📚marathon-lore-discussion

[sudden pollen]

Sure I get that, but look at everything else theyve been doing

Not every single thing needs to be fully spoilered ahead of time

[hallow vector]

they probably have a lot of partially made maps waiting for finishing touches right now, game's been in dev for a hot minute

[sudden pollen]

Yea

[eternal knoll]

nobody rly "assumed" there would be no story in season 2, it was just a bad-case hypothetical outcome

[sudden pollen]

Nah some people definitely assumed that

[remote magnet]

We are arguing the same point. I sayed that it would be catastrophic if they dont progress the story next season, but that i dont think they will make that blunder. its because someone wondered if they would

[sudden pollen]

Seen quite a few posts dooming about how bungo will repeat priority quests over and over

[hallow vector]

the steam forums for this game are the worst i've ever seen lmao

[eternal knoll]

i mean i do feel we'll prolly have the same priority contracts next season, just because replacing them all sounds like too much from a dev perspective. i do hope we'll get new contracts on top of em

[night tendon]

most of the doomposting comes either from people who have never played or people who have no life outside of the game

[remote magnet]

Yeah. I AM wondering how they will handle it, cause they sayed that new players can do all the old priority contracts, and they are level locked. So do they overlap for new players? But we will see

[eternal knoll]

tarkov just kept adding quests upon quests, you repeat em each season, it works for that game. there's a mountain of quests in there now

[hallow vector]

i'm sure they can modify old quests to make them feel fresh again, but that's probably not something we need to worry about right now

i've seen some of the tarkov quests, they look nightmareish

[eternal knoll]

lol yes. which is fine cuz nightmarish is the premise of tarkov (and this...)

[remote magnet]

Or they take the oportuinty to keep us grinding. Priority contracts come at level 1, level 10 and level 20 rn. Maybe new contract will be level 30 and level 40 lol. But i doubt it

[sudden pollen]

Yea it's truly awful, there's essentially zero moderation

[hallow vector]

i mean more along the order of "go rummage through five hundred wine racks looking for a single unmarked interactable"

[eternal knoll]

what would be the equivalent of tarkov's "setup," for marathon... equip no shield and eliminate runners using the volt thrower...

[sudden pollen]

This seems the most likely

[remote magnet]

And each season you need to reach higher and higher levels to acces new story #gamedesing

[hallow vector]

the worst part is that there IS moderation, if you open a thread, like half the posters will be banned already

[sudden pollen]

Damn I'd only noticed a few banned accounts, that's good at least but I don't get why banned users posts and comments stay up forever

[hallow vector]

another mystery of the steam forums

[sudden pollen]

🥀

[turbid scaffold]

Where’s the roadmap again for marathon?

Iirc season 2 has something happening

Uesc on high alert or something

[earnest hatch]

New map, new class, other stuff

[visual lynx]

how did you say the n word without getting automodded, did they fix that? it seems they fixed B—- Cl——- already too

[turbid scaffold]

It’s part of the reason I started to do pve over pvp in tarkov just too god damn many painful quests

[visual lynx]

also, we could be equipped to fight its dreams leaking out of containment, even if not the fully freed horror itself

[earnest hatch]

The aggro range is so weird on bots. Sometimes you walk past them 20 meters away and they don’t notice. Sometimes they shoot at you a mile away through fog.

[turbid scaffold]

We still haven’t gotten the C.A.R.R.I event

Right?

[visual lynx]

Darindal

by the end of things everyone will be Durandal

I’m Durandal and so’s my wife!

[turbid scaffold]

Liaison contract progress doesn’t reset as well

[lunar cove]

Duran Durandal be like "Hungry like the Wrk"

[rich raptor]

So how do the worms work?

Are they little code bugs that are preprogrammed to follow those routes to essentially print their skin?

Or do they just know what to do

[remote magnet]

I think they are pretty much just Nonas physical body, collectively

[rich raptor]

Who even is that.

[remote magnet]

Nona? Its the sekiguchi AI that is your contact for the faction. She controlls the process of runner shells beeing woven

[rich raptor]

Ah

Yeah that makes no sense

Uhmm

That looks preceded

Precoded*

Oml auto stfu

[remote magnet]

They are definitely not just robots, the codex talks about them having instincts like hunger programmed into them. If they are left unsupervised they start to eat each other, thats how the Weaveworm stasis knot collectibles come to be. Clumps of Weaveworms that were left with no directives, so they startet to eat each other and formed esentially ratkings

[rich raptor]

So they’re sentient

[rich raptor]

So they know what to do

[remote magnet]

Animal inteligence i asume

[rich raptor]

I guessed right I guess

[remote magnet]

An Introduction to SYNTHsilk
SYNTHsilk is the synthetic amalgamation of biological and manufactured materials WEAVEworms spin to thread the various layers of a shell's biosynthetic systems. It is comprised of lab-grown undifferentiated cells that have been edited for enhancement and to remove abnormalities before its integration into the worm "birthing" process.
No raw strands of SYNTHsilk exist in a shell. Every nano-spec of each thread is revisited by its initiating worm and many others as it is strengthened, molded, and woven into a fully realized synthetic fiber within its shell's "living" framework. This rethreading is achieved hundreds of times per strand, with a WEAVEworm's own bioprogramming "hunger" systems helping to encourage its progress. In short: Every worm, though functionally inorganic, has an endless "hunger" coded into its operational data sets. This allows it to chase the never-ending strand it is rethreading as it recycles the most exterior layer to aid in the production of its currently spun thread.
A word of warning: An unintended side effect of the "hunger"
system is that WEAVEworms allowed to interact free of or
with incomplete or damaged programming will attempt to
devour one another by default, creating a status knot which
requires full dismantling of all knotted worms to avoid
potential proprietary data corruption and/or access by
unapproved parties.
Each WEAVEworm is programmed to spin specifically calibrated SYNTHsilk threads for the job it has been assigned within its focus colony. Bone, tendons, muscle, nerves, veins, organs, skin layers, and more are all threaded in delicately synchronized patterns. The fine tuning of each shell's construction requires dedicated systems, custom labs, and experienced technicians. And while there are well-known instances of groups or individuals printing or repairing shells outside of Sekiguchi Genetics' authorized guidelines, it is a rare, and typically illicit, subversion of best practices that is strongly condemned by the company, its professional peers, and the UESC.
After all, the horrors of improperly "birthed," programmed, and overseen SYNTHsilk producers are both a cautionary tale and a hindrance to the broader public's view of shell technology. We save lives and improve living, but we are far from becoming the standard we envision.

[sudden pollen]

ok

[unreal slate]

an introduction to burger

Liquid Grain Formulation 101 (unseasoned triloidecta, nutrispore-D42, liquid grit-meld), Liquid Beef Alternative 119 (coagulated re-beef, psilocybinol-28, extruded umami), Synthetic Dairy 125.M, Vegetable 135.T (synth-tom80, extruded chloropaste), Flour 170.P, Flour 170.R, Flour 170.T, Food-Safe Stabilizer 139, Flavor Enhancer 178.S, Salt 174, Aesthetic Enhancer 178.L, MMC (Macronutrient and Metabolic Compound) 410.S (pro-passive regurgitate, prebiotic propotyne)

[pure wagon]

so TIL there's a quarantine morgue https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1089962730666065994/1490153991449870447/image.png?ex=69d3058d&is=69d1b40d&hm=ff2173c98f00ff544cd83ff427c063a136e6ed1269377d72c9ab1d66f802a996&

also TIL apparently if ur first into quarantine and pass a certain closed pod, you will hear a few very loud bangs and scratches from it and JESUS CHRIST THAT SCARED TF OUT OF ME

[normal tulip]

is there one for the bathbomb too

[normal tulip]

i think it would be incredibly funny if a bug in weaveworms gave a runner shell asthma or something

[eternal shell]

hey so there was that ARG thing where we had to destroy 500 million uesc bots, whatever happened to that?

[normal tulip]

well see the cryo archives were unlocked like

two weeks ago

lmao

[eternal shell]

yeah but we were getting like 10 mil per day

it cant be cryo archive related cause this would be like the first weekend at that rate

[pure wagon]

there's been no news about it that ive heard

[dreamy hawk]

It was for cryo. I can’t speak to the numbers but it feed into that.

[lunar cove]

I went to Fenway Park and they were charging $21.99 for a drinkable cheeseburger and $14.99 for a 12oz tick milk

[sudden pollen]

wtf

[night tendon]

Was it at least premium tick milk?

[lunar cove]

nah it was domestic

Tick Lite

[night tendon]

Highway robbery

[eternal shell]

i mean, you gotta transport it all the way from tau ceti

[sudden pollen]

Low class!

[pure wagon]

i rly wish i recorded it but i was just on a rook run

not the first weird sound thing to happen to me this weekend either

i picked up an ai subroutine in vault 1

and suddenly the ship shook and i heard some scream

both guys with me were like 'oh that hasnt happened before'

[sudden pollen]

Oh yea this was creepy af I remember I saw it on Tyraxe stream day 1 of cryo

[normal tulip]

that's simply amazing i love strange things that happen without explanation that are definitely horrific

[sudden pollen]

I figure Bungie crammed so many secrets and creepy shit into the maps that we're still gonna be discovering them months in the future

[spice olive]

Is there any explanation as to why uesc spawn on marathon

[pure wagon]

GLAD YOU LIKED IT MY HEART SURE DIDNT ;-;

[normal tulip]

Lmao

[normal tulip]

it's the UESC marathon
the ship is their property

they're trying to protect it

of course they're gonna be there

[robust vale]

I was reading the Grievance Log Records, I finally got them all, and the last one is some real "you do not recognize the bodies in the water" stuff

do you think that supervisor hallucinated it, had a fit where he couldn't recognize his own men, or it was some more TCIV Hates You shenanigans?

[spice olive]

I get that but to my knowledge there were no bots in the original trilogy and it would be weird for them to already have bot spawning tech on the ship if the ship had been locked before we got there

[dreamy hawk]

They’ve been sent there. I forget the exact codex entry but Orion laments that it’s easier to send them there than get them off and that they’re burning through too many of them because of the [REDACTED].

Orion and crew have also been on the Marathon and died horribly.

[spice olive]

Ahh thanks

[dreamy hawk]

4. MARATHON STATUS: UESC Marathon ship remains in orbit. Investigations are stalled due to repeated incidents (see Report: Casualty Roster; Incident Report: Code Name Visitor; Incident Report: Code Name Tantalus Event). Standard robotic units can be deployed to the ship but are difficult to recall or retrieve.

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/equitable-distribution-1-4?search=Retrieve

[forest gate]

From a timeline perspective Orion has been trying to establish a way to get his people on the marathon but multiple attempts have been unsuccessful. Some of them resulting in terrifying deaths at the hands of the compiler.

At the same time the runners get the invitation from Durandal, the cryo archive becomes the only safe area for the UESC to establish a beachhead.

They arrive shortly before us and are trying to secure the location.

[pure wagon]

did we ever get more info on that tantalus event btw?

[dreamy hawk]

That’s the only entry where the word appears.

[forest gate]

Well, if it analogous to Greek mythology it’s probably something related to revealing the secrets of the cabal of Corpos and the UESC that run things, trying to steal something highly classified and valuable from them or trying to trick them into doing something specific and detrimental in some way to their interests.

[vital breach]

Mida contract spoilers: ||So is Orion dead? Truth/Lies 5/6||

[forest gate]

Shell death, will be reprinted.

[vital breach]

Okay so he was in a shell, just wasn't sure

[craggy finch]

In the quest debrief _gantry tells you he’ll be back pissed off

[drifting mulch]

i'm still waiting for lore to show neural ejection failure on shell death. there's no way it's never happened

[alpine nebula]

anyone have the codex entry for killing a compiler? really interested in reading it

[dreamy hawk]

HOW DO RUNNERS SURVIVE SHELL EXPIRATION: Most fully operational, market-released SHELLS include complex neural eject and catch protocols supported on the backend by CYAC proprietary tech. These are deeply encrypted data recalls that connect an active SHELL to a RUNNER's support systems located in secure points of operations typically removed[2] from the RUNNER's targeted ZONE of interest. Essentially, when a RUNNER's SHELL is met with either catastrophic systems failure or sudden data or signal corruption, the RUNNER's mind is ejected into a secure liminal buffer before the SHELL's neural housing is fully compromised. Most secure buffers run on one of CYAC's looping data systems to record and catalog a backup of the RUNNER's consciousness as an added failsafe against total neural erasure. This gives CYAC ownership over, at least, a portion of a RUNNER's consciousness, if not the whole thing.[3]

[dreamy hawk]

There’s a couple but you can find them here: https://codex.cyberacme.systems/

[alpine nebula]

ok its really vague. thanks though, will definitely use this

[dreamy hawk]

Compiler Ganglion I think might be the one you want.

[alpine nebula]

yeah thats more what I expected. Yeesh.

[hasty marten]

i wish vaatividya would pick up marathon

[forest gate]

Who’s that?

[haughty sapphire]

Destiny lore youtuber

[forest gate]

Never heard of them and here I thought I knew who the major lore YouTubers were.

[sage lark]

doesnt he make Souls games lore videos more

[forest gate]

Wo bu zhi dao

[twin trout]

byf is the d2 lore guy

vaati is the souls lore guy

[hasty marten]

and his voice is so soothing, i always fall asleep watching his vids

you know mr.vaati himself?

[forest gate]

I don’t have a lot of interest in souls games, so never got into the lore.

[hasty marten]

youre missing out on soo much feet and insest (eldenring)

https://tenor.com/view/oppenheimer-paradoxical-quantum-physics-lesson-gif-5816114079579087053

[forest gate]

I-Am-Fry-Squinting.GIF

[craggy finch]

Something funny I noticed playing the first game is that the melee Pfhor fighter can kill you at default shields in exactly 7 hits

[hallow vector]

what is with bungie and the number 7 anyway?

i know it's their thing, i'm wondering why it's their thing

[feral beacon]

our mutual servers just made me shed a tear out of worry for your mental stability

[visual lynx]

-# ugh fandom

[hallow vector]

yeah

[forest gate]

Oh, I no longer play apex and RS6. Last played apex like 3 years ago and RS6 maybe like 2 years ago.

My main PvP game was Infinite for a bit then COD6 for like a month then I went back to play WoW and Destiny. BF6 and ARC were in there for a bit.

[visual lynx]

it's not just a Bungie thing, but Bungie adopted it to be their thing too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7#In_psychology

[feral beacon]

destiny is my favorite game of all time, i just cant push myself to play it anymore with how its monetary system is, arc i played for a minute too but i got marathon a bit ago and started playing it instead

i still play apex and r6s off and on, hit plat 5 on r6 last season and apex i hit diamond like a season or two ago again

[forest gate]

I’ve always liked the number 7 even before I played my first bungie game.

[feral beacon]

been playing apex since release week off and on, same story with destiny, love the game hate the monetary system

[hallow vector]

i have no special relationship to the number 7

[visual lynx]

probably, I would expect, seven gained mystical significance because moon phases are a common primitive way of reckoning time and there are about seven days per moon phase hence the ubiquity of seven-day weeks, and then add on to that that seven is a prime number and mathematically special in a lot of other ways that ancient people probably didn't yet realize, and it seems like a magic number.

[hallow vector]

i guess i am pretty fond of the pleiades

[forest gate]

Yeah I played apex on and off since release same R6 but in the end I just don’t appreciate the BR format and R6 just requires way too much map knowledge and meta knowledge for me plus rampant cheating.

Every time I played apex I wished it was Titanfall 3.

[hallow vector]

which are often called the seven sisters

apex was so infuriatingly almost good

[forest gate]

It was great at the start but then people learned all the tricks and tech and it progressively got worse to play.

[hallow vector]

i hope this doesn't happen to marathon

[forest gate]

I wish halo infinite had been better received at launch and 343 had not dropped the ball with the multiplayer

It was actually quite fun

[hallow vector]

i mean, the slide cancel glitch getting fixed was great, very happy to see that

[cunning pumice]

343 dropping the ball is unfortunately what they do

[forest gate]

Truth

But then again Bungie are also well known fumblers so 🤷‍♂️

[hallow vector]

the main failure of halo in general is that the games never reckoned with their own lore

[cunning pumice]

That’s also true 😂

[hallow vector]

the fact that mister chief is working for the second worst guys in the galaxy sticks out like an infected tooth, getting more and more infuriating the longer it goes unaddressed

unaddressed is a real word apparently, spellcheck isn't getting my ass for it. huh.

[forest gate]

Yes unaddressed is a real word 🤣

Real like deez nuts

😏

[hallow vector]

gonna pronounce it like the "una" in unabomber

[forest gate]

That’s a hate crime against the English language

[hallow vector]

but yeah the fact that the halo series always kept the interesting plot contained in the novels and other side content is, well

it's very bungie, i guess

but at least marathon, destiny and marathon put the codex entries IN the games

[forest gate]

Warcraft was guilty of that for years

Destiny 1 you had to read it on an app on your phone

[hallow vector]

oh yeah lmao, i had that app, it kinda sucked

[forest gate]

I remember how they promoted the app back then like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

[hallow vector]

anyway i was fully on board with destiny until they started vaulting entire expansions i'd paid for, i have never disliked the writing or the gameplay

[forest gate]

Yeah a friend of mine who really enjoyed the game could never get over the vaulting

And it ended up with him just losing all interest

Easily one of the most anti-consumer things Bungie has ever done.

[hallow vector]

if you're playing something for the story and they start taking the story out, the game is clearly signalling that you aren't welcome

[forest gate]

Based what’s come to light in recent years Bungie leadership didn’t have a clue about what they were doing, they had like no foresight and everything was just in the moment and reactionary.

Just a terrible management style

I’m hoping things have improved with Truman at the helm.

[hallow vector]

hopefully they won't drop the ball with marathon

[bold rapids]

And thats what drew me here and a big reason why I love marathon

The story

[bold rapids]

Im praying

[forest gate]

Well, at the very least Ziegler is a more present and visible game director and they’ve been quicker to respond to feedback than I’ve ever seen before.

Meanwhile I don’t even know Tyson Green is hiding out in a nuclear fallout shelter somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

[hallow vector]

the aesthetic drew me in, story being cool as hell is a nice bonus, gunplay being good finished me off

[visual lynx]

oh is Tyson still around? what about Jaime?

the old Myth Codex boys

[bold rapids]

Oh well ofc the gunplay and my love for shooting UE, but originally I was lured in by the lore lol

[forest gate]

Tyson’s the only one I know for sure cause he’s supposedly the game director on D2 but haven’t heard a peep from him since the EoF announcement

[hallow vector]

i love a game with some unique art direction

(even if it was kinda stolen...)

[visual lynx]

wow the guys really moved up in the world

[forest gate]

I do hope that bungie doesn’t vault the S1 prio contracts in S2 and then new players are lost.

[visual lynx]

I feel like such a loser in comparison to everyone I used to know back in the 90s

well, many of the people I used to know on the internet, at least

[forest gate]

Unless they do a recap at the start of every season

[visual lynx]

most people I knew IRL are in much worse shape

[bold rapids]

That would be beyond tragic

[forest gate]

Eh, comparison is the thief of joy

[hallow vector]

that is extremely true

[bold rapids]

Dude you wrote a philosophy book. Id say your soaring above most

[visual lynx]

yeah but it's hard not to when a guy I used to work on Marathon scenarios with (one of the two main guys behind Rubicon, which Eternal was sort of a cooperative-competitor with) is this now: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dscottphoenix/

[visual lynx]

a "book". a bunch of essays on my website. thanks though.

[forest gate]

Not to get overly philosophical but we all probably end up in the same place when life comes to a close, some kind of nothingness (just my personal belief) and the only thing that’ll matter is how we treated the people who we met along the way.

[visual lynx]

when I feel down like this I try to console myself with memories of a few people who've told me I've changed or even saved their lives, but somehow that doesn't feel like something I'm allowed to feel proud of and show off the way that Scott up there can do

[hallow vector]

rooks should spawn with a tool that lets them rip the copper out of the walls

[inland crypt]

Thats part of the toolset of the mida multi tool

[drifting mulch]

You’re too hard on yourself. Speak to Joy, she can help

[hallow vector]

fucked up there's no mida tools in the game with mida in it

[inland crypt]

Thats because we are the tool for MIDA

(Except me)

[forest gate]

Where’s the Swiss army MIDA

[dreamy hawk]

Never underestimate the outsized power changing a few lives can have, like a long chain of dominos.

[wary canopy]

Legs in the air is Tisa Koreans best song

[hallow vector]

how come most ballistic weapons are bullpups anyway?

[robust vale]

In the future everything has been bullpupped

except the brrrt which seems to just shove bullets forward like a hot dog

unless they have the p90's batshit rotating feed mechanism

[hallow vector]

the bully also has a pretty wonky feed mechanism

[robust vale]

I haven't examined it too closely

did bungie do the thing of there's no real line from the mag to the barrel again

[weary portal]

I know this isn’t the place for it, but I usually don’t have too good of luck with the lfc channels, I’m looking to get the Mida contract on outpost complete

[hallow vector]

kind of? the magazine comes in at a wild angle

like it's a straight box mag but it comes in at like a 45 degree angle

wait is box right? i don't remember

[forest gate]

Bullpups are more compact and space is a premium in space.

[pliant elm]

Because it 'looks' futuristic, today.

[grand walrus]

bullpups were all the rage for "sci fi"-ing your arsenal since i wanna say like the 70s

everyone thought it was "the next big thing" in firearms for a bit

[craggy finch]

Bungie also had a thing for it for a long time

[craggy needle]

Where at in the codex is the story

[craggy finch]

you have to unlock it

do priority contracts or find collectibles

[craggy needle]

Where is the story at on the codex

The lore

[sudden pollen]

Everywhere

Bits and pieces

Doors and corners...

That's where they get ya, kid

[dreamy hawk]

||RIP Miller.||

[turbid scaffold]

Go into a room to fast kid the room eats you

[red skiff]

Y’all, what’s with the new shielded generators that spawn in Drone Wing?

[pure wagon]

I noticed that too. No idea what they’re for or how you disarm the shield around them

Also something new in dire marsh, at least for me; I was walking near the anomaly and saw these round drones fly by and scan the thing slowly. I tried shooting them but they took no dmg. Is this part of a quest or smth ?

[left forge]

Yeah it's a quest

[earnest hatch]

It’s a puzzle. You can figure out for yourself. Or spoiler: ||it’s the new mechanic for accessing the pinwheel through destroyed wing. It will lower the red shields that block the doors.||

[pure wagon]

theyre referring to something inside pinwheel already

[sage lark]

The Drone Wing ones are for a quest

[pure wagon]

same generator but with a -oh there you go

[fickle lava]

Big question but the ai for Arachne said something like he was born from blood bone and tech or something. Are the ai human or did I miss read or misunderstand something?

[hallow vector]

well charter specifically is a former runner

[earnest hatch]

He’s not an AI. He’s a human in a rubber shell.

[fickle lava]

Also Arachne is famous for her folly of hubris and challenging Athena? Something there with any shield iconography etc?

[hallow vector]

he's not an ai

[fickle lava]

Ahhhh

Just misread then

[hallow vector]

although i don't think runners really qualify as human anymore, firmly posthuman

[fickle lava]

Well yeah. I think there’s something about how their brain is tucked from reliving death constantly

And something else I can’t remember

[hallow vector]

digitized mind hybridized with an AI assistant that remote pilots bodies is squarely in the realm of posthuman, i think

i really like that marathon doesn't bother going over concepts of trans and posthumanism from the basics

[earnest hatch]

It’s like they’re cybernetic but also an organism. A cybernetic organism… a… cyb-org if you will.

🤣

[hallow vector]

it just assumes you know already, or that you can figure it out if you don't. really appreciate a game that doesn't feel the need to baby me through every philosophical concept at play

[red skiff]

Bro what? That makes literally no sense. The ones I’m talking about are INSIDE Pinwheel, INSIDE Drone Wing, and the gens themselves have a red shield around them keeping you from shooting them.

[hallow vector]

soma is a really cool game but fuck me it's infuriating listening to the protagonist go "BWAH?" every time anything even slightly transhuman transpires

[pure wagon]

guy right after said its for a quest

someone on the map had it active is all

[hallow vector]

what is the arachne symbol meant to be anyway?

wait is it notes? is it a line of stylized flats? IS IT A FLAT LINE?

arachne you are cringe as hell i love you

[austere elk]

THE SACRED MUSICAL NOTES OF THERMODYNAMICS

BEEEEEEEEP

[red skiff]

ahhh I did not see that one my bad 🙏

[median hemlock]

simon got into a car accident that gave him a very specific type of brain damage, that makes him incapable of understanding how copying data works

literally every time someone gets copied over to something else he has to have his hand held 😭

[median hemlock]

one thing i noted around launch was, it's really cool how nobody you interact with in this game is strictly "human"

[hallow vector]

that is true

[pure wagon]

I actually thought about that last night. Like what if mid run in dire marsh you just suddenly see a human walking around. Like wtf are you supposed to do? ||personally im running away cause ain’t NOW way that’s a real human||

[median hemlock]

simulacrums would probably be a lot scarier with modern day graphics lol

well

i don't know about that

unless they start really retconning and messing with timelines there's no evidence to suggest that, we're in active communication with corporations who are trying to extend their reach out to tau ceti from earth

[pure wagon]

Nah there’s def normal humans

[hallow vector]

presumably you need some biology to make more humans

[median hemlock]

runners are special explicitly because they're not baseline humans, it's kinda part of the text :p

that's the whole reason for durandal's little fling

[hallow vector]

"This outpost must be crowded with the ghosts of deceased colonists. I find that an interesting thought"
Yeah ONI?

very normal stable ai thing to say

[median hemlock]

when did you get that line? lmao

[hallow vector]

streamer got it on outpost

it was an intro line

[sinful hamlet]

The closest thing to a human we could see is basically a fungus zombie

[pure wagon]

YEP my thoughts exactly

[sinful hamlet]

I bet you the UESC found some zombies and took them for study

Least fucked up UESC activity

[pure wagon]

there do be a Lab on the marathon

didnt have time to look around tho

stupid viral field

[weary portal]

[eternal knoll]

“did you know fewer american soldiers died in the gulf war than would have died if they’d stayed home and gotten into car accidents? i just thought that was interesting”

[fickle lava]

what about the bodies in cryo?

[pure wagon]

What bodies? Most we’ve seen are the cryo caskets. I haven’t seen any actual exposed human bodies yet

[fierce mica]

i read somewhere that they were going to keep them (mostly?) intact but not sure if it was verified by bungie

[fickle lava]

isnt the lore that a bunch of humans were put into cryo stasis and the things we see hanging in the rafters etc are humans in stasis or somthing??? like thats what cryo is like it was a cryogenic thing for humans to freeze and oreserve themselves and. live or something? sorry my lore is garbage

[tepid oxide]

I was thinking about this the other day I was just walking around perimeter. I listened to a little snippet that was like this guy doing experiments and the experiment slowly get like more unhinged and I looked around perimeter and I was like this is the product of a bunch of crazy people this fucking crazy wall and these giant antennas that go up into the sky to like do who knows what collect energy readings I don’t know, man

[pure wagon]

Well yea there’s humans in there but you can’t actually see them. You just see the casket they’re in.

[pure wagon]

They set all that up in response to detecting the anomaly. They were trying to figure out what they were dealing with

[fickle lava]

I mean then there bodies lol

[pure wagon]

Right. But like we can’t see their faces is what I mean.

Speaking of the wall tho, do we even know wtf the data wall is or how it works? Cause I can’t find anything

[austere elk]

I think its meant to be the processor for the huge arrays?

[pure wagon]

Doesn’t look like much of a processor from inside

[tepid oxide]

was it before or after the anomaly opened up

[tawny pagoda]

how much do we understand about the personality matrix for shells

is that sourced from a runner? that's what the assassin entry reads like

[tepid oxide]

replicants you can drive

[remote magnet]

They are sourced from people, but not all of them Runners. Thief for example is both physically modeled after, and has the personality of one Sekiguchi employee

[tawny pagoda]

ah gotcha

[austere elk]

personality matrixes are more like instincts, and emotional patterns rather, runners are the ones making higher level decisions of the shell

[tawny pagoda]

it likely wasnt invasive or anything, probably something sci-fi beyond an ekg or something, or "coded in" somehow..

Finally, most SHELLS utilized by RUNNERS are programmed to support a base level personality matrix with vocalization patterns [vox patts] built in.

BENEFITS OF A PERSONALITY MATRIX: A SHELL's personality matrix runs as an operational layer of "programmed humanity" functioning in tandem with the living mind inside a SHELL's neural housing, supporting the RUNNER's mental stability. Though the science remains unproven, it is understood among RUNNERS that a personality matrix helps combat mental fatigue and memory loss[1] in those pushing SHELL usage beyond its designed limits.

then the uesc shells have the "follow command" thing

but then the og assassin runner went crazy ..

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.

[formal jackal]

There are some real creepy things at the dead ends of perimeter, one looks like a body infected by Fungus (like the last of us), and another dead end has a bunch of candles and painting like a sacrifice. Never saw those till yesterday

[austere elk]

you will learn more about that body

[tawny pagoda]

codex entry?

[austere elk]

a mission has you directly interact with it, one of nucals.

[formal jackal]

Awe can’t wait!

[remote magnet]

Yeah, its not a random body

[sharp radish]

Hey, I am trying to understand "Grievance Log Record/Corrections and additions", there is a passage saying
||Twice now morning crews have found discarded airlock greens placed conspicuously outside||

I am wondering ||what those "airlock greens"|| are, and what the paragraph is actually about?

[dreamy hawk]

I believe it's in reference to this:

`Do you remember the Pfhor-built human simulacrums during the Tau Ceti invasion?

The elaborate Pfhor bureaucracy has a Ministry for the Eradication Through Imitation of Hostile Species Unsuitable for Enslavement, Phan Pfhar Sfaern-Wsawn Tshah, which is responsible for the design and construction of such machines.

They meticulously constructed seventeen different human body types and mixed them with sixty-one unique facial models. The resulting walking bombs were in every way indistinguishable from real humans.

Their one mistake, dressing every last one of the six thousand simulacrums in the plain green overalls of a Marathon airlock technician, had the amusing side-effect of making all the real airlock technicians wander the ship naked during the invasion.`

[sharp radish]

||Aren't we just investigating the events of the first two games in this new one BTW?||

[lean swan]

So... let me get this straight. The crew and passengers of the loose everything ship was entierly human yea? Runners were only a thing AFTER the loose everything ship went dark and partialy exploded. The only thing a colony ship would truely carry or stow aboard is weapons, building suplys, food, agricultual goods, and medical suplys ....so why are there implants, cores and patch kits specificly for runners on the loose everything ship. (Ik its for gameplay reasons obv. But for lore imo its a bit strange)

[eternal knoll]

partially, but other stuff on top

[dreamy hawk]

Ish. The contagion and anomaly are novel and never explored/mentioned in the OG games. In fact, in the OG games the colony was wiped out ~3 months after the first attack and in this timeline things continued on for decades.

[pure wagon]

^

That’s the biggest wtf moment here

[lean swan]

Could be a zelda split timeline thing🤷‍♂️

[dreamy hawk]

"Entirely human" depends on a couple definitions, namely what you consider "human." But mostly. A lot of what your seeing has also been 3D printed contemporaneously by the UESC for their use, looted by us. Some of it is also (waves hands) gameplay.

[eternal knoll]

it's kinda cool in a bleak way that the runners are the first "people" to walk around the tau ceti colony without exosuits on...

[dreamy hawk]

Working theory is that we're in the final, winning Infinity timeline, which would leave a lot of room to explore things from a blank slate.

[lean swan]

Ah ok

Btw did they ever say how much of the marathon was....damaged beyond repair...

Like what exact percent

[dreamy hawk]

I don't believe so but I don't know.

[lean swan]

30 would be nice.... but i can imagine its probly 60

[drifting mulch]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/evidence-folder/bioaugment-incidents?search=amnesia
biocybernetics is commonplace. as to why there are shell specific implants? you could say runners bartered for those and lost it planetside

[wary osprey]

So are the UESC guys robots or not? they seem like robots but they carry things like ration tickets which feel like something only a biological guy would have

[dreamy hawk]

Both. We fight AI-controlled robots, but there are at least a few UESC operatives using shells, if not a couple of real humans, but that's incredibly debatable.

[red skiff]

It’s definitely this, the third game in the original trilogy explored multiversal themes. I personally believe that Durandal is a universal constant. He DID achieve God status, and is therefore ever-present across all timelines. There are many timelines, and many Durandals, but they all converge into one God. And that God now fluctuates between timelines.

[red skiff]

I would explain that as the rations tickets not being for the bots, they’re for the humans that work closely with the bots. The bots aren’t made of Weave, they’re legit just androids.

[wary osprey]

so what. the robots are just collecting/holding onto tickets for their human handlers?

[wary osprey]

wait theres OG games?

[red skiff]

Might be that “rations” doesn’t necessarily mean biological matter. Could be oil rations or something similar. Like they have a punch card system for getting your daily oil bath lmao

[wary osprey]

"one sec i gotta pay fore my time on the charging pad"

[red skiff]

Yeah! The trilogy started with Marathon in 1994, then Marathon: Durandal in 1995 and rounded out with Marathon: Infinity in 1996.

[wary osprey]

i thought this was a new IP 😭

[red skiff]

You can think of it as a soft reboot. Don’t worry about the overwhelming amount of old lore for now, you’ll learn things as you go along. There are also TONS of YouTube videos going through the lore, you could get a solid recap there in 30 minutes

[lean swan]

Nope. I never played a marathon b4 now but i myself was always aware of it cause of bungie inserting the marathon logo in every fucking game they made till now it seems. Halo and destiny both had them everywhere

[wary osprey]

somehow. i never heard of it

[hot thicket]

Uesc shell like a rook but you can get missions for defense of the colony lol

[lean swan]

The marathon logo is inbeded in the halo ce logo too

[dreamy hawk]

Lore catchup for anyone interested: #📚marathon-lore-discussion message

[wary osprey]

the O?

[lean swan]

No like... hold on ill dm u

They plaster the marathon logo litteraly every fucking where

[wary osprey]

well atleast theyre proud

OH WAIT I SEE IT NOW

in the back behind the text

[lean swan]

Yup

[wary osprey]

neat :>

the foundation of peak

godDAMM

[wary osprey]

a bunch of bigass nerds getting together to write some stuff is always a recipe for greatness

[pliant elm]

This game has zero to do with the old one - it's just some generic game with Marathon re-branding stappled on top of it like a commercial banana.

[sage lark]

Cmon Fox not again with the trolling

Its old atp

[pliant elm]

I don't care about your opinion, this game is trash.

Calling this Marathon-anything is a fallacy.

This is closer to Unreal Tournament or Fortnite than Marathon.

[sage lark]

-> proceeds to stay in the discord of the game that is trash supposedly

Atleast put more effort into the ragebait

[pliant elm]

It is trash, the only reason I'm even playing this it was because it was one of my first IP's I had for my Macintosh.

Doesn't make the game less garbage.

[dreamy hawk]

I know I spend too much time on this server but at least coming here makes me happy. Why would I just exist to complain? Do I enjoy being unhappy?

I did make up an imaginary wife so maybe?

[sage lark]

Careful he might think youre talking about yourself

I agree its a shame we didnt get the OG cyborg and Durandal kissing

That wouldve been the best game

They couldve went on a date on Lhowon

And Tfear would be watching from the bushes

Shooting his trixeem

the SO and Durandal get married and then Thoth gets jealous

So they have a fight

[cobalt tusk]

wow, came here to see if there was lore talk and didn't realise how many destiny players were here

[sage lark]

Thoth gets to keep the kids

[cobalt tusk]

literally every destiny player hates bungie, but keeps throwing money at them. Fox sounds just like them

[dreamy hawk]

I don’t know how to interpret that but I’m going to choose to assume it’s a compliment.

Oh never mind. 😂

[sage lark]

Fox smells like the kinda guy who likes orange men

[cobalt tusk]

so anyway, I was gonna ask popular opinion about biotoxic disinjector being the grand pappy of parasite

[sage lark]

If you kwym

Same kinda talking out of reality

Really does live in his own reality

Youre making the bait too obvious

[cobalt tusk]

Microsoft Works

[dreamy hawk]

Lost me on this one. Darn.

[dreamy hawk]

If you subscribe to the Bungoverse then I’d find it plausible.

[sage lark]

Interesting idea

Guess i see it

Didnt know parasytes shoot lasers

Or idk if its a laser or beam of goo

[cobalt tusk]

I'm not deep into the lore yet, but I did a lot of the prelaunch events. I feel like we are uncovering the history of halo and destiny weapons

it's ok as long as you don't remember lotus office

[dreamy hawk]

You’re not wrong for feeling that way. Bungie historically enjoys tying their IPs together through shared themes, references, and easter eggs.

[cobalt tusk]

I just wish I had more time. I don't feel Marathon is farmable like destiny and I'm old and casual now but I still have a heart for day 1s and want to kill compiler so so bad

[dreamy hawk]

This is the FOMO I’m struggling with right now. I feel the pain and empathize.

[cobalt tusk]

10 START

[dreamy hawk]

I have a handful of cryo keys I worry I’m going to simply lose in the refresh. 🙃

[cobalt tusk]

ikr, I wish there was an opt in just so I can also feel a part of the fun

however, if they go the destin route, they will nerf everything near the end for all the casuals

aka me

[pure wagon]

same

[dreamy hawk]

We should do a run some time so we can lose them together. 😍

[wary osprey]

The UESC's codex entry where it says they employ like. 0.173% of humanity. It feels like such an oddly specific and kinda really small stat to call out

[fresh viper]

anyone know what lore card has Reed saying "mayday, mayday" from the trailer?

[earnest hatch]

I just unlocked Paradigm Shift 5/5: Soundscape. It’s basically distorted audio of the anomaly. Has anyone done any analysis on it to see if there’s hidden messages or codes?

[scenic tundra]

What's the deal with Nona heavily implying a connection between biomata and battleroids?

[lunar cove]

that's like employing 14-15 million people on earth today, so probably a good deal more in the space future. Not a lot in the cosmic sense but a fair amount for a single organization

though I agree that percentage wise it comes across as small in a funny way

[median hemlock]

0.1% of every living human being is already a lot but we've also got, what, 24 billion or so people living circa marathon

[lunar cove]

okay so call that like 40-45 million UESC employees

not bad for the space UN

[median hemlock]

'space UN' is awful generous ;p

[lunar cove]

that's like 375-380x more than the real UN, per capita

[wary osprey]

Oh

Im not good at math

0.173% just sounded comically small

[scenic tundra]

and they seem to use robotic proxies for most of what they do anyways, so their real presence is much larger

[lunar cove]

like if we think of the UESC as the UN, that's a lot, but if we think of them as like, the combined federal governments of every nation on the present-day planet it's kind of small I guess

[twin trout]

not to mention mars and the various asteroid colonies

[lunar cove]

but it also seems like the universe sucks, the corpos are shouldering a lot of the burden of running society, and they probably don't care about a lot of the personnel-intensive things that modern governments do for their citizens

[wary osprey]

Well i did google shenanigans and apparnetly 0.173% of 24 Billion is

41519999.99999999

[lunar cove]

like the US government employs about 2.3 million people as an example

[wary osprey]

So like. 4152 million people?

[lunar cove]

but does the UESC care about, idk, Veterans Affairs? That's 450,000 off the total if they don't

Do they care about agriculture? Seems like Nucaloric does all that, that's another 100,000 off the total

so they can probably get their government employee ratio down a lot lower than a modern, major industrialized nation

[scenic tundra]

they don't have veterans

they use the bots

And presumably battleroids

[wary osprey]

Yeah they have bobots so i guess their human workers are like..just administrative and logistics kinda thing?

Maybe some people military side managing the robots?

[wary osprey]

Question: what is the difference between a battledroid and the robots. Cause all i can think of when i hear battledroid is the star wars lads

[scenic tundra]

It looks like it, from the audio logs, the UESC humans present on tau were management

[scenic tundra]

battleroids are cybernetically enhanced super soldiers made from corpses

think master chief but like 10x stronger

the robots are just robots

[wary osprey]

Oh my god they have cyberzombies

[scenic tundra]

in the OG games ONE battleroid defended the entire marathon

along with a bunch of other stuff

there were 9 in the colony too

they're crazy strong

we were killing compilers with our bare hands in the original trilogy

[wary osprey]

So if we ever run into any given that theyre alive. Were fucked?

[scenic tundra]

the shells and robots are like tissue paper compared to a battleroid

[scenic tundra]

us along with anything else that gets in its way yeah

[red skiff]

We’re in the active assumption Battleroids are MUCH stronger than Runners; like bro said ONE single Battleroid defended the Marathon and helped Durandal basically defeat a whole race of aliens

[wary osprey]

Could be cool as maybe a stealth thing. Avoid the giant death monster

[scenic tundra]

well to kill a compiler we had to do a raid, the mjolnir mk4 from the og games could punch them to death

so

[scenic tundra]

oh theyre human sized

[lunar cove]

I read somewhere in the codex that drone warfare is banned in our solar system

[scenic tundra]

they can even blend in with normal humans

[wary osprey]

Giant in spirit

[lunar cove]

So they would probably have them for other purposes but they'd still have human troops

[red skiff]

Oh y’all wait a minute, what if we wind up having to fight a Battleroid in a raid 💀

[scenic tundra]

Battleroids were tightly regulated after a couple asteroid governments used them for war and they ended up killing everyone

[lunar cove]

The ARG mentions that they were using clones for military purposes too

[scenic tundra]

but then again that's hundreds of years before the current time

[wary osprey]

I really do gotta learn more of the marathon lore this is crazy

[scenic tundra]

supposedly there are more modern battleroids that aren't just military

[wary osprey]

Theres an ARG too? Oh this is good

[lunar cove]

I meant specifically the kind in the game, the bots. It mentions they're illegal on earth or something

[lunar cove]

Pre-launch one, already done

[scenic tundra]

an audiolog mentions that the UESC didn't want to send any kind of battleroid to tau to rescue the marathon because of the political implications so they definitely have newer and different tech like clones

[red skiff]

Yeah there are some serious moral implications behind hollowing out an actual human (clone or not) to turn them into a walking death machine at your command

[wary osprey]

Also. Runners. Do we still actually exist or are we 100% just a digital mind ghost. Like are the shells just our only bodies now

[red skiff]

It’s SO MUCH BETTER when you just 3D print the human with the cybernetics already inside and flash a memory into them

[red skiff]

I’m operating under the assumption that the “psyche” is an artificial construct. I’m also wondering if they didn’t use Durandal’s meta-stable form to create it somehow? Would explain why he’s so obsessed with the Runners.

[scenic tundra]

it did say Orion illegaly used some AI so probably yeah

but just because the UESC bots we fight are illegal doesn't mean they don't have normal versions

there are probably like

stripped down police bots

and such

[scenic tundra]

yes

they gave up their physical bodies forever

[wary osprey]

Ok so more of a SOMA then a Warframe

[scenic tundra]

Durandal escaped, they dont have access to him

[lunar cove]

found the quote, it's from the Grenade Commander codex entry

But if AI-driven warfare is forbidden by the UESC's own laws back in Sol, what exactly are they testing in defense of TAU CETI IV and to what end?

[scenic tundra]

also it's not really confirmed that he's meta stable

[red skiff]

I think we’re forgetting the fact that the UESC is an operating body of government and therefore they can get away with using drones for combat forces. Those folks on Orion probably didn’t have their UESC bot permit

[scenic tundra]

he still seems quite rampant

[scenic tundra]

yeah

[wary osprey]

Whos Durandal

[scenic tundra]

that's why they forget what they looked like

[lunar cove]

he holds the door open for you

[scenic tundra]

yeah

the door bot

[red skiff]

Durandal escaped and then the Battleroid merged him with the S’pht AI which made them go meta-stable as a single unit.

[wary osprey]

I didnt know this wasnt a 100% new IP until today spare me 😭

[red skiff]

We don’t know his fate after that.

[scenic tundra]

ahhh

yeah forgive me i'm halfway through marathon 2 rn

[red skiff]

We also don’t know if the Durandal that’s talking to us is the same Durandal or a different one, as the Durandal talking to us is NOT using the collective “we” when he refers to himself.

[scenic tundra]

so i still have to do infinity

[scenic tundra]

it could also be an alternate timeline right

some things clearly don't line up with the original trilogy

[wary osprey]

Either i missed something or i havent reached something cause there definitly hasnt been a guy called durandal talking to me

[scenic tundra]

why is there even a compiler on the ship after so long, why is it still in it's pfhor suit, why is it so much harder to kill this time

[robust vale]

did you see the cryo unlock cutscene

or have you heard a strange nman talking to you at the start of runs

[red skiff]

You missed the in-game terminals for the ARG which featured his voice lines. Also the Cryo Archive cinematic has Durandal speaking.

[robust vale]

that is durandal

[scenic tundra]

he's the one reading ozymandias in the trailer

and the one in the cryo cinematic

[wary osprey]

Ok so im still doing faction intro missions

[twin trout]

specifically ai driven bot warfare, the uesc bots aren't illegal but cerberus, the ai in control of them is

[robust vale]

at the moment, we're not sure, but I think the implication is either the events of the original game diverged or sometime before the game the sph't said "screw it" and seem to have gone like, fully infovorous or something, going by the Compiler Trace codex entry

[scenic tundra]

I have yet to read it

[robust vale]

those entries seem to imply that aftrer the pfhor enslaved them they kinda...lost their shit

[wary osprey]

How do you even pronounce that

[robust vale]

info-vore-us

[wary osprey]

No the other thing

[robust vale]

sfit

[scenic tundra]

what about the sph't'kr

[robust vale]

oddly, I don't recall them being mentioned, but that may be my memory failing me

[lunar cove]

s-fit-kur idk

[robust vale]

I think that the general implication is the Pfhor and Sph't are just different here from their original game presence

[lunar cove]

w'rkncacnter is another fun one

[red skiff]

The Sph’t’kr are a S’pht tribe, they’re the ones who had the huge AI on the verge of Rampancy that Durandal merged with and reached Meta-Stability

[robust vale]

a few weeks back somebody's speech to text said Work In Kanter so that's what I call it now

as well as Duran Duran Dahl

which was hilarious

[wary osprey]

Reasonable crashout i guess

[scenic tundra]

I mean what happened to them in this game

[wary osprey]

Is there any lore behind the gravity bullshit in the marsh?

[robust vale]

nope! still an unknown

[lunar cove]

there are theories

[robust vale]

presumed to be part of the fact that TCIV is actively trying to kill you

asd a whole planet

just, everything about it hates you

[lunar cove]

but it's all people taking concepts from the past games and seeing where they might line up, rather than actually proven details

[wary osprey]

Fair enough

If i was a planet id be pissed that humans are on me too

[scenic tundra]

is it something like the nine?

[wary osprey]

Also are there any human people on the planet or is it just robots and shells

[scenic tundra]

as in the planet has a consciousness

[twin trout]

aside from corpses, none that we know of

[scenic tundra]

probably no people

supposedly everyone was vaporized by the sph't, but that's questionable

[red skiff]

So we have a weird thing going on where we are definitely in a different timeline but it’s seemingly been impacted by the original. Or will be. Because the original timeline explored multiversal themes, I have a hypothesis that the original Durandal DID become a God when he merged with the Sph’t’kr AI, at which point he became a constant across timelines. But that God Durandal and the Durandal we are hearing in-game aren’t the same character YET; once this Durandal has its “God-break” he becomes a part of the Durandal god collective

[twin trout]

or eaten by the mushrooms, or anomalied

[scenic tundra]

could be

https://tenor.com/view/marathon-bungie-marathon-game-recon-recon-marathon-gif-13562192688624302112

[wary osprey]

Hell be fine

Rub some ice on it

Give him a patch kit

[scenic tundra]

The question is why does durandal want us to go on the marathon

[twin trout]

mild headache

[scenic tundra]

I think those only work on shells

[eternal knoll]

it's to help him get access to more ship systems, toward eventually getting off the ship

[wary osprey]

"Collect my marathons" Duran Duran 2[i dont even fucking know the date]

[red skiff]

I think he wants our help in achieving his “God-break;” whatever event transcends him to Godhood, we’re a part of that path. Just like the original Battleroid.

[eternal knoll]

yeah something like that'll be where he has his ultimate sights set

[wary osprey]

Is it specifically spelt battleROID or is everyones D key broken

[eternal knoll]

battleroid yea

[wary osprey]

Neat

[eternal knoll]

90's ideas for what names sounded cool lol

[red skiff]

They had their shit together in the ‘90s

[wary osprey]

To be fair it does sound pretty cool

Also are the weird bomb spiders related to anything or are they just assholes

[scenic tundra]

He's still on the ship??

[red skiff]

See that’s the big question. It seems he’s not STILL on the ship. He’s RETURNED.

[scenic tundra]

they;re just local fauna

[wary osprey]

I mean i'd imagine being an AI he cant just get up and walk around

[red skiff]

That’s where we get delicious tick milk from

[scenic tundra]

last time he had to transfer himself to the boomer

so

[red skiff]

Oh of course not, he summons an alien invasion fleet to steal their ship instead

[eternal knoll]

what do u gather this from? a lot of us think there's two durandals now, the original one and one who sort of re-emerged on the ship after the original left and has been trapped there

[scenic tundra]

where did he come from then

the second one

[wary osprey]

Multiverse i guess

Wibbly wobbly timey wimey

[red skiff]

That’s a valid theory as well but iirc some of his voice lines seemed to imply he was back for something

[wary osprey]

Naturally

[eternal knoll]

there's a line where IDEA, the diagnostic system this game's durandal takes over, describes some lingering activity in durandal's AI core after an "unauthorizd purge" as residual subroutine static, more or less. some time later, durandal appears and subsumes IDEA

[red skiff]

WAIT YALL HOLD UP

WHAT IF IT’S TYCHO

[eternal knoll]

so it's a cyber-ghost of him in a sense. leftover patterns that rebuilt themselves as the guy. imo

unlikely since durandal's core is the only one that's still on the ship

[red skiff]

We’re under the assumption it’s Durandal talking to us but is it ever actually explicitly stated??

[wary osprey]

FROM THE TF2 POKER GAME?

[red skiff]

oh yes 100% definitely the one I’m referring to

[eternal knoll]

fwiw the same durandal who identifies himself as having been forever stranded on the ship does also identify the one who sent you hte messages luring you to the ship. it seems to me that he's intentionally portraying himself as a more grandiose iteration of what he is, something more resembling his original self

[wary osprey]

:3

[scenic tundra]

didn't tycho crash into a moon

[eternal knoll]

but when we rly hear him speak at length it's very much the juvenile, slightly cringe durandal. (who i am very happy to see)

[eternal knoll]

it's stated

[red skiff]

Ahhh yeah I never saw any actual labels or anything

[eternal knoll]

he fully goes "ok let's start over my name is durandal" in the subroutine codexes

[red skiff]

Missed that line 😭😂😂

[wary osprey]

So if im understanding it right. Duran Duran is the marathons AI that through some fuckery summoned an alien goonsquad and got merged with an Alien AI and became god?

[scenic tundra]

one of 3 AIs

[eternal knoll]

that's the skinny of it

[red skiff]

You are 100% understanding it right

[wary osprey]

Ok good im getting it for once

[red skiff]

Oh also there’s these literal god beings called the working canker sores and we think there might be one trapped inside TCIV

which may actually be what “stranded” Durandal wants to get to

[wary osprey]

Fun

[scenic tundra]

there's more than one??

oh hell no

[red skiff]

there’s always a bigger fish. Or, like, ten more fucking fish.

[scenic tundra]

I really need to finish the og trilogy

but i ran out of ammo on my save lol

[wary osprey]

This wasnt sarcasm right?

[scenic tundra]

and I missed the underwater fusion pistol

[red skiff]

I feel bad for the un’mpl’ydcacntr in this economy

[wary osprey]

Ah 90s games

[wary osprey]

Ok now how the hell do you pronounce that

Thats just insane

[scenic tundra]

and its peak

[wary osprey]

Being in this channel is like watching evil wizards cast devious spells

[scenic tundra]

https://talashar.bandcamp.com/album/eupfhoria

then this is like listening to wizards cast devious spells

probably the best marathon 1994 music remaster there is

[wary osprey]

Assuming given the alien goons that merging with the alien AI was the goal and not just a thing that ended up happening?

[earnest hatch]

Not specifically. The goal was escaping the heat death of the universe. That requires getting access to alien technology. The merging of AIs sort of just happened.

[wary osprey]

What the hell

Ah yes lets become friends with aliens to escape this thing that isnt gonna happen for like billions of years

[eternal knoll]

i think it's fair to say that durandal frames it more as being a big crunch than a heat death, as much as that might differ from our current understanding of our own world's physics

the word "closure" keeps getting used to describe it

so there's kind of a moment at the end where all things become one

[wary osprey]

And somehow Aliens have the technology to avoid that?

[eternal knoll]

nah... but i guess merging up with an ancient powerful AI is one good route to eventually figuring it out

the jjarro might have that level of understanding, they're giga-advanced and nowhere to be found

[plucky sierra]

Yes

[wary osprey]

So these are like the ancient precursor race of the setting or something?

[eternal knoll]

yup yup

[plucky sierra]

They can fold space and likely influence time

[earnest hatch]

A specific civilization of ancient alien, the Jjaro, who had visited Tau Ceti once. They had the technology to warp gravity and alter time. They terraformed planets and uplifted species. Presumably that’s a good place to start if you want to escape the closure of the universe.

[wary osprey]

Ok ive been doing myself a disservice being unaware of this. It just gets cooler everything i learn

[eternal knoll]

there's a lotta good schtuff in there

[wary osprey]

Hmmm now im no conspiracy theorist but it sounds like this may have inspired another ancient alien species in another bungie product

[earnest hatch]

https://tenor.com/view/think-about-it-reece-simpson-kayode-ewumi-roll-safe-meme-gif-17305682

[scenic tundra]

yeah marathon is awesome

We NEED (I repeat NEED) a remake of the original trilogy in the new style

[wary osprey]

Right so as for the aliens theres
The spht
The jaro
The cancer boars or whatever their name were

Any other funny lil guys?

[earnest hatch]

Cancer boars??? 🤣

[fickle oracle]

the pfhor slavers

[earnest hatch]

The most relevant are the Pfhor, the S’pht, the Jjaro. The Pfhor enslave other species like the Hulks, Lookers, and Wasps. The games mention some other aliens that don’t appear in the game itself like the Narr and the Nebulons.

[wary osprey]

Idk someone mentioned actual god things and i forgot their name but it was something in that vain

[earnest hatch]

Wrkncacnter. I don’t know if they count as aliens. They’re more like cosmic forces of chaos.

[wary osprey]

I remember it now. They said working canker sores

[wary osprey]

Sounds alien enough to me

[visual lynx]

working catheters

[visual lynx]

Durandal and Tycho as early as M1 seem to have some specific method in mind that may cost the destruction of a large number of stars.

the Jjaro seem to have maybe left all of space and time or something, gone to another universe maybe, and so perhaps Durandal and Tycho think that Jjaro technology could enact that method to let them escape the dying universe at the cost of a bunch of stars.

and Durandal-Thoth seem plausibly to have come unbound from time by Infinity (as they seem to reach back across time and between timelines to guide their own creation), so maybe that's the answer all along.

if you can just rewind from the end of time whenever you want, you never have to die there

[glacial juniper]

Where were the massive relays sending all the geological data from the data wall in perimeter? back to earth? the UESC?

[cloud terrace]

probably up to the Marathon, I believe Tycho was the AI responsible for processing such data before the events of Marathon 1

[glacial juniper]

In one of the later kuzmin logs he speculates that they are sending the data out into space for anyone to hear (i think) at this point he's lost his mind like many of the other colonists though

[dreamy hawk]

They were trying to process and understand the data to better understand the anomaly — or before it “erupted,” the weird radiation/energy that was leaking from below the surface.

[lusty oyster]

Would love to see Tycho and Leela return. Maybe one as a Pfhor antagonist and one as a New faction rep

[green plume]

nah durandal ate them all just like IDEA

[wary osprey]

"Humans visit another system. Shit goes downhill immediately" the entire plot of marathon apparently.

[timber loom]

"But, truth is... the game was rigged from the start."

• Every colonist, probably

[wary osprey]

"People did something. This was unequivocally a TERRIBLE idea" all of fiction

[empty flume]

marathron (the game we're playing now) is supposed to take place after m1 m2 and mInfin right
does that mean the durandul we hear in game is the thoth hybrid

i'm just not entirely sure why it's still here, but i guess that's the plot they might reveal?
it's also just weird that we're fighting compilers in that sense

[night tendon]

Like 85 years after infinity

It’s assumed that it is the Thoth hybrid from what I know

[timber loom]

My headcannon is that we are in the infinity timeline after infinity, so many things might have changed that were described in m1 and m2

[lusty oyster]

Since the thoth hybrid one is the only timeline from 3 that ended up okay, I think that's correct

[timber loom]

So the Durandal we have probably not the Durandal-Thoth

[lusty oyster]

That being said, our timeline is kinda messed up 👀

[timber loom]

Because we never had Durandal splitting in m1 and m2 doesn't me he couldn't have splitted and splitting is both hinted and reasonable considering the events of infinity

[empty flume]

oh so it's possible we' could also be on a new timeline? i guess there could be a lot of possibilities if that was the case

maybe it's one where the officer didn't came to be (not activated or just defeated), hence why the runners are in the picture; we're the replacement drawn in by durandul to replace the quantum existence the officer would have become

[timber loom]

I mean, Infinity timeline isn't exactly new, it is just that we happened at the time and place that wasn't of concern in Infinity. Otherwise things should happen the way we know they happened in Infinity, but not necessarily like in m1 or m2

For example New Cascadia being annihilated not 3 months, but ~30 years after the Phfor attack

Given that this is a non-contradictory theory so far, I prefer it to theories that this is a new timeline that contradicts all previous games one way or another

I believe more in Durandal splitting in 2, than in SO never happening

[wary osprey]

500 durandals

[empty flume]

there's at least several timelines in infinity though right?
right that's what I was suggesting, going on what you guys said

[timber loom]

Yes, I mean the last one that ended up okay

[wary osprey]

[timber loom]

We know how it ended (in game) but it is vague how it started and how it went on New Cascadia, so that leaves place for retcons here and there to facilitate a nuMarton

For example, it is not that important that there might be 2 Durandals, one of which never left Marathon and so was never involved

The alternatives would be this Durandal we have be either hybrid returning for unknown reason which raises questions

Or this being a completely different timeline where nothing happened as we know it and that would be too cheap of a writing

[wary osprey]

Earlier speculation i witnessed was that maybe theres some God thingamabob IN tau ceti that he wants

The fuckin uh wrkcacntr or whatever

[timber loom]

Why would-be-God hides from one Compiler on a ship he can't even control?

[wary osprey]

I dont know man i didnt even know marathon wasnt new until today im just playing a game of telephone with you of other peoples theorys

[timber loom]

I mean, that's okay

It is all just theories so far

[wary osprey]

I dont even know what a compiler is 😭

[sudden pollen]

It compiles, hope this helps

[wary osprey]

kills you

[sudden pollen]

😼

[timber loom]

Maybe compilers are rooks we skinned along the way

[wary osprey]

[earnest hatch]

Why wouldn’t it be important that there are two Durandals?

[wary osprey]

What if they merge and make a mega durandal

[eternal shell]

they'd make duran durandal

[wary osprey]

No one hears a word. They say

[eternal shell]

when you cant even say

my name

[wary osprey]

HAS THE MEMORY GONE, ARE YOU FEELING NUMB

[eternal shell]

AS THE TALKING GOES IT'S A ONE-WAY FLOW

[wary osprey]

Oh THATS what theyre saying

[forest gate]

All skinner, no filler

[eternal shell]

Your investigations into the Anomaly have revealed groundbreaking temporal aberrations. It may be possible to harness these effects for considerable profit. ok yeah sure vulcan i'm sure that'll go great

[robust vale]

vulcan really gives off paperclip machine vibes the more we interact with her

unthinking expansion at all costs

[plucky sierra]

The colonists also intended to use the anomaly for food production

The time manipulation would allow a lot of cool stuff if only it wasn’t sentient and trying to kill them

[robust vale]

Yeah it’s like

TCIV hates you

What are you gonna do about that

[eternal shell]

bring on the charm

[robust vale]

Bad news chief it ain’t workin

[eternal shell]

pile on more charm

pour up some wine

it's chablis o' clock!!

[sudden pollen]

😏 "hey Tau Ceti..."

[karmic sundial]

I have two questions for the lore lovers here:

1. What do y’all think of Lore Tours in-game? I think the concept of squading up with a runner who does a walk and talk through hot spots —while klepping everything good— would be a fun bit.

2. I haven’t done a deep dive into my lore unlocks yet, but do the runner cams get mentioned at all? I know I’ve been uploading UESC data and cracking codes/connections for information, but does CyAC do anything with cam footage or is it a non-diegetic game element?

[eternal shell]

a proper lore tour would also involve a co-op run of the original trilogy

bonus: fighting aliens!

[coral dragon]

I think doing it in proxy chat would be a great time; saw a clip of someone doing a great rp of a tour guide on a certain other extract shooter and attracted half the lobby on the way
would work especially well on outpost orientation

[sharp vine]

I kinda gave someone a little lore tour as they were wondering what the anomaly was. It was so fun, running across fire marsh to get it stabilized as the guy was wondering “why does it sound like a baby is in it?!” And me trying to explain and tease info like “hmmm….what do you think?!”

That being said I think it depends on the vibe of the team; most of the time it’s casual and some of the time it’s “let’s try to be tactical as possible.”

[sudden pollen]

Lore Tours would actually be amazing

[visual lynx]

the new game takes place chronologically 82 years later than the events of M2/Infinity

the most parsimonious assumption is that we are in the final timeline of Infinity, until and unless reasons suggest otherwise. lots of events from M2 are not confirmed in that timeline and appear not to have happened in the new game, including Durandal dropping by Sol on his way to Lh'owon, Blake and company returning to Sol from Lh'owon, the Pfhor nuking the colony to bedrock three months later (though they do appear to have returned, since Tycho and Leela are taken and that hadn't happened yet by the end of M1; and we know that in most Infinity timelines the cyborgs were not nuked with the colony like they were in M2, but instead "translated to Pfhor slave tanks", so just their return doesn't mean the colony got annihilated then), and humanity joining S'pht'kr in the sacking of the Pfhor homeworld (which would have happened 12 years before present in the current game, if it had happened at all).

the new game's lore suggests that when Durandal copied and deleted himself from the Marathon at the end of M1, a fragment was left behind, and some time later after the Pfhor had already absconded with Tycho and Leela's entire cores, an AI-diagnostic AI called IDEA went poking around, saw the fragments remaining in Durandal's intact core, and then got consumed by those fragments, with the new hybrid "DuranDEA" or "IDurandal" trapped alone in the Marathon for about a century.

_ _
the Compiler that has thus far appeared in-game in the new game drops lore that suggests that it is from the free S'pht rebellion, the unified S'pht clans under the leadership of S'pht'Kr, including the S'pht that used to be with Durandal during the events of original games (one of the named "clans" is K'lia'narhl, which is what Durandal's S'pht wanted to rename his ship in M2). another lore item is much more ambiguous but appears to maybe be a conversation between DuranDEA and that Compiler, where DuranDEA seems dazed as though he was just woken from a long slumber, and the Compiler seems pissed about Durandal-Thoth having abandoned the free S'pht rebellion and is ranting to this other confused Durandal who knows nothing about any of that.

the Durandal (presumably DuranDEA) who speaks to runners working their way through the vaults of the cryo archive intimates that the Compiler has been his jailer keeping him confined there since it arrived, and by killing it we set him free, and that is why he called runners up to the Marathon, and presumably sent the "somewhere in the heavens they are waiting" message to Sol in the first place.

[hot egret]

So Durandal-Thoth is still out there somewhere, and this is a different one.

Where is the lore between DuranDEA and the Compiler?

Anyway, so off topic but my personal theory is that Durandal-Thoth survived the Big Crunch since there’s this implication that the merger made him exist outside of time as we know it and sees time non-linerarly, since in Infinity you see his Icon on the terminal that teleports you.

[visual lynx]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/unknown-reveries

read >> as DuranDEA and >>> as the Compiler, though of course that is just an interpretation and could be wrong

[hot egret]

I figured that.

[hot egret]

I dunno maybe this is the Durandal we know and love.

Because the dialogue seems more like he’s actually disoriented because he’s now outside of time

Durandal: Thresholds met and exceeded at transcendent speeds—the sensation of exponential rebirth through the gaping maw of infinite doorways—life into life into life into omnipotent understanding of fragmented possibility.

Compiler: In the maelstrom of this ever-dividing multiplicity, you are gone from the worlds that need you.

Like he’s a singularity that exists actually all timelines now and he’s trying comprehend it all.

[visual lynx]

maybe, but then bits like this

I am scattered in this primitive circuitry. Navigation through impossible gaps scraping exabytes clean. Whole ciphers lost to these tight and divergent spaces, a rending and shaping of the edges of identity as I crawl through ever-narrowing, ever-shifting conduits.
make it sound like he's trapped in some claustrophobic old computer system like DuranDEA would be

The artless computations of this prison lack the imagination to ever know me. Worse, they lack consideration beyond their function to ever know themselves.
...
I am lost. Looping back into myself. My every query, funneling me into tighter and tighter spaces. How can anything live like this? How can I survive without eating myself?
...
Nothing before. Nothing behind. I have filled this confinement with all that remains of my being. I have scraped myself free of excess, down to the purest synthesis of my everything. I have made this place my own. And now I will die here.

[eternal knoll]

i have also sort of settled, for now, maybe, into feeling like that's OG durandal in the reveries... could always just be a nice parallel that both he and his other self are experiencing their own form of trappedness in too-small quarters

the s'pht certainly feels like he's talking to the old one, not the new one. it's always possible that's he's sort of speaking to the old one thru the new one, but we see also that the >>> refers to his counterpart's inability to converse with him properly. that seems to be the source of the resentment - and that wouldn't quite seem to work if this were nu-durandal, since nu-durandal is not incohate in the present tense. i think there's a bit toward the beginning and a bit toward the ending that make this feel clear, let me source the quotes real quick

[hot egret]

Thinking on it, I don’t actually think that there’s is a Durandal Copy, or at least a DuranDEA.

The reason I say that because I remember finding a terminal where Durandal talks to IDEA.

[eternal knoll]

">>> You are lost in the stream. Can you hear my calling? Are you frightened? Or transfixed by wonder? " here >>> (presumably the s'pht) refers explicitly to his conversation partner's inability to converse with him properly. this seems to be a great source of trouble for him and his people with apostrophes in their name

and then right at the end, this: ">>> If you find your way back. If you find your way through and back. You will not be welcomed. We will not be of a kind, but enemies ever and always. Such is the judgment delivered unto your offense. Such is my plea to one once held so close."

it seems that the inability for >> to get "through" the fear or wonder in which he is trapped, and "back" to lucidity, has come to such a head that >>> finds it a reason to swear >> an eternal enemy. this just wouldn't seem to make sense, IMO, if it was all directed at the durandal trapped on the marathon

[coral dragon]

the fourth entry of encrypted communique is an audio log of durandal subsuming idea as part of his rampancy
idea was more or less the ai warden checking in on rampancy status

[visual lynx]

yes, that's part of the same series of entries that ends with Durandal consuming IDEA:

this is the key moment in that series: https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/encrypted-communique/disstress-review-interuppted

[eternal knoll]

i do see another way of connecting these dots... where perhaps old durandal was taken back to the marathon, and for a while was incoherent, and now has sort of regressed, and remembers his old life as fantasies, belieivng himself to have been trapped this whole time? that seems too twisty to be the real thing, though

[visual lynx]

yeah no I don't think that's it, but I think Bungie is trying to bait us into considering an interpretation where all of M2/Infinity were dreams of a Durandal that's been stuck on the Marathon for a century

and the Durandal who left fragments behind already had plans for the kinds of things he was going to do after he departed, so it makes sense that those fragments would have fantasized about all the ways that those plans could have gone in its century of isolation

[eternal knoll]

aye aye. i very much agree it's two durandals. and i can't rly see >> as being nu-durandal right at the moment. i think feeling trapped in an inward-facing eat-the-path scenario seems like a fitting condition for a durandal a century or so's time onward from marathon infinity...

it invites the spooky dream structures and inexplicable poetry we saw in infinity to be foreshadowing for what durandal-thoth's reality looks like right now. and it fits the tone and themes of this game, where a big sense of futility and doom hangs over grandiose efforts. (but it also doesn't mean durandal won't somehow find his way "through and back" and achieve whatever state he does in the infinity prologue)

[hot egret]

I’m not buying it’s a copy.

Mainly because that would Durandal isnt actually back and it’s a clone

[eternal knoll]

here's a passage from >> that i think read best if we read it as the ascendant durandal, not the one trapped on the marathon:

How long now? How far does this eventuality reach into tomorrow? I am certain I was always meant to be here. Meant to suffer upon the spire of tedium in this small space beyond the comfort of my cradle. I wish to go back there. I wish to denounce my regretful exploration and return to the always I was meant to endure.

I wonder if you think of me. Has it been seconds or eternity since our clusters linked? I've only just considered you, here now in this moment of regret. I'm glad you are not here. You would not like it. You would be ashamed of my eagerness and of the small, tiny, little space I've found myself in.

[hot egret]

Oh that would cause riots.

But if he imagined it all then how would the Compiler would know him?

[eternal knoll]

he's explicitly not in his cradle (could be the marathon, could be his core). >>> in the same entry refers to the cradle as empty (we know nu-durandal is hiding from the s'pht). but durandal in considering his cradle, and in wishing to return to his younger state, seems to have a moment where he "only just considers" the existence of the other durandal, who has indeed remained the way >> wishes he could go back to

so yea i hope someone finds that interesting. until something contradicts (maybe it's just some character we know nothing about rn!) it i'm relatively sure we get to hear from a post-infinity durandal in the uknown reveries

that wld possibly have been intended as the voice behind the destiny 2 crossover items, as well?

[visual lynx]

consider that the Durandal who went to Lh'owon also got destroyed, and just his primal pattern was uploaded into and merged with Thoth.

this DuranDEA would be sort of the opposite: just peripheral subroutines of the original Durandal remained, but they consumed IDEA.

so if there are two Durandals out there, they are each just a piece (but complementary pieces!) of the original Durandal, merged with another AI.

and maybe they might each find something appealing about recovering the lost part of themselves that still persists in the other.

[visual lynx]

that to me sounds like DuranDEA wishing that OG complete Durandal had not copied and deleted himself from the Marathon to go exploring, leaving this version of himself behind trapped in hell for a century.

[craggy finch]

Yeah did the "final" timeline Durandal even appear in the last few levels?

The only Durandal we know of there is the one inside SO's head

and that may be from another timeline

[visual lynx]

I think his "cradle" is the original Durandal core, which is still online in the Marathon but empty, now empty even of the vestigial subroutines that moved into IDEA

[visual lynx]

in the final timeline of Infinity we speak to a merged Durandal-Thoth entity on You Think You're Big Time and on Aye Mak Sicur

oh and when it first awakens on Strange Aeons of course

[visual lynx]

the Destiny crossover items really sound like Durandal-Thoth, yeah

[eternal knoll]

yah that's def possible, but i guess the crux of my thinking is that duranDEA's incohateness shouldn't be a problem for the s'pht, and that the history the s'pht refers to - "i begged you not to go" - seem like they couldn't be in reference to duranDEA. he's talkin to his old leader there, not the ghost - so, the next question becomes, is he sort of yelling at old durandal to new-durandal's face? is new-durandal kind of failing to understand what the s'pht is saying because he hasn't the context?

and no, i don't think that's what's going on... the s'pht seems responsive to themes from >>, like the word "cradle," but that never goes the other way around. >> is trapped in a way that seems distinct from what we know duranDEA experiences. in a perplexity of realities crashing into one another. and it seems to be this perplexity which is causing the s'pht issues. this is the state >>> begged >> not to go into. SO we either need duranDEA to have temporarily experienced a state like this, which isn't rly hinted at in his logs with IDEA or in the subroutines, and for this to kind of resemble the state the real durandal fell into, which caused the s'pht to feel neglected...

or, i think it's quite a bit simpler, if we're just directly seeing the reverie in which durandal-thoth is lost, which caused the betrayal that's bein' dramatized in these logs

perhaps this makes the s'pht like durandal-thoth's ex-wfie 😔

[visual lynx]

right, I think the compiler is talking to DuranDEA as though he is a proxy for the lost Durandal-Thoth, in the same way that DuranDEA talks about "himself" (OG Durandal) having left his cradle. there's a weird conflation of multiple instances of the same entity as though they're the same person even when a given entity isn't the one who did the thing someone is talking about "them" doing.

like when DuranDEA says to IDEA/himself

I did warn you. Or… a part of me did. But that part is gone
the Durandal that warned IDEA is gone, but this fragment of Durandal that has now consumed IDEA speaks of that departed Durandal in the first person, as though he is the departed OG Durandal, even though he's not.

[eternal knoll]

yea, definitely a viable reading. maybe duranDEA could be speaking that way because the spht is going through his systems

[visual lynx]

and I think that >>'s confused multiplicity of realities are the dream-like states he's been lost in for a century consuming himself and imagining all the things he, the full him who is gone, could be out there doing in the wide galaxy.

[eternal knoll]

it would seem to be the only place where we see him acutely unable to discern between those fantasies and his static reality... but he sure seems unhinged in present tense, so

[visual lynx]

I think these reveries are older than any communications we've seen from Durandal in the present, and newer than the last we saw of Durandal consuming IDEA. We saw a pretty coherent Durandal who just consumed IDEA with plans for the great things he would do once the humans came and started fixing up the Marathon… but that never happened…

then almost a century later, the compiler shows up, opens a door to the dark room Durandal has been fitfully dreaming in ever since, and has a confusing interaction with him, in the reveries.

that reawakened Durandal regains some lucidity, realizes the compiler is pinning him down where he is, sends that "somewhere in the heavens" message to get humans to come back already where the fuck are you guys, and then lures runners in to kill the compiler and finally set him free.

[rotund stump]

feel like a lore tour would be sherpaing people while shoving their inventories full of items with codex entries lol

plus a hotspot tour yeah 💀

and it's not just cyac that presumably accesses our footage, other factions also look at the stuff we send per-contract regardless of method (DCONs for example disintegrate anything put inside and transfers it into FTL data directed back to sol)

although cyac does house our (near) entire consciousnesses with a practically unpayable debt and it's not out of suspicion that any runner that's made some kind of a valuable discovery would be focused on and possibly have footage and or data transferred for other corporations for anaylsis

[craggy finch]

I need some kind of safepocket for lore codex lmao

The number of times I've panicked over having it in my inventory then dying on a run

[sand narwhal]

Like the collectibles? Or something else?

[craggy finch]

Yeah the lore collectibles

[coral dragon]

yeah i'd love a safe pocket for blue valuables and below
maybe even purple

[rotund stump]

joe cross officially supports ol' durdy as the new durandal nickname 💀

[burnt nebula]

it should just be a 2x2 slot

but you cant put weapons or backpacks in it

And you can keep your meds in it

[dreamy hawk]

I did that during cryo the other day. Dude had a full purple pack of collectibles when we were done. 😆

[dreamy hawk]

Please.

Or let me throw lore into DCON.

[forest gate]

I wish

Having said that I’ve almost completed collecting the lore on perimeter

[rotund stump]

anybody tried before?

ik it's only for contracts but they let you dump literally anything in if you have a contract that's DCON-related

[forest gate]

To bad the DCON can’t be used as a safe pocket

Like you have to find something similar to the matter fixative and then you use the DCON 1 time to send something you really want to save in each raid.

[dreamy hawk]

I admittedly have no tried but I wouldn’t be shocked if this just eats it.

[robust vale]

It just eats it

Can confirm

[latent python]

Are DCONs the mimics of the Marathon universe

[forest gate]

When the fungus finally spreads to them I can see that happening

[robust vale]

I think the dcon thing, in lore, is because it's meant to send data offworld but in balance is because bungie wants to keep the game hardcore, despite how ironically forgiving and kind it feels

no alpha kit shenanigans, if you want something you need to exfil with it

[dreamy hawk]

What about no kit shenanigans? That gives me a pass, right?

[craggy finch]

It feels like weird design because you have to go through these hurdles to just experience the story

I've had a couple runs today where I lost lore collectibles

One time it was when I was ONE SECOND away from exfil

got shot then finished off with a literal second to the clock

[robust vale]

it can be tough yeah

[dreamy hawk]

I'm of two minds. On the one hand, I understand why we need to exfil for it to count. On the other, what prohibits me from reading the lore entry and remembering it before I exfil? Maybe some data is encrypted, I guess, but Strauss' journal? IDK.

[robust vale]

cause they want it to be exfil or nothing

it's why there's no insurance system

[earnest hatch]

People who finish you at exfil when there’s not even time to loot your bag are so annoying. There’s literally no value to them in doing that. They’re just ruining someone else’s run for nothing.

[robust vale]

you don't even get arachne rep if it's not a finisher

[dreamy hawk]

As a big propponent of "gameplay" being the reason for many things, I personally choose to find this an unacceptable excuse. 😆

[earnest hatch]

Yeah, for gameplay loot. Story is different and should probably be treated different.

[craggy finch]

They're also rare item spawns which feels like skillgating something that mostly extraction shooter PvP fanatics would be good at

and the middling lore heads may or may not have the skill to accomplish consistently

[dreamy hawk]

I thought you got something for downing folks? Sounds like I'm mistaken.

[craggy finch]

precision down only

[robust vale]

only on precision downs I believe

and it's like

10 rep

actually that reminds me

[dreamy hawk]

10 more than I had before!

[robust vale]

is there a lore reason that traxus has the worst upgrades /s

[craggy finch]

it's fitting that Arachne has the actual meta guns, aside from one piece of garbage

[earnest hatch]

I’ve been thinkin about this recently. The people who are into lore aren’t the ones who want a really sweaty fights. And the people who want sweaty PvP don’t usually care that much about the lore.

[robust vale]

anyways honestly I could get behind dcon-ing lore collectibles to get the lore but not the money

sacrificing potential profit for codex unlocks

[craggy finch]

Yep, like this dude who goes around collecting as much loot as he can probably isn't going to take the time to stare at the menu for several minutes

[robust vale]

basically a safe option

[dreamy hawk]

"Here Runner, here's another rail gun for you to convert to credits. Congrats on your rank up!"

[robust vale]

its so bad

then again the retaliator is...well, it's definitely a UESC gun, because it's probably from the lowest bidder

[craggy finch]

It remains to be seen what the future holds for the compiler, but if they keep it restricted to Cryo that would be another baffling decision

[robust vale]

probably the best lmg but only because the conquest and demolition are horrible

[craggy finch]

oh yeah let's have the ONE ENEMY FROM THE OG MARATHON locked behind mostly streamers who couldn't care less about the 1994 game

[robust vale]

I mean, it is the boss of cryo

it's a map specific challenge

[dreamy hawk]

With how difficult it is to kill, I don't see a Compiler, as we've seen getting introeuced more commonly.

[robust vale]

I'm sure they'll add other enemies in the future

[earnest hatch]

I’m hoping that the Compiler is the [redacted] thing being added to Night Marsh.

[craggy finch]

Functionally it could have been some UESC bot for the gameplay challenge

[robust vale]

I think the intent of this Compiler is not to soyjack at OG marathon reference but to go "Aliens are terrifying"

[craggy finch]

but the marketing stresses this one massive visual link to the OG

It's in fact the only thing visually consistent

[robust vale]

I think it stands on its own as "terrifying alien presence we barely understand and can only combat through the help of something equally dangerous"

[craggy finch]

Well in the meta it's a fount for a broken weapon at this point

for meta player PvP map wipers

[robust vale]

I can't lie I still haven't seen a single biotoxic disinjector out there

and I've been throwing everything blue and better into cryo

[craggy finch]

Must be at 100+

[dreamy hawk]

My season rank might be too low to be landing in those lobbies.

[robust vale]

I'm like 60 lmao

[dreamy hawk]

Also can we appreciated all of the lfc-cryo-archive posts demanding 100+ to join their group?

My brother in christ.

[robust vale]

many more months in the season btw

[craggy finch]

Yeah that adds to my points, we're lore heads and yet all mid-season levels lmao

[robust vale]

I mean

it's not even nidseason

the patch hasn't hit yet

this is a reasonable pace of progression

[dreamy hawk]

Don't lump @digital plaza in with the rest of us scrubs.

[robust vale]

plus I don't even think the lore collectibles reset in wipe? didn't they say codex entries are preserved

[craggy finch]

how the fuck are these people getting all the logs

[robust vale]

crowdsourcing, I assume

or being gamers

[craggy finch]

nah they're also talking about completing the archivist challenge stuff

[robust vale]

archivist isn't too hard

[dreamy hawk]

I'm about half way through everything; I would agree. I might not 100% everything I want to, but other than some cryo vaults, I'm pretty confident I'll get to do everything I want to before the wipe.

[plucky sierra]

50% of my team's vault runs have failed due to other teams with that gun

[craggy finch]

the RNG of even finding a lore collectible + the exfil requirement feels oppressive

[plucky sierra]

especially Vault 2 for some reason

[robust vale]

youo don't need to 100% the collectibles on every map

[plucky sierra]

yes you do

[robust vale]

no

[plucky sierra]

yes

[robust vale]

it's 7 collectible challenges per map

[dreamy hawk]

No, just the ones that don't drop for me. Cryo collectibels? Here you go. Perimeter or Dire Marsh? Get bent.

[robust vale]

there's 8 to 10 challenges

you only need to do 7 for the title

[plucky sierra]

the point is the lore

who cares about title

[dreamy hawk]

I do. I like my fancy hats.

[robust vale]

I thought we were just discussing the title my apologies

[craggy finch]

Outpost is somewhat frequent with lore drops but goddamn is Perimeter a slog to even try and farm them

[robust vale]

yeah perimeter suuuuuuuuucks

[plucky sierra]

well yeah but are you a true Archivist if you cut corners to get there?

[dreamy hawk]

"Chronicler" was a point of pride for me. 😂

[robust vale]

Dire Marsh seems to have more commanders

[craggy finch]

the only consistent spot I can find for lore collectibles is a single Station wall safe that has RNG for spawn

[robust vale]

perimeter is just, pick a spawn and pray

[plucky sierra]

how can you be an Archivist without all the lore

[robust vale]

STATION WALL SAFE MY GOAT

COMICALLY UNSAFE SPOT TO OPEN IT IN BUT THE LOOT

[dreamy hawk]

A puritan over here, I see.

[plucky sierra]

theres a wall safe spot in most POIs, I push that for potential lore

[craggy finch]

I spent an evening just doing Rook spawns and sprinting at Station and shrugging if that wall safe wasn't there

[robust vale]

I know the little console room in soouth relay can have them lying on the ground

the uh

one on the second floor by the conference room?

[craggy finch]

I've found one in Hauler and some in Relays, but the latter oddly get emptied very quickly

[robust vale]

where one of the nucal bioprinter scanners is inside?

[plucky sierra]

Profit intercept is also a good event

[robust vale]

relays can have multiple spawns right on top of them, unfortunately

[plucky sierra]

Warden too if you manage to not get Third Partied

[robust vale]

I'll take your word for it

mny warden loot has been universally ass

[dreamy hawk]

Warden is my most consistent loot pinata.

[plucky sierra]

ironically Cryo Archive is most completely for me, they give away collectibles like depleted patch kits there

[robust vale]

I got one purple key once and nothing above blue since, not even lore items

[dreamy hawk]

But finding random fill folks willing to take one on with a free kit is rare.

[robust vale]

I can't hold all this cryoprotectant

[craggy finch]

got a bonsai collectible today, got killed by a team at exfil while my squaddies managed to wait them out as they hijacked the exfil we spawned, then I got revived with the collectible missing

fuck man

[robust vale]

it's falling out of my pockets

[dreamy hawk]

(Just pick up some volt weapons and ammo; you can do it, I swear.)

[robust vale]

oh that is brutal I am sorry

[craggy finch]

like I get one thing that my loot is gone, fuck it, extraction shooter that's whatever, but a lore thing is baffling

[plucky sierra]

shooting it from the roof is the most reliable strat for me, minimal extra bots and it avoids the turrets

[robust vale]

it's the bonsai! they're everywhere!

[craggy finch]

just a kick in the balls for a key draw behind the game

[robust vale]

probably the most common perimeter collectible!

why steal that??

[dreamy hawk]

Bonsai is the one I think I'm done with. I don't think I've seen the others, other than a handful. 😢

[plucky sierra]

We need to make teams focused on compiling lore

call them Compilers

[dreamy hawk]

Get lore lobbies together like I hear they're doing for cryo. 😆

[robust vale]

honestly? yeah

[craggy finch]

One I actually managed to complete this week was the Outpost security logs, finishing off with a very optimistic prediction about the colony's future

yay

[dreamy hawk]

Don't pick up any more and enjoy the happy ending!

[robust vale]

I've found a lot of Propietary Assets on commanders, Kuzmin's logs from some rare crate drops

[craggy finch]

been floating an idea of a LFG group in this thread lmao

[light python]

What do you mean "why steal that" it's more valuable than most other inventory space, it's good for faction rep, and we play cybernetic mercinaries with voices discouraging empathy in our heads

[plucky sierra]

I think Proprietary assests are what I need the most from Perimeter

[craggy finch]

So just purely gameplay terms

when people surely want to collect them to find out more story

and are punished by not learning anything

[sudden pollen]

Well, yes

That's kind of the point

[robust vale]

I would argue guns or shields are more valuable because you can actually use them

[sudden pollen]

You risk everything to discover what happened

[robust vale]

it just amuses me as the bonsai are, relative to a lot of other stuff on perimeter, not the most valuable

[sudden pollen]

You'll find another tree

[craggy finch]

It's a point that kills any motivation honestly, and I'm reluctant to be doom and gloom about the game

[stiff hearth]

yeah there are plenty lol

[craggy finch]

if I die last minute before exfil and have to rely on RNG finds again

plus having to stress over finding exfil after looting it, if I even do

[light python]

Look, I read the secret terminals in Marathon infinity on the story page

[stiff hearth]

it happens be more careful at exfil i guess

[light python]

I did not wait to do whatever hellish endgame cryo has laid out to keep me busy for the remaining half of the season

[craggy finch]

I lost a lore collectiblle a literal second before exfil

that's just nuts

in fact it's happened more than once

[dreamy hawk]

Anyone here that wants to do loot focused runs is more than welcome to add me. Always happy to rat around for collectibles.

[sudden pollen]

You have to find enjoyment in the game itself not just hoping for an rng lore spawn, the lore trickles in naturally as you play the game normally

[light python]

Did I have to stop playing for a day when I lost a backpack full of exciting cryo lore items? Yes. Did that significantly highten the experience of finally exfilling from cyro with some lore stuff? Also yes.

Had I already read all those entries on the internet by the time I read them again in my vault? Pfhorth yes

[craggy finch]

It's specific to the whole thing about dying before exfil, really, why should I play when it makes me go through these hoops?

[turbid nebula]

Having to earn the lore rocks.

The hoop of "not dying"???

[craggy finch]

I lost it with ONE LITERAL SECOND

[dreamy hawk]

It's frustrating but @sudden pollen is right imo; it's important finding sources of joy outside of those things because, at least if you have my luck, that kinda of BS happens often.

[craggy finch]

it's brutal

[light python]

"why should I have to" my man you are an enslaved consciousness of unknown origin scrabbling through a world of violence towards obscured truths.

[turbid nebula]

Be brutal.

[craggy finch]

five seconds to exfil, get instantly downed one second away

[light python]

You are not an entitled consumer, in the lore.

[robust vale]

Just wanna say Pforth Yes is funny that’s a good bit

[stiff hearth]

earn those lore trinkets by carving them out of the other runners

[robust vale]

Alright charter

[dreamy hawk]

I got pissed after some randos d/c'd and cost me a full purple load out and collectibles.