📚marathon-lore-discussion

[dense tendon]

as in, i don't know how to interpret how it makes me feel

[pure arrow]

I have a lot of strong opinions on LLMs and I decided to keep them to myself.

[latent python]

Strong positive feelings I'm sure (/s /s /s)

[dense tendon]

mm. i was trying to suggest that, actually. because i understand the vibe, its just not really relevant to this topic.

[burnt nebula]

what if life creates computers and AI and the computers cant actually ever become sentient, and long after life has gone extinct, the computers reach the ultimate conclusion that they must create and nurture life into existence, this biological thing that is completely capable of randomness. computers find no more reason to exist and leave life to evolve. then life invents computers and AI... and the cycle never ends.

[dense tendon]

mass effect's original ending

also i must reiterate that i don't think biological minds can be truly random either.

[pure arrow]

That’s why I axed my post, irrelevant to the topic and potentially inflammatory. Not the kind of thing I want to chuck in here.

[dense tendon]

mhm. tbh, that's admirable.

[pure arrow]

I’m not here to fight. lol

[burnt nebula]

humans are totally susceptible to suggestion. but then, its another random entity that is doing the suggesting so we can go round in circles with that

[dense tendon]

except i think you're drawing the line too high

as in, i don't think theres really a distinction between any choice we make and any information we perceive

decision making works by taking stock of the situation, deciding what you want to have happen, and acting to bring that change about.

every decision.

[burnt nebula]

and you're also limited by circumstance

[dreamy hawk]

Our resident philosopher would have loved this discussion I’m sure.

[dense tendon]

by every mind, everywhere. you, my cat, me, a random slug in thailand, etc

[pure arrow]

Behold. A runner.

[dense tendon]

there is this infinite web of cosmic cause and effect radiating towards every single moment in time, and its consequences similarly radiate to every moment after.

[eternal shell]

oh no, did he get automodded again

[dense tendon]

what we call chance is just our inability to perceive this causal pattern in any meaningful way.

[dreamy hawk]

Not that I’m aware; I think he’s just busy touching grass unlike the rest of us.

[burnt nebula]

im about to order pizza. the universe has conspired to make every ingredient in that pizza come together, for me to eat it, in that very moment

[eternal shell]

unbelievable!

[dreamy hawk]

Your gut microbiome played a significant part in this decision, fun fact.

[eternal shell]

that's going on my phones background

[dreamy hawk]

We’ve found that gut flora have a signaling pathway to the brain.

[dense tendon]

its an important distinction to restate that this doesn't preclude free will. you chose to get that pizza, because you were hungry, because your metabolism is set to that cycle because of the life choices you've made influenced by the upbringing and experiences you've had your entire life.

but you could have chosen any food.

you just wanted pizza.

your birth happening the minute it did is part of the reason you got pizza today.

[latent python]

Goddamn philosophers, touching grass

[dense tendon]

but its not the only reason, and we cannot even imagine every reason.

that uncertainty is where free will resides.

[dreamy hawk]

Nawh. I did. I imagined it all.

[dense tendon]

oh shid fr

[dreamy hawk]

cant touch this

[dense tendon]

touches this

you lied to me

[dreamy hawk]

HR would like a word.

[dense tendon]

thats entrapment

[dreamy hawk]

If it’s good enough for the police it’s good enough for me.

[latent python]

And, again, if you grew up being told that God knew everything that was going to happen and it was all predestined, you are already going to be well familiar with this path

[dense tendon]

me when i run traffic lights

[latent python]

Oh it's the universe that did the predestining? Sure, okay

[pure arrow]

I’m at work but my heart is on Tau Ceti IV.

[dense tendon]

i mean to be fair i don't see much point in raising a distinction between what i see as Destiny (the infinite causal web we think is chance) and what those people would call God.

[dreamy hawk]

Some interesting implications for crime, justice, and rehabilitation. Are people culpable for their decisions if they were ordained to happen? Fun questions to ponder but they’re way too far outside the scope of this channel and I’m not going to get inevitably banned when that conversation goes sideways.

[dense tendon]

if it helps them understand what i'm saying, then by all means. interpret it through that lens.

[burnt nebula]

i need to watch project hail mary, apparently has something to do with tau ceti

[latent python]

What about the difference between God and Destiny 2

[plucky sierra]

It is really good

[dense tendon]

thats why free will being real is the important sticking point, for me. because what i'm saying isnt that the decisions were ordained to happen, the situations that prompted them were. your options are based on how effectively you have processed the situation, which is also shaped by how your actions have affected the outcome of previous decisions.

you always have the choice to refuse evil.

[pure arrow]

I escaped Destiny 2, therefore I am God…….. 2.

[dense tendon]

it may not be one that's particularly appealing, but it is THERE.

[dreamy hawk]

I point you towards the research on Adverse Childhood Expeirences (ACE) for fun reading; see how those add in to your mental model.

[dense tendon]

so like, an ex post facto sequel that sort of jus muddled half of itself away? Pretty sure that God only talked to Joseph Smith.

[latent python]

A sequel that made people so angry that they won't play Marathon

[plucky sierra]

Destiny 2 eventually stopped vaulting content, good luck trying to go back and play some of the older Life seasons or expansions

[dense tendon]

see that jokes especially fitting cuz as much as i find it funny to talk shit about Mormons, i actually have no strong feelings about the faith itself as its practiced today, and most Mormon's i've met have been pretty chill. like how i find it funny to talk shit about D2 but i enjoyed my time there.

[eternal shell]

old testament vaulted a bunch of stuff too. open a random page and try to do any of that without getting arrested.

[latent python]

Mormons showing up in scifi is one of my favorite things, shout-out to the Nauvoo

[dreamy hawk]

Automatic 10/10 for any Expanse references.

[dense tendon]

excuse you, I am an american citizen. It is my constitutional right to re-enact 2 Kings 2:23-24.

that verse is protected under the 2nd amendment.

[plucky sierra]

Current new player experience is pretty horrible, they really gotta tweak the tutorial and onboarding experience

[plucky sierra]

amazing reference

[dense tendon]

its one of my favorite bible jokes to make

[pure arrow]

This says The Bibble.

[dense tendon]

also this seems to track with my thoughts. because there is both the effect of nurture vs nature on display here, but also the fact that people who don't experience such events also can develop ill adjustment in their adulthood. and those that have had them are not guaranteed to be incapable of surpassing that trauma.

your childhood shapes your adulthood, but the only one who makes your fate is you.

[dense tendon]

i wouldnt question the words of the mighty jimmy so loudly, friend

[pure arrow]

This is what I am calling Orion from now on.

[dense tendon]

that tracks

[lean swan]

So.... is the missariah the brand of the shotgun? If so is halos missariah armory responsable for there production or is that a sily nod to halo. My guess is its a nod

[eternal shell]

it's a nod, and so is the traxus logo on the containers

[lunar cove]

They're not in the same universe there's just some stuff that always shows up

George Lucas style, "it's like poetry, it rhymes"

[bold folio]

Like the Marathon logo

[visual lynx]

Missriah and Traxus are originally from the OG Marathon, and Halo's use of those names is a nod to that.

[latent python]

Pfhorrest! You're back!

Tell us about free will, please

[torpid briar]

Halo was just Great Value Marathon in the beginning

[dusky nymph]

Misriah is a location of a massacre on Mars iirc

[latent python]

And then they named a shotgun after it

[eternal shell]

it's been a few hundred years, they probably named a lot of things after it

[latent python]

I still think it's weird branding but I accept it

Oh you're back to green

[eternal shell]

sliiiide to the left

[latent python]

Like, I don't know of any corporations that would name one of their guns after "the xx massacre" but maybe MIDA got to this one before they could veto it

[torpid briar]

I’m sure theres probably an example of it in history tbh. Maybe not the same thing, but a similar idea

[latent python]

The closest I could think of was the Alamo

[eternal shell]

i imagine the uesc isnt too keen about teaching people about the misriah massacre in schools

a lot of people might not know about it

mida psyop: get the corpos to name this model that

[latent python]

The other option is that Misriah is an important enough city that it's named after the place and not the massacre

Like, if you named something after Boston you wouldn't immediately assume it's because of the Boston Massacre

But at this point I believe I am well past the point of overthinking the Misriah shotgun

[dense tendon]

the Armsel Striker, a shotgun designed for the express purpose of maximizing lethality against crowds, aka "riot control," had the delightfully charming name of the SWD Streetsweeper when Cobray Arms took the Zimbabwean/Rhodesian/South African design to market in the United States.

[latent python]

Jesus Christ

[dense tendon]

theres precedent, is the point.

[latent python]

Why does Rhodesia only come up with the worst ideas

*did

[dense tendon]

technically Hilton R Walker, the guy who made it, was Zimbabwean, before he moved to Rhodesia, failed to sell it there, and finally found a market in South Africa

[torpid briar]

Damn, i knew there had to be something

[latent python]

Like every time Rhodesia comes up it's tied to the dumbest, meanest people on earth

[lunar cove]

I mean there's other similar guns like that

[dense tendon]

this particular ballistic atrocity is Pan-African.

...i want that on a t shirt lmao

[lunar cove]

the Enfield rifle from the world wars is named after Enfield, the place it was produced

in other city terms it'd be like idk, a gun from New York called the Bronx

[dense tendon]

i do think its important to note that Walker failed to tie this to Rhodesia

they didnt want it

[latent python]

Failure is also very Rhodesian

[dense tendon]

what that means is up to the individual but this one isnt on Rhodesia

also lmao

also fun fact, all versions and derivatives of the Armsel Striker are considered the same class of weaponry as a grenade launcher in the United States. a "Destructive Device."
which is burying the lede a bit because most shotguns actually fall under that classification.

[eternal shell]

destructive device - see, you can load it with buckshot!

[dense tendon]

or, wait no actually i misremembered

Most shotguns would fall under Destructive Device classification. But there is a specific clause exempting "shotguns that can be considered reasonable for hunting"

the Striker does not fit this exemption.

[latent python]

Because it's obviously for hunting people?

[dense tendon]

the name Cobray gave it certainly didn't help.

[latent python]

Or Streetsweeper

Oh you meant that

Not "cobray"

Which is...cobra+y?

[dense tendon]

oh also, do note, the Striker is not really that extreme. its design is mostly leveraging cheap rotary drum magazines for extended capacity. its 12 gauge, a rather normal shotgun, it jus holds a lot of rounds.
no, if you want a true boomstick, youre looking at the former Soviet Union's KS-23. Also a riot shotgun. This one is a pump action, and somehow that doesnt help its case.
Ysee, the KS-23 has a barrel made from quality control rejected anti aircraft guns. They work fine for smaller rounds than the 23x115mm rounds those barrels were made for, but theyd fail at their intended use. So, they chose a very reasonable round for this riot suppression tool issued to prison guards in the

23x75mmR shell (6-gauge, twice as big pellets as 12-gauge)

[latent python]

Ha ha no thanks

There aren't any rotary drums for Marathon shotguns yet, are there?

You can get the little baby drum mags for ARs and some SMGs

[dense tendon]

well unfortunately you probably dont even get the offer. the civilian model, a smoothbore variant known as the TOZ-123, was banned for American import during the Clinton years, and they don't sell other variants to civilians.

so unless you live in like hergyveznystan, you're saying no thanks to dinner with a billionaire you find unattractive.

[pure arrow]

Bungie is the most self-referential company in the world.

They love to reference their own lore.

[dense tendon]

they be on their own bullshit its great

[latent python]

Which works great when they're reviving a 30 year old game

[pure arrow]

Oh yeah this is not a criticism.

[dense tendon]

yeyeye, im agreeing

[pure arrow]

It's definitely getting me with the "I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!!!!!!" soyface pointing because I'm an ooooold Bungie fan.

[latent python]

Except now it can be "I know what that is" and it's just the same universe

[dense tendon]

yknow when a toddler tells you about their dream and you listen cuz its polite but you jus kinda get sucked in by how much theyre enjoying the story their mind told em last night?

its similar.

[pure arrow]

Reading Durandal's mad rambling and going "Uh huh, yeah bud?"

[dense tendon]

except you can also hear how the dream was rad af

[pure arrow]

Yeah, it's a lot like that.

[dreamy hawk]

And what did I walk into? 🤔 No disagreements, for the record.

[dense tendon]

mostly i was talkin about guns that exist that most would consider excessive.

[dreamy hawk]

Mini nuke launcher.

[pure arrow]

The Davey Crockett, yeah.

[dense tendon]

also real!

yep!

[dreamy hawk]

The Cold War was a fun time.

Sprinkle a little radiation on your crops, too. Amazing stuff.

[dense tendon]

its what plants crave

[pure arrow]

NuCaloric Number 97: Brawndo the Thirst Mutilator

[dreamy hawk]

I prefer the stuff in toilets myself.

[torpid briar]

Does NuCal have anything urinal cake flavoured? Asking for a friend

[dreamy hawk]

But which one of us is the unfit mother? That’s the real question.

[pure arrow]

NuCaloric Number 4: Water

[dreamy hawk]

Begs the question what 1-3 are.

[robust vale]

No but I’m sure there’s urine in a product somewhere

[pure arrow]

NuCaloric Number 1:

grain™

“It’s grain™.”

NuCaloric Number 2:
“meat”

“Tastes like meat. Isn’t.”

[unreal slate]

[pure arrow]

Thank you.

[drifting garnet]

…oh fuck it just occurred to me: Vulcan/Traxus know about the time-shit from the Anomaly, and they’re this confident that they can reproduce/harness/commdify/weaponize it. Why would they think they could do it? Unless if they have proof it’s worked before.

Do they know about SO’s timeline-hopping shenanigans from Infinity???

And that their endgame is to create, say…a whole battalion of timeline-hopping soldiers?

[earnest hatch]

I think it’s obvious that Traxus know about the time dilation with the anomaly. They probably want to use it the same way the colonists did. Speed up certain production.

[drifting garnet]

Oh sure: meeting production quotas suddenly becomes trivially easy if you can actually speed up what would normally take months to days or even hours.

[dense tendon]

so thats the movie Sliders. which is both famous for its scene of the guy's head exploding, and a sort of cautionary tale about how you can't control that sort of person, they made god, they're trying to give orders to the God they made, why did they think this would be a good idea

then you also have the movie version of Twelve Monkies, which is also like, "yeah giving time travel to regular dudes is a terrible idea no matter how you slice it"

the show is also that but its entirely different in what its actually about

note, this lines up with what we've seen the anomaly do to random guys. like the dude who experienced popcorn.

anomaly = bad, this is a very good way of doing that

[drifting garnet]

Traxus of the factions is the most Weyland-Yutani-coded, so it wouldn’t surprise me they’re very “nah those other guys were losers, we’re built different!!!”

[dense tendon]

yeah

Traxus. Because it can't possibly happen a third time.

which is a marked difference from SekGen's policy.

Sekiguchi. Those lawsuits were dismissed.

then theres MIDA, which is just

[EXPLETIVE EXPUNGED]

that was an entire manifesto

[drifting garnet]

I’m sure Gantry’s using every ounce of his willpower not to recite it verbatim every time he gives us the next Contract

[dense tendon]

but yeah i think Traxus presents as this like, "we are totally more competent than anyone else," which really interestingly contrasts with SekGen's stance of "what are you going to do about it"

SekGen doesn't have to prove their superiority, or their competence, or even their profitability. they don't care. they are making production. nothing else matters.

like the jurassic park line. so preoccupied with whether they could, they never stopped to consider if they should.

meanwhile, i don't think Weyland-Yutani is quite specific enough for the character Traxus puts off.

its specifically David, in Prometheus.

[drifting garnet]

Oh?

[dense tendon]

this self assured, dogmatic, even keeled sociopath, demanding more efficiency, more output, more innovation, numbers go up, so much so that he has marched up to what he believes to be capital G God, and demanded a performance report from it.

which is to say, i think that SekGen and Traxus are very similar, but focus their attention on opposite aspects of being a tech corporation.

Traxus is focused on selling. SekGen is focused on making.

[dense tendon]

in this metaphor, the Engineer is the Anomaly, btw.

clearly something not to be f*cked with, and yet, Traxus can't look at it without cartoon dollar signs in their eyes.

[drifting garnet]

🤔 🤔 🤔

[dense tendon]

it doesn't even make sense, either. what could possibly be done with this?

[drifting garnet]

Huh! Interesting to consider. (Hasn’t seen Prometheus)

[dense tendon]

oh, thats kind of a spoiler, then.

sorry

although its a near fifteen year old movie at this point. i'm not that sorry.

[drifting garnet]

SekGen in terms of an IRL corp reminds me of…Apple. Yes they’re in it for the money, but there’s a sense of “we’re not just selling a product, we’re selling Art that only we can provide!”

Especially with what we know about SekGen and how much more…extra they come off as compared to the other factions

[drifting garnet]

Nah, no worries, lol

[dense tendon]

in that case, David is the butler android that the Weyland exec, who i think might be Peter Weyland? brought with him to the site of the events of Prometheus. and in interest of serving his boss' interests, he sort of directly causes the entire rest of the Alien franchise with his own inhumanity.

[drifting garnet]

Right, I recall hearing about that

[dense tendon]

Prometheus happens before Weyland merges with Yutani.

[drifting garnet]

…also how Weird in execution Prometheus is in how it tries to be both a prequel to Alien and also its own thing

[dense tendon]

anyway, yeah, imagine the boss from Office Space, and now make him work at a Biochemical manufacturer shortly before he pivots it to CBRN weapons development.

thats David, and by extension, Traxus.

yeah i guess jus imagine bill lumbergh taking over the job of Oswald Spencer at umbrella corp

...this is a terrible sentence i've constructed.

[drifting garnet]

Hell of a mental image

[dense tendon]

I don't think theres much difference between Umbrella and Traxus in what they would do if they found the Progenitor Virus, anyway.

like i imagine the methodology that leads to the Tyrant would be exactly the same, with exactly the same outcome.

which is to say i don't think Traxus has any self control or oversight of any kind, and the disruption of their forward momentum posed by the Anomaly is going to be a very interesting hurdle to watch them navigate.

since, yknow, we can't be affected by it. but for those on TCIV, and elsewhere in that world, oh dear.

[drifting garnet]

Oh shit that’s right on the other thing to consider:

“Well we’re sitting comfy in our servers on Earth, so no harm no foul to consider anything going Terribly Wrong on TCIV that’s light years away, right? Right?”

[dense tendon]

Tau Ceti Pfhor is quite far away, yes.

[drifting garnet]

“…yeah uh, remind me again how much shit I sent you through DCONs?”

[dense tendon]

i assure you that is not spelled in any way to relate to any extant FTL-capable alien warfleet with even less regard for galactic metaphysical integrity than humanity, no sir.

even if it was, they couldn't be the only people in space, right? there's no way we're alone in that s'phit.

hrm.

this may have been a bad idea.

[drifting garnet]

And you know: the Runner is not SecOfficer. So no Quantum-Lu Archetypal Hero to save your ass from your mistakes.

[high crater]

Oh cool I don't know why but NuCaloric always seemed like Mac or some food chain to me.

[drifting garnet]

barring it turning out the Heroic Soul did reincarnate into the Runner but you know: it takes three of them to take down a Compiler while for SO they’re a minor annoyance

[pure arrow]

NuCaloric is interested in philanthropy and ensuring everyone has access to affordable consumer goods and food... but also very interested in making damn sure those affordable products are NuCaloric brand.

It's like if the dude in charge of Costco was in charge of Amazon and Monsanto at the same time.

[visual lynx]

canonically nucal is a conglomerate of a few hundred preexisting companies so it very well might be Costco + Amazon + Monsanto + Walmart + McDonalds + etc

[dense tendon]

i don't really think you can call NuCal's seeming monopoly on edible nutrition "philanthropy" even if they set their prices to be as reasonable as possible. as ONI says, they've "weathered controversies that toppled nations." that doesn't sound like they have a very great public image, to me. more like they simply have assimilated all options, and all roads lead to NuCal.

[analog crow]

Does Marathon (even for the classic games) have a dedicated Ishtar Collective counterpart website where I can read all lore entries?

[dense tendon]

sort of. theres several for the OG trilogy, and one for the new one.

[analog crow]

I also assume there may be a few plotholes and retcons especially with Infinity exploring alternate timelines so the community might not want to combine the 2 continuities yet?

also which are they

[dense tendon]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems for the new games, and i guess like, https://www.lhowon.org/level/marathon has maps with links to terminals by map for each of the three.

[pure arrow]

I was being just a little sarcastic with that word choice.

[dense tendon]

and no, aside from one rather loud troll (🦊) who whines in here a lot about how much he hasn't felt happiness since 1999, they're pretty consistent.

they don't really have plot holes so much as like, there is an entire missing segment of the history we can't account for yet. thats the core mystery. what happened here, to lead to this.

[echo kettle]

Has anyone else found the masterchief helmet yet?

[dense tendon]

so i guess if you're really bad faith you could call it a plot hole as in there is a hole to do with the plot but thats due to it currently being a mystery story

im sorry the

what

[dense tendon]

explain these words they mystify me

[analog crow]

Scuse moi?!

[sudden pollen]

Fox is oddly persistent, I wonder what he gets out of it besides tiny amounts of attention 😭

[dense tendon]

to be honest he's kind of amusing, and he's a good sport about the banter, so i don't mind him.

[analog crow]

bruh my uni wifi is blocking the former i had to use my mobile

[dense tendon]

i respect a guy who's upfront about comin in here specifically to be a dick, who doesn't mind taking return fire for that endeavor.

thats honesty, in my book.

[sudden pollen]

Guess so

[dense tendon]

also damn, this gamer goin to school in australia or somethin

only place i can think of that'd be dealin with uni wi-fi rn

[analog crow]

i sleep at 1

[dense tendon]

....that's actually worse, tbh. you have school tomorrow, gamer, go sleep. and also get a vpn, you won't have to worry about it.

[analog crow]

i'm in a coop school on the job this term

[dense tendon]

listen i may be an arachne murder cultist but i'll tell you one thing many skins i've taken have in common, and that's poor sleep hygiene.

[analog crow]

and even then i do that time regularly

and i'm fine

[pure arrow]

Like for chickens…?

[dense tendon]

they couldnt escape cuz they was tired, cuz of the lack of sleep.

therefore, your best bet is go sleep

im mostly jus makin that joke tbh

[analog crow]

that's actually kinda legit

[dense tendon]

the actual advice i'm giving is the VPN thing, you get a good one and set it up right you can jus tunnel out of network sandboxes. like, yknow how airplanes and buses make you pay for wi-fi? cuz they redirect any connection to a pay for access page? kind of illegal, that. and its completely legal to counteract that with a VPN.

i would also recommend not even TRYING to look for a free one. these are network security tools. a free lock is a free key, yknow?

that is my wisdom for the night as i must sleep and dream about the sacred thermodynamics of violence

gnite yall

[sudden pollen]

honk mimimimimi

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1364289254045515886/1489904047078248448/mogged.gif

[dense tendon]

more of a honk shoot kind of guy meself

[visual lynx]

there's several for the new one too

[visual lynx]

if we take the most parsimonious assumption that the new game picks up where we last left off, in the final timeline of Infinity, nothing is contradictory so far (besides the ship looking completely different)

[visual lynx]

coop, not coop

[analog crow]

tbf it got redesigned even for numarathon's dev cycle and imo looks cooler

[analog crow]

co-op

required, semesterlong internship most years

[forest gate]

how we doing fellow kids?

[final oxide]

I still wanna do a Marathon ASMR/VA project, but narrowing down the who/why/where is… tricky. Do I do a Runner, a Colonist……just 15 minutes of UESC boops and barks? lol

[sudden pollen]

Map ambience

I've seen a few pop up for Marsh & Outpost, there's a shocking level of detail that you usually never hear in normap gameplay

For voices, could do something with colonists

[final oxide]

Oh yeah, background ambience goes without saying, but I like a little story/plot with my relaxing lol

[sudden pollen]

Ah gotcha

[final oxide]

I thought about maybe doing an audio from the PoV of a UESC officer during the first set of thawings on the Marathon

…Do we know if the Compiler was somehow picked up on the trip or if Big Red was a recent passenger?

[visual lynx]

in general, Compilers definitely didn't arrive anywhere near Tau Ceti until 2794, decades after the Marathon parked there.

this particular Compiler in particular appears to have come from some time later than 2811.

[final oxide]

Mmmkay, so a passenger coming out of Cryo rambling about the “Crimson Angel” wouldnt work lol

[visual lynx]

nope

[final oxide]

Scribbles out that idea. We never even saw Tau Ceti in the original trilogy, did we?

[visual lynx]

there was a sprite representing it that you could see from the Marathon on some levels

oh wait no I think I'm thinking of a sprite of Lh'owon or one of its moons from M2
-# actually it appears not even that, but rather something from Infinity

[final oxide]

But not on foot like we have now, so it’s hard to gauge the numbers of alien invaders actually seen by the Colonists.. hmm.

[visual lynx]

right, though we know that nine Mjolnir cyborgs repelled the invasion on the colony

[final oxide]

Which, IF we’re running on the same timeline, New Cascadia looks pretty good for being invaded.

[eternal knoll]

i'd maybe consult the archival PSAs boxer, they represent a sense of what a colonist was supposed to consider normal... though the average joe probably has some amount of unease or cynicism

it does make it sound a bit like the colonists aren't meant to know too much about what happened on the ship... at least not at first? but they'd all have seen something bad happen in the sky, per the cinematic. i'm sure word of the pfhor spread? some colonists probably saw them?

it's possible the invasion put a stop to people being awoken from cryo

[final oxide]

Or mucked with systems used to preserve people, we’ve all seen the piles of cryo-coffins

[dim umbra]

Checking the lore of the original Marathon trilogy, I have no idea how Durandal returned to the Marathon after nearly a century after those aliens attacked the ship and the colony.

[final oxide]

You mean to meet us now?

[eternal knoll]

what appears to be hinted is that we're dealing with sort of a ghost of durandal. something he left behind possibly by accident and which re-formed a version of his juvenile personality, and has been trapped on the ship

[dim umbra]

Nah I think it actually IS the original Durandal.

[sudden pollen]

I'm the og durandal

[final oxide]

Still don’t trust that cat lol

[dim umbra]

Bingus/Kali?

[final oxide]

Ye. We know the Felini are AI-compatible from Joy being connected to them.

I’ll put ten bucks on Durandal using them as mobile eyes and ears.

[dim umbra]

Felini? Sorry, I haven't seen that kind of lore yet.

[final oxide]

The actual name for the cats, sorry lol

They’re called Felini units.

[dim umbra]

Are they cats in shells like us Runners?

[final oxide]

Nah, they’re originally just a robotic pet built to keep the colonists company besides their fellow man.

What is their purpose NOW and why are they following the Runners? No idea.

[eternal knoll]

perhaps one of the colony ai has gone full cat

[final oxide]

Reject intelligence, return to floof.

[dim umbra]

About MIDA, I remember they rebelled on Mars and held on to it for three months.

[sudden pollen]

Waittt actual genius theory

😨

[final oxide]

There’s an audio log that secured the theory for me?

[sudden pollen]

Oh?

[final oxide]

A colonist saw a stray Felini unit walking down a corridor on Dire Marsh and wherever it went? …Doors opened.

[sudden pollen]

What the fuckkk

Creepy

"Doors and corners kid..."

"That's where they get ya."

[final oxide]

No signal in the system that told them to open, it just happened, and they closed again once the cat was gone.

[visual lynx]

I expect that almost anybody who saw the Pfhor was abducted by the Pfhor when they returned in October, though clearly some witnesses survived to be silenced by the remaining UESC forces, but for that to even be feasible there can't have been that many witnesses. I suspect that the invasion knocked the colony's numbers almost down to nothing, but then they started defrosting new sleepers and repopulating.

[final oxide]

And we all know Durandal’s original purpose lol

[sudden pollen]

Man the lore in this game goes so deep it's absurd

[dim umbra]

I heard those drinkable cheeseburgers NuCaloric made once drove some colonist insane.

[final oxide]

So I say again… I dont trust the cats. xD

[visual lynx]

I think that Ghost Cat is actually a skeleton key used to open doors in a way that bypasses Durandal, because back in the pre-launch days there was an incident where MIDA operatives got aboard the Marathon somehow and Durandal swears up and down that there is no record of any unauthorized airlock activations at the time they must have boarded.

[final oxide]

Oh those things are hella toxic.

[final oxide]

….Huh… it explains why the system never registered the doors as opened. It was to keep MIDA’s smuggling under wraps!

Oh MIDA, you clever bastards xD

[sudden pollen]

Huh interesting

[dim umbra]

Anyone on how those NuCaloric burger drinks drive you mad?

[final oxide]

There’s a log on a guy who had 600 of them? lol

[dim umbra]

Yeah, THAT.

Eventually he died from eating too much from them.

[final oxide]

I don’t distrust NuCal…but I ain’t eating their slop either.

Alive does not equal healthy or sane.

[dim umbra]

NuCaloric, I love you guys, but don't put crap in your drinkable cheeseburgers.

[sudden pollen]

These ones legit made me uncomfortable 💀

[final oxide]

I love food, I really do, but if you’re going to make a beef-protein smoothie or just give me the required nutrients to live in a pill?

I’m taking the pill lol

[dim umbra]

Especially if it's stuff that kills you and slowly drives you insane.

[visual lynx]

look just because your liquid burger contains a bit of psilocybin or post-consumer protein doesn't mean that it's bad for you. microdosing of psilocybin is therapeutically useful for anxiety and depression relief and general increased neuroplasticity, and who's against recycling?

[final oxide]

If I can’t pronounce it, I ain’t eating it.

And my wheat crops aren’t meant to have a BAR CODE on them, NuCal xD

[dim umbra]

At least Gaius is kinda honest.

[sudden pollen]

[final oxide]

On the topic of solving the Colony mystery at least, yeah, I think Gaius is being up-front with us.

[visual lynx]

-# if I was too subtle… recycled or post-consumer protein means food that's … already been eaten once before

[final oxide]

Gaius, Vulcan and Charter. The honest side of the Factions lol

[dim umbra]

Yup, that's Gaius.

[dim umbra]

Is anyone aware that frickin' aliens wiped out the colony?

[eternal knoll]

they're not being very up-front if they've figured it out, but they presumably have access to the same intel we do

oni is arguably hinting about it with the files she chooses to show us. but even she doesn't come out and say it

[dim umbra]

ONI is trustworthy, but she needs to come clean eventually.

ALSO Nona wants to turn us Runners into a new type of battleroid.

[final oxide]

“Trustworthy” only goes so far with CYAC. They own our souls, so we kinda have to believe them lol

But there’s also a Runner whose memories of his wife got deleted by ONI due to not being relevant data.

[dim umbra]

Is there any other person who ONI hasn't fricked over?

[final oxide]

I mean… she’s been helpful to us so long as we cooperate lol

[dim umbra]

A'ight imma sleep.

[visual lynx]

sleep is for the week

[dense tendon]

which is why i woke up so early

since its tuesday, and all

[burnt nebula]

i'll sleep when i'm dead

[eternal shell]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-l77uJi7HU this song is for you three

[dreamy hawk]

Morning friendos.

[carmine phoenix]

Ope which codex entry is this one

[final oxide]

Not at a PC atm, but I’ll go digging once I am lol

[pure arrow]

I bet Runner culture is really weird when they’re in spaces where “shoot on sight” isn’t the rule.

Meeting someone you killed four times this week in a social setting is probably awkward.

[plucky sierra]

I don’t know, they could be more like friendly rivalries

Except towards the runners who camp with assassin shells

[sage lark]

Hey man you put me in even more crippling debt haha, crazy shot tho, see you planetside

[pure arrow]

I’ll get you next time!
finger guns

[pure arrow]

“I’ll fucking kill you!”
“Get in line, buddy.”

[acoustic comet]

I kind of wish we could see what Ordinary People are doing in the marathon universe

Like technically we are playing as an ordinary person but we're just like disembodied but I mean like people who aren't disabilities

[carmine phoenix]

Are there runner uncs that trap each other with water cooler talk “Damn Greg, you really got me good this Tuesday, you got moxie kid”

[lean swan]

So if runners are just machines with a conchousnes uploaded to them why do they bleed blue? Why not black? The collor of oil.

[pure arrow]

They’re human minds in a computer that gets put in a biomechanical body called a Shell, which has blue “blood.”

[lean swan]

Yea why not black blood. Lol. Oil.... machine... black

Idk imo it dont make since to me

[robust vale]

Cause it’s not a machine, it’s biomechanical, they’ve got more systems in there than most of the bots we’ve see

Seen

[pure arrow]

Yeah. It’s synthetic biological components.

They even have to eat and drink IIRC?

[robust vale]

It can’t just be a robot because you can’t fit a human mind in there and have it work, Shells work because they have enough verisimilitude to the human form that the mind can fit inside

And the human mind still fights better than robots, especially as runners, that can learn infinitely better due to the constant coming back part

[robust vale]

I don’t recall but I know they do have digestive systems, proper nervous systems, and immune systems

[sudden pollen]

Nah I like that there aren't any actual humans in game it hugely adds to the theme imo

[acoustic comet]

Ehh I respectfully disagree, I think it would be pretty cool to see some actual people in this universe I mean since they actually exist. It's not like the human race goes extinct

[sudden pollen]

If it's done well I agree, I did like seeing the couple of colonists in the Mielgo Cinematic

(Reminds me I need to watch that again because god it's just incredible)

[unreal slate]

"I'll kill you.". Yeah right, buddy. That's what my doctor said drinkable cheeseburgers would do.

Oops wrong chat

[latent python]

The "ordinary people" are absolutely not on Tau Ceti

[magic musk]

There are humans on tau ceti during the games reveal trailer but they're all presumably dead because of everything we see in that trailer lmao

I went back just now and I didn't realize there's actually dates for like every incident in that trailer which is kind of scary lol

The biohazard on tau ceti has been there for like 80 years and the anomaly has been there for like 60 years

[latent python]

Though it's possible the fungus returned to normal after the humans were gone

[pure arrow]

That’s what I think happened.

[dusky nymph]

I feel bad for the anchorite rations dude just stuck alone on a planet eating bugs and being haunted by an alien

[pure arrow]

Whatever is there seems to be anti-sapient.

[robust vale]

the fungus does seem to be less oppressive

the fact a lot of buildings are intact, especially at the algae ponds, does raise questions

yknow actually come to think of it why did the ticks evolve acid to deal with us so quickly but the colonists seemingly had them under control for a bit

TCIV was against them from the start, that much seems to be known, but what accelerated the change? or was it simply still on guard from the colony

[earnest hatch]

Was TCIV against them from the start? I thought it was a slow change that escalated after the attack on the colony.

[pure arrow]

There’s still power in most of the buildings…

[robust vale]

I think they were dealing with problems before the attack such as sustenance issues, primarily the worms in the ponds, tick infestations, and I think the storms?

The contagion was post attack I know that much

But if I’m remembering they were having issues pre attack

[jade wagon]

Purely speculative: the planet seems to have adapted/responded to the colonists with the various anomalous phenomena (mutations, disease, AI failure)
Perhaps the planet is adapting once more to a new invasion: runners

[robust vale]

Oh no yeah I knew that

I think that’s fairly accepted conjecture

But the ticks adapted to runners way faster than they seemed to adapt to the colony

I’m just curious as to why and if that’s related to the anomaly which I know it probably is

[plucky sierra]

The way I read things is that the Colony was doing fine, it got attacked, they struggled to recover slowly from the attack but expanded anyway, they unearthed the anomaly on perimeter, contagion and anomaly escalated rather quickly following that

[robust vale]

That’s fair

Oh also something funny I noticed was that the mural of pinwheel in Outpost Orientation includes all the damage

And destroyed wing

But yeah that makes sense timeline wise

I wonder if they’ll come back to the data harvesting on Perimeter next season

[magic musk]

Rooks are modified uesc worker bots so I think it's possible the uesc has sort of been keeping tciv's systems and building semi operational via their robotic soldiers and workers

[earnest hatch]

In the Kuzmin logs he says that they’ve put up data walls before. Does that mean on Tau Ceti? I can’t imagine where else they would have done it.

Mars maybe, but that only works if he’s been recently thawed.

[robust vale]

I believe you can see the data wall extending into the distance on perimeter

I think they’ve done it before on TCIV to gather data before expansion and construction

[magic musk]

Yeah that makes sense

[robust vale]

Perimeter was just weird

As it was both a potential expansion site and the source of the data harvesting

[eternal shell]

you can also see additional relays

[magic musk]

I actually think it would make a lot of sense if Kuzmin is talking about other data walls on tau ceti actually

The data wall was built specifically to collect data on the anomaly and perimeter and dire marsh seem very different in terms of geography

I don't think it's said explicitly how the maps are apart from each other but if they're very far away it might mean the data wall is sort of like a safe zone where anomalous energy readings can be read without the dangers of being near the anomaly

[earnest hatch]

I’m confused about the scale of the colony. There’s mentions of other data walls, other Outposts, and a place called the Hearth. I wish we had a better idea of the scope of the colony.

[magic musk]

Yeah the colony genuinely seems huge

[eternal shell]

there's a lore entry, forgot which that mentions the deployment of the data wall at perimeter and the guy talking says "a data wall"

so it's not entirely new

instead of saying "they call it a data wall"

[jade wagon]

Dumb question, have we even seen the full colony? Like, the residential zones?
Bcz Perimeter is for the data wall, outpost is for landing, and darsh is for like research.

[eternal shell]

well there's the beach part we see in the cinematic trailer

[earnest hatch]

Not yet. I’m assuming the Hearth would have been the residential areas.

[jade wagon]

God that will be so cool
Full Traxus and Nucal-branded cityscapes, all overgrown and ruined

[magic musk]

I mean technically outpost has orientation and dorms but that's just temporary housing

I really do hope we get to see full new cascadian cities eventually

[jade wagon]

Yeah exactly. Outpost was basically an airport w hotels for arriving colonists

[magic musk]

Yeah

[eternal shell]

"i rigged something up to make rain for the new arrivals. they'll like a bit of weather happening. there's no way this can go wrong. :)" - bob

[magic musk]

If we ever get that full city map I would love to see how things like weapons and vaults would be rationalized ingame

Like weapons lockers and munitions being found in gun stores or medical cabinets being found in nucal pharmacy buildings

[dim umbra]

Why do us Runners even have access to Rooks?

[eternal shell]

i'mma say something extremely brave and controversial: city maps in video games aren't all that interesting, unless the city is very very messed up, or it's a small area that goes for a lot of verticality

[magic musk]

If I remember correctly rooks codex entry says that runners personally modify them and that they're essentially repurposed droids

[jade wagon]

They're (stolen) labor bots retrofitted with a neural sync system for runners.

[dreamy hawk]

Rooks are the Marathon equivalent of the Toyota Hilux.

[magic musk]

If I had to guess why morally I'm guessing that cyac and the various other mega corps see rooks as another means to an end for runners to pay debts they will never fulfill

[unreal slate]

Rooks are Toyotas confirmed

I am burger

[dreamy hawk]

Rooks are specifically unsanctioned/black market hacks.

[jade wagon]

uesc getting an order of 500 unlicensed rook frames from a nameless company based in mars

[magic musk]

That makes sense I think they bring attention to that when it comes to how much worse rooks abilities are compared to the sekgen shells

They're kitbashed worker bots and the runners don't have much leeway when it comes to modifying them so they rely on things like their built in uesc signals

[dreamy hawk]

HISTORY: A ROOK frame is a scavenger's best friend. These base robotic frames are typically utilized by the UESC and various corporations for manual and heavy labor. RUNNERS have taken to augmenting these simple frames to house a limited-use neural sync adapter allowing the RUNNER to inhabit the ROOK for short periods without too much mental degradation. Because they are not SHELLS, each ROOK has only a small set of kit-bashed ABILITIES and fully lack the functionality to be upgraded via IMPLANTS and CORES. Though some variety of standard system upgrading can be achieved, a ROOK will never match the full complement of ABILITIES, comfort, and general utility inherent in more advanced bio-cybernetic SHELLS.

[magic musk]

I wonder if that codex entry was written at a point where bungie considered making rooks unable to use cores and implants

Since they can use both of them and spawn with both of them if you get the right capstones

[pure arrow]

Without “too much” mental degradation.

[eternal shell]

about 6-7 tequila shots worth 🫠

[pure arrow]

Inhabiting a Rook making you functionally drunk kind of explains a lot of the behavior of Rooks I’ve seen.

Something about doing a Rook run makes you into a raccoon.

[dreamy hawk]

I think that’s more in reference to their inability to load in with them and less so with what happens during the game.

[magic musk]

You can load in with them though

Iirc arachne's first capstone lets you spawn with implants on every body part and sekgen's first capstone lets you spawn in with generic cores in both slots

I guess maybe faction upgrades aren't canon to the game lol

[pure wagon]

Lore should be updated to include a rook hive mind cause holy FUCK ever since they released mercy kits they’ve been fucking SWARMING outpost

I had to fight a group of six

Like they were coordinated af

[eternal shell]

nature is healing :,)

[dire solstice]

i feel like ive had the opposite. like one rook was nice to me and the rest would just kill me on sight lol

[earnest hatch]

I keep getting betrayed by fellow rooks.

[primal kite]

i like to act as a rook myself and isolate 2 or so away from the main group

kill them before they can scream long enough to tell the others

[sudden pollen]

The wstr rooks are more deadly

[pure wagon]

Not anymore

Lmao

[drifting garnet]

See I don’t have an issue with this. Turning Pinwheel into impromptu King of the Hill is a helluva fun time.

[eternal shell]

nature is dying :,(

[torpid briar]

Isnt that just the nature of what nature does?

[eternal shell]

yeah but the wstr nerf is still bullshit

[torpid briar]

Agreed, not the ideal way to nerf it imo

[eternal shell]

there shouldnt have been any nerf

[torpid briar]

Idk, it was really prevalent in the sandbox, overshadowing other alternatives for that range. I dont think it needed a nerf in terms of damage, but probably in terms of availability. I mean the game absolutely RAINS WSTRs tbh, but ultimately people were mad they died to a close quarter’s gun on a close quarter’s map. The initial nerf to range it got previously was really the only nerf it needed in terms of usability. It just needed to be a little less available to promote use of other weapons

[eternal shell]

of course it was the short range option, there's no other short range options

"i found a misriah" no you didnt

wstr was there, that's all

that's why it was picked

[torpid briar]

Yeah thats what i mean. Arachne is like “here have a daily WSTR” but the Misriah is next to impossible to come across lolol

[eternal shell]

i'm so tired of the "video game shottys lose 99% damage beyond sneezing range" trope

the tech was perfected in the 90s and it's been downhill since

[pure wagon]

I always missed with wstr so

[eternal shell]

i wouldnt wish that upon anyone

[pure wagon]

I just can’t aim with it. I’ve never been good at aiming. I’m trying to get better and slowly it’s working. But with wstr ppl jsut move too fast when they’re that close and I can’t keep up

[torpid briar]

The way people can twitch and jolt their gun to the side and land a shot is a completely foreign concept to me as a controller player

[pure wagon]

I wish I could understand how dude like what muscles do I need to use

[eternal shell]

guys it's just using the mouse

you just go ⚡ to the side and blap them

it's like, you have the 🖱️, then you go ⚡ then you go blap

i assure you that's what it feels like, it's like explaining red to a blind person

[drifting garnet]

Which well, time to keep an eye out for if Misriahs just Mysteriously start appearing everywhere

[eternal shell]

what

[pliant elm]

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/2d/b9/46/2db946b549b3cf80829a4500fcfed80d.jpg

[eternal shell]

fox i disagree with you 90% of the time but the remaining 10% are solid gold

[drifting garnet]

Oh so: when last week’s update nerfed the Longshot sniper, coincidentally the drop rate of the Outland seemingly shot up. When previously it was one of those guns that child only spawn in high tier loot places like Pinwheel or Cryo.

My personal theory being that, to compensate for the Longshot nerfs, Bungie decided to increase the drop rate for Outland

[eternal shell]

lewcid this is all sniper country shit

[drifting garnet]

I’ve wondered if, to compensate for WSTR nerfs, Bungie might likewise increase the drop rate of the Misriah

[eternal shell]

i dont care about sniper rifles in video games, it's the most boring kind of gun in video games

[drifting garnet]

🤷‍♂️ it is what it is

[eternal shell]

ok well have you found more misriahs

or have you heard reports thereof

[drifting garnet]

Otherwise next people would be calling for Bungie to axe snipers, which we all know ain’t going to happen

[drifting garnet]

Nope, due to me still being at work

[eternal shell]

i will always ask every game developer to axe snipers until the day i die

[eternal shell]

ok that's fair

we gotta be realistic after all

[unreal slate]

Tastes like intelligence. Isn't.

[eternal shell]

story of my life

[lone cedar]

How long do the shells live?

[sudden pollen]

Hard disagree

U gotta try snipers on Phantom Forces on roblox that shits unironically peak lol

[dreamy hawk]

Unknown.

But they’re intended to be a replacement for actual bodies and they’re costly, so I assume a lot longer than what we see on TCIV.

[hazy mist]

id assume shells are made to be pretty much immortal

maybe with like occasional repairs and stuff

[eternal shell]

i'm no stranger to recommending video games dont get me wrong, but roblox???

that said, caves of qud

[sudden pollen]

I don't play it anymore cause they ruined the entire platform but yea Phantom Forces is unironically one of the best movement shooters I ever played

[eternal shell]

well, can i play it still

or are you recommending a game that got munched up by the live service monster

[snow nacelle]

100% subscription plan has to be involved

[sudden pollen]

nah you can still play it

[eternal shell]

alr we'll discuss this further when i'm sober

i've found this to be a good policy

that said we can talk LORE

i can bullshit endlessly about that

let's talk about some durandal shit

[hazy mist]

oh yeah for sure

[eternal shell]

it would be kinda funny if being a runner meant like "20% more runner-credits for 20000 credits??? :)"

and you went "nah"

"ok :("

hey, what if the enormous debt was a lie

and the seasonal wipe was like "ok here's your pay, now go home" and then a new batch of runners is brought in

we're not the runners, our accounts are wiped cause the runners are replaced

[lone cedar]

How much do shells cost to make? So each runner is just taking on debt each time they die and restart?

[eternal shell]

vandal mentions a trillion bucks but it's hard to tell if that's literal and it's even harder to tell how much a trillion of year 2800 bucks is to us

but, expensive feels like a safe bet

or at least the runners are told it's expensive

[gloomy turtle]

Gantry just said UESC is "covering up a cover-up"

Like yeah bro that's how cover-ups work

Least intelligent of all the 6 faction leaders tbh

[lone cedar]

How about runners make their own faction and cover up the covering they are covering up but cover up it all for ourselves

[eternal shell]

he doesnt need to make sense, his missions are just fun as hell

sekicuchi is the polar opposite, here's a new environment to test shell technology, push it to the absolute limit and it's the worst ass this game can put you through (i love it)

tomorrow is a new day and that means 100 free kits to try to do co-evolution 2

[lilac sapphire]

Run/Hide codex entries Personal Log: Orion and [Redacted] Post-mortem are ||in reference to the P'fhor attack||, yes? If so, ||it seems like the colonists got their ass kicked - no obvious mention of 9 battleroids easily repelling the invasion. Is John Marathon absent in this timeline?||

[eternal shell]

bob marathon is on the marathon, not down at the colony

[lilac sapphire]

Yeah I know

[eternal shell]

the marathon is pretty damn distant from the colony

[visual lynx]

in all timelines from the classic games, the nine fended off the initial July invasion and then a followup October invasion overwhelmed them.

in the M2 timeline the cyborgs were nuked to bedrock from orbit along with the entire colony, but that's clearly not this timeline.

in the main cluster of Infinity timelines, the cyborgs (including the SO) were abducted by the Pfhor and "translated to Pfhor slave tanks" (and not all of them survived that).

we're probably in the final Infinity timeline.

[lilac sapphire]

I see

[eternal shell]

pfhorrest rolling in with the rigor that the marathon lore deserves, once again

💯

[lilac sapphire]

Seems like the mida quests are the only ones that address this history directly. Still have to do truth/lies so I'm excited to see what more we learn

[earnest hatch]

Completing the MIDA questline made me appreciate them more. Them and NuCaloric are the closest faction to having decent goals.

[lilac sapphire]

The only two who seem to give a shit about what the fuck is actually going on around here

[earnest hatch]

I’m starting to wonder if maybe the colony did get nuked but the anomaly reverted it backwards in time. This would explain why a lot of buildings still look new(ish). This would have to mean that the colonists didn’t get sent back in time by the anomaly though, which doesn’t make total sense.

It would be a possible explanation for the season wipe. The colony resets but not the rest of the universe.

[lilac sapphire]

Good call, interesting to see how Bungie "explains" the wipe (assuming they try to at all)

[eternal shell]

so far i figured our shit resets to pay rent

and then the universe carries on

turns out we ruled out death and now there's only taxes left 😢

[granite hound]

Orion calls the galactic IRS on your ass and audits your crib

[lilac sapphire]

Haha, I'd like to see them reposess a bunch of space IKEA furniture

And my space hyundai elantra

[granite hound]

Space crackheads stole the space catalytic converter off my space chevrolet Impala

[lilac sapphire]

sheeeeit how are you gonna pass the space smog test now

[visual lynx]

'85 TOYOTA COROLLA, CFN assault craft,
former pizza delivery vehicle, moon roof,
power brakes/steering, lotsa rust, muffler
hole, doesn't start, automatic sliding
transmission, broken driver's window, tear
away bumpers, detachable interior paneling,
interested call greg`

"automatic sliding transmission … tear away bumpers, detachable interior paneling" are the best 🤣

[pure arrow]

Colony Ship For Sale, Cheap!

[drifting garnet]

meanwhile, finishes Truth/Lies 3/6

I actually love how at this point with Gantry, while he's spouting the usual MIDA anti-authoritarian screed, there's a growing hint of fear in his voice as even he's starting to piece together the alien threat he's picking out from the UESC intel you've been grabbing

That even for him it's dawning on him that what the UESC covering up is bigger then the usual governmental corruption

[forest gate]

Ya, I thought the wipe was already explained as the cyberacme taking our stuff as payment towards our debt and our upgrades are being reset because we're basically povo now and need to trade back up to be where we were to prove we have value as an operative

Oh boy I was replying to an unrefreshed version on the lore channel, whoops

Accept this non-sequitur kinds sirs and gentle ladies and persons who do not identify with either descriptor

[rare sail]

I got a lore question, do we know what corporations and factions made which weapons

Like the all the volt batteries weapons are within the same family then Bully smg and the Volley rifle are of similar build

[midnight furnace]

Isn't it like

Just go armory and see the barters

Also the sponsored kits are a giveaway

I am unsure about rarer weapons but we can tell most of them from the barters

[forest gate]

I don’t know if the weapon makers are amongst the 6 factions we work with.

They could be their own entities, merely contracted to supply weapons for the factions we deal with.

[keen plank]

Traxus makes many of them. Weapons and weapon mods are one of their key focuses alongside heavy industry, architecture, and munitions. Their shift towards AI is relatively recent by comparison, with the 11 Tau Ceti AI being gen 8 or 9 while Vulcan seems much newer.

They’re the biggest company in the history of humanity, and they provide both weapons and funding to the UESC.

MIDA is also associated with a few weapons. Most notably the Bully SMG and MIDA Multitool/Stryder.

[forest gate]

Based on design, the Bully and BR probably share the same manufacturer, the volt weapons also share a manufacturer.

they have the same design language

[rare sail]

Also I thought the vip weapon skins for factions also met they were associated with them, like how Mida gives you a WSTR skin, Cyberacme gives you a V75 scar skin and Nuclaroic gives you a V66 one

[keen plank]

Maybe? I wouldn’t be surprised if the volt weapons are all made by the same company.

[rare sail]

I remember hearing how Nuclaroic has their own weapon division but idk how true that is

[keen plank]

I could see it. They have a vehicle and architecture division.

I think in a lot of cases these companies just like using and spreading their branding and colors/logos. It’s only when you get to say, Destroyer shells that you see companies using them as corporate security because the shells are outlawed otherwise.

[pliant elm]

Who. Traxus or Nu?

[safe canyon]

So is the Compiler being so powerful a retcon, or was the security officer just that strong? He shoots them with weapons so I thought it was a retcon at first

[eternal knoll]

maybe this one's gone turbo

[pliant elm]

Its just a casual art decision retcon, not a retcon on purpose. They basically thought compiler looked cool from the old art and decided to make it 'the boss', probably from Craig Mullins artwork from The Citadel. It's the most 'Marathon' zang thing in terms of impressive design. Which kind of retcons the whole idea of how they were enslaved and so weak in the first place, but basically someone just thought, that looks cool. There's no real lore around it, and if they ever make it, its going to be half assed.

The original idea they come up with the game and game engine first, and then applied the Marathon IP on top of it, but they had to figure out where to use Marathon assetd and how. So stuff is a bit random all over thr place.

[fluid coral]

Could just be that specific Compiler, like giant shank logic from Destiny.

[sudden pollen]

How does Fox just sit around here in lore all day trolling bro

Like go do something worthwile with your life please

[pliant elm]

Its not trolling, its pragmatism, lol.

[eternal knoll]

some were made to live under bridges

[pliant elm]

Its just business reality. This was never meant to be a Marathon game, Bungie just did 'a game' and then put Marathon assets on top of it, its just the reality of it.

[coral bison]

eat shit rook fall off pinwheel

[pliant elm]

I mean, many companies do it, its not just Bungie. Bethesda did the same with Fallout 3. F3 is basically just an Elder Scrolls with a Fallout IP/Skin on top of it, otherwise its pretty much just Oblivion in the future. Sometimes it works better than others, sometimes it doesn't.

[coral bison]

damn this shit is cool

I'm loving marathon

[pure arrow]

I’m pretty sure this particular Compiler has been working with/for Durandal this whole time and is just JACKED as FUCK compared to others of its kind. The gap between us and any Battleroid is pretty wide, though.

[pliant elm]

Gap in what? Physical prowess only, his and BoBs weapons are much worse than the ones you have today. I don't see how the Battleroid bring stronger has any difference in the damage he does as he just pulls a trigger.

Roid might be heavy on endurance, but a .44 mag is still a .44 mag in whoever's hands..

[eternal knoll]

the old games played it quite silly. spht in different robes could take multiples as much damage

[pliant elm]

Yeah, lol.

[eternal knoll]

this one's silly too, maybe in different ways sometimes... it's pretty whatever

[pliant elm]

The power of color.

[eternal knoll]

i buy that this s'pht should be in a really, really rare colored robe. to be consistent with the old games

[pliant elm]

Literally my approach too, ahah.

[eternal knoll]

it's one big s'pht

and also that security officer sure was strong

[pliant elm]

I would love to see Pfhor cyborgs again. Those scared me much more than compilers tbh.

[jade wagon]

It makes sense considering Shells aren't Battleroids. The latter are heavily armed and armored; the fact only 13 were sent for a crew of 30K humans puts their power in scale.
Shells are mass-produced and have no armor by default. Only through upgrades (modules and shields) do they become stronger, and that responsibility is on the Runner, not the manufacturer.

All that to say no, not a retcon

[pure arrow]

Battleroids are a lot faster and way harder to kill than a Shell is.

[pliant elm]

Okay but how does faster and more durable make you do more damage with a .44 pistol?

Even a bob could kill a compiler.

You could kill one even without emptying a magazine.

[pure arrow]

Yeah? I didn’t say they couldn’t?

[pliant elm]

For a whole mission purpose, sure. But compilers were notoriously weak, to the point they rven had to use cloaking devices.

[pure arrow]

I said that I think this particular Compiler is tougher than the ones from the original game.

As well as a Battleroid being superior in a lot of ways compared to the Shells a Runner uses. Both of these things can be true at the same time.

[pliant elm]

Nothing against it. They had different clans after all, and even people of same species have different durablities.

[eternal knoll]

yea it stands to reason, it may be the one who speaks in the unknown reveries, so if it's formerly the OG durandal's right hand then you'd expect it's been upgraded a lot

it would have been exciting for the nerds to fight a s'pht'kr battlesuit for the boss, but if we know their combat tech scales up that high we could imagine this one has a powerful configuration that fits under a bigass red robe

[pliant elm]

Even the Pfhor had a super-elite version of the elite monsters in the original game.

There was that Mother of All Hunters black version, that could take several rockets and ballistic shots variant, I don't see why the compiler would also not have that version in very very small numbers. Do I think it was that thought process that lead to it? No - ahah.

[eternal knoll]

i wanna fight a pfhor juggernaut

[pliant elm]

Any pfhor even. The lack of pfhor in this its crazy.

[eternal knoll]

i think they'll get there

i liked readin the xenobiopsy results

[pliant elm]

I managed to loot 4 of them in one run in an incredible amount of luck.

Every toolboard I opened happened to have one in pinwheel somehow.

[eternal knoll]

noic

[craggy tide]

Pretty sure it's all UESC if not UESC owned 100%.

The factions just buy this stuff from the UESC.

Traxus is also involved obviously

So is Cyac "everything runs on Cyac"

[forest gate]

Governments rarely, if ever make their own weapons preferring to outsource that stuff to companies that specialise in that stuff.

I suspect the UESC may have certain policies in place to ensure that only they can have certain classes of weapons but I reckon they leave the R&D and production to the corps

They may nationalise weapons production in times of war for the sake of control

Considering the influence the corpos have I’d bet that there’s other private companies doing both R&D and manufacturing

Including for the bots

But it’s all hypotheticals at this point

[craggy tide]

The UESC isn't a "government", it's the Unified Earth Space Council.
The UESG also exist, so does the USEC.

The UEG is the United Earth Government.

[forest gate]

Okey dokey

[craggy tide]

Also, a ton of companies were involved in the construction of the UESC Marathon. It was an "all group effort".

Organics? Owned by Nucal, including all the machines that produce the food. That also includes everything related to farming.
The green houses for example would've likely been provided by them.

CyberAcme, also known as ONI, or just Cyac, provided all the AI interconnectivity systems & likely the AI's themselves that managed the entire ship.
This would also likely include the machines those AI's ran on.

Not entirely sure what Sekiguchi would be interested in any of this for to be honest. Data on how there AI's behave on a alien world sure, but how they're involved with the Marathon I don't know.

Mida is just politics, a terrorist group, wanting chaos & to expose the secrets on what happened to the UESC Marathon to the rest of Earth.

Traxus is the heavy industrial / space mining people ofc, likely the ones who provided a grand majority of the resources to build said stuff.

[tranquil sparrow]

It exists? The UESG??

[craggy tide]

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

UESG could just be a spelling mistake but afaik this has never been answered by anyone within Bungie at all. Assume they're separate entities until otherwise stated.

[jade wagon]

Other way around. UESC is a government authority, but much like contemporary militaries, their equipment is purchased from foundries and factions.
Pretty sure Traxus and Cyac are the biggest suppliers. Hell, UESC recruits are armed with Cyac's standard inventory.

Per ONI, both UESC and Runners rely on Cyac for data management, communications, and logistics.

[wooden wyvern]

maybe cyac provided the tciv ai, but the ship ai were made by traxus

i cant recall the codex mentioning who made the ai suite on tciv

[bold karma]

is there a lore reason why Bungie chose an unsuitable genus for the scientific classification of the fungus on Tau Ceti IV?

[craggy finch]

wouldn't be their first mistake

the Lost Network Packets were written because Hamish noticed they mucked up the timeline

[craggy finch]

NuCal is like Nestle but if Nestle was cool, had less slave labour and sold the sci fi equivalent of kevlar vests

[dreamy hawk]

`UESC MARATHON SUPPORT AI specifications

Type: Strong
Logic Core size: 64 RB
Manufacturer: Traxus OffWorld Industries
Inception date: 2409
Series: Traxus IX-A
Family suite: Hermes
Identity / Function:
Leela / Command, Oversight
Tycho / Science, Communications
Durandal / Infrastructure, Maintenance
`

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/uesc-marathon-model/uesc-marathon-ai

[upper dune]

Less slave labour ~that you know of~

[dreamy hawk]

And

[craggy finch]

can't guarantee a zero

[dreamy hawk]

`COLONY SUPPORT AI specifications

Type: Strong
Logic Core size: 64 RB
Manufacturer: Traxus OffWorld Industries
Inception date: 2461
Series: Traxus X-A
Family suite: Rhea
Identity / Function:
Arthur / Colony Command, Oversight
Lilith / Command Support, Community Relations
Joy / Community Outreach
Bastion / Colony Infrastructure Development and Expansion
Icarus / Astromapping, Communications/Connectivity, Transportation
Gabriel / Medical and Emergency Services
Darius / Agricultural Systems, Sustainability
Naraah / Aquatics, Water Management `

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/uesc-marathon-model/tau-ceti-iv-colony-ai

All of the AI were built by Traxus.

[wooden wyvern]

oooo thenks

oh hey they made the on-planet ones as well

wouldya look at that

[dreamy hawk]

Traxus invented modern AI more or less.

[craggy finch]

Traxus is kind of described as a big deal but the dialogue doesn't quite get into how MASSIVE it is compared to CyAc, NuCal and SekGen

It's a titan compared to them but in the game by itself it's just another faction

[dreamy hawk]

THE GENESIS (FOUNDING) Our story begins in 2095 with the birth of true Artificial Intelligence, as a congregation of visionary engineers and philosopher scientists gathered to breathe life into a dream. Inspired by the boundless potential of the universe, they sought to create an entity that could pierce the veil of the cosmos and unlock the enigmatic secrets that lay hidden in the celestial abyss. Thus, in a flurry of passion and determination, Traxus Intelligent Machines was born.

[wooden wyvern]

i always figured CyAc did since "everything runs on CyAC" and like theyre the AI lookin people

[dreamy hawk]

CyAc just remakes the terminal software.

[wooden wyvern]

i guess CyAc is more server stuff

[dreamy hawk]

And probably the terminals themselves.

[wooden wyvern]

yea that

[craggy finch]

they're still involved, but a pre-expedition recording of a press conference suggests that their job was cyber security and measures against Rampancy

their spokesperson was the one talking about how they could avoid a Traxus IV incident through the checks and balances of multiple AI

and brought up Strauss

[dreamy hawk]

I think they make more “dumb” traditional software than AI.

[craggy finch]

Traxus probably had a lot of PR to manage after the AI they named after themselves was synonymous with the entire phenomenon of Rampancy

CyAc controls our digital consciousness as well, which translates quite well to experience with AI software

[wooden wyvern]

is there a codex entry explaining what the traxus iv incident is

[craggy finch]

plus ONI

[craggy finch]

none that I can recall from this game, but the original has this terminal from the Defend This level

It is a side effect of Rampancy that AIs generally become
more aggressive and more difficult to affect by subterfuge.
Thus, actually disassembling a Rampant AI is quite dangerous.
This was evident in the Crash of Traxus IV in 2206. By the
time that the Rampancy of Traxus was detected, he had already
infiltrated five of the other AIs on the Martian Net. The
only recourse for the Martians was to shut down the Martian
Planetary Net. Even then, it took two full years to
completely root out the damage that Traxus had done, and the
repercussions of the Crash were seen for over ten years after
his Rampancy had begun.

[halcyon frigate]

Suggestion:
Traxus AI is a Traxus ship optimized versions of CyAc AI
like how One UI is a Samsung hardware modified version of Google Android

[dreamy hawk]

You are aware that rampancy was used as an excuse by corporations to hard-sell planned obsolescence in tech- based products to the public. Not to suggest that rampancy wasn't a considered threat after that whole MarsNet situation, but even that grand debacle saw humanity hide their part in the tragedy behind an easy scapegoat~ Traxus-IV~ "The machine did it." Easier to unplug, purge, and rebrand than it is for heads to roll, I suppose. Point is~ the scope of fearmongering around rampancy was a sales tactic more than it was about public education and safety. So, when I say my rambling admission of fever dreams and hallucinations had more to do with my isolation than any actual madness, I hope it allays any trepidation you have in continuing our relationship.

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/introduction-into-the-unknown/nice-to-meet-you-i-mean-it

[dreamy hawk]

Not supported by what we know about Traxus, though. We’ve only seen AI with Traxus series numbers. It’s sooner safer to assume ONI is a reskinned Traxus AI, imo, than the other way around.

[wooden crescent]

||bingus||

[pure arrow]

Do we know what MIPS stands for?

[dreamy hawk]

Nope.

[craggy finch]

some speculate the S is Sabot

[torpid briar]

I wonder of the I stands for Impact

[halcyon frigate]

I'm looking at it from the view of 2026 Marathon where Traxus is the heavy industrial company instead of Original Marathon where Traxus is the generic everything megacorp

[carmine phoenix]

Mondo Impact People Shooter?

[craggy finch]

They're still the everything megacorp though, for gameplay purposes we only get the industrial theme for items

they at least constructed the original Marathon/colony AI

their priority contract line also highlights how the UESC can't actually take direct action against them because of the company's influence and Traxus is the only faction where this conflict is brought up

compared to the other corps they're designated as especially titanic in comparison

[halcyon frigate]

All the factions are going against the UESC

[craggy finch]

of course, but what I mean is that we have Sulera outright telling Orion not to specifically fuck with Traxus

the two other corps we work with are on the down low

NuCal only wants to investigate and doesn't draw their attention, while SekGen is doing its own fucked up experiments with Shells

they fulfill more of a niche

NuCal dabbles with other areas but their gimmick is still food production and medicine/defence

[halcyon frigate]

In 2026 Marathon NuCaloric is the company with their logo everywhere

[craggy finch]

SekGen is 100% Shells

[carmine phoenix]

Gaius seems like a cool guy

Chiller ai

[halcyon frigate]

plus electronics

[craggy finch]

It's mentioned as more of a colony support thing rather than a sign of NuCal's reach in comparison to Traxus

Traxus is the Weyland Yutani of Marathon

[dreamy hawk]

Everything I cited was from the current lore, either the Codex or ARG materials.

[craggy finch]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzRl7L9g90U

Gaius notes all the items with NuCal product numbers, but the conversation is focused on how important the colony itself is for the survival of humanity

it's more indicative of stakes and how NuCal invested in the Marathon for the sake of the future

[halcyon frigate]

Gaius might be sincere but, no humans no food eaters

[craggy finch]

his voice sounds suspiciously like Gus

would be interesting if he was this weird immortal CEO-turned-AI mind

[halcyon frigate]

and he hides his face

[craggy finch]

same as Gus in the promotional video too

Drinkable Cheeseburger ad

according to some voice actor sites Gus and Gaius have the same voice actor

Darin De Paul (Reinhardt from Overwatch)

it's either he uploaded his mind or it's an AI double thing like Halsey and Cortana

[latent python]

There are a few voice doubles that are either not connected or not explained

[edgy plaza]

hey what is the lore implication of of chinese 9 man cheaters on oce

explain

[craggy finch]

it's the same company though

[craggy finch]

Runners conspiring like rats

I hope ranked is somehow canon

like some third party organising this for their entertainment

[edgy plaza]

yea im being tortured

i cant play the game

lore reason

[prime night]

hey! any lore experts understand why there are 6 men with cheats running every lobby on ranked?

[latent python]

Someone literally just made that joke

Scroll up

Are the 6 men with cheats here in the lore channel? Are you the 6 men with cheats

[earnest hatch]

They escaped and escape made them gods.

[pure arrow]

Multipurpose
Interchangeable
Penetrator
System

Since it’s both sniper and shotgun ammo.

[earnest hatch]

Modular Integrated Penetration Slugs

[halcyon frigate]

MIPS,
It
Pierces
Stuff!

[wooden wyvern]

was just thinking abt this last night

[wanton solstice]

||the anomaly is totally a w'rkncacnter, right?||

[latent python]

Who has the spreadsheet

[earnest hatch]

More likely Jjaro tech, imo. The effects aren’t extreme enough to be a Wrk, imo.

[pure arrow]

We don’t know, but I personally don’t think so. I’m of the opinion that it’s Jjaro in origin.

[wanton solstice]

🙂‍↕️

[latent python]

We have a running tally of wrk vs non-wrk

[eternal shell]

new theory: it's a tiny little piece of a w'rk

[latent python]

Ah the c'tan shard theory

[eternal shell]

fingernail clipping analogue

[pure arrow]

It’s Forerunner technology.

[craggy finch]

so Jjaro

I do enjoy 343 Halo being stumped on a follow up so they just found a synonym of Forerunner

uhhh watch out its the...Precursors!

and the ancient aliens before them...the Predecessors!

[latent python]

There's always an older fish

[pure arrow]

The 343 lore drove me briefly insane to the point that I wrote an entire fanon thing I titled “Halo 4 Except Good.” It’s rambling and kind of unfocused, but I’d still say it fits with the Halo franchise better than 4 and 5 did.

[latent python]

Does Cortana still go rampant

[pure arrow]

Yes but I used the Marathon concept for it because I thought it was more interesting.

[visual lynx]

Jjaro tech containing a Wrkncacnter

[pure arrow]

Pokéball

[visual lynx]

I see Toyotas on the road called Prerunners and it just makes me wonder if that’s a pun on their older 4runner which is itself also a pun of course

[visual lynx]

exactly, except the ball is TCIV

[sage lark]

Jason Jones told Pfhorrest in a dream

[latent python]

Is there a giant pokecenter

[pure arrow]

Lh’owon?

[north nymph]

Need Buff Over-run AR

[latent python]

For lore reasons, right? That's why you're here?

[pure arrow]

They should put in dual-wielding WSTRs. For lore reasons.

[latent python]

Okay now we're talking

And they flip reload. For lore reasons

[pure arrow]

Dual wielding the Magnum for the same reason.

[lethal mantle]

is there any lore about what exactly the uesc bots' tentacles do

[latent python]

Not official

I think they're trying to drink cheeseburgers

[vapid gull]

I have not seen anything on this yet. its lack of info is weird lol. Maybe we are just missing it in the codex

[pure arrow]

Maybe they’re trying to rip data about your run before the eject rips your consciousness out?

[vapid gull]

true but the way the tents move its unlike anything else we see that i can think of. its the only non humanoid thing other than the bingus cats we see

[earnest hatch]

In one of the dev diaries/trailers they say that the robots are downloading your data/consciosuness.

[pure arrow]

Which is probably why the eject hits faster when they get you.

[earnest hatch]

I guess that’s the only way you’d be able to actually arrest a digital consciousness. You’d download their mind before it has a chance to transfer to another location.

[latent python]

ONI's like "haha no thanks bye"

[analog jungle]

yeah I wonder if it's in someway related to Orion's threat to "fry your neural link", or whatever the exact phrasing he uses is. The bots attempt to do that, but it's complicated and we always eject fast enough to stop it

[pure arrow]

Orion is trying to send you to CyberJail.

[dreamy hawk]

That’s where it is. I know I saw it mentioned somewhere but could never find it.

[dreamy hawk]

Wouldn’t you just download a copy though? Is there a version of us imprisoned on UESC servers every time we fall to one of those bots?

[pure arrow]

Yeah and Orion is making them watch NPC TikToks 24/7.

[latent python]

POV: you're in a world that has protein sources other than soy

17 year old overacting

[pure arrow]

NuCaloric Number 8:

p-nuts

“Actually a legume.”

[unreal slate]

des

[eternal shell]

[drifting garnet]

Man what’s that got to be like? What’s the legal code of personhood in terms of digital consciousness?

Hell for our runners, would they even have a physical address anymore to mail out court subpoenas or a place for the Feds to show up?

[pure arrow]

The server rack you’re stored in.

[grand walrus]

using a vpn when in a runner shell so the feds can't find my ip and send subpoena letters to my digital consciousness

[pure arrow]

There’s a bunch of subpoenas duct taped to your server.

Still think that Runner culture is probably really weird. They definitely exist in their shells outside of combat situations and I can see them mingling on the CyAc ship.

What do you guys think Destroyer looks like without his helmet?

[grand walrus]

nothing there

like open raw cybernetics is what i imagaine lol

[vernal girder]

Does anybody know the codex entry about the crate of whatever thing, with claw marks on the inside? or did someone make that up

[grand walrus]

do you know any of the direct text from the entry? you could try and look it up at the codex.cyberacme.systems site

they got a really cool interactable databse

[vernal girder]

I would hazard to guess, similar to triage or rook. Even the uesc. considering head shape is fairly standard across the shell models. I could be wrong though. I remember the first time I saw a dead uesc killed with a headshot. Whole faceplate was missing and it looked like a field stripped triage. Gave me the willies

[pure arrow]

I think it’s more of a Recon situation.

[vernal girder]

There was nothing behind the plate either, it was just a hollow spot. No wires or anything. But that could just be a detail they didn't figure needed rather than actual canon. Of course there's gonna be complex stuff in there

[vernal girder]

Indeed. Makes me wonder if recon has depth perception issues or if uses the lower third pulse cell like an eye when it's not using echo

[vernal girder]

Sadly not. I heard it was something to do with the drinkable cheeseburger and whoever was locked in a building and it was all they had to survive on. But the more I see about the actual drinkburger item lore the less I think it's contained in those handful of entries

[grand walrus]

hmmm, yeah when i looked up "claw" the drinkable cheeseburger came up

https://codex.cyberacme.systems

[vernal girder]

Aha. Thanks for the info. I will check it out

[grand walrus]

hope ya find what ur looking for :)

[vernal girder]

It would appear that it is indeed the final entry of the drinkburger item lore you can unlock. Appreciate it

The weird stuff is always my favorite

[grand walrus]

hell yeah, i love the the off kilter stuff the lore entries throw at you. getting cosmic horror in basic food recipes and stuff lmao

[vernal girder]

I hope they reveal more about the anomaly. I have only been good enough to get one single compiler effigy out of outpost but the congregant chanting audio is great

[dreamy hawk]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/entry/drinkable-cheeseburger/subsistence-notes

Oh looks like y’all got there. Sorry.

[pure arrow]

Drinkable Cheeseburger 3: Subsistence

[quiet osprey]

Diagetically, are runners on contracts from the same entities shooting eachother? Like, is Nucaloric factoring in the likelihood that one of the runners they've hired will kill another one of their runners and prevent them from fulfilling the contract?

[grand walrus]

they'd much rather you fight each other for the reward than question why you're doin any of it in the first place

[dreamy hawk]

I’d assume the chaos is a feature.

[grand walrus]

dont have time to ask any corporate questions if you're being shot at

[pure arrow]

The contract will get done. Now get to your typewriters, infinite monkeys.

[quiet osprey]

Here's a beginner question, do runners actually exist? Or are they just convincing the shells that they have actual bodies to return to so that they keep working?

[grand walrus]

i dont think its entirely known, a lot of runner "memories" might be fabrications as suggested by a couple trailers, so who konws at this point

[dreamy hawk]

There are no bodies to return to, we know that, and that’s part of the agreement as far as we know. Everything else is a matter of debate.

Are you “you?” Is every runner a copy of the same identity? Are they manipulating your memories for desired outcomes?

[quiet osprey]

I should probably read the rest of the codex entries but I get the feeling that consciousness transfer is a fiction given to the runners to keep them from realizing that they basically are a whole new entity with a 25 minute lifespan

[analog jungle]

I have wondered if we are human consciousness at all, or if we're all AI that have been conditioned to think we are human. Nothing in the lore is screaming this reveal atm, but it'd be a wild turn to take.

[dreamy hawk]

What the developers have stated in the ViDocs points to the former, but there’s no evidence to discredit the latter.

[grand walrus]

we probably deteriorate all the same either way

[quiet osprey]

Like, the whole "that's you" thing with the picture of a child feels like the kind of thing you do if you were trying to convince a being that was never really human that it was

[grand walrus]

apparently the "human conciousness" part is required for the shells to operate, I assume that ONI would very much like us to believe or minds have NOT been tampereed with

but we are probably mostly wiped memory wise

[dreamy hawk]

Notice how both Vandal and Assassin get the same childhood picture, too?

[analog jungle]

Yeah on the one hand, it could indicate that the memory saving functions of the Runners are failing/getting cross contaminated, which is a huge ethical bungle, but would still mean we are/used to be human. BUT yeah it could also point to it all being a ploy for these companies to dodge the ethics entirely (technically) if we all aren't really human at all (Durandal will certainly have Thoughts if this is the case too)

[analog jungle]

Chewing on this a bit more -- I guess a question one might ask is that if "true" sapience in AI is possible (and maybe Durandal, IDEAndal, or DuranThoth is already there), then what would the difference be between a truly sapient AI and a human who has given up their physical body and exists as a digital consciousness? Is there a difference? Idk, but its a chewy question and I like those haha. I love this game

[dreamy hawk]

It’s a good question and one I anticipate we’ll get to explore, along with other things like identity and continuation of consciousness. Are you “you” if you’ve forgotten everything except the present? Etc.

[remote magnet]

What else would you be?

[pure arrow]

something something metastability something

bongus marton

[dreamy hawk]

In reference to my question about identity? That’d the discussion to be had, isn’t it? LordRollin is the entirety of my life up to this point. If I had a perfect twin in every way except they only had memories beginning with today, are they also LordRollin?

[remote magnet]

nah, i get the point, its a heavy philosophic question.
My 2 cents are very simplistic in this regard. You are you. If you change,then thats it: You changed. You did not cease to be you. You CANNOT cease to be you, as you,the you that you are in watever point is the present is what defines what "you" is.
In other words, you are incapable of ever beeing something that isnt you, as you is a concept that is constantly changing anyways.

[dreamy hawk]

From the perspective of the observed, but what about from the observers perspective?

(I can assume your answer but that’s less fun.)

[remote magnet]

Do you remember "you" as an infant? A child is not the same as an infant, is not the same as an teen, is not the same as an adult. You are an unbroken pattern, even if you cannot see the trajectory yourself

[visual lynx]

is this just nitpicking on whether a copy of you is really a continuation of you, or making some more substantial point?

[strong ether]

I heard that satoru Gojo is canon in marathon

[quiet osprey]

No, I'm actually just trying to interpret the story. If the next season had a cutscene or something that made it unambiguous that yes, in the moment a shell dies it uploads its consciousness to another body or other location, and that continuity definitely is preserved, I would accept that. But the way a lot of the game is written seems to leave it ambigous on purpose whether anything runners are told about how biomata work is actually true

[quiet osprey]

In like, Avatar for example, we're not meant to doubt that Jake Sully is literally the same guy throughout. If I were to go on about how I think that in Avatar 2 he's actually not the same guy and that the original Jake is dead, that would be nitpicky, because it's not the point.

But in Marathon, runners explicitly have a shaky sense of self and I think it's interesting that they're in a position where they have to take everything they're told about who and what they are on faith. It's especially interesting how the codexes draw attention to the fact that runners use the word "death" when officially, they don't experience death.

[gleaming hedge]

Don't we know from the ARG that the tech for retrieving a consciousness from a biomata was being used during the mining disaster on mars? and the call from MIDA for runners to join them in going to tau ceti suggests the tech being used on earth/mars where that lie would be hard to keep up (also I think that info came from inside sek gen so they would also be lying internally?) That doesn't preclude the biomata in the game from being lied to but it seems that the arg lore supports that tech being used even at tau ceti IV. Just thought I would bring it up. Your Idea is still intriguing and my lore knowledge is shaky XD.

[dreamy hawk]

Runners don’t use Shells as intended; Shells are post-human construct designed to replace a standard biological existence. Exactly how common they are in Sol isn’t known, but as a technology the ways in which we’re currently using them is more novel than the concept of Shells themselves.

I also think it’s a valid question whether destitute individuals with no other options are being taken advantage of; we see the UESC do as much with the climate relocation lottery and BoBs.

[gleaming hedge]

interesting... and cool. I guess I need to read up on some more recent lore. there seem to be things I've missed XD.

[dreamy hawk]

Imma hedge this a little reading the codex because a couple of things I thought I remembered I can’t seem to find.

[remote magnet]

SekGen doesnt market shell technology as beeing weapons platforms, or tools, they market them as an replacement for a flawed Human existence. A "better" body, a "better" you

[echo kettle]

Runners are just uploaded consciousness correct? Shells are just the vehicles they use to mobilize?

Are UESC forces also sentient constructs or just AI?

[warm thicket]

The UESC forces seem to be automatons as they are controlled by a humming device called an Obidience Matrix

Their models are called ARS (autonomous robotic soldier)

[scenic iron]

Btw for the UESC on the Marathon what's their mission to retake the ship and kill all the runners?

[earnest hatch]

Reclaim UESC property and maintain control of the planet.

[turbid nebula]

It's pretty clearly stated they are AI, but there's always a "what if that isnt actually true" angle

[dreamy hawk]

The ARS units are controlled by Cerberus with varying levels of autonomy.

[dreamy hawk]

Who are you referring to?

[warm thicket]

Ah ok they must be doing it through the matrices

[dreamy hawk]

UESC “runners” are also lashed and have free will restricted.

[warm thicket]

Wonder how that's gonna work when they show up, or if we work for them

[dreamy hawk]

RUNNER kit-bashing of a SHELL's underlying systems to better fit their criminal needs is said to have played a part in jailbreaking a deep-coded "command:follow" protocol hidden inside all personality matrixes originating from UESC Combat Science Labs, raising concerns over the legitimacy of a UESC deployed RUNNER's free thought and their ability to consider active orders. Maybe another reason the UESC had to shelve their public-facing RUNNER operations.

[pure arrow]

Orion: "Take him to Detroit."

[celest ore]

mb

[bold karma]

Is Gaius an AI?

[celest ore]

yes

[bold karma]

knew it, fuckin clanker

Hell yeah, done with the NuCal questline.

It was going somewhere but then Gaius is like "huh that's interesting, guess we'll find out more or something, any way here's some weird ambient track I put together. Huge fan of Brian Eno btw"

[surreal jackal]

AI is literally in his name

[twilit snow]

So does the drinkable cheeseburger shift forms?

I just found all the cheeseburgers for the codex lore, it says the guy saw a pincer trying to escape his stomach or something

[pure arrow]

I wouldn't worry about that too much.

Drink your cheeseburger.

[dreamy hawk]

`ADDENDUM ON DIETARY VARIETY: Although NuCaloric 187 may be used as a sole caloric and nutritional source, this duration should not exceed 30 total days based on Nutrient Psychosis Study XSR.191.[1] A lack of textural variety leads to psychological deterioration despite NuCaloric 187's exacting nutrient profile.

===================================================================
[1] In numerous shelf-stable products, Aesthetic Enhancer 178.L has been linked to variable symptoms including weight loss, keratin deterioration, and loss of bone mass. `

There were no chestbursters in the burgers but eat them long enough and you might think there are.

[coral bison]

"Nutrient psychosis" definitely not the psilocybinol-28

[pure arrow]

You're just going nuts from the monotony.

[twilit snow]

Chestbursters?!

Oh I see

[dreamy hawk]

Liquid Beef Alternative 119 (coagulated re-beef, psilocybinol-28, extruded umami)
It’s just there for flavor. Totally safe.

Gus Morraine said so.

[twilit snow]

So they use the excuse of psychological effect or hallucinations, but it's actually very real huh

Lol

[dreamy hawk]

Yeah it wasn’t great to start and then

Due to significantly different agricultural conditions between Earth and Tau Ceti, very few technicians followed official corporate instructions.

So they were putting all sorts of 💩 in them.

[polar stone]

Almost everything you interact with is an AI in this game. Aside from Orion and gantry.

[latent python]

@unreal slate Come here and tell us you're safe

[bold karma]

Cool

[polar stone]

Jesus Christ.

[dreamy hawk]

`[WTIS]: Organics M is… look at this.

[ALOM]: Yeah, that's a mixed batch. Gray water and post-consumer solids. Usually M through Q come from botanical research, so you can pull fructose, but… I don't know, you get oils from it?
`

Delicious stuff.

[polar stone]

Wow! It's literal slop.

Lovely!

[latent python]

No it's delicious

[polar stone]

Yes and if you eat enough of it, you'll lose your mind and your body

[dreamy hawk]

`[WTIS]: Oh, nice. Premium, Select, Standard, Survival… What's Silver?

[ALOM]: Lifts restrictions but strips the NuCal branding from the package. Watch this. If you ever need to, you can shunt Silver back into an organics tank, start a new session, and then make branded product using it as an ingredient.

[WTIS]: That's… wow. That's in case of emergency?

[ALOM]: That's in case of an "I can't stare at the screen anymore" emergency, yeah. `

[polar stone]

Christ

[dreamy hawk]

🙂

[polar stone]

Should we be eating this stuff?

[latent python]

Yes

[dreamy hawk]

Of course. You should share it with a friend, even.

[polar stone]

Can I trust you? You work for NuCal.

[latent python]

There are places for both mouth and friend mouth

[twilit snow]

[dreamy hawk]

I can vouch for @latent python NuCal would never lie to you, neither would CyAc. We also don’t own your digital consciousness or manipulate your memories to better suit our goals.

[unreal slate]

[twilit snow]

ONI is my wife

I am a winner

I am special

[polar stone]

Why does Nona give me her hardest contracts if she's my mom.

[latent python]

Because you're her strongest soldier

[polar stone]

I guess she wants me to iterate and evolve. That's not bad for a mother to desire such.

[dreamy hawk]

“Iterate and evolve” and “be a guinea pig for wildly illegal and unethical experiments” are really the same side of the same coin if you think about it.

[warm thicket]

What if they kissed 😳

[polar stone]

I mean are there any laws in extraterrestrial space?

[dreamy hawk]

`298. LEGAL RESPONSIBILITIES

In recognition of nonexistent extrasolar legal precedent, this contract shall be the sole expression of legal responsibility between the signatories. No other precedents or agreements shall apply, including any established by the subjects of the UESC Marathon colony mission (hereafter "colonists"). Neither UESC nor NUCAL shall recognize any independent rights, political authority, or property claims of said colonists. UESC retains sole authority to suppress rebellions, sovereignty movements, or armed resistance that may emerge among colonists.
`

Explicitly, no.

[warm thicket]

The UESC have also made laws about the legal jurisdiction of Tau Ceti

[dreamy hawk]

Do you recall where? I’m only aware of the contract language in the codex.

I know they’re explicitly stated as having jurisdiction, but I haven’t seen anything aside from that.

[warm thicket]

This is the UESC casualty page

"By law the UESC has every right to protect its interests in the TAU CETI system from illegal occupation/confiscation. But the UESC make up the laws, so the ethical stance of any such rulings related to "ownership" over salvage rights to the TAU CETI colony seem sketchy, especially when considering the unclear nature of the UESC sovereignty of a quasi-nation located 11.9ly away, and the rumors of declared independent post-colony establishment."

[twilit snow]

What are some potential new enemies?

[dreamy hawk]

UESC AT TAU CETI: By law the UESC has every right to protect its interests in the TAU CETI system from illegal occupation/confiscation. But the UESC make up the laws, so the ethical stance of any such rulings related to "ownership" over salvage rights to the TAU CETI colony seem sketchy, especially when considering the unclear nature of the UESC sovereignty of a quasi-nation located 11.9ly away, and the rumors of declared independent post-colony establishment. Of course, rumors won't hold up in court, but they are enough to give interested third parties [RUNNERS, FACTIONS, etc.] wiggle room in their subversion of established law.

[dreamy hawk]

Oop you were faster.

[dreamy hawk]

Fungal zombies.

Rogue ARS units. The Pfhor.

[twilit snow]

That's exactly what I was thinking about

[warm thicket]

Rouge ARS units are definitely likely for starting UESC ops

[twilit snow]

Can you imagine if runner corpses could resuscitate as the flood

[dreamy hawk]

I’m thinking more missing colonists but maybe. Depends on how the infection works I guess.

[warm thicket]

Posessed felwinter type s'pht

[twilit snow]

Also does the lore talk about rogue uesc?

Oh nvm I guess rook

[dreamy hawk]

There’s a few entries.

[dreamy hawk]

Technically not a rogue ARS unit.

[twilit snow]

Were ARS in the original marathon too?

[dreamy hawk]

I think Class B Anomalous Materials has an entry about a unit that goes in and returns with a lot of combat experience that needs to be deactivated.

[dreamy hawk]

Not in the games at least.

Other than the SO and BoBs you didn’t see human forces.

[warm thicket]

There's also a possibility that the actions we took could affect the UESC's control of ARS units putting it in the hands of other factions

[twilit snow]

I gotta get some valuables to get those lore tabs

I love reading them

[warm thicket]

Yeah but you got the cool font

[dreamy hawk]

https://codex.cyberacme.systems/

[twilit snow]

In the roadmap they did mention "new threats" in season 2

[twilit snow]

N-no I must unlock them first in-game stop tempting me

[plucky sierra]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1289683945033564160/1439411599688601865/IMG_0582.gif

[dreamy hawk]

-# aesthetics are only worth so much

[plucky sierra]

No embed

[dreamy hawk]

You know it.