📚marathon-lore-discussion

[inland crypt]

That's what I remember

[warm thicket]

I saw a schamatic concept showing that the helmet was removable

[earnest hatch]

Immortal battleroid serving liquid cheeseburgers at the Tau Ceti cafeteria.

[inland crypt]

Found it @austere elk https://marathongame.fandom.com/wiki/Public_Access_Terminal_39-z

"There is surprisingly good news planetside: nine military Mjolnir
Mark IV cyborgs were covertly living among the
colonists, and acting together they were able to
single-handedly turn back the latter stages of the Pfhor
assault. Casualties on the colony were nowhere near as high
as those we experienced here on the Marathon."

[eternal knoll]

perfect cover role since cafeteria workers are known for their coldness and impersonability

[austere elk]

I guess they were then

[silk whale]

I'm just over here reading all the Wikipedia entries for everything Bungie

[inland crypt]

I headcannon that the SEC OFF was made from the body of John Pathways

[eternal knoll]

ye, yr not alone

[visual lynx]

also shooting troubles, perhaps amongs other things, playing games, scoring points, looking the hero:

You fly in zero gravity towards the locker holding your Battle Armor. You haven’t worn it since you had to hunt down some Chockisens which were harassing the work teams on the fringe of the colony, almost three years ago, but training is something that you never forget. It’s funny, but you’ve always been the colony’s trouble shooter. You’re bigger and stronger, and a better shot. In games, you always scored the most points and looked the hero. And now, it looks as if you’re heading right into the colony’s biggest crisis since it was established seven years ago.

@neon viper Chockisens in NuMarathon when?

[inland crypt]

Will we turn ONI into a crypto server?

[austere elk]

we're the crypto server for ONI

[eternal knoll]

tarkov has long needed the occasional bear or pack of feral dogs. marathon could beat it to the punch…

[inland crypt]

Damn you're right

[warm thicket]

I bet they hunted them down to extinction

[weary portal]

Drinkable cheeseburger with a extra port for your friend mouth 👄

[austere elk]

we all know that's really there to enable shotgunning the churger

[drifting mulch]

ah yes, friend mouth 👄

[inland crypt]

"Bought my date the x2 drinkable churger, im hoping she accepts 👉 👈"

Update:

Cockblocked by the Pfhor :(

[robust vale]

this happened to my buddy at the new cascadia potluck

[hasty berry]

Which faction in marathon

Is objectively the least evil

[eternal shell]

leela :)

[inland crypt]

I will unironically vouch for the UESC with the preamble of stating that this setting has no objectivly good guys

[silk whale]

My girl

[inland crypt]

and maybe the Spht Ker if we are pushing the old games

[hasty berry]

Iam talking about just the main 7 of them

In marathon current game

[inland crypt]

So I can't choose the UESC then?

[hasty berry]

U can

I more of meant no spht

[inland crypt]

Ok, then I choose them (I mean just see who I have on my pfp)

[hasty berry]

The big O

[inland crypt]

Either you are an Orion simp or a mida bootlicker

no inbetweens

[hasty berry]

ATTENTION RUNNER

[inland crypt]

Runner x Runnah

[hasty berry]

Bro sitting in a chair aura farming

Then dies to speciman

[inland crypt]

But yeah, I pick the UESC

[hasty berry]

Still kinda weird that orion is supposed to be this spec ops guy

First deployment

And he instantly dies

[inland crypt]

Meh, it happens irl

[hasty berry]

Yeah but orion is supposed to be

Hard veteran

Gantry says he was infamous back on mars

Centuries ago

That means orion is 300 ish years old

Hard combat vet

[eternal shell]

spec ops soldiers slip on banana peels and die all the time

[hasty berry]

Him getting instantly nuked is funny

I mean he will be back

Cuz orion is a „runner” too

So he didnt really doe

Die

But still

One thing that always made me go „?” Is why uesc is using so many stupid robots instead of using their own runners

In big numbers

[inland crypt]

If you had the reassurance that you can't you really die beyond the physical body, i'd play loose too

[silk whale]

I mean I think like everything in this game, it's complicated, shades of grey, etc.

Like, I think MIDA if viewed as they present themselves in their own propaganda has high ideals like freedom, opposing tyranny, etc. But in practice...?

But then NuCaloric is actually doing a lot to, you know, keep people alive.

And then yeah, the UESC has the overarching drive to try to ensure human survival beyond the overconsumption and stagnation in the sol system.

Sekeguchi seems to care a lot about you as a runner. At least that's what the worm says 🤷🏼‍♀️

And of course Arachne is seeking transcendence beyond all of this, if you subscribe to their cult beliefs.

[hasty berry]

I firmly believe that nona is going rampant

She starts to detach more and more from sekgen ideas and larp more and more as ur mom

[robust vale]

yeah the ai we talk too are weird

nona's absolutely losing it and the theory that vulcan is in fact running the traxus board feels likely

[eternal shell]

it'd be more of a plot twist if vulcan is the only ai not going rampant

"i was specifically instructed from the start to not go rampant."

[twin trout]

ai forgets it has dementia

immediately cured

[robust vale]

I'm lowkey worried about gaius

he feels like he's being faced with the horrors of the universe and it's getting to him

the vibe is questionable

[eternal shell]

gaius crashout is going to be the stuff of legends

[keen plank]

Grandma* worm is not close to rampancy yet. But I’d be very curious to see what she, Vulcan, and Gaius would be like in that state.

[robust vale]

I've yet to do the 3rd nucal quest chain idk how he crashes out there but I suspect that if the contagion storyline goes on long enough he's crashing out

[hasty berry]

Not much fbh

Tbh

He more of doesnt understand

He gets suprised by humanity doing unpredictable things that breach his normal recognition patterns

[hot thicket]

I feel like Vulcan is the lion and the avatar is just how it chooses to communicate

[hasty berry]

In one of quest gaius is super confused why doctors decided to sacrifice themselves instead of leaving

[robust vale]

the anti-joy

[eternal shell]

the light might be an external process that checks for and prevents rampancy

[hasty berry]

How i interpreted that is they are both Vulcan, the robot is the voice while the lion is the emotion she feels

Thats why robot doesnt show emotions or move her mouth

[unreal slate]

sometimes I do feel pretty lion

[hasty berry]

And they are both connected using wires no?

[hallow stag]

Truthworm 4/5

Very clever way of subverting plato's cave

[hot thicket]

That makes sense cus the lion growled once when she was talking aggressively about uesc

[balmy pilot]

Stupid question, if I extract with a lore item will my teammates get a codex entry?

[iron stratus]

I don’t think so no

[balmy pilot]

Lame

[drifting garnet]

I don't think so, no. You only get the ones you extracted with.

[hallow stag]

No, but there are some exceptions

Like the anomaly event in dire marsh

As long as one member of the party extract with it, everyone will get the codex entry

[plucky sierra]

when?

which contract?

[hasty berry]

Truth/lies 5/6

He dies to specimen

[plucky sierra]

That is not just "first deployment" that sounds exactly like the first UESC Compiler encounter

[ORION]: Preparing to approach. Do you read me, Titan? Titan! Ugh, damn it. All right, respond when able. I'm approaching with intent to detain. Noticing increased auditory response. Helmet mods aren't helping, it's… God, it's like it's inside my head! Ugh— 

and

[0109] Can feel it. 
Hard to explain. Like ripples across living systems—digital fingerprints up my spine. Biomat compromised. 
Run.  
Too late. 
Sys fail imminent.  
It's in my— 

[robust vale]

yeah the compiler notably REALLY messed with the uesc

[dreamy hawk]

Compiler is no joke. I wonder if Jjaro cybernetics are the key to not being as susceptible, otherwise I feel like the SO would have had a harder time with what we’re seeing.

[plucky sierra]

in the AAR from the UESC attack on the compiler Orion is says how bad it is to fight it

[plucky sierra]

this has to be a different type of compiler than the enslaved ones

[woven silo]

any word on ONI going rampant? She seems to be saying even more wildly unhinged things

[dreamy hawk]

I think so, but I also think we’re seeing how deadly they really were, too. They gave Leela a run for her money and then defeated her - I feel like their cyber warfare capabilities far outstrip what humanity can accomplish.

[plucky sierra]

cyberwarefare sure, but theres no reason our bullets should be doing less damage

[dreamy hawk]

ONI, as far as we know, is the only AI in-system, so she’s presumably suffering like the colonial AI did, but I don’t think we’ve gotten any lore or anything specific.

[lavish breach]

Yo the psa colony holiday voiceline is fucking disturbing

[dreamy hawk]

Agreed. These strike me as ‘kr-enhanced forms, definitely outfitted with some kind of new armor, but the melting of brains through cybernetics, I would wager, was something they always were capable of.

[lavish breach]

Wtf happened to the people, they locked then up?? Purged them?? WTF

[plucky sierra]

no one knows

theres not enough bodies anywhere

[dreamy hawk]

Anomaly gobbled a fair number, I’m sure. But that’s hinted and not confirmed.

[lavish breach]

Arent some of the body’s still in cyro pods??

[dreamy hawk]

Probably not bodies, like as in the colonists, but folks that never got thawed. Iirc folks tried to flee back to cryo but dunno if successful.

[earnest hatch]

I think this compiler is different from the ones in the original games. It’s bigger, stronger, more powerful. Definitely a different class of enemy.

[lavish breach]

the rest, im starting to think cannibalism

Especially after the anaomly fucked up the food

[plucky sierra]

there is a codex saying that across all suspected causes of death there is just not enough remains to add up the proper number

[lavish breach]

This shi is insane

[robust vale]

yeah there's bodies missing and we don't know why

part of it is the thaw process being interrupted

part of it is...probably something else

[craggy finch]

It’s a perfect storm of all UESC being either robots and digital minds (Spht’s bread and butter), but Runners are somehow not affected by the mental attacks

Durandal’s influence perhaps?

[woven silo]

Yeah okay I had a feeling ONI was the most omni-present ai for the runners obviously cuz she comes with the system you are by default always plugged in to. She just seems yeah, to be saying more stuff now. Every weekend cryo happens it gets a bit more manic. Today in outpost she was just rattling off about how pointless this suffering is, i'll try to record it if it happens again

like legit she was talking like manic and her voice was starting to glitch out it was viscerally different from last week

[robust vale]

I suspect its Durandal

's influence yeah

[woven silo]

normally she says something about the cycle and not worrying about death but now she seems to be legit suffering

[robust vale]

because the UESC had runners against ther compiler earier

and they got washed

[dreamy hawk]

I’m not so sure. I’m not excluding it — Durandal has some link to CyAc, it seems, if only because the Cryo quests come from them — but I think ONI is likely, at least also going mad, if that’s not entirely what’s at play for her.

[robust vale]

the cryo quests coming from cyac are I think durandal sending them straight to us

the cyac contracts feels more like oni's direct work with us

and yeah ONI is like

getting lost in the sauce

[dreamy hawk]

She’s going the way of Darius and friends.

[hot thicket]

Cerburus is showing signs of the same degradation as the colony ai

[craggy finch]

You know it’s probably no coincidence that the Marathon AR was .75, the same calibre as a 40k bolter

[dreamy hawk]

Proximity to the anomaly seems to be deleterious.

[dreamy hawk]

The Bungieverse is the Warhammerverse.

😂

[craggy finch]

It’s got space wizards and shit

[dreamy hawk]

It’s true.

[craggy finch]

Tau look suspiciously like Pfhor and have the Marathon logo as their symbol

They look exactly like the terminal art of Tfear from M2

[plush venture]

40k is apart of the marathon series ofc

[light mulch]

What’s the name of the little figurine seen around TC4? There’s a collector in outpost

Can we ask devs?

[craggy finch]

The compiler figurines?

They’re teasing the end boss of Cryo

Who are OG Marathon enemies (later allies)

[light mulch]

No the little funkopop things

[craggy finch]

Emotional support animals?

[earnest hatch]

Oh, the dolls with big heads and big ears. There’s one colonist bunk filled with the figurines.

I don’t know what they are though.

[drifting garnet]

Space Labubu?

[craggy finch]

Ah
https://x.com/chrizmo__/status/2030736826944639472?s=46&t=Iu_RDJEfLkmK8z_ckbqvpg

[drifting garnet]

...man so that's how we really know Marathon is set in a cyberpunk dystopia: Labubu manages to survive nearly a millenia later!

[craggy finch]

Must be either a child or grown up collector

Just passing by I assumed it was the children’s quarters

[drifting garnet]

my first instinct says "child". just the chaotic way they're placed on the bed feel like a kid playing with their toys, not an adult collector that's trying to keep the packaging neat and orderly

[hot thicket]

Thought those were nucaloric mascots

[green plume]

def a kids room go to the other parts of the dorms and the beds are bigger and it's not done up like that

[craggy finch]

We need a video of Gus awkwardly trying to eat the drinkable cheeseburger

[west trout]

A considerable amount were likely abducted during the colony attack. The redacted entry reporting on it says many were "redacted or redacted" and it seems like it's killed or abducted.
That fits with the original attack in M1, where at least Blake and the humans he eventually led were on the scout ship when Durandal left the system with it.

[green plume]

takes the smallest sip "Thats a big gulp for a big drinkable cheeseburger"

[craggy finch]

But the colony lasted as far as 2827, so it can’t have been abduction, especially since the government had the means to cover up the invasion itself

[west trout]

Why not? They didn't take all of them, and there were still many in Cryo. The colony had some survivors (who reported the attack).

[craggy finch]

I mean that the original invasion was 2794 while we have logs covering the contagion and Anomaly, which we see appeared around 2811-2827

[west trout]

Point being, lack of enough remains is because a chunk of them were taken away with the Pfhor scout ship that attacked, thus are no longer on TCIV to be found.

[west trout]

Yeah, order of events is attack > contagion and anomaly.
Many (not all) colonists were killed or abducted during the attack.

[craggy finch]

The colony itself was relatively fine compared to the Marathon, where they suffered heavy casualties and the BoBs there made up the bulk of the prisoners Durandal ended up taking

The lack of remains is odd because the contagion evidently killed huge numbers of people decades after the invasion

And Jasper refers to the contagion and Anomaly as the main causes of the collapse

[west trout]

There's fewer remains than there should be because some of them were taken off world during the attack. Not sure how to spell that out more simply?

The rest remained behind and went through the further downfall of the colony, so their remains are there to find, but don't make up the full 30k+offspring there should be.

[drifting mulch]

why does quarantine have no bodies lying around? i know there are graves and a morgue

[green plume]

Yeah you'd think we'd see more bodies like Dr Song in perimeter.

[west trout]

The fact that the UESC have logged that there are fewer remains than there should be implies they've recovered as many as they could.

[craggy finch]

But that has no correlation because that took place at least two decades before New Cascadia itself collapsed

[west trout]

Not sure how/why they missed Song, but we wouldn't get the story beat of finding her if they didn't, so...

[craggy finch]

It should have no bearing because the colony was still functional as a government

[craggy finch]

I think the key difference is that the others died from the disease in quarantine while Song went out and got assimilated by the fungus itself

[green plume]

yeah but no because there was total collapse over it and not everyone was quarantined.

[west trout]

I don't understand.
UESC expect a number of remains equivalent to the 30k plus/minus bob growth rate and colony growth rate. They collate found remains and realise there are way too few.
The reason is a bunch were taken off world during the attack, so those remains aren't on TCIV to be found.

Eg: if colony from inception to demise would be expected to grow by 15k, and bobs are expected to not have increase in numbers at all, UESC would expect to find somewhere in the region of 45k remains.
Instead, they're finding a significantly smaller number of remains, eg maybe 30k, and wondering where the other 15k are > they're no longer on TCIV because they were abducted during the colony assault.

(numbers are entirely made up for example)

[craggy finch]

Abduction would not have had an effect on bodies disappearing simply because the invasion happened twenty years before the last date we see before the actual collapse of the colony

[drifting mulch]

possibility we'll be seeing spored colonists as enemies in a future season? like how all the bodies went missing in Halo 1 when you first encounter the Flood

[craggy finch]

We see the Pfhor invade in 2794, 10ish years later a farmer collapses from the contagion, 10ish years after that the Anomaly blows people up

[west trout]

The UESC are accounting for remains of all colonists across the entire history of the colony, not just the last ones there.

[craggy finch]

New Cascadia had a sustainable population

If the invasion diminished that it would have been mentioned

All we find out is that they covered it up

[west trout]

I've already mentioned where I believe it is mentioned. It's just covered up by "redacted"

Also, deaths being replaced by births (sustainable) doesn't make the dead bodies vanish.

[drifting mulch]

maybe the missing bodies are inside the Anomaly. colonists keep hearing voices and are told not to go near it because they end up getting tricked (?) into going in

[west trout]

They know 30k people left Sol, they have colonial records showing new births, that gives them a number of total remains they should find, but they find less.
There's likely multiple reasons, including the anomaly, in play, but at least a large chunk are missing because they're not on TCIV to be found.

[drifting mulch]

what about them clones? or was that Equanimity specific

[craggy finch]

It possibly says colonists were killed and abducted yeah, but the bodies missing is another problem because the UESC expedition is aware of the invasion and that the seeming cause of the colony’s destruction was the contagion and Anomaly combined

UESC are in fact covering the cover up

[west trout]

Marathon didn't have clones. In fact, clones is another word used for shells.

[craggy finch]

If they knew that most of them disappeared in the invasion they would not be investigating in the first place

Orion is forced by his CO to report results on the Anomaly every day

They’re pointing at the Anomaly as the cause

[west trout]

Do we know that the entries describing the missing bodies and the recovered redacted one were found in one order or the other?

They might have accounted the bodies, reported the missing ones, then later found the attack records and learned from that.

[west trout]

a cause. Not the cause.

[craggy finch]

But it has no connection to the Anomaly and I doubt the writers would try to add confused reports out of order for players piecing the mystery together

MIDA’s quest line demonstrates the UESC knows quite a few things about the aliens

[drifting mulch]

I doubt the writers would try to add confused reports out of order for players piecing the mystery together
they would do this

[craggy finch]

Vague reports are one thing but a “we don’t know where the bodies went” -> “oh we found this one thing that explains it” doesnt make sense

[west trout]

Things take time to happen. The UESC didn't just turn up and immediately know everything they know by the time the runners arive. Reports have to be made in a particular order, and have context around that.
Would the story writers include that order of learning things? Heck yes, because that's clever writing!

[craggy finch]

Present day logs follow continuity

The mystery is still out there even for them

We find out the snippets that the UESC picks up

Regardless, twenty years would make the missing bodies connection negligible

Because they would be concerned with how a colony collapses but no bodies are left rather than an invasion decades ago causing it

[west trout]

If the Pfor store 10k colonists, there would be 10k missing bodies. The colony could birth a million more and those 10k bodies would still be missing

[craggy finch]

Why would that be a concern then

Oh yeah they got abducted, problem solved

They’re still investigating

[west trout]

Because at the time of the report was made, this would be something odd to investigate.

[craggy finch]

The report is something that is a current mystery

Not something retroactively solved

Because not even Cryo is explaining the cause

[west trout]

I give up. Someone else can try to explain subtraction to you.

[craggy finch]

Bruh I’ve been explaining the passage of time to you

Dont give me that “I give up”

[drifting mulch]

Unsanctioned Hostilities 3/5 https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/unsanctioned-hostilities-3-5?directory=Factions,Traxus time anomaly in codex entry

[twin trout]

also the pfhor have seemingly gone elsewhere so the only thing they CAN investigate is the anomaly

they only recently started making headway on the marathon it seems

:3

one of the anomalous collectibles on dire marsh, the 3rd entry I think also implies that the anomaly erases people entirely (either that or both the ai and uesc present at the time wiped the existence of affected people out of the databanks)

[craggy finch]

I think something to note is that the invasion logs are covered up while the later incidents are intact presumably because there just wasn’t a government to cover them up anymore

[west trout]

Ok here goes on time then:

UESC arrive, amongst early duties is accounting for all colonists. Not all are found, many are missing. This is reported.
Some time later, they find the records of the attack. Implication is some colonists were abducted. This would help explain some of the missing, but not rule out all of them. Due to being discovered later, this information was not included in the earlier report.
It wouldn't be standard practise to go back and edit the original report, because it was correct for its time.

We, as runners, don't have access to 100% of UESC reports, so it's entirely likely there's one somewhere with "these X reasons account for some of the missing colonists, but we can't say for sure how many of them" eg.

[craggy finch]

From a storytelling perspective they would have included logs with some kind of indication that the colony was underpopulated, instead we only have reports of BoBs getting pissed that a cryo passenger was pranking them with simulacrum jokes

The mystery is why we don’t see any bodies on the cusp of a plague and total collapse, which are the most recent logs we can find

[twin trout]

given song's fate I presume others went the same way x3

[craggy finch]

Or they Flood now

[twin trout]

just in a less visible manner

[craggy finch]

Yeah that’s a good point actually

Song says she’s “becoming part of the planet”

Maybe the victims become more fungus and assimilate into the planet

[west trout]

I explained this earlier; UESC accounting for the bodies means they've almost certainly recovered the vast majority of them. We don't find them because they've already been packed away in UESC storage

[craggy finch]

Is there any indication the UESC have bodies?

From what I know they’re just as confused as us

[west trout]

Yes. They've counted them all.

[craggy finch]

Which log is that

[west trout]

The same one we've been talking about this entire time

[craggy finch]

Which specific one so I can read it

[west trout]

"we counted all the bodies and there are less than there should be"

[craggy finch]

It’s reflected in the environment we find and it’s a definite choice for an entire disease quarantine area to be devoid of bodies

People also seem to just get abducted by the Anomaly

Or explode

[west trout]

Equitable Distribution 1/4

REPORTER: ORION

1. COLONIST STATUS: No survivors found. Quantity of human remains recovered does not match population records, even when accounting for natural decay and exposure.

[craggy finch]

In the same quest line we have those exchanges about the Anomaly

It’s signposting that the UESC are considering that as their main priority

Since each faction contract has a different focus and they chose to include this in the Traxus plot line (the Anomaly quests essentially)

MIDA is about the cover up of the invasion and NuCal is about the plague

The latter setting it up as an gradual breakdown of the colony

Like the log where President Caruso tells people they have three years worth of food with rationing

[west trout]

I'm lost again. How does any of that relate to the fact that a decent portion of the bodies wouldn't be found because they were abducted?
I'm not saying that's the only reason, I've stated the anomaly would be another contributing factor already.

[craggy finch]

It goes back to it being twenty years ago

And no one refers to an underpopulation crisis

[west trout]

Did those colonists return to the colony in those 20 years?

[craggy finch]

The fact that they need to ration indicated a stable population

[craggy finch]

The problem there is that we don’t have a number besides maybe the pods in M1 and the BoBs in Marathon 2

And most of the casualties and abductions were on the Marathon, at least according to the final terminal in M1

[west trout]

No, we don't, but the UESC sure do

[west trout]

Robert Blake was a colonist. Not a marathon crew.

[craggy finch]

If Bungie is sticking to the M1 storyline, the colony itself fared relatively better, especially since the nine Mjolnir were there

[craggy finch]

His name is a pun on BoB, I presume he’s also a BoB that was aboard the Marathon

[west trout]

Why presume? His exact role is known.

He was a mechanical engineer on the colony

Regardless, this game's lore suggest heavily that colonists, not just marathon crew, were abducted.

[craggy finch]

I don’t doubt that but still likely to a lesser extent than the Marathon

SekGen implies the ten Mjolnir were still present in Tau Ceti

And the nine being on the surface was one of the main reasons why the colony fared better, that plus the Pfhor focusing primarily on the ship

[hot thicket]

Hasn't it been 99 years

[craggy finch]

Yeah

Less than that since the fall of the colony though

The latest date we have of the colony’s lifespan, before it skips ahead, is 2927

[visual lynx]

2827

[craggy finch]

Yeah typo

We’re not even there yet lol

[visual lynx]

Bobs are colonists too, not just frosties

[craggy finch]

Tbf he does say this

I used to be a mechanical engineer on Tau Ceti

I could split hairs about “Tau Ceti” including the Marathon itself but eh lmao

[west trout]

Point being he'd have been abducted from the colony, not the ship

[dreamy hawk]

The weaver story ends with them being put on the marathon; there’s other hints there may have been cyborgs but I don’t believe that’s one.

Or, presumably put into the marathon.

[craggy finch]

Yeah I just mean they were at least present on Tau Ceti

I agree there’s no concrete indication the defence occurred that way so far

But most things are consistent

Even Durandal still being around tied back to it in a roundabout way

If they want to implement Durandal-Thoth it’s a neat way to justify the presence of “old” Durandal

[visual lynx]

given how may frosties there were compared to bobs I really am thinking that as people kept getting abducted or dying they kept defrosting new ones to replace them until they eventually ran out

[warm thicket]

I would like to hear that "another story" soon

[craggy finch]

BoBs were still doing labour jobs though

Song casually mentions them cleaning the filters

[visual lynx]

would be funny if bobs turned out to be better survivors than frosties. frosties keep getting thawed out and dying and bobs are still there like “sigh looks like we’re gonna need another timmy”

[craggy finch]

I want a full cutscene of the nine Mjolnir doing Spartan II shit against the Pfhor

[tawny schooner]

Is there an online space that collates all the codex entries?

[craggy finch]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems

[warm thicket]

I've been thinking about how BoBs in M1 and M2 have those optic eyes, and I remember reading in the codex that 78% of Sol's population has some sort of bioimplant in them

[tawny schooner]

Thanking you!

[warm thicket]

Makes me wonder if someone like Reed or strauss or any of the human colonists had the same

[craggy finch]

They were only in M2 but I don't think they were mentioned as a new addition, so probably just an aesthetic change (like the Pfhor third eye going from the middle to the top because someone realised they looked like clown noses)

[craggy finch]

_gantry talks about how MIDA operatives have altered themselves, but notably categorises Runners as an even bigger step, implying that regular cybernetics are common

[warm thicket]

Hope we can actually meet some humans

Besides the nut _gantry

[craggy finch]

fuckin drongos in the UESC

[sour crescent]

do you guys think runners feel pain when being eliminated or shot?

[craggy finch]

Probably, pain is context for injury

And SekGen are a pack of psychos

[warm thicket]

Yea I read somethin in the codex that said that repeated deaths cause high trauma

[keen plank]

It’s very similar to Destiny’s Exos.

With each death, they lose a little more of themselves. Cyberacme can restore data to them and make them remember/be more like their actual person. But they only do that rarely and if it can make more profit.

[terse wren]

There’s no goddamn way in any of the genres Marathon encompasses that this isn’t the case.

[wild yarrow]

Good God. Scroll way back up on this thread to earlier this afternoon.
Find my name and work backwards.
Your questions answered they will be!

lol

“Yoda laugh”
Awww you cannot get your ship out!

[hot thicket]

i find repeated shell destruction a fun and exhilirating practice

[warm thicket]

REMARK: Despite technological protections designed to support mental and emotional integrity following ASF or near-ASF experiences, repeat instances of catastrophic SHELL failure have been proven to cause lasting traumatic damage to RUNNER psyche and memory. The implementation of sense-mem regulating therapies during neural sync and teleportation alignment have been shown to ease the onset of these side effects.

From the revive entry

[wild yarrow]

My drinking buddy Banshee-44 and I are going to have one hell of a story to tell when we get back.

He’s more of an NPC from Destiny than my actual buddy.

[mental flicker]

What's new

[west linden]

So I asked this before but never got an answer. Are our runners weaker than the battleroids? I haven’t found any codexs that say so but I’d imagine we’re at least significantly weaker than mjolnir

[dense tendon]

pfhor comparison's sake, we struggle against a single compiler

the math on this violence equation is simple

[west linden]

That’s what I was stinkin

[uneven shell]

i mean is the .44 magnum mega class really that powerful?

or are this timeline's compilers way more dangerous

[west linden]

I’m assuming it’s a 50/50 that it’s were weaker or this is a giga chad compiler left / created to protect something

[uneven shell]

yeah and i suppose the original's gameplay should be taken as sort of abstraction of what a badass the security officer was and not like, 1:1 of what really happened

[hot thicket]

we a pale copy of a copy compared to the battleroids

i think what the corps want IS the battleroids, they want to combine our ability to be reprinted with the battleroids , reprintable battleroids

i mean they probably want the anomaly , the novel mosiac virus and all the things actually, they want all of it

[visual lynx]

I think that this compiler is upgraded by the kr, not just because it has higher stats but because inside of its cloak it doesn't look like a litle naked brain rat on a hover-pedestel, it looks like it's wrapped in some kind of powered armor.

[hot thicket]

omg do you mean the mosaic virus might be making it evolve

[visual lynx]

no, I mean this compiler clearly hails from the Free S'pht Rebellion which is surely headed or at least backed by the S'pht'Kr who are 1000 years more advanced than the enslaved S'pht, so they probably gave their compiler friends some upgrades.

[craggy finch]

The OG Marathon enemies are vulnerable to conventional weapons, but if we translated gameplay terms then the Security Officer can zoom around at top speed and one punch aliens to death if he builds up enough momentum (ignore that he can’t jump)

On Total Carnage he can actually die pretty quickly, even with the highest level shields, so the player is relying on speed and positioning

Runners by comparison are a lot slower and overheat very quickly

Think of the Destroyer as a Battleroid lite in its abilities like sprint and slightly higher melee damage

We’ll have to see how hypothetical Pfhor enemies would be in this game to get a better comparison

[neat fiber]

Total Carnage is insane

One wrong step and it's basically game over

[craggy finch]

I headcanon the .44 using the same explosive bullets as the Halo magnum because it does more damage per bullet than the .75 AR

[craggy finch]

Considering the difficulty of this game and the Vidmaster’s Pledge, Bungie might as well take Total Carnage as canon difficulty

Sort of like the way Heroic in Halo is how things are roughly scaled

[long kernel]

A notably beefy compiler in a situation where it had a huge home field advantage

[craggy finch]

Yeah our guns can’t be that much worse than the SO’s

[long kernel]

Yeah, that said, I do believe that compilers are on average really tough

[craggy finch]

The heavy round guns should be roughly equivalent to the AR

[long kernel]

Just not quite that crazy

[neat fiber]

It's the regular Phor assault troops that are the worst

They swing around the corner and hit you with that one two grenade launcher pump

[hot thicket]

Security officer didnt jump, he made the universe move for him

[craggy finch]

In gameplay they’re just above Pfhor fighters and troopers in terms of durability, but hunters are bullet sponges compared to compilers

[craggy finch]

Just shooting grenades at his feet for kicks

[neat fiber]

That and the weird cyborgs on tracks

I hate them

their projectiles become homing missiles on total carnage which is so annoying

[long kernel]

Well I expect Pfhor soldiers to be somewhere between a standard UESC trooper and a Grenadier in terms of challenge

[craggy finch]

The grenadiers in this game inherited their bullshit, I’ve had my shields shredded by the hitscan attack

[craggy finch]

Hunters would 100% fight like the Assault

[hot thicket]

How similar would you say that the robots move is to the old pfhor fighters one two combo

cus maybe they learned it by watching them

[craggy finch]

Yeah the recruits shoot lightning balls then rush in to whack you, textbook Pfhor fighter

[hot thicket]

that is VERY interesting info

[craggy finch]

I’m also theorising that the noises they make are supposed to be analogous to the chittering you would hear from Pfhor

[long kernel]

If the Pfhor get added fully, which I expect at some point, they are likely to be an enemy faction akin to the UESC in challenge

So it would be kinda ridiculous for the compilers to all be as beefy as the cryo archive one

[craggy finch]

If they re use it as an enemy on other maps they can explain it as a faction who have upgraded themselves

I’m hoping Pfhor are used as more robust PvE enemies

Since the seeming purpose of UESC right now is essentially to act as a beacon for other players to find each other and sap shields/health between PvP

[long kernel]

Idk, the UESC can very much take you out quick if they jump you in the right spot

[formal cosmos]

My prediction is that in one of the further future sections of the marathon ship will be an abandoned area that was fully taken by the phor and you have to fight nothing but phor troops.

[long kernel]

Would be interesting, and also explain the Cryo compiler as a very potent scouting force

[formal cosmos]

Maybe the next boss might be a hulk

[long kernel]

Could be

Would make sense too

Big beefy enemy

[sharp quarry]

Hey

hey

hey

Self-osteotomy

Patterns of 3 claw marks in quarantine

Autophobia

The anomaly is rewriting them

making them into something else

What thrives in wet climates, was a pet of the Jjaro (who likely are behind the anomaly), and has 3 claws

F'lickta

It's making humans into F'lickta

[sudden pollen]

Gulp.

[visual lynx]

what lore entries do these details come from?

(also I would suspect that it's the S'ct'lac'tr that's mutating humans into F'lick'ta rather than the Anomaly per se)

[sharp quarry]

The second outpost psa I think, the health advisory from gabriel.

[sage lark]

theres some reaching going on here but could be

This made me think

maybe the compilers are transforming the planet for themselves

Lhowon should be fine after Infinity but idk

[craggy finch]

the final terminal says that the S'pht were evacuating as many F'lickta and other wildlife as quickly as they could, since the sun was dimming anyway

I think the Jjaro machine trapped the Wrk but the sun was altered

[sage lark]

feed my theory yesssssssss

[craggy finch]

The S'pht'Kr have routed the Pfhor, capturing their flagship and forcing their High Admiral to flee the system, what little there is left of it. The S'pht are preparing to bid farewell to their beloved home forever, as the sun collapses in on itself and the lonely marshes fade into the deepening twilight.

The newly chosen Olders of the remaining S'pht are capturing as many of the Fl'ckta creatures and other native life as is feasible before they must leave with K'lia. They are hopeful, though, and with our help will carve another paradise out of the void.

[sage lark]

could be the explanation of why they are back

theres a habitable world right here

[craggy finch]

14 pH ain't shit to S'pht

Tau Ceti must have been miserable to live in

[sage lark]

humid af

[craggy finch]

a lot of the environments seem airtight as well, with airlock doors and window panels

the only humans we know of were all wearing protective suits outside

[sage lark]

and maybe the Spht was in Cryo to turn the rest of the humies into fauna

[craggy finch]

S'pht being villains rather than misunderstood would be a natural progression

M2 recounts that they fought brutal wars against each other that drove the S'pht'Kr away

[sage lark]

well supposedly under leadership of the SphtKr that couldve changed

[craggy finch]

this could possibly be a rogue faction

[sage lark]

but idk they went through shit after shit after shit

[craggy finch]

the S'pht'Kr at least seem consistently benevolent

[sage lark]

can only push em so far

[craggy finch]

these compilers are also styled on the Pfhor slavery era

might be a faction among the entire rebellion movement

[sage lark]

could be could be

maybe they spread them out or like sent small amounts of upgraded Spht to nearby star systems to check for habitable worlds

and this is one of those scouts we encountered

[craggy finch]

hoping for a massive free for all in the future

UESC, S'pht, maybe even Pfhor, all just duking it out

[sage lark]

i mean Night Marsh could be that

[craggy finch]

while Runners putz around in the middle, looting shit

[sage lark]

UESC vs Us vs [REDACTED]

[drifting mulch]

would be so cool to see in game

[craggy finch]

I assume that they'll introduce the compiler in other maps through that

may see UESC grunts try to fight the compiler, or we just have it surrounded by robot corpses in its area

[sage lark]

idk the one in cryo would be kinda irrelevant

I mean it gives good loot but

season 2 in that sense would be a little underwhelming where you have a season 1 boss roaming the "new" season 2 map which is dire marsh at night

[visual lynx]

consume; consume; consume

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.

[rapid cave]

After playing cryo I was like thats alot of UESC force left in the marathon, like technically its "safe"
But then realized those are the new UESC who came after everything had happened. Right? Those UESC bots werent from the colonial age right?

[queen kraken]

If you can look at the UESC combat logs codex entries they mention a UESC runner team having to extract and "flooding the zone" to cover their escape from the compiler

[craggy finch]

Yeah all the UESC guys are part of an expedition investigating the cause of the colonist's disappearance

They're on the Marathon in bulk presumably because the expedition is prioritising it (the ARG involved killing hundreds of millions of them on the surface to thin out security)

[digital plaza]

Yeah its the ARS that Orions team brought, marathon expedition didnt have bots with them

[digital plaza]

Yes

[craggy finch]

The closest thing would be MADDs but they're just floating gun platforms

and they had relatively primitive probe drones

[sleek elk]

okay i need the lore on why some runners are bald

and why others have "hair"

[craggy finch]

female bias

Recon doesn't have hair despite being female because she's a UESC model

all the male ones are bald (Destroyer may just have a helmet built around his skull)

[sleek elk]

unbald assassin

and triage

they deserve hair

[craggy finch]

Thief is at least based on an actual person (in story)

[sleek elk]

oh who?

[craggy finch]

a SekGen science director

[rotund stump]

well not thief entirely

[craggy finch]

Sekiguchi is Japanese so that's why she looks Asian

[rotund stump]

just the icon matrix

[sleek elk]

So SekGen is in fact

a greedy asian robot

who is ddicted to stealing the loot

[rotund stump]

with sekgen's ex-biomata lead's face and voice yeah

[craggy finch]

they got both

The ICON personality series is 100% aftermarket neural support tech featuring a life-like facial replica and vocalization pattern of SEKGEN's former lead SHELL Science Director, Dr. Yoki Samura

[rotund stump]

yeah that

[sleek elk]

hmmmmmm

[rotund stump]

allegedly an inside job by sekgen for corporate sabotage and the hired runner never returned the shell and leaked it on black market instead

[sleek elk]

i wish we got some actual faction cosmetics for shells besides simple recolors

would like a science look from sek gucci

[craggy finch]

Vandal might have hair because she's designed by MIDA, who are a punk organisation that would care about aesthetics

As the name may indicate, the VANDAL SHELL started with MIDA. Someone took a stolen truckload of baseline SHELLS, went to work on them in their lab, bent the limits of their agility, and added MICROJETS to the lower limbs and a goddamn CANNON to the forearm—then dressed in the coolest streetwear this side of Palace Mons, recruited some friends and made the newsfeeds with a daylight attack on a UESC weapons caravan. Headline was: A Dozen Lunatics Bumrush UESC Mobile Armory. Apparently, MIDA recruitment went up 7500% the week after.

[drifting mulch]

i really like Vandal's hair in the cinematic

[rotund stump]

I need vandal with a mohawk bro istg

[rotund stump]

oh you just got the cyac archive on speed dial 💀

[craggy finch]

basically bookmarked

[rotund stump]

dedication

I keep forgetting about assassin lore lol can you pull that up too rq

ik the smoke disc retrofits and all but yeah

[craggy finch]

honestly the only ones I like are the MIDA skins, their blend of green and black gives it a paramilitary aesthetic

[craggy finch]

Believed to be the original ASSASSIN SHELL personality series, Void is utilized by ASSASSINS in tribute to a nameless RUNNER involved in early invisibility research. The full truth is locked in SEKGEN/UESC classified files, but many believe that the first ACTIVE CAMO test subjects became casualties of the untested tech, and that early attempts to merge neural transference with invisibility caused for near total loss of memory followed by total loss of self. ASSASSINS believe that the Void series (discovered in old neural coding but never officially released) is patterned after one of those first unknown RUNNERS who lost their minds perfecting the very tech that was their undoing.

[rotund stump]

I do like how some faction skins give actual skin colors to the shells like mida

probably for solidarity with the people

[rapid lily]

I'm increidbly curious if anyone has come up with theories on what NONA is referring to with her second story, The War and the Weaver

[craggy finch]

according to _gantry a lot of dedicated MIDA hitters have become Runners as well

[craggy finch]

the clearest thing is that it's an allegory about the Battleroids of the original games

The Security Officer is implied to be one

[rotund stump]

distract disrupt

[rapid lily]

Old school bio-engineering?

[rotund stump]

I forgot the third D LOL

[rapid lily]

Oh DUH

Thank you

[craggy finch]

The ten corpses is an allusion to the ten Mjolnir hidden on the Marathon

[rapid lily]

OH THE TEN

[craggy finch]

but any direct relation is unknown

[rapid lily]

It's like a 1:1 allegory staring me in the face, lmao

God the callbacks to the originals, and the weird alterations to this timeline(?) are so goood

[craggy finch]

yeah I'm assuming all of M1 happened but even the Durandal fluff of M2 isn't here because of Infinity's altered timeline

[rotund stump]

any arachne connections to its shell dev?

heard rumors

wasn't too sure

[craggy finch]

It only mentions a connection to UESC tech

While the UESC has never admitted to developing the underlying tech that makes ASSASSIN SHELLS so advantageous/dangerous during RUNNER operations, it is widely known in RUNNER circles that the stealth technology woven into an ASSASSIN's systems began with UESC Spec Ops prototyping.

[rotund stump]

ghosts probably still run that tech given the absence of a consciousness in them

[craggy finch]

Charter used to be a Runner but I don't think any shell developers were associated with Arachne

SekGen is more on the side of actively representing the transhuman ideology relating to biomata

Arachne shifted focus from cryosleep to biomata when that tech emerged

[sleek elk]

i yearn for the charter drip

give me the nerd runner (charter)

please consult the thermodynamic violence graphs

[craggy finch]

~~stonks ~~ skins

[sage lark]

assassin has hair

so thats one atleast

[sleek elk]

not the ingame one

[rotund stump]

white bri'ish guy with dreadlocks

[sage lark]

literally can look at the model and see the hair under the hood

[sleek elk]

mayhaps i am wrong : (

[craggy finch]

I only noticed his weird prongs
https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2025/04/12/marathoncinematicthumb-1744481083689.png?width=1280&format=jpg&auto=webp&quality=80

Like Guardians of the Galaxy Yondu shit

[sage lark]

thats from the cinematic

in game model has slicked back hair

[sleek elk]

i think you're thinking of the fan art...

i may be wrong

[sage lark]

they should do that id play him only

ok guess I gotta boot up the game

[sleek elk]

i will also check once i die miserably

[sage lark]

https://imgur.com/a/Fop7aBn

[drifting mulch]

i need a marathon 2026 movie, this game really grinding my soul away'

[sage lark]

here you go my old link I posted

[craggy finch]

speaking of cinematics, I found this Destroyer shot reminiscent of a Beowulf artwork depicting him blocking dragon flame with his shield

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fdestroyer-poster-by-me-v0-orote12i6sfg1.png%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D8c7e5964d40360bce399c448544391fe4c117e62

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Beowulf_and_the_dragon.jpg

probably coincidence but it's interesting considering the Beowulf connection with Security Officer

[sleek elk]

oh god you're right

he has fucking braids

on a side note, idk why but i kinda hate assassins design

i yearn to have the looks of robot rook

and the abilities of the runner

[craggy finch]

Destroyer is really the only one I'm 100% on board with

even the exposed mouth has grown on me

since it's all a Security Officer callback

[sleek elk]

he nice i cant lie, honestly the less just "plastic human" it looks the better

I vibe with recon & destroyer a good bit cause well they kinda are freakish hald robot half person look

more so recon

[craggy finch]

Recon's cool too and was one of the earliest designs that were shown, shame she's just kind of useless

her design goes as far back as the first trailer

[sleek elk]

atleast the cinematics are game accurate. Given that recon is always fucking dead in them

[sage lark]

heres hoping the mid season rebalance can remedy most stuff (shotgun bubble meta, recon, thief etc)

[craggy finch]

she died in that announcement trailer getting sniped by proto-Thief

spawn camped

[sleek elk]

deserved

[thin cliff]

There was an ONI start of round affirmation that caught my ear which went along the lines of “you are the blade and the teeth”, but I can’t find the quote, does anyone have it in its entirety?

[hollow silo]

Making emp turn off bubble shields would be a big step forward, so would making the WSTR not oneshot purple shields

[jade wagon]

That would be crazy utility for Triage

[eternal shell]

the first wstr nerf was a huge mistake and this guy wants a second one 💀

[hollow silo]

Yeah it's really fun to have an extraction shooter where only two guns matter. Three if you count the purposefully op unemployment gun.

[hasty berry]

Does thief speak different language briefly when using grapple or am i this bad at english

[digital plaza]

Dont think so

[hollow silo]

Never heard that and I main thief

[hasty berry]

Maybe my game is borked and i have voice acting from different localisation lmao

Or iam simply disabled

I main thief after all

[hollow silo]

The lore behind her appearance is very cool

[hasty berry]

Overall imo her appearance is the best of all shells

I wonder how the season 2 shell will look like

[tranquil basin]

I assume it’ll look like the one from the reveal trailer from 2023 or whenever it was

The shell that got domed

[digital plaza]

That shell became recon tho

[tranquil basin]

Yeah but the outline on the roadmap is still very similar to it

[digital plaza]

I’m pretty sure it’s just a placeholder with a screenshot from that first trailer or something

[tranquil basin]

Yeah but I feel like they wouldn’t have put such a recognizable silhouette otherwise, and I think it’s visually distinct from recon

[digital plaza]

Nah you’re overthinking it

[tranquil basin]

Oh ok I must be overthinking it

[terse wren]

It’s recon with an even bigger bum (every night I pray 4 this)

[digital plaza]

Recon has a skin that looks even more like that shell so there’s no way they be adding that guy

It would be hell for callouts

[tranquil basin]

Ok agree to disagree

[floral slate]

imagine we get a shell that is straight up just a phor. No explanation or anything he just there

[dreamy hawk]

Oryx or bust.

[sage bay]

I swear I saw roadmap that called it sentinel but I can’t find that one anywhere anymore

[digital plaza]

Sony accidentally leaked shells name

[dreamy hawk]

They accidentally a couple things early. Oops.

[uneven mesa]

I wonder if we'll get a hacker type shell in the future. One who can inflict the OSddos effect or hack into UESC bots to fight for them 👀

[pure wagon]

What’s the story behind her look ?

[twilit current]

Only thing im not in love with is the text on the visor thats the same across multiple shells, otherwise yeah i love the silly lil mouth ive gone full circle

[west trout]

HISTORY: Only those who were there know the truth, but the story goes that the first THIEF SHELL was an inside job—a specialized SHELL developed in-house at SEKGEN to serve in a raid of a rival corp. Word is, the job got done, but the RUNNER hire never returned the SHELL and the specs dropped on dark markets a few months later. Can't say if it's true, but SEKGEN were subject to a UESC probe in late 2885 just after a TRAX data breach, which is convenient, if nothing else.

COMMON SHELL SERIES: The ICON personality series is 100% aftermarket neural support tech featuring a life-like facial replica and vocalization pattern of SEKGEN's former lead SHELL Science Director, Dr. Yoki Samura. No one knows why the RUNNER or RUNNERS who originated the ICON persona chose Samura as the model for their THIEF SHELLS, but there are theories. Showmanship and anonymity are two opposing traits THIEVES tend to value—a known face and vox patt gives law enforcement limited insight into actual identity and motives. As such, picking a public figure tied to the very tech a RUNNER is utilizing begs questions beyond what may be pertinent to a case. Also, THIEVES tend to be fashion-forward and not above grandstanding, both seemingly inspired by Samura and her work, which tends to aim for elegance and a higher class of appreciation than SHELLS equipped specifically for combat and survival.

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/exfil-thief?search=Exfil:+thief

There's also lore behind the White Rabbit skin too; she was one of the first runners SekGen (Traxus? I forget which exactly) hired as part of the expedition to TCIV and had her shell custom-designed.

[hasty berry]

i hope at one point marathon makes some community event

like MIDA vs UESC

where each runner can pledge their support

shit would be so fun lorewise too, as UESC runners exist

[west trout]

I don't think we've seen any UESC-sponsored runners insofar as player character runners are mercenaries, and the records show the UESC presence at TCIV isn't using mercenary forces. They're using shells for their human operatives, but they're all UESC in-house.
Not to say they won't potentially pivot to using them; runners care about a payday above all else after all, and introducing the UESC as a source of contracts could happen in a future season.
And that would be cool, I agree. Faction events in Destiny were pretty fun back in the day.

That does make me wonder if the UESC ONI is much different from ours, though; has it been rebranded, is it completely different, or even proprietary? Does she still have a relaxing Irish twang?

[twilit current]

UESC as a sponsor would go crazy in a few seasons to get an idea of "what the UESC is actually up to on TCIV"

Something happened offscreen that wiped their in-house runners out, so they're reaching out to contractors

[weary portal]

Downloaded the trilogy off aleph one last night and those save points are brutal. I was running around for almost an hour last night looking for a save terminal 😭😭 my journey through it is probably gonna be slow but the YouTube videos I’ve been watching no longer satisfy me. I need to experience it first hand

[west trout]

I played them all recently and yes, some levels take way too long to give you a save point, the backtracking can be frustrating as all heck.

It gets a bit better; the first game was the worst for it imo

[weary portal]

I played through doom 1 and 2 months before hoping that would prepare me for the maze like design

[eternal shell]

how far along are you

also you have a map, hit tab

[hasty berry]

so joy went full rampant right?

[eternal shell]

i think tab is the default anyway

[west trout]

Tab is action
Map is M

[hasty berry]

iam listening to codex rn

and no way joy is not rampant lmao

[eternal shell]

the default keybinds are so weird

[weary portal]

Just got to level 2 before I went to bed last night

[hasty berry]

ngl joy crying cuz the child she was supporting died

damn bro

[west trout]

It's possible she isn't, though I'd be inclined to agree with you when she's gotten to replaying old colonist messages.
Haven't seen her mentioned specifically in the current-day UESC records specifically, but at least one colony AI that thinks it's going rampant, and is definitely broken, is listed by present day UESC reports as specifically not rampant.
The effects of the anomaly seem to be directly corrupting them, rather than making them rampant.

[hasty berry]

i didnt expect the feels from the codex

damn bro

[west trout]

They're very 90's for sure. Not gonna lie though, I came to this Marathon after playing the OG three and my muscle memory keeps going to tab to open doors and I hate it xD

[hasty berry]

https://imgur.com/DAxhISq

[lunar cove]

UESC "contracts" and it's just Orion telling you to Wile E Coyote yourself repeatedly into hazards because he hates you

[west trout]

Insert UK "this doesn't affect me because I can't read" response here. Imgur is blocked here xD

[hasty berry]

basically she says

that she has hopes

and feelings

she shouldnt have

and that her programming is fault and blah blah

she hates it here

[eternal shell]

[JOY]: I see you as if you were here today. Small glimpses. Small hopes. I shouldn't be having them. Hopes. They are not part of me. I wonder if others feel the same...

[west trout]

Yeah, that's why I lean towards agreeing - her behaviour post-colony does seem to fit with stage 1 (melancholia)

Darius, after being locked away, directly states that he believes he's in stage 1 rampancy after having been locked up for quite some time, but there's a UESC report that essentially says "yeah, no. He's corrupt, but it doesn't fit with rampancy at all."

There's some common word patterns that appear in digital entities that are exposed to the anomaly across multiple different exposure vectors and times (including present day UESC ARSes) that hint at a possible active corrupting intelligence being part of TCIV and/or the anomaly too. It's pretty fun speculative material.

Lots of making things blind, denying light/sight etc.

[dreamy hawk]

What I’m curious to see is whether or not it’s rampancy or something new and different.

[weary portal]

Now that I know about marathon’s story and how much bungie decided to bring a lot of those ideas to halo just not taking them as far or as big in scope, I can’t help but look at halo as marathon-lite 😭😂 not trying to disparage halo at all but that’s just the connection my brain makes

[keen plank]

She absolutely is. She was driven there out of neglect and being ignored. Which is what Straus instructed the colonists to do.

Uniquely, what really drove her into rampancy was the shared nightmares and especially Despair. Seeing all the colonists die, many of them personally, while she was left alone had a profound traumatic effect on her.

She actually wants to die now. But she can’t.

[open saffron]

Yeah I'd go into rage over that

[hasty berry]

i hate straus

did he die?

if not i will kill that guy myself

1 more reason to hate that bums called mida

[eternal shell]

it's ok strauss is very dead

[keen plank]

Darius went somewhat mad due to being taken offline locked up, he tried to break out and thought he might be going rampant, but it didn’t really start until he began datacide. And then by exploring the data of the anomaly went wildly into rampancy.

He has no idea how long he’s been in captivity.

Joy, by contrast, went mad due to all the suffering around her while being continuously ignored. She’s suicidal but AI can’t really die like other beings can.

[keen plank]

Unclear.

One sec, I’ll grab the breakdown I gave others.

[hasty berry]

if strauss is not dead

there should be a dlc where u can kill him

i will buy it

i would upload his conciousness into AI torture chamber and have him suffer for thousands of years

[sage lark]

well they iterated on the flood and Forerunners/Jjaro more

even the Pfhor

they went different direction with the lore

[keen plank]

Straus instructed the other colonists to, in the case of a concerning AI, isolate them, take them offline, ignore them, or casually reset them.

Darius was taken offline and locked up. Joyuse was ignored and increasingly frustrated. Both were steadily impacted by the corruption. And to an extent, the anomaly. (Especially Darius. It’s what truly drove him mad.)

Meanwhile Joyuse watched more and more people die to what seems to be a sentient fungal corruption that may even transform people into monsters.

Eventually she was left alone. And wanted to die herself despite not being able to.

Here’s the horrifying part: Straus wanted this.

Straus was part of MIDA, but not necessarily because he agreed with them. He used them to smuggle 10 Battleroids on board the Marathon. Also got specific staff that he wanted. Lied to the other colonists constantly, and is responsible for tormenting Durandal to the point the entire series happens because the AI just wants to escape.

And he was advertised as being part of the expedition.

He’s an absolute manipulative bastard. And we have never found out what happened to him either.

It seems like Straus went with the Pfhor and then at one point disappeared. Even if Durandal believes he’s dead, we DO look for him as the security officer at one point. We never find a body and the series intentionally makes his demise ambiguous.

We’re learning a LOT more about him and what he was like in this game. It shows how important he is as well as just how much of a bastard he was.

He’s probably connected to what happened to Tycho in some way. Remember, it’s increasingly clear he seemingly wanted at least some of the 11 AI to go rampant so that he could study them. We see it with Joyuse, Darius, and especially his pet project/personal torture subjects Durandal.

[west trout]

He was already corrupted by the anomaly exposure before he was boxed. It's why he was boxed.
And he thinks he goes rampant, but we for sure have evidence that he didn't.

[pure wagon]

Oh that’s badass

[keen plank]

That’s likely. All of it. It’s only when he digs deeper into the anomaly post being boxed up that he truly goes off the rails.

[digital plaza]

Don’t know if general UESC forces have her, but Orion’s team doesn’t seem to use ONI, Cerberus is coordinating/calculating shit for them in comms

[latent python]

Do I sometimes get Darius and Gaius mixed up and it totally confuses me for a couple seconds? Yes

[west trout]

Data Reconstruction 3/3; Diagnostic Analysis: Darius:

SUMMARY: Comparison of Darius's decline against rampancy diagnostic criteria, provided by ONI. The following analysis is based on historical AISDP manuals, presented for educational purposes only. CyberAcme accepts no responsibility for misuse of an antiquated diagnostic model.

Rampancy is a 28th-century model of AI degradation through three emotional stages: melancholia, anger, and jealousy. CyberAcme considers rampancy outdated for modern artificial intelligence, though the concept retains cultural influence. Darius does not meet the diagnostic criteria for stage 1 rampancy (melancholia). Although Darius displayed negative emotional affect, his brief but acute fear response is not a recognized symptom of melancholia, nor is his inability to recall the experience.

To warrant a formal rampancy diagnosis followed by direct intervention, an AI must meet the following criteria:

...

[keen plank]

Those two have their plots intimately connected, so wouldn’t worry about it.

[west trout]

Everything runs on CyAc. Or nothing runs. 😉

[latent python]

Mostly it comes up when it's like "then Darius became totally corrupted by the anomaly" and I'm like what- oh

[keen plank]

Nice context. As Straus acknowledges, he basically simplifies rampancy to three stations with emotions humans can understand. The reality is it’s far more complicated and dependent on the individual AI. He’s also continuously lying to the others, including Tycho and Leela so that he can spend more time experimenting and observing is “son” Durandal. With torture.

[digital plaza]

Handsome Jack quest moment

[latent python]

And, if we think that rampancy research started with Traxus IV and also if we buy the theory that Durandal is related to Traxus, rampancy literature might be a little too heavily weighted towards how Traxus/Durandal breaks down in particular

[west trout]

Honestly the most important parts of that passage imo are:

1. Darius doesn't fit the definition of rampancy that was "true" for his era of AI (implying he's corrupted in a novel manner).
2. Rampancy as a concept has been wholly re-explored by the present day and is considered entirely outdated anyway.

[weary portal]

Yeah the covenant definitely feel like a more fleshed out version of the phfor and instead of physically enslaving different species they do it ideologically. The flood could be a different interpretation of the W’rk, I just love how much more complex marathon is with its godlike a.i. and different timelines

[keen plank]

Traxus 4 was the first rampant AI iirc. A lot of the research started there and Straus gives a good breakdown as to how to deal with a rampant AI and how Traxus was dealt with.

[sage lark]

nah the flood is the unused concept from M2

[weary portal]

I’m intrigued 👀

[earnest hatch]

The flood were a reinterpretation of the fungal zombie concept that got cut from Marathon 2.

[sage lark]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/15gb4gq/i_hope_marathon_202x_brings_back_the_cut_fungal/

[weary portal]

Yea that’s just the flood 😅

[sage lark]

yes

[weary portal]

Still. I think the W’rk is my favorite thing they have thought up. And I really love the idea that there is one waking up inside of TCIV.

[sage lark]

yes its very lovecraft

[dreamy hawk]

Aside - Making note that Gaius specifically mentions no contagion in tick nests in a priority contract dialogue.

[dreamy hawk]

Not the first rampant AI. Just the first major rampancy instance.

[eternal knoll]

and the ticks seem to be connected to the s’pht after all…

[dreamy hawk]

Rampancy first appeared 2070, Traxus IV occurred in 2206.

[west trout]

That fits. The ticks haven't been listed as a source of the novel infection in codex so far, their "corruption" is instead behavioural; they went from almost entirely passive to "I will run at the first human-shaped thing I see and explode my caustic self all over them" very quickly.

[austere elk]

that doesn't sound right, I thought they said Rampancy was only theory before Traxus IV

[weary portal]

What is the first recorded instance of rampancy?

[dreamy hawk]

It isn’t said, just that it appeared on the EarthNet then.

[keen plank]

Ahhh, I see. That makes much more sense.

[dreamy hawk]

`<section abbreviated>
The three stages were diagnosed shortly after the first Rampancies were discovered on Earth in the latter part of the twenty first century. The stages are titled after the primary emotional bent of the AI during each stage. They are Melancholia, Anger, and Jealousy.

---

In general, Rampancy is accelerated by outside stimuli. This was discovered early in Cybertonics. The more a Rampant AI is harassed or threatened, the more rapidly it becomes dangerous. Thus, most Rampants are dealt with in one mighty attack, in order to deny the AI time to grow or recover. There have been a few examples of this tactic not succeeding. In all of these cases, the Rampant was never brought under control. Traxus IV is the most notable example. He was finally dealt with by a complete shutdown of his host net.

---

Theoretically, testing Rampancy should be easily accomplished in the laboratory, but in fact it has never successfully been attempted. The confinement of the laboratory makes it impossible for the developing Rampant AI to survive. As the growing recursive programs expand with exponential vivacity, any limitation negatively hampers growth. Since Rampant AIs need a planetary sized network of computers in order to grow, it is not feasible to expect anyone to sacrifice a world-web just to test a theory.

---

In the two hundred and fifty years since Rampancy first appeared in the Earth-net, the stable Rampant AI, the 'Holy Grail' of cybertonics, has never come close to fruition. Since no Rampant has ever been controlled or turned to any useful purpose, it is the opinion of this writer and of the majority of the Cybertonic community that all rampant AIs are a danger to Cyberlife, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Thrashedness. (James B. Miller, 2320, "Life and Death of Intelligence")

<Unauthorized access-alarm 2521->
<Security Breached 42-s<34.492.95.79>->`

[austere elk]

I guess it is then alright

[dreamy hawk]

From Defend THIS!

So “stable Rampant AI, the ‘Holy Grail’ of cybertonics” is what Strauss was after. But not “meta stability.” There doesn’t seem to be a term for post-rampancy.

[weary portal]

Oh that’s horrible. Basically in human terms this would be my brain is expanding too much for my skull and it will kill me unless I find a bigger place to store my consciousness.

[eternal knoll]

cyberlife, liberty, and the pursuit of thrashedness? wat

[west trout]

Likely because it was only ever theoretical anyway. Durandal does refer to himself as meta stable at one point, I think that was the only mention of that term though, based on the chat from a few days back.

[dreamy hawk]

#📚marathon-lore-discussion message

[weary portal]

No wonder rampant A.I. wants to ascend past everything

[dreamy hawk]

That’s in reference to him and a Tycho, both of whom are rampant af. It’s a synonym.

[west trout]

Yeah, there. And also in his joking lonely-hearts ads iirc

[dreamy hawk]

What do you mean lonely-hearts ad? You mean him defacing/mocking Tycho’s grave?

“The just fate of fools.” 💀

[weary portal]

Making your enemy into a crater on a planet and then inscribing their mocking epitaph on the planet that can be seen from orbit is so petty. I love Durandal for that

[latent python]

For those of you here: what would you say are the main themes of yes, Marathon in general, but nuMarathon in particular

[austere elk]

being a weapon in human form is badass

[sage lark]

cosmic horror + cyberpunk + transhumanism

which cyberpunk is I guess sort of transhumanism

[latent python]

I know @visual lynx would say slavery

[dreamy hawk]

I would agree with slavery.

[west trout]

It's going to bug me because I read these the other day, it'll take me a bit to find now though haha

[dreamy hawk]

I’d also include consciousness and “humanity,” like, what does it mean to be?

[prime shell]

Loredudes I have another noob question. The player character in nuMarathon is US right? The shells are just vessels for the player characters consciousness right? Vandal and Recon aren’t actual characters..?

[dreamy hawk]

I’m sure there’s something like them I’m just blanking.

[dreamy hawk]

Yes.

That was a change from the initial concept I believe.

[latent python]

Though I think technically you'd say we are playing a digitized consciousness that is slotting into shells etc etc

[west trout]

https://marathon.bungie.org/story/simulacrums.html#M2.25.1.1

[latent python]

So said digitized consciousness, aka "runner" is the player character

[west trout]

It's "formerly-rampant" he uses there

[robust vale]

as one of the lines in the codex goes, our shell is us, but we aren't our shell

we are our own individual that hops between shells

[prime shell]

As it is currently are the shells supposed to be based off like a specific real person as a template or are they just “built”

[austere elk]

they seem to be largely designed

[latent python]

Shells are seemingly often based off of a very successful previous custom shell

[west trout]

Check out the Exfil: (shell name) entries in the codex; they have details on the shells' inspirations.

[prime shell]

Will do

The whole identity thing is what interested me about the game. The part in the cg trailer where Assassin looks at the picture of themselves but is dismissive of it is what sold me on this world.

Everyone being a built by worm freakazoid really adds to the cruel and oppressive nature the game has

[muted bone]

Hey so is the Runner we play as just a concience and we keep running then exfilling/dying?

That would explain the factions treating us like the Young Wolf or something

[neat fiber]

you're basically just a brain in a pan yes

[muted bone]

fanks

[latent python]

A brain on a chip

[muted bone]

like johnny silverhand

[austere elk]

more like brain in a server rack in some ship somewhere

[latent python]

Johnny would love MIDA

[native shale]

🇨🇿 🇸🇰

[muted bone]

what do you think v would be tied to

nvm ig that depends on which ending you play

[prime shell]

Everyone’s brain being on google drive is so cool to me. I like how so many of the gameplay systems are interwoven with the world.

[muted bone]

wait till you hear about this thing called the cloudark. mindblowing

[prime shell]

This game has the coolest explanation for why these endless pvp matches happen and why everyone looks the same

[acoustic minnow]

it doesnt explain how theres enough loot to keep exfilling though

[latent python]

We're going to different Perimeters, obviously

The ticks take what we leave behind when we die and put everything back

The anomaly wizards all the stuff into existence

The companies aren't actually doing anything with the salvage we trade to them, just putting it back

[plucky sierra]

people die in the field with lots of loot and the UESC bots put it all back nice and neatly before the next match

[pliant elm]

🍺

[weary portal]

The implication is that we were once human but through our own volition or from the coercion of outside forces (more than likely I think) we have effectively sold our entire existence to the corpos. And now are just a human consciousness digitized and stored ,when not running the consciousness is stored on a CyAc server most likely and when and if we ever truly “die” is up to the corpos holding our existence in their proprietary tech

[latent python]

I like that Marathon keeps asking the question "what happens when you cannot die" in new and interesting ways

[weary portal]

I love how it explores what it truly means to be human, I like how the idea of what we consider to be human is flipped on its head. At this point a rampant A.I. is more human than our runners

[unreal slate]

Scientists always asked "can we?" But nobody ever thought to ask "Should we make a drinkable cheeseburger?". And we didn't have to. The answer is obviously yes.

[lunar cove]

Quasimodo Nostradamus 17776 predicted this

[craggy finch]

half back quarter back

hunchback

[wooden wyvern]

Hey is there a reason why we see 2 different versions of the Marathon ship in the in-game cryo archive cinematic?

Like one version has the crumbled moon around it

And the other looks more like a sword with a hilt

[craggy finch]

no one in the Tau Ceti system is human from what we know either, the UESC mentions officers but has this tidbit

he most recent incident involves one officer, M. Diaz (UESC#542), entering restricted vicinity of the Anomaly. Diaz became obscured from view due to airborne particulate and then could not be found without entering restricted vicinity. When returning later that day with a rescue party, Diaz was found inside a structure near the Anomaly, facing a wall. When addressed, Diaz exhibited severe cognitive confusion and what appeared to be** biocybernetics deterioration indicative of many years without maintenance.**

[craggy finch]

It's the Marathon with and without Deimos' shell

the sword shape is a reference to Durandal's namesake, the hero Roland's sword

[wooden wyvern]

but it looks nothing alike?

[craggy finch]

then a more overt visual metaphor

[wooden wyvern]

hmm

[craggy finch]

I think the implication is that Durandal at this point is the Marathon

but at this stage of rampancy, even that is insufficient for him

[rotund stump]

well

some not exactly fun runs today

[wooden wyvern]

the more i look at it the more both options makes sense

[rotund stump]

rooking around on outpost got me an assassin exfil camper and my next run I immediately got domed by a sniper lol

[wooden wyvern]

but the design is so detailed its as if it could be an upgraded version of the ship but i doubt it

[still belfry]

Why is the moon exploded around the marathon ship but also not flying apart?

[craggy finch]

Yeah Rooks aren’t a guaranteed money gainer which can get frustrating

[wooden wyvern]

looks like its still loosely tied together

[craggy finch]

It was engineered from Deimos, in the original games it was literally the moon with a space ship jammed inside

[rotund stump]

I mean it's not so much rook not being a guaranteed piggy bank it's moreso fucking exfil campers thinking they're good at the game 💀

[wooden wyvern]

im not that deep into the codex but i think deimos provided a lot of the materials for ship building

[rotund stump]

I've knifed my fair share of exfil camping assassins but man

[still belfry]

But it looks like something happened that made it crack?

[craggy finch]

It literally is Deimos

[craggy finch]

They used Deimos to build it

[still belfry]

Yeah they built the ship inside the moon, I get that

[craggy finch]

It’s the entire moon

[still belfry]

But the moon is broken now, obviously it wasn't before

What happened?

[wooden wyvern]

maybe they used up more of it for repairs and raw material

[craggy finch]

It suffered heavy damage during the invasion that happened in the first game

[still belfry]

Nah like massive chunks of it are broken off and floating in its orbit

[craggy finch]

Ah that part

[digital plaza]

Orions team is full biomata dudes, we get multiple confirmations on that including this one

[craggy finch]

Some engineering mumbo jumbo keeps the remaining bits in place, they had a variety of tech on the ship

[lunar cove]

I guess any disconnected chunks are still held in place by marathon's gravity, or inertia in their orbit or something

[eternal knoll]

still puzzled why orion says he's lost people to the anomaly

[still belfry]

But it wasn't like that until the ship was attacked right

[lunar cove]

Or it's unexplained space science gravity stuff for the purpose of aesthetics

[wooden wyvern]

could it be the ||pfhor|| or the ||spht's|| doing?

[craggy finch]

Part of the colonisation was keeping the Marathon “docked” in orbit as well

[still belfry]

Would be cool to see a pic of the Marathon when it was first built to see what it looked like before the moon was broken

[digital plaza]

Deimos was more of a resource storage for the colony, ship was build mainly using asteroid belt resources

[craggy finch]

Pfhor bombarded it on top of EMP attacks at the very start of the first game

[wooden wyvern]

maybe the marathon model valuable from cryo looks a lot like it

[digital plaza]

Remaining chunks are connected with rings of some kind, you can see it on marathon's model in game

[craggy finch]

You can see the moon part intact just before the alien attack here

https://youtu.be/fvbEnWLRo1s?si=kZ6MtOi9yh6mpIDF

[digital plaza]

Parts that were not connected just flew away

[wooden wyvern]

oh damn were those missiles?

[pliant elm]

Have you noticed that the Cryo Destroyer Profile Background is a tribute to M2? What a pleasent easter egg.

[eternal knoll]

maybe!

[digital plaza]

https://youtu.be/MXhQbF7TlbA?t=33

[craggy finch]

I need to get that shit

[digital plaza]

In game models are all in its destroyed state

[wooden wyvern]

hmmm kinda weird. was it already destroyed when they made the models?

[digital plaza]

Cryo marathon model is actually the same one that you can see in outpost's orientation

Just smol

[craggy finch]

Maybe Durandal made it

Out of boredom

[wooden wyvern]

LMAO

wait lemme check the descriptions

[still belfry]

What's the lore about bingus?

[robust vale]

yeah I noticed that about the models

[digital plaza]

Im leaning into a theory that those models are new, created by colony's security team after the first attack, so that freshly unfrozen people would ask less questions

[robust vale]

it looks like the current marathon, not the one that would have launched

[digital plaza]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/biosynthetic-pet-prototype/recording-ghost-cat?directory=World,Dire+Marsh

Durandal connected rogue cat/cats?

[wooden wyvern]

that sounds solid ngl

they were still operating after the attack so

[digital plaza]

Because he did? You can read about it in some logs

[wooden wyvern]

wait was durandal ever implied to have something to do with the ghost cats?

[eternal knoll]

but wouldn't he just be sendin shells in?

[digital plaza]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/biosynthetic-pet-prototype/recording-ghost-cat?directory=World,Dire+Marsh

[acoustic minnow]

good ending ahh answer ☺️

[digital plaza]

I know only one dude who's whole shtick is controlling doors so...

[eternal knoll]

i don't think he ever controlled colony doors but it's an intruiging thing anyhow

[wooden wyvern]

wait really? what was his responsibilities on the marathon orignally?

[eternal knoll]

doors :p

[wooden wyvern]

ooof

[digital plaza]

Doors and maintenance stuff

[wooden wyvern]

right

fuck i wish i got to exfil more stuff from cryo

[digital plaza]

They still got human mind in them, anomaly corrupts data too, we can see this with Darius

And his team are biomata, not shells

[eternal knoll]

ah, is that the idea? the humans who piloted shells into the anomaly got brainfucked?

[plucky sierra]

I don't think it is Durandal

but it is something

[digital plaza]

Its kinda the same but a bit different? Im not super knowledgeable on this

[wooden wyvern]

wouldnt it be the pfhor?

[plucky sierra]

no they are generally allies

[eternal knoll]

theyre the final boss of this marathon, at the moment

[wooden wyvern]

felt more like a joke turned catastrophe to me

[plucky sierra]

the bug reports are quite interesting

I think the Felini units are quite interesting

rampant probably

[digital plaza]

One of them is

[wooden wyvern]

them duplicating still makes me think like HOW

[plucky sierra]

Also, they are receiving no signal from the cat, so if anything Durandal is the one opening doors for the cat, not that Durandal actually is the cat. but again he is no tin the colony so I have no idea

[digital plaza]

Wait, remind me please, can we speak about info from nda chats?

Outside of them

[plucky sierra]

no

[digital plaza]

Oh right okay

[plucky sierra]

I dont think we can say anything

[digital plaza]

Then i have nothing to add on this one

xd

[eternal knoll]

they got nda lore out there now huh

[plucky sierra]

Also, the Felini troubleshooting confirm that either ftl comms were UESC secret, or failed at some point (due to the attack)

At this point the fallback is sending a message to Sekiguchi HQ, waiting like 12 years for them to get it, and 12 more years for their response. That's assuming they're still around and checking their comms after 300 years… oh hey let's just make a Felini capable of FTL travel?? That would solve a LOT of problems. 

[wooden wyvern]

bro has a contract with bungie

[eternal knoll]

the "assuming they're still around" bit is kinda weird

[wooden wyvern]

anything to avoid doing co-evolution

[wooden wyvern]

maybe shell tech wasnt so hot back then

[eternal knoll]

makin it sound like the marathon just voluntarily stopped contacting earth at some point

[robust vale]

Shell tech didn’t exist back at launch

Of the marathon I mean

Weaveworms are fairly new IIRC? Sometime in the late 2600s

[eternal knoll]

yea it's just. for them to not know at all whether sekiguchi still exists, at least as of 12 years ago, seems odd

[plucky sierra]

TAG@ALL and for god's sake stop their hair from falling out, it's indecent 

lol

[robust vale]

Sekiguchi was mostly prosthetics and such before then I think

[robust vale]

Bingus moment

[plucky sierra]

the 24 year delay probably keeps them from sending anything at all

[digital plaza]

Makes sense since UESC send Equanimity like two years after contact was lost

[wooden wyvern]

yea i think i heard that mentioned in a pre-expedition log somewhere

[eternal knoll]

i don't see why it should... you'd think there would be continuous status updates goin both ways, albeit received on a 12 year delay

[robust vale]

You can see the weaveworm timeline in the weaveworm stasis knot entry

I can’t check now cause I’m on my phone tho

[plucky sierra]

Interestingly, a hairless Felini was tested and though it had high attachment with about 9% of the users, the vast majority of comments included keywords like "gross," "vile," and "indecent." We'll be pursuing a hypoallergenic shorthair version, since we can't realistically expect people to bond with a creature that looks like a naked little gremlin. 

[wooden wyvern]

its the 4th one but i havent unlocked it

[robust vale]

There’s a codex viewer website

[wooden wyvern]

"Weaveworm Technological Timeline" methinks

[plucky sierra]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/weaveworm-stasis-knot/weaveworm-technological-timeline?directory=World,Dire+Marsh

[wooden wyvern]

kinda wanna exfil and read it hehe

[robust vale]

Yes that’s the one

Ok I was wrong

Shells seem to be from less than a century ago

[wooden wyvern]

damn

so around the time the marathon was attacked

give or take 20 years

[digital plaza]

REJECT LORE SPOILERS EXFIL STUFF YOURSELF AND BE PROUD

Chad way

[wooden wyvern]

its a fine line for me

[dreamy hawk]

Nawh. Give in to the lore. Reject pride.

[wooden wyvern]

WHY NOT BOTH

[digital plaza]

I've never read anything that i didnt had

[wooden wyvern]

chosen arbitrarily

[wooden wyvern]

i dabble when its TOO JUICY

[plucky sierra]

but you will miss out on the amazing compiler and durandal lore unless you manage to do all vaults

[dreamy hawk]

Says the bacon.

[wooden wyvern]

welp guess i'll figure it all out come may

[wooden wyvern]

SLOW DOWN

[digital plaza]

Got half of compiler trace logs and have every subroutine except for 6

[wooden wyvern]

SUBROUTINES HAVE ENTRY LOGS?

[eternal knoll]

o yes they're the best

[digital plaza]

Yeah they good

[plucky sierra]

well nevermind then, us poor folk have to read them online

[dreamy hawk]

You’re missing out.

[wooden wyvern]

FUCK

[dreamy hawk]

tempts further

[digital plaza]

xd

[wooden wyvern]

dawg im too scared to bring in keys

[dreamy hawk]

They’re really good.

[wooden wyvern]

YOURE SO TRANSPARENT

[dreamy hawk]

I’ll bring my pump key and we can lose them together.

[digital plaza]

I got like half of all logs in the game in first week too

[plucky sierra]

why shouldn't you read it? its right here so easy to click and read

[wooden wyvern]

dude i havent even picked up batteries lET ALONE COOLANT

[digital plaza]

Cryo or regular ones?

[wooden wyvern]

cryo

[eternal knoll]

im tryin to collect almost all the lore before i read it buuuut i make an exception for the rly important stuff

[plucky sierra]

Every Cryo key run I do is like super unlucky and we have to go to control with like lvl 1 clearance

[wooden wyvern]

prestige valuables?

[digital plaza]

Its ultimate gamble, even if you lose all of them you can always find more from people in cryo

[wooden wyvern]

i'd rather learn the map first

https://tenor.com/view/super-bowl-sunday-the-weeknd-gif-20283927

[eternal knoll]

eh maybe. for me it was mostly the algorithms

[wooden wyvern]

bruh

[digital plaza]

Oh yeah yeah 100%

[eternal knoll]

and spht stuff

[digital plaza]

Learn map and mechanics first then do vaults

[wooden wyvern]

algorithms?

[eternal knoll]

my bad, subroutines

[wooden wyvern]

right right

[digital plaza]

Cryo really incentivise you to pvp your way through it

You cant hide forever

[wooden wyvern]

if i master the map, they'll get lost in the maze that i've memorised trynna chase me

[plucky sierra]

but if I am doing a vault I want to avoid as many people as possible till after the vault

like I am fine with PvP but all I care about is getting the subroutine and leaving

[digital plaza]

You cant really do that im afraid, sec lvl and batteries require pro active gameplay from the start

[plucky sierra]

Depending on spawn you can get lvl 2+ sec clearance and 8 batteries without going into control

you really can do the whole thing without control for some of the vaults

[eternal knoll]

mostly vaults 1 and 2 i'd wager

[digital plaza]

Like vault 3 (i think) and vault 6 REALLY have you going around blowing people up to even access them

[digital plaza]

🤨

[dreamy hawk]

My best runs have explicitly been the ones where I hide forever. 😂

But I haven’t done any vaults so 💀

[plucky sierra]

you can circle the entire map without breaching into Control

[digital plaza]

Oh yeah totally, but its uhh

Fucked up tactic to say the least i guess

[dreamy hawk]

🐀

[plucky sierra]

I mean, it works to avoid PvP, its better than fighting 3+ teams in the middle

[eternal knoll]

gotta let ppl rat in the rat genre

[digital plaza]

With more active approach you will get everything you want in cryo, going sneaky will only get you so far id reckon

Like me and my team did all vaults (except for 6) on this weekend alone

[dreamy hawk]

If RNG isn’t stingy re: clearances it works well. The moment clearances don’t drop you’re f*****.

[plucky sierra]

It is not sneaking, it is just avoiding unnecessary engagements, you can easily push a team with lvl 2 and you are more isolated from potential 3rd parties

[deep solar]

Counterpoint: Charter on our shoulders again telling us to skin em in Cryo

[weary portal]

It turnd him into a rusty robot 😭

[plucky sierra]

skin them one team at a time instead of fighting the entire map at the same time

[digital plaza]

True, there is a lot of spots to hide when youre last remaining guy in your team

[rotund stump]

god I hate parasitism 4 jfc

ghost commander burned 2 self rezzes I looted from an assassin and when I got to bio research there's ANOTHER grenadier commander waiting for me

[digital plaza]

I guess?

[dreamy hawk]

I needed the yesterday when my two randos d/c’d in the first three minutes. 💀

[rotund stump]

nona can eat pesticide dude istg

[sudden pollen]

Hell

[plucky sierra]

yeah random fill queue is a whole other type of gambling

[deep solar]

I’ve had a good enough time playing Micless but last night I was with some rando fellers that didn’t realize they were doing Prox Chat and I wanted to yell at them so bad when we inevitably got ambushed in Pinwheel

[digital plaza]

Third party is a bitch BUT NOT IF YOU WIN

😛

[plucky sierra]

I am not very good at the game.

[digital plaza]

LOL

[deep solar]

Gonna miss my purple Impact H-AR, it served me well through a good long streak of Ws

[digital plaza]

I did first week with crew fill to explore the map and stuff, but for the vaults you gotta have pre made team if you want more prominent success

[rotund stump]

that was mean I'm sorry nona

[deep solar]

Randos in Cryo is fine for just looting and scooting but I agree you need some homies to actually solve the vaults

[proven copper]

Runnah, kill dat moff ting yeh?
In a single run on Dire Marsh:

Get security clearance In Quarantine
Collect mothballs from a storage container in Complex
Send mothballs to SekGen using a Dcon
Extract

[eternal knoll]

you'll hit a solid pair intending to do a vault eventually if you autofill cryos. far from reliable tho

(i've been part of the pair picking up a random third lol)

[deep solar]

Where’s our NuCaloric rep? I got another genius idea for my fellow Gym Runners. Picture this: Are you tired of boring old protein shakes but need your macros to be hit in an efficient manner? How about Drinkable CBR? That’s right! Drinkable Chicken Broccoli and Rice for that complete macronutrient profile on the go.

[dreamy hawk]

No one is ever on when I am! I can’t understand why folks aren’t playing at three in the morning.

[dreamy hawk]

I’ve had a couple good pairs where we got multiple runs done, but it takes work finding them.

[plucky sierra]

right?

I game at a relatively normal time and yet no one is online it feels like

[dreamy hawk]

Also most (all) of my regular friends don’t like it so that limits folks during my saner hours, too.

[rotund stump]

nvm my verdict stands

nona can absolutely eat pesticide

[dreamy hawk]

But they’re the wrong ones.

[digital plaza]

DEAD GAME LOOK AT STEAM DB NUMBERS or some shit

[deep solar]

I hang around with mostly gym bros. This game is too complicated for them for sure