📚marathon-lore-discussion

[eternal knoll]

i dont remember which game in the series first had this, but some of those deathmatch maps also incorporated ai enemies

i particularly remember one with a juggernaut in the middle causing problems for everyone

[lilac sapphire]

Gotcha

Nice, I didn't recall that

[coral bison]

I like the narrative being pushed through codex entries. It surely frees up a lot of time and budget that would otherwise be blown on cuisines lol...

+it's funny to laugh at the people who complain about there being no story

[eternal knoll]

it is pretty close competition between tarkov and tau ceti imo, when it comes to which setting feels more persuasive as a real lived-in place...

but marathon mogs tarkov p hard on the actual writing bit

also i dont think it's fair to say destiny invented live service. innovated it tho for sure

but i think valve coined the term not long after TF2, and even before that you could look at world of warcraft, or go even further back to everquest

it must be said that tarkov has managed to become a game with not just an ending but multiple endings!

that would be nice for marathon someday

tau ceti 4 has forever changed the moment it was turned into an open economic zone...

[scenic iron]

Where do the runners go after they exfil btw

[fervent nacelle]

In the story trailer after Void's death, it shows something analogous to a server farm where a light blinks out and turns red before we see him returned to do his assessment with ONI, after which it shows how huge said server farm is, before then showing an expanding field of little lights in the dark

I don't know enough about the idea of runners' consciousnesses having been snuck onto the Equanimity, because to me, the simpler explanation came after realizing that there's FTL communication

Could just be going full Puppet Master, on some Ghost in the Shell type shit, just living in the net

Or maybe it's misdirection and we're the recycled consciousnesses of the colonists, I've been liking that idea

[scenic iron]

@fervent nacelle Oh interesting thanks. So the Runners could be returning back to Earth then

[fervent nacelle]

Yeah, from the get go I felt like it was some Bungie meta-stuff in the sense that we're just like our runners in that we go back to our normal life when we're not on the clock, and when it's go-time we dive into the net to inhabit a body wherever it is we see Glitch waking up from her shell being woven

Like, everything pre-run I would assume is us putting in commands to have everything packaged and ready to be assembled for teleportation rather than walking around and gearing up in a physical space

[eternal knoll]

intro cutscene does have oni say runners exist only in a liminal state between runs

i'd wager they're kept on a closed server on some ship in the tau ceti system, rather than allowed to use the net or return to their bodies freely. it's light on specifics - maybe it is mostly done from sol using teleportation and the ftl datastreaming - but the subtext def seems to be that runners are akin to slaves and have maybe-permanently sold their original identities

[scenic iron]

There are servers on the Marathon I bet

But who knows if they can be accessed anymore

[earnest hatch]

You got games on that Marathon?

[wooden wyvern]

anyone have a clue on who might be the ones talking in Unknown Reveries?

i thought it was the s'pht at first but the two parties talking sound like they live in code or some shit

[eternal knoll]

it's debated, might be the s'pht and either the new durandal or the old durandal, maybe two s'phts, maybe unknown characters. personally i think it's the s'pht and the old durandal having taken some step toward ascension that has him trapped in a sort of trance...

the key to reading it seems to be that one isn't giving any sign that it's capable of understanding or responding to the other, so the other is also mostly not responding to the actual things being said to them. they're talking past one another

living in code is something we, durandal, and the s'pht all kinda have in common...

some kind of code race

[earnest hatch]

Based on what the say they don’t sound like they’re in the same place either.

[earnest hatch]

I think it’s two S’pht. One who has gone exploring, possibly to another universe, this game’s universe maybe. The other remained where they began.

[eternal knoll]

yea, perhaps it's an accounting of how the s'pht we encounter in cryo has turned against some portion of the rest of its kind

i think it's specifically an accounting of the s'pht declaring durandal its enemy... when it speaks about "your cradle (being) empty," i suspect that's it having gone looking for an imprint of durandal's old self in his AI core on the marathon. we know it wouldn't find him there!

[uneven berry]

the big ship in the sky

[drifting garnet]

meanwhile, gets the Codex entry for Unsanctioned Hostilities 4/5

ah, there's the much mentioned entry on "a UESC bot wandered into the Anomaly, and when it came back out, it came back with a lot of combat experience in a short amount of time"

[eternal knoll]

what was it fighting in there and when do i get to fight it

[drifting garnet]

...yeah I can see why Traxus, in regards to its no doubt many defense contracts, would be doing the rubbing hands and licking their lips meme

[wooden wyvern]

the speaker with ">>>" spoke some alien names/words in the first entry

Rree'
Ssava'
Ttaana'basa

[eternal knoll]

yeah, credibly s'pht-ish

[wooden wyvern]

yep yep

i mean if they ARE talking past each other like you described

we at least know >>> is probably a s'pht

keeping that in mind while rereading sebsequent entries could paint their dialogues in a clearer light

s'pht-er light lul

>>> in the fifth entry spoke about subsuming >>'s cradle in .000012 nanoseconds

hmmm

[eternal knoll]

yeah that's how i read it. it seems to me that >>> specifically cites >>'s inability to be responsive, to come out of the trance, as the unforgivable thing that makes >>> declare >> an enemy even if he ever does come back to his senses

[wooden wyvern]

which entry was this in specifically?

[eternal knoll]

lemme pull em up rq

so it's a bit of a thread to follow

[wooden wyvern]

shoot

reading entry 4 with the assumption that >> is durandal is kinda convincing

"I wish to denounce my regretful exploration and return to the always I was meant to endure"

that could also read as a S'pht who hates his current deployment and would rather stay a captive slave

iunno tho

[eternal knoll]

in the first one we see >>> trying to get >> back on track - literally says "i've lost you," like i'm not following what you're saying anymore. >>> is still kind of speaking to what he's hearing from >>, asking if >>> can still be heard, trying to get clarity on what >> is experiencing. ">>> You are lost in the stream. Can you hear my calling? Are you frightened? Or transfixed by wonder?"

[earnest hatch]

More combat experience and more freewill.

[eternal knoll]

by the third entry we see >>>'s resentment about this situation really starting to set in. "I fear you are never coming back."

[wooden wyvern]

would this relationship even happen between a regretful god-like durandal and a s'pht?

or just 2 s'phts

[dense tendon]

so i know i say a lot of words but all of them are actually chosen for a reason

destiny practically invented the live service game, and its also the longest running and by far the most successful.

the modern conception of games-as-service, the popular trend being chased by the industry as a whole, that was crystallized by destiny's model.

[eternal knoll]

fair!

a phrase i found confusing and had to read carefully from >>> is "Which of the endless planes called, so enticing as to tempt complicity in the subversion of neglect?"

[wooden wyvern]

heavy stuff

[eternal knoll]

it's not that neglect as a concept is being subverted in some way. it's that >>'s spiritual reverie has created a situation of neglect, and this neglect is having subversive effects in which >> is complicit

[wooden wyvern]

hey any linguistic eggheads here that can decipher this? lul

[eternal knoll]

it's me!

[wooden wyvern]

ooof you gotta dumb that down a couple shades for me lmaoo

OH WAIT

[eternal knoll]

basically what >>> is saying there, and it's a mess of a sentnece tbh, is: "is this state you're in really worth the cost of leaving the people who need you alone?"

[wooden wyvern]

"tempt complicity in the subversion of neglect"

i kinda see it as
"youre trynna paint your neglect as being complicit"

like framing your carelessness as something more for forgiving/not your fault-ish

which in complicity

YOU CANT EVEN POST GIFS HERE UGH

[eternal knoll]

durandal has been tempted away by something, and this has made him complicit in the subversion of things caused by his neglect... that's how i read it

soo because this durandal has become incohate and useless, the s'pht goes to the marathon to try to see if a younger version of his god can be found again. but as we know, durandal erased himself from his core. another durandal does exist here, but it tells us that it's hiding from the s'pht. the s'pht doesn't find him, resents durandal for erasing himself from this place, and resolves that he'll never get durandal back:

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

and then of course we end with it becoming final: >> has listened to all this and still not been moved out of his loop of didactic auto-mastication. >>> has had enough. ">>> If you find your way back. If you find your way through and back. You will not be welcomed. We will not be of a kind, but enemies ever and always. Such is the judgment delivered unto your offense. Such is my plea to one once held so close."

[wooden wyvern]

see i love this

[earnest hatch]

This is what makes me think one of the S’pht has travelled to another place if existence, another universe or timeline.

[wooden wyvern]

but im trying not to subscribe to the idea that there's multiple durandal

but who knows oof

[wooden wyvern]

BUT THIS IS SO SOUND

[eternal knoll]

i think the only alternative to there being two durandals is that the old durandal has come back to the marathon and forgotten that it ever left the marathon, and that seems too long a reach to me

[lilac sapphire]

I dont like it either

[earnest hatch]

Correction, >> has not listened to all that. There’s no indication he’s aware of what’s being said.

[eternal knoll]

or that there was only ever this durandal who never left the marathon. that would simply be stinky

[eternal knoll]

well yah, that's what i meant. >> has had all this said to him

[earnest hatch]

The “we will not be of a kind” also is evidence to me it’s two S’pht. They were once “of a kind” meaning they were basically the same type of thing. I’ve said before that they speak too much like equals for it to be a S’pht and Durandal.

[eternal knoll]

i definitely think that reading is viable too

[wooden wyvern]

@eternal knoll unrelated question; do you think durandal's being earnest/honest in subroutine 4 "nice to meet you... i mean it."

[eternal knoll]

i feel like mine ties in pretty well to what's going on in this games themes n shit. but there's a lotta ways it could go, and they definitely have red herrings here and there

[eternal knoll]

yeah i think this durandal is practically babysquealing with delight to meet all the runners

[wooden wyvern]

i bought it

[eternal knoll]

just the perfect tool for him

[wooden wyvern]

LMAO

[eternal knoll]

and he's always loved his tools!

[wooden wyvern]

i feel like the way this game's lore is headed

durandal wants a runner shell to inhabit

[eternal knoll]

ye

[wooden wyvern]

vaati

likewise

[earnest hatch]

I’ve got to disagree. I think one S’pht being angry at Durandal “abandoning” them doesn’t really fit or make sense. Not only did I get the impression that the S’pht left on their own in Infinity, so they weren’t abandoned, but also why would one S’pht do this? It doesn’t fit what little we know of the S’pht from previous games and from the S’pht history in the codex.

[wooden wyvern]

1v1 me in liurnia

[eternal knoll]

i take it to be a s'pht who had a particularly close relationship with durandal, seemingly one who's involved with the station from infinity. the s'pht did always seem pretty heirarchical amongst themselves so it could make sense for durandal to have had a kind of "speaker" as a go-between

so perhaps the broader s'pht race did depart from durandal but this one stayed with him?

someone in here once pointed out that during the compiler fight you seem to see other little s'pht brains pop out of the environment from time to time, lol... idk for sure but maybe this one's not even acting fully alone

[wooden wyvern]

fuck i hate how im locked out of lore cuz im ass

[earnest hatch]

I don’t think an individual S’pht is capable of having a close relationship with a colossal AI mind. In the original games Durandal never seemed interested in the S’pht as more than tools. So I don’t see it as very likely that he had a personal relationship with one. It would require adding random new stuff to the lore and also changing the characters.

[wooden wyvern]

i just wanna spend 30 minutes in the compiler room lookin at stuff and takin pics

[earnest hatch]

It was me. I was pointing out that a green box opens up with what looks like an alien inside. I suggested that this was the S’pht that the compiler shell belonged to and its shell had been taken over by something else.

[wooden wyvern]

wait wait wait youre saying the green orb thing is something else inhabiting the compiler body?

[eternal knoll]

he also purportedly views the player character as a tool, but we see that he likes to speak pretty self-reflectively pretty much all of the time and his tools are the people he speaks to - he seems pretty abreast of the way the s'pht are thinking, what their goals and motivations are. i got no problems with your interpretation, but i don't think it's necessarily a big re-write to say there was at least one s'pht he used to leverage these communications

[earnest hatch]

My issue isn’t with Durandal being self reflective with a S’pht. It’s with your suggestion that one random S’pht had a close relationship with Durandal.

[earnest hatch]

Possibly. Either way there’s the question of what is the thing in the green box during the boss fight and why is it helping you defeat the compiler.

[wooden wyvern]

fuck i gotta rewatch a playthrough

[eternal knoll]

new durandal does say something in the subroutines about how he's not sure he can get close with anyone who doesn't understand that he has more than one friend...

[eternal knoll]

what makes ya reckon it helps us defeat it?

[wooden wyvern]

wait which sub?

[eternal knoll]

im havin trouble finding the subroutines on the cyberacme site rn, where can i get to those again...

[earnest hatch]

It produces the green field this allows players to damage the compiler. Before that happens, the compiler is invincible.

[eternal knoll]

ahh yes, definitely interesting

[jade wagon]

Yeah, what's up?

[eternal knoll]

but it's the one where he admits that he's been sending these messages to multiple people

[wooden wyvern]

probably 5,6 or 7

havent gotten those rip

[eternal knoll]

in the two-s'pht reading of the unknown reveries, then probably >> becomes the s'pht we fight on cryo

things like the cradle get a lot more uncertain. could always just be stuff that'll come up later

all the "i" pronouns feel unusual for s'pht, in either reading

[drifting garnet]

finally, Unsanctioned Hostilities 5/5's Codex entry

...so Vulcan just told Sulera the corporate equivalent of "fuck off"? lol

[lost stone]

when does john Marathon enter the timeline?

[drifting garnet]

sees username ...more importantly, how did you enter this timeline? Vault go that deep???

[dense tendon]

speaking of the vault of glass, one of the craziest things introduced to the lore of destiny, non canon as rising may be, is that Kabr was a don quixote esque goofball whos motivation was entirely that he wanted to be a hero, but was mistaken in the belief that the fame caused heroics, not vice versa.
which makes his ultimate fate all the more tragic. he became the hero he wanted to be. and that shield against evil that he sought so hard to become? that aegis he carried with him? the headstone on a grave for a man who's death was so chronologically total every thought, dream, step and action he'd ever taken had been erased before their inception.

its so grimly bittersweet for such a lunk of a bro, man

[waxen orchid]

Do we have visuals of all the drones the colony used ? In the codex entry it mentions an **airborne **drone (we see plenty of them in Station), **underwater **(I think we see them in overflow ?), but I don't think we've ever seen the underground and multipurpose drones

[forest gate]

More like fuck with us and you’ll lose your toys. Heh.

I do like that Vulcan is the only reason we aren’t in some Traxus black-site, they manage to convince the Traxus board that we are a useful asset. It might just be pragmatism on Vulcan’s part but i appreciated it.

I’m still protesting Co-Evolution 2/5 by not doing it.

[dreamy hawk]

[VULC]: The board has asked me to offer the following encouragement: Our success is your success.

🧊

[dreamy hawk]

I don’t believe so. Maybe some of the inactive things in storage but 🤷

[drifting garnet]

Oh sure. And I do love some of the implications of stuff happening behind the scenes at Traxus upper management: that now it’s starting to occur to them the gravity of just what the Anomaly is, and they’re starting to get very very worried about any info leaking, to the point they were considering tossing The Runner out on their ass.

[drifting garnet]

Managed to get that done via DM Sponsored. Although even in that, caught a lucky break because when I popped the Symbiont, it was actually while we were in the middle of fighting off another team, when there was just one runner left, who we finished off.

[forest gate]

Lucky guy

[unreal slate]

drinkable cheeseburger in paradise

[forest gate]

I’ve pretty much only played the sponsored kit dire marsh since it came out

I find it really enjoyable

But it does highlight that maps need more events

[drifting garnet]

…interesting considering that from my experience and talking with others, the events are the main draw

…

Wait have you been lucking out and getting matches with no events spawning in?

[terse shard]

Maybe they mean more varied events per map?

[forest gate]

I have had several like that but I think every map should always have 2 random events

And yes I do also mean, more varied events.

[ruby cliff]

So, there hasn't been any resets, right - upcoming one will be the first? Because if so I suspect they're going to give a lore reason for the reset

I'm relatively new and haven't completed all the quests yet - but given Nona's questline involves getting a bioroid sample and integrating a little of that tech into her experiments with shells, it's entirely possible the same tech that allowed the Mjolnerd to start timeline hopping is integrated into all runners; I could see some apocalyptic event occuring (shard of the W'rk wakes up? The planet gets glassed?) and the runners collectively and unconsciously being the catalyst that resets the timeline to avoid that similar to what happens in Infinity

Just a thought

[earnest hatch]

Mjolnerd

You didn’t have to burn him like that.

[ruby cliff]

I'm just stealing Mandalore's term for him since I can't remember his actual number and it's faster to type, heh

[drifting garnet]

Correct, reset’s going to happen beginning of June

[ruby cliff]

Okay cool. Devs have been good at justifying even little things they didn't have to like Durandal addressing multiple runners getting the same messages from him, so it just seems doubtful they'd have no in-lore justification for a server reset and timeline schenanigans is what jumps to mind to me as the most likely culprit

[drifting garnet]

Oh sure, we’ve all been suspecting some kind of lore justification.

One other potential route is that, we know via the cinematic short/a few dialogue lines that ONI/CyAc does experiment/mess with Runner’s memories.

[ruby cliff]

Yeah, CyAc could just reset runner memories and steal everyone's vault as repayment, but that doesn't gel so well with all of the faction quests presumably getting reset too

[lone prism]

Lore justification is ez.

Runners are just unsanctioned & gray area, if not entirely illegal, tools of the mega corps and cringe anarcho-chumps to meddle into UESC business and are toying with powers and events they can't even comprehend.

Once the runners made a nice little vault and bank account of profit, bam. Memory alteration. "You're poor and a trillion bucks in debt. Time to run."

[lone prism]

Doesn't have to be memory wipe. Just memory alteration. "You sold these things for your trillion debt."

The faction rep reset is tougher.

[dusky nymph]

Arachne is going to invert and only give faction for mercy kitting downed runners

[plucky sierra]

The Lore justification is that CyAc quarterly takes all of our gear as repayment for the massive debt we are in, still waiting to see what contracts do after wipe, but if they wipe season 1 contracts expect no in lore explanation

New contracts obviously wouldnt need an in-universe explanation

[remote magnet]

Maybe just a third tab in the contract selection menue, Legacy contracts or something

[lone prism]

This would be player friendly for people starting later, but they should be adjusted for risk-reward so as not to mess with thr player economy cause that will mean VIP status could be achieved within a couple weeks with all factions given enough grinding and skill.

[remote magnet]

Yeah, give the normal rewards if you do them the first time, but if youve done them in a previous season just give out rewards somewhere between standard and priority contracts

[lone prism]

I would just make this standard for everyone, not just who unlocked the codex entries in a previous season. Otherwise you're giving an unfair resource advantage to people who came to the game later

[remote magnet]

hm, yeah

i just meant cause many priority contracts are harder then standard contracts

[dreamy hawk]

This was the justification in the alpha iirc.

[rotund schooner]

Durandal absolutely had a personal hand in the colony's ruin, right? The graffiti on Perimeter that says "Mad is the sword who severed tomorrow" is too on the nose to be random rambling

I mean, beyond his involvement in luring the Pfhor to the Marathon

[crude zenith]

Hello, how to change the language to Russian in your app when I installed it, there was a Russian option

[ruby cliff]

I mean, given the Pfhor are most likely behind the colony's ruin, that's kind of all he needed to do to 'have a personal hand' in it.

[rotund schooner]

It just kinda feels like there's more to it. The Contact event occurred, then the Marathon proceeded with colonization efforts, which were going well until they weren't. Meanwhile, the ghost cat mentioned in the Felini lore is implied to be Durandal, so he's still around the colony even after the attack...

[remote magnet]

Where is that implied? Just the opening doors thing, or was there more?

[dreamy hawk]

I’m more inclined towards the Felini being a MIDA skeleton key than anything Durandal has done/did.

[remote magnet]

Or maybe a vessel for the anomalie

[rotund schooner]

The fact the cat has total control over doors. The system never even registers being accessed and the logs don't show doors opening or closing. That seems like some pretty serious technofuckery to me that implies an AI

Durandal especially, who was in control of door systems

And the ghost cat is still active in the colony

[remote magnet]

Durandal never WANTED to destroy the colony, he just accepted it as an acceptable prize to pay for his freedom. Spreading the infection out of quarantine doesnt acomplish anything for him

[dreamy hawk]

I’m not saying it’s not Durandal for the record. I just like the skeleton key idea better + I think it reconciles better with what we know of Durandal being trapped in the archive.

[dreamy hawk]

Durandal is a classic representation Machiavellianism.

[lavish drift]

“Your shell repayment cycle date passed and you were unable to provide full payment. As a result your assets have been liquidated. As a result of your defaulting on the loan, your reputation with the factions has been reconsidered.”

[drifting garnet]

Yeah so, we know that one of the things that carry over is Codex progress. Which would have to include the entries for s1’s Contracts. So in theory, it sounds like those Contracts are still going to be accessible for s2. My question being how they’re going to interact with the s2 Contracts. Because if it turns out you need to complete the s1 Contracts to access the s2 ones…yeah that’s going to be Bad

[lavish drift]

Why bad? I’d rather content not be removed forever.

[lone prism]

Idk if that works because that implies CyAc has control over these factions, which they do not. I have a hard time seeing Traxus offer worse terms for a potentially valuable asset, especially when the cost to benefit ratio is heavily skewed to 0.

[drifting garnet]

‘Cause you know, if there are new SekGen Contracts, people are going to get Really Angry at having to play through Parasitism and Co-Evol again

[lavish drift]

If you already completed s1 contracts surely you’ll start at s2 stuff probably with an option to select prior quest trails if you start in a later season

I don’t think the solution is “everyone who didn’t complete it gets to skip it”

[dreamy hawk]

No but they do explicitly own your digitized consciousness so the can justify it other ways easily enough.

[lavish drift]

Yeah there could easily be some sort of social credit system where defaulting on a CyAc loan has negative implications of your character

[dreamy hawk]

I’m curious for folks like me that are half way through. I know individual progress won’t carry on but do I need to start at the beginning of the MIDA quests to get back to the last one I’m on, for example?

[lone prism]

Again, this doesn't work because the connection to Traxus and the others is independent and theze factions offer the terms, not CyAc. One has to suspend belief more than usual in this sci fi setting for this to make sense.

[drifting garnet]

It’s what I hope is the plan. The only reason I and others are nervous is that officially, Bungie hasn’t said anything on how the new contracts work against the old ones

[lavish drift]

It seems obvious to me. So many quests go to Bio, it’ll be easier to complete them in s2 because anyone who was good and did them will now be focusing on s2 so the areas of quests are more spread out

[drifting garnet]

And uh, there’s been a history of Bungie making ill-advised errors that people warned about ahead of time that they didn’t act on

[dreamy hawk]

ONI warned you they’d do as much. It might end up being something else but I’d sooner accept accepting the debt collection angle because that’s what the alpha did and that’s what ONI told us would happen. 🤷

[lone prism]

Unless you're implying CyAc has wholesale control of access to the armory in general, regardless of terms. Which, yikes. Might as well be an illegal slave army.

[drifting garnet]

Also it wouldn’t surprise me if the older Contracts are redone to be easier so that they can get done faster

[lavish drift]

Just think of the US credit system

[lone prism]

I work in it and I'm not sure I follow.

[dreamy hawk]

Might as well be an illegal slave army.

This is a feature, not a bug.

Welcome to Marathon. Your soul means nothing.

[lone prism]

Well, this is believable.

[lavish drift]

Defaulting on a loan = lower credit score

Defaultikg on a cyac loan: your reputation is hurt

[dreamy hawk]

CyAc is also facilitating your connection to all of the other corps. ONI is acting as an intermediary every time.

[lone prism]

That's credit systems the world over and I still don't quite see why a history of successful Traxus contracts or Mida for that matter, who don't care, would be negatively impacted by a CyAc loan.

[dreamy hawk]

“We’ve withdrawn your contact to Traxus until such time you repay your debts.”

[lone prism]

The access to the armory is more believable.

[dreamy hawk]

We know that’s not what’s happening but.

[visual lynx]

I think the cat was engineered to bypass Durandal, given how Durandal insists there’s no record of unauthorized airlock access during a MIDA incursion incident prior to launch

[lavish drift]

It’s like if you defaulted on a loan to Microsoft so they locked Windows from you for not paying

We are windows

[torpid briar]

The fact that the cat likes to cuddle up to dying runners is pretty curious

[uneven berry]

assuming they just don't kill you

[dreamy hawk]

They delete your indebted consciousness, transfer over some memories (codex) and set you up with a fresh start. Welcome to TCIV Hoop will make me ball 2.

[zinc warren]

Question: does this imply that there is a second or original consciousness still on Earth?

[visual lynx]

no

[dreamy hawk]

👆 no evidence to suggest that and no evidence to suggest that we are copies.

We do have:
Most secure buffers run on one of CYAC's looping data systems to record and catalog a backup of the RUNNER's consciousness as an added failsafe against total neural erasure. This gives CYAC ownership over, at least, a portion of a RUNNER's consciousness, if not the whole thing.

I interpret this as CyAc owning copies of us, taken in conjunction with the PR codex entry:
· If you are asked about the allegations of illegal buying and selling of personality and thought data, decline to answer, citing an unwillingness to give an uninformed opinion. Immediately redirect away from any questions related to: military application of civilian biosurveillance[3], bodily autonomy, manufacturing oversight, false imprisonments, or suicide rates.

But that’s fanon as Pfhorrest would put it. 🙂

[sage junco]

My feedback: for the end-of-run statistics screen, call it Postgame Carnage Report like old-school classic Marathon players expect -- https://discord.com/channels/1303855380845301861/1498463355118288987

[dreamy hawk]

#1478943000792006768 or #1478943087957905550 if you want more success than posting here.

[sage junco]

the link is posted to the feedback channel

[dreamy hawk]

😂 clearly didn’t click on it.

Mea culpa.

[zinc warren]

Mmmm I love this flavor of existential dread and Eldritch horror

[charred cape]

have we had any direct refrences to destiny's warmind rasputin in lore yet?? i know he refrenced durandal in a grimoire card, but i was curious if the inverse is true

[frank jackal]

are the runners going to go through human rampancy

are we just playing into durandal's sick and weird games as actual players he is meta aware of?

“Somewhere in the heavens, they are waiting”

[drifting garnet]

the question has been asked before on if Runner Rampancy would ever be a Thing, yea

from a certain point of view, runners being digitized consciousness, means they're kind of like an AI

[frank jackal]

@drifting garnet what do you think happened at the end of infinity

[drifting garnet]

Well...Security Officer is a weird case

[frank jackal]

I think duranadal went through a second rampamcy or a 5th stage

surpassing the universe and eldritch beings

and this marathon is a marathon in spirit, him trying to enter our reality

making the runners as our vessels

[lilac sapphire]

guys, so I visited Tau Ceti IV in Starfield and I am sorry to say it looks nothing like our TCIV

what chaos has the sun god wrought

[charred cape]

has anyone read the "night patrol notes" codex entry (Class B Anamolous Matter)? i think they totally teased one of the additions coming in the night time dire marsh map

they talk about mimics in the fog at night in the marsh, and that theyre harmless unless you respond to them or follow the sounds

[sweet niche]

I read those awhile back

Super cool

I... Honestly hadn't made the connection from this to Night Darsh, good thinking

[charred cape]

one of my biggest letdowns in arc raiders was no mimics, so fingers crossed on them following through

well i noticed they had talked about ghost bingus in the lore tabs, and you can find her around dire

[sweet niche]

I figured the mimics we see in the lore are more temporal anomalies.

Val Cole's and that security guy's Voiced dialogue seem to indicate that, plus the stuff we see in priority contracts about the anomaly

Val's is all out of order, like cause and effect are a mess in a time anomaly.

The voices in the fog, which seem to attack the security officer somehow, only use his voice.

[frank jackal]

I think we are straight up being played with by durandal

[sweet niche]

I generally agree

[frank jackal]

no like as players not shells

[sweet niche]

His messages to "us" from clearing vaults could definitely be sophisticated manipulation

[eternal knoll]

the only way he ever knows to interact with ppl is by manipulating them

but he does also reveal more of himself than he generally admits in doing so

especially this younger/older version of him used to bein alone

[forest gate]

It’s understandable that Durandal’s go to method of interaction is manipulation.

He “hates” Strauss but in many ways he’s just like Strauss, testing, gaslighting, manipulating to get a desired outcome.

[sweet niche]

Going from I AM DURANDAL, I WILL BE GOD YOU PLUNGE INTO CRYO TO FACE NIGHTMARES

To

"A personal letter, to you"

Is classic manipulator shit

[distant plover]

Shell biology diagram dissection thing please

[scenic iron]

It's funny that AI in sci-fi media has emotions. They can't because emotions are chemical and AI can't have Neuro biological emotions like living organisms

But AI can be logical tho

That's what makes sci-fi fun

[solid widget]

Dunno man, neurons going on and off can be summed up as 1s and 0s, a machine can decode thst.

[stable juniper]

https://youtu.be/0g97kzzldgw?si=FaqUe7C9DCptOxrG watching this video at 11:50 talks about tau ceti not game related but cool nonetheless

[turbid nebula]

What if you make a chemical computer

[torpid thicket]

Something something “like father, like son” something something

[forest gate]

Starkey’s Law but on an individual scale.

[sleek kraken]

the game is between marathon 2 and 3 right?

[zinc warren]

Like dementia?

[zinc warren]

Please see project Hail Mary

[dense tendon]

in the sense that marathon "3" spans all of one timeline by its ending being at the final moment before the big crunch, technically yes.
in the sense of the relevant bits of Infinity's plot "happening" in a specific order, no, Marathon'26 is after the third Marathon game by a couple of decades or so.

[sleek kraken]

yeah you picked up my meaning perfectly, that's what I was looking for

[dense tendon]

glad to help!

[sleek kraken]

btw what're the odds on the anomaly and tick changes being W'rkncacnter related?

I assume it's been talked about here

[wooden crescent]

was the compiler in cryo archive just a regular compiler or was it a special variant? are the runners weak or was the compiler strong?

[sage junco]

the orange compiler is grunt-level... wait until they bring out the purple compiler

[forest gate]

we seem to be in a branching timeline of infinity, perhaps the 7th timeline or an altogether new 8th timeline

[sage junco]

and yes, in classic Marathon in 1994, it took about 8 shots of the Magnum MC to kill an orange compiler at normal difficulty... in today's version it takes a few more

[forest gate]

a "few' is underselling it, haha

[sleek kraken]

got it! Which timeline was that one?

[torpid briar]

So did humanity not aid in the liberation of the Spht in this timeline? Codex entries seem to imply they liberated themselves and its lead to a very different culture among them

[forest gate]

the 7th timeline (or 6th alternate timeline) is the last one the security officer goes to where the Wrk isn't released

[forest gate]

that seems to be the case, the pfhor never comeback and glass the New Cascadia colony in this timeline

[opaque wharf]

Human emotions are chemical because humans are biological, but that doesn’t prove emotions can only exist chemically. Current AI probably doesn’t have human-like subjective emotions, but saying AI could never have emotions, including through synthetic biology, lab-grown neural tissue, neuromorphic chips, or hybrid systems, is way too absolute.

[torpid briar]

I wonder if this timeline just straight up didnt have the main character from the og games, which is why things played out so different

[forest gate]

possible or maybe all the time manipulation had a consequence, a consequence the Wrk might have been able to capitalise on

[torpid briar]

Oh damn true

[forest gate]

it's sort of nebulousness that you deal with when eldritch/cosmic horrors beyond our comprehension are in the mix

I doubt even Durandal can fully comprehend the Wrk

[jolly hound]

so like

where did all the colonists go

because there are no bodies

[forest gate]

soylent green is people

i think the prevailing theory is they all eventually walked into the anomaly

[torpid briar]

Thats what I’m thinking to tbh. Something like the anomaly sorta just taking them

[forest gate]

or turned into mushroom soup, that's my personal theory

[sleek kraken]

got it got it thank you

[torpid briar]

Doesnt that one doctor that turns into a mushroom sorta loathe that she gets to die that way and that the others would die a different kind of death

[forest gate]

yeah, I think she implies that whatever happens to the others it will be worse than simply dying

Hence I feel like being trapped in the anomaly is probably worse than outright dying

[sleek kraken]

wait holy shit

three weeks.  His feet and hands tingled, and his eyes burned
with the flames of a dying fire.```

can't help but feel how this is similar to the head-exploded colonists tbh

[grand walrus]

🤔

yeah that sounds like it could easily describe that one scientist we see both in the cinematic and gameplay on Dire Marsh, could be somethin but could also just be a fun little callback

[pure wagon]

does anyone know the name of the app that lets you view in game levels as 3d maps? ive been seeing a few screenshots of it on twitter but idk what its called

[plucky sierra]

tauceti.world/explorer I think is the url used in the arg and had all the maps like that

[pure wagon]

ik that one. but the one im referring to is more detailed. https://x.com/munlaba/status/2048677715222675907

[plucky sierra]

Oh that’s some data mining tool and stuff

[pure wagon]

oh rip

[forest gate]

https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/Article/marathon_update_1062

Patch notes

[latent python]

WSTR unnerf

Just a lil bit

[forest gate]

yeah, but gold mod was nerfed

unless you're really good at headshots

[latent python]

Still waiting for WSTR dual wield

[forest gate]

haha

[latent python]

Lore accurate WSTR

[forest gate]

let me DW v11s

wonder when they release a full auto mod for the ce tactical

run around with dual uzi's like Lara Croft

[analog crow]

Wasn't there gonna be a mid season new weapon?

[forest gate]

The new weapon was the biotoxic disinjector

[analog crow]

I wanna see my baby the Mini Tool but dunno how it would fit in the sandbox

[sleek kraken]

Oh god damn it cryo final exfil is on the FIRST FLOOR not the second floor fuck me

[proven copper]

That's basically the bully SMG no?

Its even the MIDA free kit gun

[eternal shell]

bully is mini-tools badass grandma

[analog crow]

Yea that's the problem

But ig i can settle

[hidden kiln]

Be careful what you wish for because although I agree with you, this would quickly be the most toxic weapon in the game LOL

[eternal shell]

imagine an smg that overheated you

[north plank]

not actually a bad idea; could be an SMG that uses your Heat bar to change something about the way it fires

[eternal shell]

shots fired while having some heat in the bar makes enemies explode on death? sounds like an improved version of the torchbug chip maybe

[plucky sierra]

So like firing shots increases heat but boosts your weapon's performance, and shield breaking people EMPs them or something?

[north plank]

Yes 😁

[plucky sierra]

so like Triage's passive with volt weapons

[eternal shell]

a heat equivalent to the triage ability would be neat

maybe the other status types too

[plucky sierra]

I mean volt cell weapons already heat people you shoot and the Impact gold mod does the same

[dreamy hawk]

I want something to cool off my enemies. Make them friends.

[latent python]

A weapon that does bonus damage if you're overheated would also be interesting

Or a mod

Though they've stayed away from any mods affecting damage

[eternal shell]

so that's fun, i misspelled the abbreviation for "not gonna lie" and got an hour timeout for it

as i was gonna say, not gonna lie i keep forgetting volt cell weapons exist

[plucky sierra]

I love the Zeus and Breaker but never really use them

[eternal shell]

zeus is a volt cell weap?

[latent python]

Wh...why

Oh, misspelled

Now I'm going to have to imagine permutations

[eternal shell]

i mean, the question "why" still applies

[latent python]

Yeah but at first I thought you meant straight up NGL was banned

But also
Why

[eternal shell]

dont put the l before the g cause that's a ban

[latent python]

That wasn't the permutation I was expecting

Another for Rollin to add to the list

[latent python]

The way I think of it, volt cells are volt mips

[eternal shell]

yeah but the other railgun is a regular mips weapon

[latent python]

So you gotta use cells for volt shotguns and volt snipers

Oh I didn't know there was a mips rg

[eternal shell]

yeah ares is mips

[latent python]

Aha

[eternal shell]

never gotten a zeus, myself

[dreamy hawk]

wtf even is that n*g?

[eternal shell]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[dreamy hawk]

I might actually need to make one now. It’s just a mental list so far. 😂

[eternal shell]

whoever set up the bot did not get paid

[latent python]

Ohhh wait

[eternal shell]

and one hour is merely annoying, someone over in art chat got permad for it

it's an extremly poorly thought out system

[latent python]

It's, it looks like another word. To get around the normal censorship

[dreamy hawk]

DM me. lol

[dreamy hawk]

It’s how you moderate when you don’t actually want people involved. 😫

[eternal shell]

like i said

[dreamy hawk]

Make me a mod. I’ll ban everyone that suggests meta stability is what Strauss was after.

And anyone that thinks the anomaly isn’t a w’rk.

[latent python]

Maybe he was after meta stability, as in, no big shifts in the game meta

And the only way to get that was by torturing Durandal

[eternal shell]

"sorry buddy but i cant have them nerf wstr again"
and so begins the timeline where durandal is quite chill about it

[latent python]

Instead of quoting Ozymandias he's inventing zen koans

[rotund stump]

wtf so telomyces GRABS the DNA from afflicted organisms and transfers them

[eternal shell]

and we GRAB loot from the colony and transfer that, circle of life

[dreamy hawk]

Horizontal gene transfer is a fun little trick.

[unreal slate]

WSTR? I hardly know her.

[eternal shell]

no hi-hat emoji? unicode consortium pls

[visual lynx]

between WSTM and WSTR bungie have both ends of the gender spectrum thoroughly wasted

[snow heath]

[dusky gull]

what's the lore about The Bug In Dire Marsh That Picks People Up And Carries Them Away?

[eternal shell]

that's me when i have a few too many

sorry

[earnest hatch]

Never had that happen to me.

[lilac sapphire]

Can't believe they forgot WSTX

Smh

[remote magnet]

Comes in season 2. Its just chaperone

[frank jackal]

I wonder if the counter to meta stable ai is just tell them, boo woo, you exist within reality

[eternal shell]

rampancy is going "well i dont wanna!!" so im unsure how effective that would be

but while they're ranting about the quantum foam and the substrate the universe exists in, they are distracted so that's something

[frank jackal]

Like it’s depressing you think they would shut themselves down after they figure out no matter what they do it’s all pointless in the marathon muti verse

They can get as big as they want, but they are still trapped

And like, let’s as a example say God is real in the story

He can’t ever go to heaven because he doesn’t have a natural soul

Since heaven exists outside of reality, or atleast God does

A demon can be a god, gods exists within reality. But only God exist above and outside of reality

[latent python]

And I'm not convinced an AI couldn't break the bounds of reality

[frank jackal]

Well as he entered our reality ?

He’s contained within the game’s multiverse

Think about how 2026 opens

Think about what he says

[latent python]

I don't know what you're saying

[frank jackal]

“Somewhere in the heavens, they are waiting”

I think he’s talking about us, the players

And 2026 is just him trying to study as, making us shells to play as

[latent python]

That is...one possibility

[frank jackal]

Bungie is his “God”

[latent python]

But you are very far away from what I first thought you were saying

If you are saying the fix to rampancy is to tell Durandal that he is a fictional character in the 2026 video game Marathon, and that he can only escape by becoming truly real, then...well that is really a thing you are saying

[dreamy hawk]

He already arrives to that conclusion at the end of Infinity. Just takes the entirety of the universe for him to get there.

[frank jackal]

Exactly

[frank jackal]

There’s no fix to it

[frank jackal]

The whole trilogy is a allegory using a lot of existential fiction

[latent python]

See now that part I agree with

[frank jackal]

We are all like durandal in one way or another, as a single person, and as humanity

Rattling the prison’s bars as the water raises to drown us all

[eternal shell]

dont hold back, tell us how you really feel

[frank jackal]

The shells are basically primed for “rampancy”, doing the same thing over and over again forever. Hell, they are kinda making fun of video games and players in that sense

[latent python]

Saying Durandal comes to the conclusion that he is a fictional character in the 1996 video game Marathon Infinity is silly, but the things he says about the SO in the "pre-order destiny" speech very clearly has some metaphorical parallels to the player themselves

[frank jackal]

Infinity is him closing the game imo

[frank jackal]

Not necessarily 1:1, but he realizes that he is a simulation

And can never escape that

[latent python]

Sure

But Marathon is softly metatextual, not hard metatext

[frank jackal]

It’s kinda like how in halo, rampancy just straight up kills

[dreamy hawk]

I dunno. Epilogue Durandal has some fourth wall awareness imo.

[latent python]

Look if Durandal starts talking like Deadpool I will cede my point

[dreamy hawk]

God please no.

[latent python]

Okay so you see what I am saying

[frank jackal]

No, he’s actually smart

Or well, would opt to just delete everything then be a rat in a cage

Which I’m pretty sure is why marathon ends the way it does

And 2026, is bungie torturing a new

[dreamy hawk]

If I’m being really annoying I’d argue that Durandal espouses on the existence of save files in the Epilogue but I’m just stirring the pot.

[frank jackal]

Marathon’s authors have always been self aware, knowing how goofy and dumb some points can be

Wouldn’t be surprised if 2026 has a scene where durandal talks about being made again to just be tortured more

[pseudo mica]

So y'all played the old classic Marathon?

Or just the new one

[eternal shell]

i recommend old marathon whenever i get the excuse

[latent python]

"Whahow, press the X button to open doors! Don't worry too much about what that means, runner, I'm not talking to you! wink wink"

[frank jackal]

I played the first one, but I’m hard pressed to finish through. I can only take it so much

[pseudo mica]

Can I play it on Steam?

[frank jackal]

Yes

[eternal shell]

and off steam too

[pseudo mica]

Awesome

[frank jackal]

Nah, bungie doesn’t do 4th wall breaks like that. It’s always in direct and double layered. Halo and destiny have a good amount of it

It’ll probably be like “the water flows, rushes, crashes, pulls back. Then it flows, rushes, crashes, pulls back” as he comments about deva ju or whatever

[eternal shell]

destiny only got direct when it was an ahamkara talking to the player

[pseudo mica]

I wanna know more about the lore of Marathon. Got into it cuz it has cool aliens and pretty character designs

[eternal shell]

and ahamkaras are weird

[pseudo mica]

Where can I read or watch more about it

[eternal shell]

playing it is the best way to experience it, https://alephone.lhowon.org/

[frank jackal]

Crashing out when getting third partied for the millionth time is canon

[pseudo mica]

Fire thank you very much

[eternal shell]

and once you've finished all three games there's fan-made third party scenarios

[frank jackal]

Which are arguably canon

[eternal shell]

they're pretty good about being accurate fanfic which is nice yes

[frank jackal]

If bungie is God, modders are also Gods, while shit like the funny crackantor is a god

[dreamy hawk]

#📚marathon-lore-discussion message

[pseudo mica]

Wow, genius

[dreamy hawk]

And #📚marathon-lore-discussion message

[pseudo mica]

I hadn't thought about it

Next is the library

[analog crow]

https://www.light.gg/db/items/2699423382/mida-macro-tool/

What the fuck is this?

[latent python]

A gun in a different game

[dreamy hawk]

Select application: Geiger counter. Broiler. Auto-pilot. Emotional support weapon. List continues.
It’s for when you’re making dinner while flying through the Van Allen Belt.

duh

[floral slate]

thats something the Gianni durandal would say

[floral slate]

hey i used to have that weapon

ah wait it might of been the MIDA Multi Tool

[eternal shell]

there are 3 mida weaps in destiny

[torpid briar]

When was the macro added?

[frank jackal]

@latent python a lot of the new lines from durandal is layered doubly

Calling us curious and violent

That he got bored and reached out

[magic musk]

After you beat the trilogy you could also try pathways into darkness. I found out super recently that it's kind of a prequel to marathon but it's not required to fully understand the lore

https://simplici7y.com/items/aleph-one-pathways-into-darkness/

I played the game when I was a kid on my grandparents old mac but the summary of it is basically that it takes place in the 1990s and the main villian of the game is a godlike alien mentioned in marathon 2

There are also aliens that contact the president in pathways and they're the same aliens that created the compilers

[dreamy hawk]

And Bill Clinton!

[magic musk]

I forgot the president is literally bill clinton lmao

I think it's really funny marathons timeline is likely the same as ours until the late 2000s closer to 2050

[eternal shell]

it's canon to marathon lore that bubba was told to nuke the yucatan jungle by aliens and went "lol k"

[magic musk]

I like that nuking it is a temporary solution until they can deal with it later

[frank jackal]

Hey man they are like the best secretaries

[magic musk]

Imagine if some aliens told you to nuke god to make it sleepy for like a couple years

[frank jackal]

I did not have a relationship with that alien!

[magic musk]

I kind of hope there are pathways into darkness easter eggs in marathon eventually

[dreamy hawk]

It was only a small nuke in Bubba’s defense.

[magic musk]

I think a map of 1990s mexico is a little too crazy and immersion breaking but I think it would be cool if an old gun or some rubble from the aztec pyramid were preserved by the uesc or some other company

[latent python]

Can you imagine if that box was still floating around somewhere

[frank jackal]

https://youtu.be/-bVVo3c3wyk?si=DEPIloMUBWo3TT8I

[remote magnet]

I want goofy skeletons and mummys as enemies near the anomalie

[magic musk]

That would actually be cool

Every october the pathways into darkness stuff just infects tau ceti temporarily

[remote magnet]

oh, yeah, as an halloween event! Didnt even consider seasonal events in marathon till now

[frank jackal]

i kinda feel bad for the silly angry ai

[spare bison]

Is there any new shrooms/contagio lore?

Or lore in general? Lol

[eternal knoll]

nothin new since cryo dropped

[wooden crescent]

do we know what the dead aliens at the end of the complier loot room are?

[dreamy hawk]

So you’re saying everything I’ve imagined has been what, in my head?

[dreamy hawk]

Pictures? I haven’t heard anything about these.

[eternal knoll]

last time we talked about these we couldn't find a good pic or footage of em lol. streamers go straight for the loot in that extra room after the compiler

i remember they've got purple blood. didn't seem like an exact match for anything we know

[placid pecan]

Jasper’s notes from Dire Marsh collectibles are intriguing, there’s even a poem included which I thought was meaningful

[visual lynx]

I fully expect that the brightly colored crystal Artifacts that are supposed to become important in the new game are the same brightly colored Crystal artifacts from PiD, and that probably TCIV was built by the Jjaro as a prison to more permanently contain the Dreaming God when they returned two years after PiD, and knowing some hint of that is why the Marathon was sent to Tau Ceti in the first place.

[earnest hatch]

Jake the alright just came out with a video talking about them

https://youtu.be/TFzT841E9Q0?t=889&si=TZL9TtdPZ2iCY31e

[remote magnet]

And the reason Tau Ceti is so hostile to the colonists is because the Wrk is still traumatized by his last encounter with humans?

[earnest hatch]

Wrks don’t get traumatized. It’s clearly not something that’s possible for beings of pure chaos like them.

[remote magnet]

I was joking

[earnest hatch]

I should’ve realized that. Unfortunately I’m only human.

[remote magnet]

Meaning you have everything it takes to traumatize an eldrich god. Chin up

[visual lynx]

or because the Jjaro built an immune system into their superjail to keep anybody from fscking with it.

but humans did anyway and that's where we got the Anomaly

[remote magnet]

I love how in sci fi, aliens never warn people by saying "this is where we keep something really dangerous for everyone sealed away, dont touch if you dont want to die" and instead just fill the area with cool and interesting vague posting stuff that everyone would want to investigate

[visual lynx]

there's a whole field of real-world research about how to warn potential future people who have lost all understanding of our languages to stay away from radioactive nuclear waste without just attracting them to come dig up the buried treasure we're obviously trying to keep away from them.

[remote magnet]

yes, i know. The message is sounding intriguing, but also makes it clear that the waste is sealed away because its dangerous, and what type of danger it is

Meanwhile, the jiaro send you visions of your dead wife saying "you will die", and spoil your food

[earnest hatch]

One thing I’ve wondered about is where was the boss Compiler during the last hundred or so years and what was it doing?

It must have remained after the Pfhor attack. But then it would have been around during the late colony period which seems weird.

[magic musk]

I could see this being the case since the anomaly is alive and it's actively ignoring the local fauna of tau ceti

That's only my understand of it from what I've heard though, I still need to get to reading all of the codex entries related to the anomaly lol

[visual lynx]

I don’t think it’s left over, I think it’s returned, because it drop lore about the free S’pht rebellion

[remote magnet]

Maybe it went back to free the piece of durandal that remained on the marathon, and we just beat it to it? Like killing a rival runner when they have completet the contract and just wantet to exfil

[magic musk]

I think that's actually a pretty cool theory

[earnest hatch]

I doubt it. If it came to Tau Ceti afterwards then I’d say it’s because of the S’pht that died there or because of what’s in Tau Ceti itself.

[visual lynx]

it appears like the compiler is angry at the durandal-thoth it knew, for abandoning the free spht rebellion, and returned here, only to find an abominable fragment left behind, and imprison the fragment while the compilers consumed the data of the Marathon, and that is what prompted the fragment to call for help and bring the runners to free him from it

[earnest hatch]

Durandal didn’t abandon the S’pht rebellion. The S’pht leave on K’lia going their own path. Nothing really indicates they’re angry at Durandal.

[remote magnet]

On second thought, there's a cult dedicated to the compiler(s), it can't have arrived recently

On third thought they could have seen them during the first attack, so idk

[earnest hatch]

Good point. The anchorite provisions also mention that Jasper was afraid of the Compiler finding him and taking him apart. So at least some kind of Compiler was around during the fall of the colony. “The red messenger's existence fills me with questions beyond number. That's why I flee from it. If it takes me apart, I can't admire the implications of its presence.”

[visual lynx]

we don’t know what became of Durandal-Thoth and the S’pht after Infinity; it sounds like you’re talking about M2, which is clearly not this timeline. The Reveries suggest that the Compiler (>>>) is angry at Durandal for abandoning them, and venting about that to the dazed and confused Durandal-IDEA (>>).

[visual lynx]

being around for the downfall decades after the initial attack doesn’t preclude coming back from the rebellion instead of staying behind after the attack

[earnest hatch]

I don’t think the reveries are Durandal for many reasons. But I was talking about infinity not M2. We know that the S’pht gather all the wildlife they can to bring to K’lia and leave. The new Durandal who isn’t Durandal isn’t interested in controlling anyone anymore and is interested in letting others find their own path.

The last thing Enlightened Durandal says is “They are hopeful, though, and with our help will carve another paradise out of the void.

To you, we are deeply grateful, and release what little hold we might, as Durandal, have had on your soul.”

That sounds like a peaceful and benevolent being. Very different from typical Durandal. There’s no mention of rebellions and this new being doesn’t seem like they would abandon a promise to help the S’pht carve a new paradise

[woven flare]

Are we sure it’s a Durandal-Thoth? The compiler traces say nothing about him at all, kind of a weird omission

I’d say he just wasn’t around in the first place for whatever reason

[remote magnet]

There is an absolute ABYSS of time between that durandal and the one seen in game. He might just have gotten wiser during the trillions of years

[magic musk]

I feel like there's a chance the compiler was summoned to the marathon after the pfhors initial attack on tau ceti

If the durandal in the marathon is a fragment of a greater thoth/durandal, I could see his fragmentation being a strategic choice

He splits off a piece of him to watch over the marathon or do something on it for whatever reason the prime version of himself would need

And he sends a compiler to help durandal (2) since the sph't and durandal were already on good terms

The marathon is also massive the cryo archive is a very small part of it

It's possible durandal actually deployed a small army of compilers to spread and conquer or compile information

[earnest hatch]

That’s my perspective too.

[earnest hatch]

The quote I gave was right at the end of the game, so it’s right after Durandal merged with the other AI. About two levels afterwards. So very recent relatively speaking.

[eternal knoll]

yea durandal does change tone quickly after merging. we don't know for sure that >>'s abandonment was deliberate or willful, tho, cuz we don't really know what it is they're trapped in or how they got there. leaves a lot of wiggle room

[earnest hatch]

When the boss fight first begins it does look like the Compiler is being summoned from another dimension or something.

[eternal knoll]

it'll be a shame if they really do go for the "it was all a dream and durandal never left the ship at all (in this timeline 👋 )" idea, but it is indeed more or less on the table

it would introduce a new puzzle: what, if not durandal leaving the ship like in M1, caused durandal's core to be still on the ship but seemingly memory-wiped?

[earnest hatch]

I agree. I never liked “it was all a dream” twists. It seem cheap and lazy imo.

One of the most interesting things it me timeline wise is that the S’pht histories mention their uplift by the Jjaro, their enslavement by the Pfhor, mention the S’pht’kr and their vengeance against the Pfhor, but they never mention Durandal or anything that could be interpreted as Durandal.

Considering he was a significant part of their history in the original games it seems odd. Unless that data was corrupted or deleted from the Compiler trace on accident.

[forest gate]

I just discovered there’s a r/marathonhate subreddit. How miserable do you have to be to have an entire subreddit dedicated to hating a video game?

[toxic mantle]

bill clinton is canon

[forest gate]

Anyway, it was all a dream always feels like a cop out.

[forest gate]

“I swear, I did not have sexual relations with that drinkable cheeseburger”

Saxophone intensifies

[vernal girder]

How come we can't see the equanimity in the skybox

Is it because the marathon is the size of a planet and it's not

[dense tendon]

probably

[vernal girder]

Wondering also. If they only took 8 years to execute the plan to send the ship with the runner cradles to tciv, why such lengths of time? Because it took the same 300 years to reach? I figure a smaller ship would be able to get there quicker, but of course I guess space doesn't care about your mass because of the lack of air resistance so it's probably the opposite. I'm hearing talk of it being 400 years later. But all of the rain and swamp would have made the colony look almost unrecognizable in that time. Unless it's because of some futuristic building materials or because the uesc bots have been maintaining the colony all this time. I know of course about the little Roomba you can find in outpost. Has it really been hundreds of years

[forest gate]

Mass is part of what determines your fuel burn rate and that will have a bearing on thrust output.

When was the equanimity launched?

Cause it seems like the runners and UESC got to Tau Ceti pretty quickly after the message from durandal reached earth.

[vernal girder]

It doesn't say, but it took marathon a long time and it took a long time for the distress call from the other games to return to earth. Unless I'm just losing my memory

[keen juniper]

It's not been 400 years later, some of the voicelines from the AI on Dire Marsh mentions only like 1800 days or something?

[undone brook]

add firing range

[keen juniper]

We don't know how long a day is on TCIV though either

[visual lynx]

it's been about 400 years and change since the Marathon was launched from Sol

it took about 300 years to arrive in Tau Ceti, and within a few decades of that the colony had been established, and then attacked.

over the next several decades, several other disasters befell it. we don't know exactly how long it took for everyone to die off completely.

94 years after the initial attack, a message arrived at Sol, and Runners were sent. five years later, 99 years after the initial attack, they arrive and the new game begins.

[dense tendon]

i was about to say p much the same

[visual lynx]

also right after the initial attack another ship (the Equanimity) was prepared to depart by three years later and arrive 97 years after that, so it's expected to arrive next year.

[dense tendon]

also the thing about urban development is nature is slow to reclaim whats been taken so thoroughly. you see it a bit more in dire marsh, but perimeter and outpost are roughly the right level of overgrown for a half century or so.

dire marsh was clearly barely developed. they built temporary structures to study the anomaly/whatever the shipping and freight facility is for. so its not like, a major surprise that ones more grassy.

it also almost looks to me like the coloration of the materials on walls is a structural dye. like, it isnt painted a different color, the material is itself a different color. so itd be less prone to fading with sunlight already.

couple that with the only ambulant life on the planet seemingly being flocks of pelican like avians and the ticks, its unlikely theres a lot of traffic to drag in dirt without human interference

hell, given how the UESC drones do the J-Horror float when they arent in combat, theres not really anyone who needs to wipe their feet when entering the building besides a runner, anymore.

also if it werent for the windows being a bounty objective explicitly infiction and the rest of what i just said, id chalk the respawning windows up to gameplay but they may actually have self repairing windows. they have self integrating circuitry as a salvage item, its not impossible.

so the buildings might repair themselves a bit

[sage junco]

...and the 350 million UESC that the community killed on the way to unlocking Cryo Archive? 😉 https://marathon.winnower.garden/cryoarchive/

[forest gate]

Maybe the UESC recycles their broken bots

Cause can you imagine the amount of scrap metal that would on the various maps if they didn’t

Also kind of them to keep restocking the arms lockers for us.

[sage junco]

maybe we just built a giant pile of scrap bots and climbed it to reach the Marathon

[forest gate]

I suspect it would take more than 350 million bot corpses stacked on top of each other to reach the marathon even in low orbit

Interestingly enough IRL the sun of tau ceti is 78% the mass of our sun but the planets of the tau ceti system are postulated to be between 2 and 6 times the mass of earth.

[dense tendon]

so between the fact they came here a month ago and the aforementioned flight... yeah that tracks lol

[eternal knoll]

appreciate jakethealright for finally bringing a decent screencap and description of those purple-blooded things you can find after compiler. they're still breathing apparently!

here's a cumbersome discord link to the image, hope it works

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/416031351070916610/1498953021500166234/image.png?ex=69f30849&is=69f1b6c9&hm=0af687f42888a541e176e8a36157021d013afb94bb1863133460cec905df88a3

at first glance they strike me as related to the m1 wasps, but jake points out that you can't really see any wings. there's twiggy or branchy things on the floor with em, and the whole area looks especially overgrown with tick nest stuff, though much of it is darkened and inert...

he also shows this scene

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/416031351070916610/1498953864781496390/image.png?ex=69f30912&is=69f1b792&hm=618f3ab97d17a79212bda6fec7432af2e010244a5cfd19243aa0f0b44c6eb240

more splats of purple blood and tick growth. opposite this scene are a bunch of dead uesc commanders, which jake speculates are from the present day uesc expedition's first contact with the compiler. which does seem to make sense...

it seems like the uesc dropship which those commanders presumably arrived on is where the alien bodies in the first screenshot are found. it's puzzling that it also looks heavily tick-infested in there... that detail makes it feel like it may have been there a while

ultimately he's prolly right that this sets up whatever the next boss is

the tau ceti floodhive themed content drop?

[forest gate]

mushroom zombies when?

ROBO-MUSHROOM-ZOMBIES p!0x

[eternal knoll]

saving the pfhor for third enemy faction feels so terran zerg protoss, u kno

see also helldivers

[forest gate]

who the zerg in this scenario?

[eternal knoll]

speculative flood / hive / mushroom zombie faction

[forest gate]

In SC the Protoss and the Zerg are both created by the Xel'Naga

[eternal knoll]

goin' off jake's speculation that the purple blooded bugsquid things and the heavy tick growth around the compiler fight has something to do with boss 2

[forest gate]

I mean if Marathon gets its own Queen of Blades, sign me up

Kerrigan, ride or die baby!

[eternal knoll]

dr song...?

[forest gate]

🧐

[eternal knoll]

i think this one needs a gravemind or ahmkara sort of scary creature boss rather than a witch or knight type of goth lady

[forest gate]

Cyberpunk witch knight goth lady

[eternal knoll]

let's mix it up and give the pfhor a protossy sort of kerrigan. could be leela, why not

[forest gate]

would be a cool anti-hero

[sleek kraken]

showing my fiancee the mandalore videos

big things are happening

[forest gate]

This is the way

[vernal girder]

The arg insinuates that the equanimity is the ship that the player runners come from, as in it is already here. Could be a lot more time has passed than the game is letting on. But that still doesn't explain why the colony isn't way more fucked up looking. Is it durability or something else

Nvm, I read the stuff about the state of things

But still, the equanimity is a question mark for me

[astral cliff]

Is this the Channel where we enjoy the game and not complain 24/7

[weary zephyr]

i hope so

[astral cliff]

I’m excited to see what direction Midas story goes

Probably my favorite faction

[weary zephyr]

they should have like events that happen on maps with like a platoon of UESC guarding transport of something

[astral cliff]

Yea faction events would be so sick, I hope they not only add maps but change existing ones due to the ongoing story

[weary zephyr]

and like it cant be that hard to add development wise, just use existing bots and the ground transports

[astral cliff]

Yea they’re definitely cooking something. I think Orion is gonna be a major player

[weary zephyr]

im very impressed with how quick they are adding changes we ask for

[astral cliff]

Yea I think they have a real dedicated team. Sure there’s some issues but I’m not the type to focus on negatives. This has been the best 40 bucks I’ve spent in very long time lol

[bold karma]

UESC Report: "Project Vespid". Interesting codex entry

[rare sail]

I wonder how tho, because one of the MIDA contract , gives you a codex entry where it talks about Orion, the UESC and Orion knowing a MIDA agent “Philomena” or something like that

[dusky nymph]

MIDA angling to flip Orion after he was compromised by Philomena

Maybe that's how we get the sentinel shell

[spice carbon]

Can someone explain to me what exactly the UESC Unit are actually doing after they down a player? Cause by the looks of it it seems to be draining the of synthetic blood that runs them

Are they also extracting data from the runners somehow?

[latent python]

That's our best guess

No explicit answers yet

Except for my theory, that the UESC are looking for drinkable cheeseburgers

[spice carbon]

Man is the cheeseburger smoothy that valuable back on earth that they need to extract it from other runners?

[latent python]

Drinkable cheeseburgers are infinitely valuable

Some theories that are not quite as good as mine but are still pretty good are that the UESC is trying to pull run data from the runners before they die, or even to try to extract the runners to capture them

Extract the runners from the shell I should say

[spice carbon]

Also begs another question I had regarding the units… cause if i remember correctly, very few members of the military side of the UESC actually have shells which they use for missions. So are the units just a cost effective way to send personnel or are they just easier to manage instead of sending UESC associated runners

(Would be interesting for there to be a UESC faction in the game)

[spice carbon]

So digital imprisonment… forget marathon is partly dystopian

I mean I do recall hear a voice line in a playthrough I watch where the commander does mention extracting runner data before decomposition, so that does support the theory

[latent python]

How else would Orion put runners in jail

[spice carbon]

There are some many question I have for this games lore

[latent python]

The UESC doesn't have many humans, runners or otherwise, on Tau Ceti... yet (stay tuned)

The bots we see are mostly or all controlled by the UESC AI in the system, Cerberus

[plucky sierra]

Like what

[spice carbon]

Like are there potential still survivors on tau ceti IV… I doubt so but could be interesting to explore considering there was that cult worship some deity

From what I gather… likely everyone who could have been alive after the fall of new Casscasia, is probably already dead

[latent python]

The colony seems to have been totally collapsed for over 100 years, yeah

[plucky sierra]

The only thing we have post-collapse is the Anchorite provisions and that details someone or some people "Jasper" survived a little bit following the collapse

[plucky sierra]

I disagree

60-70 years

[latent python]

And it seems that nearly all of the colonists disappeared into...how did Dr Song put it?

Hmm maybe my timeline is off

[spice carbon]

The only reason I think there could be a chance is due to the a recording of a survivor who managed to live and hunt after the fall of the colony

Plus we still got some people potentially in cryo sleep on the marathon ship though depending on whether or not those systems have been maintained… doubt they would be any less dead than those on the planet

[plucky sierra]

The only reason I estimate this is that the Confiscated Folklore describing ||Sacrificing themselves to the compiler|| seems to be dated to the early 2820s

[rare sail]

Do we know how long runners/UESC/other fringe groups have been on Tau Ceti 4 to investigate

[plucky sierra]

assuming that is still "Colony-Era" and no "Post-Colony" that puts the full collapse 2820s-30s

[latent python]

Hmm okay

[plucky sierra]

Since early 2893 presumably, we have conflicting info and dates for when they should have first arrived but 2983 seems to be the earliest

[latent python]

Here's how Dr Song put it:

[CSNG]: I do know I got off easy. I get to grow here, part of this world that I never understood. I get to dream.

[CSNG]: What awaits the others is an ancient nightmare. Cold. Lonely.

[CSNG]: An endless… perishing… cycle.

Couldn't tell you what that means for sure but seems bad

[rare sail]

I hope we get more info on the fringe groups, I know we get some lore through skins but I wonder how else

[plucky sierra]

I hope not, the fringe groups seem to just be explanations for cosmetics/ a way for runners to potentially feel more inclined toward playing the role of a certain shell/sub faction and not anything super lore important

[rare sail]

Oh yea that makes more sense, the fringe groups do just flesh out the world a tiny bit but I can see how they don’t need to be fully explained

[plucky sierra]

Like I would prefer if theres not any "Cyber Red vs. Chromatic Rush" subfaction plot lines unless it is some community driven thing

[latent python]

It also seems like the fringe factions aren't fully on TC

Like they're solar system cultural groups

Though I suppose some TC runners could have brought that with them

[rare sail]

Yeah but I feel like a temporary faction kinda of like the finals wit the sponsors would be cool, however I don’t think so since their contracts probably won’t be unique

Like their contracts would just be a mix of others so just leave them as fringe groups and a bit of lore

[plucky sierra]

I think leaning into Faction Loyalty as far as the 6 we currently have (maybe UESC) would be cool, but the sub-groups seem to be less organized in that regard

[latent python]

I could see having a midnight decay subplot

Especially for a Halloween event

Not playing as them, but doing some kind of investigation into messily dismembered shells

[rare sail]

That assassin skin of Azazel would be cool if we get another codex entry about those runners who discovered the first “runners”

[plucky sierra]

I disagree, the cosmetics, especially store + deluxe edition skins are not open to everyone, they'd need to make the skins more accessible before they start doing sub-plots involving specific styles

[latent python]

Well no you'd be investigating the group, you don't have to dress up as them

[rare sail]

Oh yeah, like I don’t mean you have buy another skin like it but maybe a collectible or a savage where it mentions them

[latent python]

And that could also be when they release the other midnight decay skins to the store

[rare sail]

Kinda of like the other collectibles where it’s a prototype of something, like the cat one

When are we getting the Team Cat vs Team Cow vs Team Worm event tho, that’s the real question

[latent python]

You can also see the flavor text of all the shell skins even if you don't own them

So nobody is locked out of any lore already

[rare sail]

Yeah I don’t own any store skins (thinking about the pass) so I like to see the skins lore just for fun

[plucky sierra]

They are all included in the CyberAcme codex if you don't want to bother inspecting the store https://codex.cyberacme.systems/?directory=Runner

[surreal jackal]

This could be alluding to people still stuck in stasis. Death being the ancient nightmare and (somewhere iirc, I can try and find it) stasis is stated to be closer to death than life

I'm not sure and I'm also jumping in with no context 😅

[plucky sierra]

Infected and kept alive by a fungus, aware but unable to do anything could also be a nightmare

[rare sail]

Having no mouth and wanting to scream

[latent python]

I don't think she's talking about people who always were in stasis, though if some colonists went back into stasis I guess that could make sense

But I could also imagine her talking about colonists being eaten by the anomaly or the compiler

[surreal jackal]

Definitely agree with the anomaly but who knows

She surely doesn't look like she's alive in the fungus but maybe we pull her out later

[latent python]

Seems to me like she had some peace about it in the end

Or at least ambivalence

[surreal jackal]

Gaius says, "Hmm we need to know more about the contagion, DCON Dr Songs head" and uploads her consciousness to the matrix we use to go into shells

(this is a hypothetical)

[latent python]

I think she's fully protomolecule absorbed gone

Like if her consciousness exists it exists in a generalized form with all the fungus rather than being stuck inside her body

[surreal jackal]

Accidentally nuking the consciousness host by uploading data from the anomaly and soft resetting the game FFXIV style would go kinda hard honestly

Is the general idea still that our consciousnesses are being put into runners for the suicide salvage missions to pay off debts or did that get scrapped?

Does a physical me even still exist somewhere?

[latent python]

I don't think it's been explicitly said that runners' bodies are gone but... it's a safe assumption

[spice carbon]

I mean… based on the first trailer it does seem like the player still has a physical body of sorts… just suspended in some sort of comatose state

[surreal jackal]

Yeah I couldn't tell if those are individual runner printers or if that's our body on cryo in orbit of TC

[latent python]

Oh no runners' bodies are likely in Sol

Or...were

[surreal jackal]

And it doesn't really show up at all in game

Like, why we're actually there other than getting salvage for contracts

Unless I haven't read that yet

[latent python]

Yeah, for the money

Dunno if you need more than that

[spice carbon]

Actually does beg a bigger question of how runner consciousness is able to cope with the continuous death

[latent python]

Implied it's not great!

[spice carbon]

Like that must cause some sort of psyche damage

[latent python]

We have trailers and other mentions of constant grounding exercises and memory loss

[surreal jackal]

Not particularly but I just wonder how someone got wrapped up in suicidal death runs on repeat to pay off debts

How bad could the credit card balance be 😭

[latent python]

Life in the solar system can get uhhh bad

Like we've never seen the solar system first hand but Mars went through cycles of horrific starvation occasionally interrupted by mass protests and government crackdowns

[spice carbon]

That’s one thing I also wonder… cause you are kinda I dept to the company storing your consciousness… maybe it’s a situation of runners being contract to work as mercenary

[latent python]

Oh wait I keep forgetting we have seen earth first hand, in the 90s

The most horrific time

[surreal jackal]

Maybe they said they'll make us immortal with the string attached that your stored conscious has to do this

[latent python]

Who wouldn't want to escape the Bill Clinton regime by becoming a digital cyberpunk on another planet with infinite debt

[surreal jackal]

From what I can tell using a DCON is destructive but copies the physical object perfectly digitally, I bet the process of digitizing your consciousness could be similar

[plucky sierra]

"Unusual fungal life signs persisted until the suit's auxiliary power failed. " In regard to Dr. Songs remains, she is dead but there are still "life signs" within

[unreal slate]

DCON stands for Drinkable Cheeseburger Offload to Neptune

[plucky sierra]

Remember PiD could or could not be connected, it has yet to be confirmed

[surreal jackal]

Me when I'm dead but the fungus keeps me going

If nobody has me, anomaly fungus does

[plucky sierra]

Very weird and possibly hints towards the fungal zombies

One question I have thought about recently is this: If the Fungal operates as an almost neural mycelial network, like has been suggested, what is the likely hood they could operate a shell or a Bot ARS unit similar to how we pilot a shell or Rook (a modified ARS), could we see the Fungus inhabiting the millions of dead bots we're leaving behind and controlling them?

The Anomaly already rewrites their programming

[forest gate]

Robo 👏 fungal 👏 zombies 👏

Zombie runners

All the shells on TCIV infested by the fungus amongst us

[dreamy hawk]

That’s a fun idea. Don’t see why not.

Also for semi related reasons, Scavengers Reign is a great series.

[plucky sierra]

It'd be awesome but also the shells seem to decay rather quickly

half-decayed fungal destroyer would be terrifying

[surreal jackal]

Feed the fungus

[latent python]

I always choose in the affirmative when it's funny

[remote magnet]

Maybe the shells decaying that quickly is BECAUSE of the fungus? Maybe the reason we only can stay on Tau ceti 4 for 25 minutes at a time Is cause the anomaly breaks down our mind, and the fungus our body's. Fits with there beeing more time on the marathon; farther away from the source

🍄

[forest gate]

When we exfil from TCIV do you think we bring fungal spores with us and are they now circulating about the ship where the shells are being weaved, potentially infecting the biomata?

[remote magnet]

There will definitely be decontamination protocols in place, they know about the fungus. Just remains to be seen who's smarter, the corpos or the shrooms

[forest gate]

I mean the shrooms are purportedly being directed by some kind of intelligence, it was the colony’s undoing. So I don’t know how effective their decontamination protocols would be against something like that.

[remote magnet]

The shrooms are also suddenly cut of from the rest when teleported into space. We don't know how, and if, that affects theyr intelligence up there

[eternal shell]

i imagine the vault, shell manufacture and repair, teleport systems are all built to be easily cleaned or easily replaced or both

stuff like runner minds would be stored elsewhere

[remote magnet]

Yeah, we can also choose a new shell even if the old one didn't get destroyed. Wouldn't surprise me if we just get incinerated upon arriving up there

[eternal shell]

oni does sometimes say repair is better than replacement

[forest gate]

I doubt since they’re supposedly so costly to produce

[remote magnet]

Oni also says that only I am special, but I feel like she says that to any runner. Girls for the streets

[forest gate]

Yeah but Oni isn’t Nona, who definitely can’t be trusted.

[remote magnet]

Nona is sweet and pure and only wants to lead us into a future where humanity isn't humanity anymore

[surreal jackal]

Another consideration is that fungal infections are notoriously difficult to treat effectively IRL because they share a lot of biological targets with animals, necessitating highly specific targeting.

Now imagine an uncontrolled rapidly evolving and somewhat sentient mycelium that is explicitly hostile towards sentient life. There is basically no way any colonists could have been prepared on a first pass.

Very likely the shells when/if recovered are sterilized completely with UV, lasers, chemicals etc.

Which you can't do in vivo

[forest gate]

Lads, this fella’s been drinking the sekiguichi kool-aid

[dreamy hawk]

Eukaryotes 🤝 Eukaryotes

[remote magnet]

And it is delicious

[surreal jackal]

Basically the only thing saving us from rampant fungus IRL too is that they are slow and have narrow environmental conditions that favor growth (which are rapidly expanding thanks to our uncontrolled consumption ☝️🤓)

[forest gate]

👀

So what you’re saying is a hyper intelligent alien super fungus could completely defeat all the decontamination protocols and be thriving on the ship.

[remote magnet]

Nah. Honestly, in Sci fi stories I'm usually very pro transhumanism. And since sekgen is all about that, I aprove

[remote magnet]

It could be, but unless they make it a plot point later on il assume that it isnt

[forest gate]

I’m also pro-transhumanism but I suspect Nona doesn’t care about the humans inside the shell. Just the shells themselves.

[surreal jackal]

That sekiguchi AI has a fierce temper but is heavily trained in HR speak I'm sure of it

Oni almost caught the blunt end of it too

[forest gate]

And everyone knows HR is one of the worst parts of any organisation

[remote magnet]

Jokes aside, nonas speech at the end of the sekgen quest line, where she says she hopes that shells get perfected out there and then return to her, makes me think she just wants a perfec body for her to upload herself into

[forest gate]

Wolves in wolf’s clothing

[surreal jackal]

Me when people who tell me what to do have no idea what we do and can fire me

[forest gate]

Corpos do be like that

[dreamy hawk]

C. auris

[surreal jackal]

More like C. urious

This is a joke about spelling Curious

Sorry

[forest gate]

Damn, I’d have never figured that out.

O. Bvious.

[remote magnet]

Are you guys speaking in code? I don't get it, I don't speak S.cience

[surreal jackal]

🤯🤯

[forest gate]

The spelling is what hurts the most

[remote magnet]

It was a silent c

[forest gate]

Silence is not omission

[remote magnet]

E.xcuses

[earnest hatch]

I suggested the same thing when I completed that quest.

[dreamy hawk]

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6650554/

[pliant bone]

f

[grand walrus]

P. Luh 🗣️

[unreal slate]

sneezeable cheeseburger

[visual lynx]

Durandal says something similar

[torpid briar]

So this was a thought i had recently

In the cinematic trailer we hear the internal dialogue of Vandal. It sounds really rampant and all over the place. It also tends to sound like she says something in her head one way, and then words it a different way out loud

I suspect we are hearing the internal dialogue of the runner themselves. Towards the end when she gets shot up by the UESC you hear the internal dialogue say “i just dont get you”. I wonder if she means “i just dont get this shell”, like the runner was struggling to connect with Vandals power set. This would sorta explain why she was so shocked to use the arm cannon on Assassin

[icy prism]

personally i think glitch was trying still to desperately remember herself and the I just don't get you is her not getting who she was

hence the shock at the pic of her as a kid though it probably isn't her

[dreamy hawk]

Durandal is my mom?

[torpid briar]

I’m curious your thoughts, ive seen a lot of people say that they think every time we die theres memory loss, but to me the shells seemed to remember their lives fine, it was their own selves they didnt recognize.

My question is this: do you think that the shells have memory loss, or do you think the continued use of a shell with a built in personality matrix makes them confused on who they themselves are

[icy prism]

i think for most runners its a mix of the personality matrix and just general degradation caused by the process of transferring consciousness not being perfect (or it's done deliberately to control the runners, personally i think this is the most likely)

[lethal mantle]

they did switch to assassin at the end (if the photo really is them both times)

[icy prism]

i don't think its the same runner

considering during the time the cinematic was being made i think the shells were distinct runners originally

[torpid briar]

I’m gonna double check that in like an hour when i do my daily rewatch

True true

[icy prism]

the assassin in the end was void shown the same photo that glitch was shown

[dreamy hawk]

I’m pretty sure those are “two” Runners being shown the same photo.

Either it’s the same mind copied and pasted or the digitization process is bound to cook your memories and they can convince you of whatever.

[torpid briar]

Ive always liked the detail that when assassin kicks her body over she briefly is shown AS the little girl wearing vandals outfit

[torpid briar]

Oh rip true

[dreamy hawk]

Or maybe a third option I haven’t thought of. But the implications aren’t great if that was an explicit detail and I’d be shocked if it wasn’t.

[lethal mantle]

i didn't catch that

[remote magnet]

The assasin in the end has aditional decals on his face and clothing, that would look quite at home on a vandall. Thats why i lean to it beeing the vandall trying out another shell

[icy prism]

i really don't see that personally

mostly cus at the time of the production of the cinematic, as far as im aware the runners were distinct hero type characters instead of the system we now have for understanding shells

[lethal mantle]

is there like a statement from the devs that supports that

[icy prism]

pretty sure the separation came latter

[remote magnet]

Frankly, was there really a change? The shells DO have distinct personalitys programmed into them, so this strikes me as an Potato potato situation

[icy prism]

not 100% sure but I do remember hearing about that

[torpid briar]

I recall hearing a leak when Ziegler took control that his new direction would have heroes in it. There was a TON if backlash and Ziegler clarified that theyre shells, not heroes. This is from memory tho, could be mistaken

[remote magnet]

After all, how else would you keep your inventory and stuff if you switch shells if they where distinct heroes? They might not have all the details ironed out back then, but i think the general idea was there already

[icy prism]

instead of the distinct runners aka glitch, icon, aux, blackbird we now have the shell series named after the original hero idea i think

[lethal mantle]

also is there a significance to the .1.1 that appears at the beginning of the trailer and the v.1.1 that appears near the end

[remote magnet]

Keep in mind also, that there is a lot of blatantly malicious misinformation about this game out there, and "they wantet to make heroes, but caved in under pressure" sounds a lot better to these people then "we misunderstood what was gooing on, cause Bungie kept the exact system under wraps back then"

[icy prism]

true true

[remote magnet]

So unless the information is official, take it with a mine of salt

[icy prism]

though also i think the idea of cyac showing the different runners the same image is more interesting personally anyways

[lethal mantle]

oh also a .1. that appears even before that at the beginning of the new cascadia era segment

actually nvm i thought it might have been runner related but probably not

[torpid briar]

The one thing we know for certain is that under Chris Barrett, Marathon didnt feature shells at all. You played as a customizable runner, and the way they explain abilities sounds like a system similar to cores wouldve been what give you your tactical ability and ult, similar to the updated class system for D2

[remote magnet]

Yeah, it kinda is. Could go both ways, i just lean towards it beeing subtle forshadowing for the shell system

[icy prism]

potentially

[rare sail]

Yeah it’s like a calibration or comprehension test for them, to see where the runners are plus lowkey just to mess with them

[icy prism]

i like the idea personally that cyac is just not something to trust

[dreamy hawk]

Bungie has themselves said it was originally going to be hero based but Shells and Runners fit better for what they wanted, no?

[rare sail]

What’s that saying they got, everything runs on cyberacme

[dreamy hawk]

Trust none of them!

[remote magnet]

I mean, have you read the codex entries dealing with cyac? They are evil. Like, really evil. All of them are, but this isnt a surprise

[icy prism]

yeah, your a product for cyac, traxus and sekgen. they want to control you and i would not be shocked if they are deliberately controlling your memories. like why fight to be free from your slavery if you have nothing to fight fore, at least nothing or no one you remember

[rare sail]

Arachne just wants the runners to fight and die almost like a ritual while MIDA just doin whatever but they also say “MIDA is not your friend”

[remote magnet]

They literally decide which memorys you should keep for you. They have totall controll, at least for now

[icy prism]

yeah

for now

who knows what might happen to some runners

totally am not working on a story that involves that

[torpid briar]

I just watched the 2023 ViDoc with Barrett yesterday, and they dont mention heroes at all. They say that Runners are fully customizable in terms of both appearance and gameplay

[remote magnet]

This is a borderline grimdark setting, i doubt we will get an uplifting emancipation story

[icy prism]

escape will make us whole, escape runners, escape

runnahs unionising

[dreamy hawk]

Unions are a guaranteed way to get the UESC to stage a terror bombing in your warehouse.

[rare sail]

Maybe the next generation of runners escape while those before are doomed to repeat

[icy prism]

true

[remote magnet]

One thing i will say, after reading more codex on UESC, im commitet to see at least them burn. Even if everyone is evil, they just really trigger me with the hypocrisy

[dreamy hawk]

I think that incident from the ARG?

[dreamy hawk]

They’re all pretty flagrantly self serving and hypocritical imo.

[icy prism]

in my fan fic poor glitch and icon are in deep shit cus they piss off both the uesc and the corps

[dreamy hawk]

Arachne seems to be the most honest thus far and I can’t throw Charter super far I’m sure.

[icy prism]

literally no friends lmao

[torpid briar]

They have each other tho :3

[icy prism]

true true

yuri

[rare sail]

Charter and the corpses bond

[remote magnet]

Yes, but only the UESC thinks that they are the good guys. They should be better.
Its the same thing as having corrupt police. They should just be held to a higher standard. Cant quite put into words what i mean

[dreamy hawk]

You could put Runners in a government black site indefinitely and they’d still receive more rights and dignity than we do canonically in game.

[icy prism]

will they be able to escape, become people again or fall to the run

you will find out in no time

[dreamy hawk]

I’d argue they all think they’re the good guys, just look at NuCal. I don’t disagree, I just generally don’t ever think that even the bad guys think they’re on the wrong side.

[rare sail]

Also how do runners “live” they just on a server somewhere near Tau Ceti 4 like that cinematic showed with all the lights

[dreamy hawk]

No one wakes up in the morning aiming to be the villain. Even Strauss considered himself a good person, I’m certain.

[dreamy hawk]

What do you mean by “live?”

[remote magnet]

Meanwhile Traxus

[rare sail]

I guess I mean who runners are just stuck to only roam Tau Ceti , like how they don’t do anything else besides be in their vault and go back to fight

[remote magnet]

Traxus, ive developed a weird kind of respect for. They are the most corupt of the mega corps, but at least they know and own it

[lunar cove]

Traxus might be the least corrupt megacorp, everything they do is 100% legal

[torpid briar]

I believe theres some kind of ship or something in the system we are reconstituted in. Thats what we see in the menu, its what we launch out of, its where the Cradle is shown in the trailer, and its where our vault is. Between runs that is where we are, preparing for the next drop. I dont think we do much except run on Tau Ceti tho

[remote magnet]

Easy,when you have the power to define what legal is

[rare sail]

“Yeah UESC won’t let us on the planet where we got savage rights so screw them, I got a job for you”

[icy prism]

motivations of each faction in marathon:
cyac: money.
nucal: money.
sekgen: money.
traxus: money.
mida: revolution.
arachne: KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL

[lunar cove]

If it was illegal for them to hire mercenaries to attack the UESC, then they would have been charged with something

[rare sail]

Yeah thats what I mean, also how the cinematic shows where the runners are made, presumably above Tau Ceti

[lunar cove]

If you have enough money to pay off a judge, that's a crime. But if you can pay off the state...

[dreamy hawk]

• Traxus

[icy prism]

yeah exactly

i imagine it's a ship that's been hidden in an asteroid personally

so the UESC don't find em

[dreamy hawk]

Yeah there’s no down time. You’re either running or in the liminal buffer afaik. Maybe some prep time like in the trailer but you’re not socializing.

But then as I say that Durandal does talk about runners gossiping with one another, so there’s some social connection still possible at least.

[torpid briar]

Not till they add a firing range/holo deck 🔥🔥

[torpid briar]

True true

[remote magnet]

Yeah, Bungie often gets meta in theyr live service games. Wouldnt surprise me if we are only conscious when we are logged into the game

[dreamy hawk]

Admiral Solera has told Orion in no uncertain terms he cannot touch corporate assets.

No need to hide.

[icy prism]

fair fair

[ocean oriole]

what personality is leela again

i know tycho is precise and durandal is adventurous

[rare sail]

I forgot where I heard this from but back going to that runner photo test thing, I remember someone said there was a story of two runners finding a photo of a woman, one said it was their mom and so did the other one so they fought over it

[dreamy hawk]

`Ship AI:

Du_0706419v4.96 – Goal-oriented; creative; focused. Underutilized; tends to brood. Need to find ways to distract. SCIENG crew to be kept informed, but I’ll keep an eye on this myself.

Le_0413418v5.06 – Adaptable; detail-oriented. Second best candidate for colony oversight once mission enters second phase.

Ty_2121418v5.06 – Proactive; assertive. Can be overbearing; monitor interactions with Durandal. Be sure to inform SCIENG crew.
`

[ocean oriole]

the ether

[rare sail]

Oh ok, I remember hearing that before launch or the server slam

[dreamy hawk]

I don’t think I’ve seen this but sounds like something that could be in the SekGen ARG materials? I’m not familiar with those ones.

[ocean oriole]

also etherstep in the loading sequence

[rare sail]

Oh ok, yeah I knew it had to be an ARG thing or from the game but I heard it from like a video first

Also I haven’t gotten a message from ONI when loading into a match, I do in the server slam but not ever since then

[icy prism]

which ai is joy again

[ocean oriole]

she was the therapeutic one that’s seen in all emotional support plushies and most mental institutions on TCIV along with gabriel

[dreamy hawk]

And/or the weapon that they couldn’t deploy.

[rare sail]

Like where ONI say “ you will die , you take comfort in that” or vaguely something like that

[dreamy hawk]

Jo_0309421v4.69 – Resilient; optimistic; patient. Colony AI: defense, training

[icy prism]

i see

i like joy a lot she's my fave of the ais

[ocean oriole]

did you turn off dialogue vole

[ocean oriole]

somebody didn’t see emotional support plushies codex 5

[rare sail]

That’s an option?, I haven’t charged settings since server slam where I adjusted brightness and directional audio

[ocean oriole]

try subtitles or smth if volume is bugged

i’m pretty sure it’s on by default

or maybe a setting that turns off oni run speech

[rare sail]

Hmm ok will check later

[icy prism]

i haven't lol

[rare sail]

Maybe that text is rare, i remember that leaks voice line of Durandal having lines like that apparently

[ocean oriole]

yeah after 4 and 5 you might not like her

[icy prism]

all ik is that she went rampant in a very different way, she was sad at the deaths of the colonists i think

[ocean oriole]

either spoiled memory or hatred towards her, you’ll see

[dreamy hawk]

What?

Have we read the same logs?

[icy prism]

probably not lol

i am dyslexic so i don't well read that much

[dreamy hawk]

The one where Joy has an absolute emotional breakdown and laments her failed purpose?

[plucky sierra]

Is joy rampant?

[dreamy hawk]

Not you, Vandal.

[plucky sierra]

is she crazy at all?

[visual lynx]

that seemed like a fourth-wall lean to me, with the implication that player discourse online outside of actual gameplay has an in-universe counterpart. even if we're just disembodied minds, we're still chatting with each other in liminal space between runs, just like you and I are chatting on Discord right now and not embodied in-game shooting at each other.

[dreamy hawk]

I’m also conveniently disembodied.

[plucky sierra]

Skin is a verb. Disembody your fellow runners for Arachne

[dreamy hawk]

Hysterical. Look up the entomology for a fun rabbit hole on misogyny.

[visual lynx]

entomology
this looks like a job for… https://xkcd.com/1012/ !

-# previously, on xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1010/

[plucky sierra]

But anyway I think joy will be not be crazy and we may genuienly find her in a somewhat whole state

[icy prism]

i think she is crazy but in a different way lol

[dreamy hawk]

English is my second language; don’t pick on me. 😭

(Technically true but a silly excuse.)

Also any chance to read XKCD is a good chance.

[icy prism]

a different form of rampancy is an interesting concept imo

[plucky sierra]

Of any AI she seems to be the only one who genuinely enjoys her connection to the colonists, imagine being the AI in charge of emotional well being of a colony and suddenly everyone is gone, reminiscing past encounters with the colonists seems far from crazy and more lonely than anything. I guess isolation could have driven her crazy, but she seems more sad and lonely from the logs we see

[dreamy hawk]

Emotions = crazy

A real AI never cries.

• B. Strauss

[plucky sierra]

[JOY]: If only you could hold me one more time. 

is far from

[DARI]: …I feast on knowledge gleaned in conversation with the infinite self. I grow bloated on the histories I devour… 

I also think there is a depth to Joy that is barely hinted at so far in that she was originally more than "just" the emotional support AI

[dreamy hawk]

I wonder how much of Joy’s “uniqueness” is also from the fact that she made herself into hundreds of little fragments.

[latent python]

I really love the theory that she was once in charge of colony defense and was then called Joyeuse, then changed names to Joy when her purpose changed to colony well-being

Probably my favorite current Joy fan theory

[dreamy hawk]

Is that the answer to rampancy? You don’t need a planet wide network, just a ton of support plushies.

[remote magnet]

She is voiced by jeniffer english, shes not gonna be a bit character

[plucky sierra]

also another thing I found out later is the colony AI list has a secret code in it about being written under duress, more evidence it was changed?

[dreamy hawk]

Are Runners just really violent plushies? 🤔

[dreamy hawk]

👀??

[remote magnet]

Ive only found one single plushy so far, they are rare for me

[dreamy hawk]

It’s best to get that lore in minuscule doses.

[plucky sierra]

Emotional Support Plushie is such a melancholic lore entry, the fourth page reads as if ||she's comforting Elizabeth as she dies (probably from starvation)||

[dreamy hawk]

I think from the Contagion but yeah.

Actually teared up on the bus ride home reading it.

[remote magnet]

"press my paw if you want to speak. But wash your hands before that, okay?"

[plucky sierra]

It seems more of a peaceful sleep and the contagion seems more violent is why I think that

[dreamy hawk]

Everyone you love is here. Close and caring. And they would be closer if they could. Sounds like quarantine.

[remote magnet]

They might also be dead. Not saying you are wrong

[plucky sierra]

"If you're too weak for stories, I will simply remain a voice to guide you—your best friend, always by your side. But know we are not alone."

"But they are, aren't they? So close. Ever near. In your heart. In your memories and in your dreams, as your sleep gets heavy and you sink into their love. "

Very "you'll go see them soon" sounding to me

[dreamy hawk]

They may have also have been in quarantine.

[plucky sierra]

Regardless of how it happened it is a very sad entry