvbEnWLRo1s?si=LKXa7sEm1Srq_EXd&t=75

[robust vale]

can somebody get this bot to pull up the definition of “reimagining” real quick please

[sage lark]

thats an interesting view, since the time dilation the anomaly introduces

[robust vale]

Just to see if they know it

[bronze robin]

yeah like from the cinematic. I just hadn't seen it in person yet

[sage lark]

im telling you dont bother

[robust vale]

Cmon it was a little funny

[sage lark]

weve been over this since the server slam and the launch of the game

this person doesnt comprehend anything

[twin trout]

brick walls don't know how to think they just repeat the same drivel incessantly

[pliant elm]

Why would I want something that was already a masterpiece, reimagined.

Reimagined is just an emphemism for bad story writing.

[robust vale]

Damn since the server slam?

Wow you are just a troll

Or stupid

[sage lark]

yep, sometimes they let got and stop pretending to be an amoeba but most of the time its this

[robust vale]

Anyways yeah moving on

[pliant elm]

No. I'm just someone that actually played and read the entire thing multiple times that actually know the universe of the game.

[twin trout]

such titles usually coincide :3

[bronze robin]

the anomaly whispering freaked me out too, yesterday. I was like, what the fuck is outside.. (I was in the quarantine building)

[robust vale]

Something that did strike me is that New Cascadia seem to have made a big tech strides revolving around biology-mimicking machines or straight up time bullshit

[sage lark]

yeah theres hints to it probably being a Wrk or something Wrk related

[robust vale]

Which is neat

[dense delta]

STOP Intereacting, with Fox lol its not going anywhere

[pliant elm]

This writting is the equivalent of picking a random Tolkien Orc and making it godlike