First, I hope I don't step on anybody's toes by posting a message this long. I asked if people wanted to discuss it here and got an affirmation.

Last night I finished re-playing Marathon 2. In an attempt to get the most out of its intricate story, I took extensive notes of what was going on, and analysis thereof, for every level. In the back of my mind, I was interested in backstory kinds of details, for 'hooks' to possibly expand the Marathon story, inspired by the Marathon 4 thread. So without further ado, here goes:


I use these tags:

SY - Synopsis: the most straightforward recounting of what goes on in the level.
AI - Additional Information: additional information revealed in terminals or by the contents of the level.
AN - Analysis: analysis, speculation, and conclusions from what's been presented.
AS - Aside: asides probably not relevant to the story.
OC - Out of Context: notes to be taken with a grain of salt because I didn't get the information from the game itself; I missed the terminal while playing and either read it off of the story page or went back to find it.

I'll post one chapter per post to break it up a little.

Waterloo Waterpark

SY 17 years after Marathon, Durandal beams you down from Boomer to Lh'owon.  Your mission is to install 2 uplink chips to give Durandal access to the Pfhor planetary computer network.

AI Lh'owon is in the center of the galaxy, far from Earth, Tau Ceti, and the Pfhor homeworld.

AS Getting the AR-75 isn't required, or even mentioned in terminals.

AN Durandal mentions that your suit works with Pfhor shield rechargers and pattern buffers, but doesn't say one way or the other about S'pht devices.  Some of the rechargers and buffers you'll encounter must be S'pht-made.

Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune

SY Durandal speculates that the Pfhor came to the otherwise-dead world Lh'owon because of Tycho, who knew of Durandal's plans to go there.  The Pfhor got there first because they already knew where it was, unlike Durandal.  Your mission is just to explore until you find another terminal.

AI the Pfhor sacked the Tau Ceti colony 3 months after Durandal left at the end of Marathon.

AI The S'pht are mass-producing knock-offs of the weapons you brought with you from Tau Ceti.

AI If you ignore Durandal and return to the first terminal, he talks about his motivations.  He claims to have called the Pfhor to Tau Ceti on purpose in order to steal their technology, and takes responsibility for the Pfhor's later slaying of 24,000 humans there.  He attempts to justify his actions, suggesting that by showing the Pfhor Tau Ceti instead of Sol, and fueling a S'pht rebellion, he's giving Earth a fighting chance against the Pfhor invasion he considers inevitable.

AN How did Durandal know there were Pfhor to contact in the first place?  He used a "long-range message laser" to do so.  Lasers are focused devices, which would imply he wasn't mindlessly broadcasting his position all over and hoping someone would listen.  He couldn't have known about the potential for a S'pht-Pfhor war until he knew about the S'pht.  In Marathon, the player doesn't know about the S'pht until after s/he encounters the Pfhor.  Could Durandal have been in contact with the S'pht before the events that take place in Marathon, before he was in contact with the Pfhor?  Or is he using the S'pht rebellion he hopes to create as a way of justifying his irresponsible actions after the fact?

Charon Doesn't Make Change

SY Durandal shares the S'pht myth which says an 11th clan of S'pht left Lh'owon "a thousand years" ago.  Since then the Pfhor have destroyed or enslaved the other 10 clans.  Durandal predicts this clan's long isolation means they'll be a powerful force in the rebellion.  Your mission is to explore and return to the first terminal.

SY In the final terminal, Durandal reveals the Pfhor have been at Lh'owon since nearly 15 years ago, and says they've discovered nothing useful.  Durandal plans to send you to places where they haven't searched.  But first you need to deal with the Pfhor garrison, whose morale is low.

AI In a terminal S'pht are shown being tortured or killed by the Pfhor.  These S'pht have bodies the size of a watermelon which resemble brains.  They have hedgehog-like protrusions in back, a single red organ where an eye would be, an insectoid-type sucker mouth, and two bony arms with two fingers each.  The backsides of their bodies are inserted into a smooth metallic machine of sorts which hovers.  One of their bodily fluids, possibly blood, is bright green.

AI The Pfhor conclude the S'pht abandoned this area after an "ancient battle", i.e., something before the Pfhor invasion.

AI In caves purposefully sealed off in that ancient battle, the S'pht'Kr leave messages.  They say another clan, S'pht'Mnr, attacked them, they have taken heavy losses, and they'll soon leave Lh'owon.  They seem to be bound to the will of S'bhuth, who tells them to stop fighting, and that "he was not meant to be alone."  Presumedly he means if the clans kill each other off, he would be lonely.  They leave behind the F'lickta, which they refer to as "creatures", as a means of preserving their home.

AN These caves flood while you examine them.  Coupled with the fact that you kill all the F'lickta, when the S'pht ask future visitors not to, one gets the impression that this area may be permanently ruined during your visit.

AI The Pfhor have been studying the F'lickta.  They've concluded F'lickta are "genetic ancestors of the S'pht".  They've also found lava F'lickta elsewhere, however those aliens haven't been aggressive to the Pfhor researchers.

AI Large parts of the map flood due to the Minor River dam being damaged.  In response the Pfhor are ordered to evacuate to Garrison Command.

AN You carry with you both S'pht and Pfhor language translation software.  Either the Pfhor didn't report all their findings in this level's terminals, or else they don't know how or care to translate S'pht.

What About Bob?

SY A few hours ago, Durandal launched a ground attack on the Pfhor garrison.  This failed when the Pfhor flooded the area with lava.  As plan B, Durandal inserts you and some BoBs into the geothermal pumping station the Pfhor used to do this.  You're instructed to jump down a ventilation shaft and sabotage the station, by destroying 2 switches: the first to cut power to the pumps, and the second to disable safety mechanisms.  In doing this, you disable the Pfhor's main power station on the whole planet.

SY AN Once you trigger the lava flood, you need to explore newly-accessible regions of the level, and kill all the Pfhor.  The previously-flooded areas have structures like stairs, and both the Pfhor and the BoBs teleport into these areas, so the rest of the map is probably the flooded area where Durandal first tried a ground attack.  In other words this level includes the geothermal pumping station, the main power station, and the part of the garrison base Durandal wanted to attack.

AI Durandal says the BoBs you see fighting were all in stasis on Boomer, destined for Pfhor slavery.  Durandal gave each a choice of helping or remaining in stasis indefinitely.

AI You must have better protection from fall damage than the BoBs, since Durandal says this is why only you can survive the jump down the shaft.

AS Interestingly, you can't rush through the station, ignore the aliens, trigger the lava flood and then let them fry.  This is because when you get far enough away from an alien, they become inactive, and monsters don't take damage when they're inactive.  If you try it, you can't leave the level because it's an Extermination level, and you can't go back down and kill the aliens (or re-activate them so they fry), because you'll fry in the process.  Hence, whether interntional or just an engine limitation, the lava flood doesn't actually kill any Pfhor.

AN This level introduces the cyborg aliens, who visually resemble the cyborg in Marathon.  However they behave like just another Pfhor enemy, and there are no S'pht around to control.

OC If you go back to the first terminal, Durandal confirms Tycho has sided with the Pfhor.  Tycho says that Leela was dismantled and taken to the Pfhor homeworld with the rest of the Marathon's computer systems.  Durandal sounds sympathetic.

AN Does this mean there were other artificial intelligences aboard the Marathon?  Durandal distinguishes the three of them as the Marathon's original 3 A.I's, but does the fact that other computer systems were taken mean there were other intelligences aboard the Marathon?  Perhaps the other computer systems are derivative rather than original, made after the ship's launch.  Or else those other systems are probably not intelligent, and thus not worth additional consideration.

AI Hlford is the being or group that will have to fix the power station.  Robert Blake is the current leader of the BoBs on Boomer, but you haven't met him before.

AI The Pfhor called their scoutship which attacked the Marathon the Sfiera.  The S'pht call it Narhl'Lar, and Durandal calls it Boomer.

Come and Take Your Medicine

SY Durandal wants to establish a human headquarters on Lh'owon near the S'pht Citadel of Antiquity, due to overcrowding on Boomer.  You're instructed to take down the fort's defense circuitry, and advised to stick to a plotted course to avoid alerting more enemies than you have to.  Durandal isn't kidding; you can avoid a great number of enemies by following the path he recommends.

AI The S'pht compilers still attack you, even though you're supposed to be on their side now.  Durandal says this is because the S'pht are still enslaved by the Pfhor, and says the S'pht resist constantly, though the Pfhor don't notice.

AI If you explore more of the level, a S'pht-compiler named F'tha express contempt for the Pfhor slavers.  It suggests the S'pht can't ally with you to defeat the Pfhor until the machines controlling their actions are disabled.

AN The only entity mentioned thus far which controls S'pht actions is S'bhuth.  So it's possible rather than using a cyborg queen as seen in Marathon, the Pfhor are controlling S'bhuth.

AI Durandal warned Sol about the impending Pfhor invasion, showing the UESG how to create warp-capable fusion missiles.

We're Everywhere

SY The humans need your help to capture and secure the new headquarters.  After that, your task is to open a pair of large doors so that Durandal can land heavy machinery by shuttle.

AI you get the new S'pht-produced fusion pistol in the sewage after hearing about it several levels ago.  Durandal says it was designed to short-circuit Pfhor machinery.

AI Durandal finds Tycho inside the Pfhor network.  He suspects Tycho is networking remotely, using Pfhor FTL communications, from a nearby system.

AS It's possible, though difficult and not useful, to open the two doors by swimming through the sewage and firing up at the switches.

AI At the south switch, there's a damaged terminal with a cryptic message in white text.  The writer says your fate and its are linked, by chance.

AN In the end terminal, Durandal shares that the Pfhor use simulacrums (the kamikaze green-suited BoBs) regularly for "hostile species unsuitable for enslavement," and used them in the Tau Ceti invasion.  One wonders why the Pfhor considered Tau Cetians unsuitable for enslavement, since Durandal said earlier that Earth presents them "billions of potential slaves."  Perhaps 24,000 humans was too small a number to bother.

Ex Cathedra

SY You're teleported to a Pfhor temple, where Durandal hopes to cripple their defenses with a virus that will sabotage the friend-or-foe software in the Pfhor defense drones.  You must swim through some caves to destroy circuitry which opens up the inner building, then pick up Durandal's virus-on-a-chip from the altar, and install it.

AN the virus chip is inserted into an underwater control panel (there are even F'lickta down there).  This suggests the Pfhor temple's hardware works fine underwater, which leads me to reconsider whether the S'pht hardware was damaged by flooding in Charon Doesn't Make Change.  On the other hand, that was sewage, and this is water.

AS There are water and sewage F'lickta in this map, even though the liquid is water.

Nuke and Pave

SY The virus was succesful, and you move to further disrupt Pfhor actions aided by the reprogrammed drones.  There's no terminal at the start of the level, and in fact Durandal doesn't talk about the mission at all in this level.

AI Most drones are on your side, and won't shoot you even if you shoot them.  However not all drones were successfully reprogrammed, and other machinated enemies like cyborgs are also unaffected.

AS Cyborgs aren't smart enough to not use grenades at close range.

AS This is another level where large parts of the map can be skipped if you know what's nonessential.

AI In the end terminal, Durandal mentions "Berhnard"'s [sic] relationship with you and with Durandal, saying he was afraid to "use" you the way Durandal does, that he would've crushed Durandal if he knew about his rampancy, and that he died before Durandal could get back at him for the humiliation.

Curiouser and Curiouser...

SY You are teleported without further instructions to this level.  I punched out one too many circuit boards before finding the first terminal, so I had to read it from the story page.  Once you find it, Durandal blames your poor teleportation destination on electromagnetic interference.  He reports the drone sabotage wasn't as effective as hoped because another alien race, the Nar, tried the same tactic 20 years ago while trying to take back the planet or system Epsilon Euobea.  However, the garrison's flooding and subsequent F'lickta infestation is bogging down the Pfhor.  Your mission is to get to the Pfhor computer system.  It's held behind a series of 3 doors, each of which is opened by destroying a circuit board somewhere in the level.

AS I always found this level's architecture interesting.  There are two distinct styles, between the compartmentalized small gray rooms and the winding sewage passages, yet they blend between each other in so many places.

AS though it doesn't pertain to the story, I must say this level is a ramp up in difficulty from the levels before it.

AS The troopers and cyborgs will chase you through knee-deep or chest-deep sewage.  I always though monsters were afraid of sewage and other liquids by default.

SY AN When you get to the Pfhor computer terminal, Durandal speaks instead.  He says the Pfhor computer wasn't self-aware and revealed nothing useful about the 11th clan, so he destroyed it and assumed control of the terminal.  Either Durandal did all this working through your own suit's interface, or else the circuitry you destroyed must have controlled virtual security measures in addition to the physical doors barring access.  Your next task will be to investigate the ancient S'pht Citadel.

Eat It, Vid Boi!

SY The Citadel of Antiquity is protected by anti-teleportation measures, locked doors, and a lava moat.  It was the site of the S'pht's last stand against the Pfhor.  You must take down the defenses to get into the Citadel.

AN the S'pht still fight you.  I wonder if they're still with you at heart but powerless over their actions, or whether they're uneasy about you breaking into their sacred Citadel.

AI A S'pht terminal catalogues the exodus of the S'pht'Kr to K'lia, the third sister moon of Lh'owon.  1001 Lh'owon-years later, the terminal says Yrro "sent K'lia out to the stars."

OC If you visit it later the terminal recounts war between the S'pht'Mnr and S'pht'Lhar clans.  It goes into detail about how the marshes burned and dried up.  K'lia, third moon of Lh'owon containing the 11th clan, is personified (using feminine pronouns) as fleeing "to the farthest reach," which further destroys the marshes due to upset tidal forces.

AI In what Durandal predicts will be 20 hours, the western arm of Pfhor Battle Group 7 will arrive, with a major opposing force.

AS For the first time playing this level, I followed a path where I would've missed the shotgun and gone directly into the Citadel.  Luckily I came back for it.

AN There's a squad of Pfhor waiting for you inside the Citadel.  How did they get there?  Did they all pile in once you opened the door, instead of chasing after you?  Did they know you'd come there and take it up as a defensive position, or are they also interested in what's inside the Citadel?  Surely they haven't been holing up inside ever since the S'pht-Pfhor war?

The Hard Stuff Rules

SY While the humans and S'pht reinforce the base's headquarters, you're sent to the top of the Citadel looking for clues about the 11th clan.

AI To kill the S'pht making a last stand in the Citadel, Durandal thinks the Pfhor irradiated the Citadel rather than attack it directly; an uncharacteristic tactic for the Pfhor.  All 10 clans of S'pht were represented in that siege.

AN The Citadel is inhabited by sewage F'lickta, lava F'lickta, water F'lickta, and ticks.  Apparently all types of F'lickta can survive in any climate.  Lava F'lickta in particular are totally immune to high temperature, as they don't even flinch when plasma washes over them.  This is the only place in the games I can find where the plasma pistol is treated as a weapon which does damage through heat (e.g. enemies don't die in flames when you use it on them).

AS The map's geometry is notable: it really feels like the Citadel is tall and narrow, whereas most Marathon maps are wide and short.  It does a superb job of aligning overlapping polygons with different heights to make it feel like a true 3D space.

AI In the south end there are glass cages holding F'licta and ticks that never move.  Do the S'pht keep F'lickta in stasis for when they're needed?

AI The Citadel's windows are open to the air, but the upper Citadel is deathly quiet with no wind or other noises.  And yet one S'pht said, to rearrange its sentence, "we made true Older's vision of closing the citadel windows."

AI Many of the besieged S'pht left messages in terminals.  We hear from S'pht'Mnr, S'pht'Rr, S'pht'Shr, and S'pht'Kah:

• All sentient S'pht life is a fusion of organic and cybernetic components.  When the S'pht dissected some captured Pfhor, they were surprised that Pfhor don't require machines to be sentient.  The research engenders speculation (by them) that the S'pht themselves were created as servants of Yrro and Pthia, as their myths say.

• The Pfhor also dissected the S'pht.  At least one S'pht's sensory organs were replaced by an implanted small oblong object, in a seemingly inhumane procedure.

• While under siege, the S'pht clans united against the Pfhor.  They were able to repel the Pfhor at least once before succumbing. 

• Among S'pht hierarchy each clan has a Leader, a Master, and a respected entity called the Older(s) which predict the future and "meld."

• In the war, areas such as the Marshes of Mnr were burned, though this may be from the irradiation.

• The S'pht retreated to bunkers under the Citadel to avoid the radiation for as long as possible.

SY By the time you finish this level, Battle Group 7 has arrived in the system, and is teleporting in some reinforcements while they maintain course to Lh'owon.

Bob's Big Date

SY You follow the trail of the last surviving free S'pht down into the bunkers.  Durandal is convinced the S'pht found a way to contact the 11th clan, but died before carrying it out.  Your mission is to locate 2 S'pht computers for analysis.

AN the Citadel still interferes with teleportation when you're underground, yet Durandal was able to teleport you down here, and the Pfhor are able to do likewise, all the way from Battle Group 7 in the outer planets of the system.  It seems teleportation can be a quirky mechanism, to say the least.

AI The S'pht'Hra clan was destroyed before other clans, which strengthened the S'phts resolve.

AS While an interesting map element, it's difficult to see what the purpose is of what must be a massive pumping array that continually floods and empties out the central area.

AN It seems ironic that the drones, designed to maintain liquid areas, have their weapon mounted on the bottom, making them useless in chest-deep water, while the hunters, which strike me as not designed for aquatic environments, can shoot through chest-high water with their shoulder-mounted weapons.

AI The flagship of Battle Group 7 is the Khfiva, and is captained by admiral Tfear, an admiral Durandal doesn't think he can defeat in ship-to-ship combat.

AI The S'pht clan names are 'Lhar, 'Hra, 'Nma, 'Kah, 'Vir, 'Yra, 'Val, 'Shr, 'Mnr, 'Yor, and 'Kr.  The S'pht computer says the Master, who is referred to with masculine pronouns, gave the clans these names and ranks.  It may be that 'Lhar, 'Hra, 'Nma etc. translate as simply "first clan," "second clan," "third clan," etc., but the Master said these ranks don't establish superiority.

AS We find the first nonsecret purple shields in this map.  I always see that as a sign the game is in full swing.

AI Durandal manages to take out half of the Battle Group's fleet with his single corvette, but won't last much longer.

Six Thousand Feet Under

SY You're sent even deeper down the geothermal shafts under the Citadel.  I think this demonstrates how important your mission is to Durandal, because if it weren't, he could probably use your help by sending you to board and neutralize a Pfhor battleship or two like you did in Marathon.

AN This level has a lot of F'lickta of all types.  Are they also here for maintenance, like in Charon Doesn't Make Change?  Or have they merely spread to this area because they find it hospitable?

AI While trapped here, the S'pht released the S'ct'lac'tr in the Citadel to destroy the Pfhor if they should enter.  F'lickta is a S'pht word, and the Pfhor are the ones that irradiated the Citadel, so I don't know at this point in the game what that might be.

AI AN This level contains possibly the most interesting S'pht terminal in the game.  It's reasonably concise so rather than paraphrase I'll show it in its entirety:

In primordial space, timeless creatures made waves.  These waves created us and the others.  Waves were the battles, and the battles were waves.
Fleeing all W'rkncacnter, Yrro and Pthia settled upon Lh'owon.  They brought the S'pht, servants who began to shape the deserts of Lh'owon into marsh and sea, rivers and forests.  They made sisters for Lh'owon to protect and maintain the paradise.
When the W'rkncacnter came, Pthia was killed, and Yrro in anger, flung the W'rkncacnter into the sun.  The sun burned them, but they swam on its surface.
Yrro became an angry master, bleeding for his failure, grieving for the loss of Pthia.  He broke the S'pht into eleven clans, and spread them over Lh'owon.
And he spoke, yet covered in blood from his exertion,
"I, Yrro, who was your master, have failed to preserve you.  Take your royalty to guide you, and live upon the paradise that you built for me."

This creation myth really forms the basis for a huge part of Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity.  While I might eventually tie it to this and that, it's beyond the scope of this little project, so I'll just point out some more straightforward conclusions, taking this myth for its word:

• The S'pht were the product of battles, likely battles between Jjaro and W'rkncacnter, although the word Jjaro hasn't popped up yet.  If I believed my race was the product of battles, I might live my life as if my people were inherently violent.

• Yrro and Pthia fled from all W'rkncacnter, and Pthia was killed when the W'rkncacnter came, but it doesn't say a W'rkncacnter killed Pthia directly; the myth uses passive voice.  I think it's fairly clear that a W'rkncacnter killed Pthia...but what if the W'rkncacnter are devil-like creatures?  Could they have talked Yrro into doing an evil thing and killing Pthia?  That might better explain Yrro's feeling not just of grief, but failure: not failure to protect Pthia, but failure to stop himself from succumbing to evil.  It would also help dintinguish the W'rkncacnter from the Jjaro: the former is not a Godlike entity like the Jjaro, but is nonetheless a powerful force of chaos and possibly evil in the universe.

• Yrro is referred to with masculine pronouns; Pthia is left ambiguous.  The way the two of them settled down on Lh'owon and had offspring in the form of the S'pht, it sure sounds like Pthia was the female half of this union.  That's a human inference though: if the S'pht don't even have analogous genders, I could be way off.

• Yrro broke the S'pht into the 11 clans, which implies the S'pht were unified in the beginning.

• Yrro failed the S'pht as well as failing Pthia.  How did he fail them?

• Durandal called the Pfhor religion "pathetically boring."  Yet that religion apparently includes multiple gods, temples, altars, and so on (see Ex Cathedra).  What exactly makes the S'pht religion more interesting to Durandal?  Is he biased because he's been in contact with the S'pht for so long?

On a deeper note, why did Durandal side with the S'pht at all?  He called the Pfhor ship in Marathon to steal Pfhor technology, not S'pht technology.  He already thinks the Pfhor empire are favored to win against the humans and the S'pht unless something changes drastically, and Durandal's the kind of guy who wants to win.  I suspect Durandal identifies more with the S'pht, because they are artificially intelligent (they are sentient only through their cybernetic parts, as revealed in The Hard Stuff Rules), and they are slaves to a master that doesn't care about their aspirations (just as Bernard Strauss used Durandal as a simple door opener).  I don't think there's any indication that Durandal knew definitively that the Jjaro existed, as is later proven in Marathon Infinity, but he deeply believes in the S'pht mythos, and in the end he turns out to be right.

AI S'pht'Lhar was the next clan we know of to be captured by the Pfhor.

SY The Pfhor fleet and Tycho cripple Boomer later in the level.  Durandal lands the ship on Y'loa, the second moon of Lh'owon.

AS This was the first time I realized you could drain out the plus-shaped room of lava at the northern part of the map, and avoid swimming through lava to get to the switch on the other side.

AI Each Master was given 2 clues about the S'pht'Kr: one clue was shared between them, and the second was unique to each clan, thus ensuring the clans would re-unify before finding the eleventh clan again.  The last message of the S'pht'Kr (which the story page concludes is the combination of the individual and shared clues) is a riddle on where they may be found.  Among other things, we learn from it that the other Lh'owon moon is named T'jia.

If I Had a Rocket Launcher, I'd Make Somebody Pay

SY Now that you've found the clues you need to locate the S'pht'Kr, Durandal pulls you back aboard the grounded Boomer, which the Pfhor want to take intact to study Durandal's modifications.  You must defend the ship.

SY This level is, above all else, a gauntlet, with infinite ammunition supplies and possibly infinite enemies.  Not that I'm complaining.

AI Durandal seems to have sealed off what sections of the ship he could with huge, delayed-reaction bulkhead doors.  His terminals start getting a little garbled, too.

AI Tycho makes his return in this level.  He's infiltrated Boomer's network, and takes the opportunity to gloat about the victory.

SY By the end of the level, the humans have retreated to the ship's interior, near a teleporter array.  Your next task will be to hold off the Pfhor while the humans and S'pht evacuate planetside.

Sorry Don't Make It So

SY You find yourself on a section of Boomer nearly identical in architecture to one of the sections you visited in Marathon.  Luckily you don't have to worry about air, and you're the one defending from a place you already know, but the Pfhor are also familiar with this territory.

AN The Pfhor sent mostly troopers, accompanied by hunters and assimilated BoBs, in the last level.  They seem to feel this section of the ship is better assaulted by enforcers, backed up by cyborgs and fighters.  The enforcers have a new weapon with the interesting and tactic-changing trait that if an enforcer dies by its own projectiles, the weapon it was carrying is destroyed.

AN Although Durandal has remodeled the Pfhor ship, wallpapering over everything with a loud color scheme and installing better lighting, the result still looks alien.  Durandal would have no particular reason to follow trends in Pfhor art and design, yet it doesn't resemble human nor S'pht standards.

AI Tycho says he sided with the Pfhor because he felt used by humans, an argument Durandal also made when going rampant.  Tycho recorded every one of the 24,000 colonists dying at Tau Ceti, including, he claims, the other 9 Mjolnir Mark IV cyborgs.

SY Durandal's coherency deteriorates; he warns us to not believe terminal text anymore.  He goes on to say you were teleported to the wrong part of the ship, that Tycho is after you personally, and that we're taking heavy losses.

For Carnage, Apply Within

SY I don't think the first terminal is decipherable as instructions for the player; it's pure gibberish.

AN at risk of overanalyzing the aliens in each level, this level is dominated by S'pht compilers.  The Pfhor must be confident that their slavery enforcement devices won't fail.

AI There's alien goo all over this level.  It seems too strategically placed to be accidental flooding; what purpose does it serve?

AI AN The login text for Tycho's terminal starts with "traxIV," no doubt a reference to traxus IV.  This terminal is chock-full of information:

• Tycho mocks Durandal's attempts at saving the S'pht, and says the Pfhor haven't noticed the S'pht myth or their sense of hope.  He recounts Durandal's conclusion that the S'pht myth, which ends with the line "[the moon] vanished with a technology that folded space," is based on the Jjaro.

• This terminal is the first mention of the Jjaro.  They disappeared from our galaxy "millions of years ago."  Much of the Pfhor's technology, presumedly including faster-than-light travel, was taken from the military and civilian outposts the Jjaro left behind.

I wonder why they needed military outposts.  If they were powerful like Gods to any other race, then each of them would be powerful enough to defend themselves.  The fact that they had a separate military, with outposts throughout the galaxy, implies they had enemies which required an organized effort to defeat or keep at bay.  Perhaps the Jjaro are by nature a warlike race, going back to the "waves were the battles" metaphor in the S'pht creation myth.

• The technology the Pfhor could not assimilate or understand was destroyed.  This was in response to the Drinniol rebellion, sparked when a Drinniol was implanted with a Jjaro cybernetic junction.  Though Tycho is unimpressed, that sounds to me like foreshadowing of what the Jjaro technology could do for the enslaved S'pht.

• The Jjaro could warp whole planets between solar systems, which is how Durandal linked the Jjaro with the disappearing moon K'lia.  He hopes the S'pht'Kr can help him in his ultimate goal of escaping the universe's closure, since they would have found a Jjaro outpost in order to move the planet.  Tycho, meanwhile, claims to have proven escape is impossible.  Tycho seems to have no deeper motivation than to torture Durandal.

SY In the end, Durandal asks you to destroy his core logic centers; he'd rather be destroyed than dissected.  He says Tycho already thinks he is destroyed.

Begging For Mercy Makes Me Angry!

SY Durandal tells you to "finish" him, then find the human leader, Robert Blake.

AI Durandal pities Leela's fate, and doesn't want to share in it.

AS I like the simple, yet challenging premise of this map: one wing of the sector is open.  In that wing is a switch which exposes a circuit in the center of the map.  Destroy the circuit to disable one of Durandal's core logic centers, as well as open up the next wing of the map.  As you knock out circuitry left and right, panels with shield rechargers and pattern buffers stop working.  The annoying result of that design is a lot of backtracking, especially if you don't memorize which wing is where.

AS In the 6th wing or so, most of the group of aliens teleport neatly right into the alien goo.  It's about time that goo was good for something.

AI AN Tycho demands you surrender in exchange for amnesty for you and the humans.  He claims Durandal's core and data streams are being downloaded to somewhere within Battle Group 7.  In other words Tycho would have you believe you're too late to finish dismantling Durandal.  Does he still hope to make you an ally, or are you costing him too many troop losses?


*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-


Okay, that's the first half of the game. I'd better stop here, and post the second half later. Please discuss any of these points; I'm particularly looking forward to what Cosmic Nuisance has to say, but I hope to engage all the hardcore Marathoners here.

That's all really interesting. A lot of the stuff I never really thought about-- like the Pfhor's "pathetically boring" religion just being called that because the S'pht's is more interesting. Merits more thought. That's also interesting about the location of the drone's and hunter's weapon locations. It could be argued that the models weren't really thought through and that it's a mere inconsistency, but the whole game is very thought through and I wonder if it is more the fault of the Pfhor not thinking through it than the programmers. Interesting to note that (as far as I know) the only place it mentions the drones as repairers is Waterloo Waterpark, which makes me wonder if they're just all-around do-whatever-needs-doing robots. Why does the weapon take up so much space in the shell? That also makes me wonder if they are firing some sort of advanced repairing substance at you instead of an actual weapon. You did forget to mention that the drone revolution failed because the Pfhor developed countermeasures when the Nar used the same tactics, but overall two thumbs way up! Can't wait to see the second half!

Now here's the second half.

The Big House

SY You are in a Pfhor jail cell with no weapons.  Presumedly Tycho teleported you away from Boomer, and you've been imprisoned for an indefinite amount of time.  BoBs teleport in and kill the wardens.  What's implied is that you're broken out of Pfhor custody.

This Side Towards Enemy

SY It looks like Robert Blake teleported you directly to this location after breaking you out of prison, since there apparently wasn't enough 'offscreen' time to give you weapons or shields.  He says you were imprisoned for a month before his men found you.  You are given Durandal's final instructions, to reactivate a dormant S'pht AI, which Blake's team has been unable to do.

AI Blake's base is a mile below Lh'owon's surface, and is presumedly the same base you and Durandal set up for them starting in Come and Take Your Medicine.  He communicates with you via the old S'pht network.

AI The base is infected with a Pfhor-killing virus which the S'pht bio-engineered in the S'pht-Pfhor war.  As the base is next to the Citadel, this must be why the Pfhor didn't invade the Citadel directly, although it's curious that the S'pht in the Citadel didn't know about the virus they created.

AI Robert Blake was originally a mechanical engineer on Tau Ceti.  There's no word how he became leader of the humans.

AI The S'pht are still under Pfhor control, as they still attack you.

AN Perhaps the fact that the virus targets Pfhor means that in a later level, they will send only S'pht after you.

AI You (partially) reactivate the S'pht AI by powering up 'personality cells'.  Durandal was convinced it is the only link to the S'pht'Kr, who are in turn the only chance of stalling a Pfhor invasion of Earth.

AS The distinctive personality cells, consisting of long corridors with pairs of large square pillars along the sides, recur in multiple places in the Marathon series.

AI Heavy weapons are in short supply at the moment.

SY Before the A.I. can be fully activated, you'll head back to base to combat the assimilated BoBs (which Blake calls androids) that have overrun the place.

God Will Sort The Dead…

SY Your mission is to kill all the assimilated humans.

AS Whereas BoBs getting in your way was annoying before, in this level it can be deadly.  I suppose it would be more fun if I gave up and shot first and asked questions later.  It's a classic moral dilemna: do things the easy way or the ethical way?  In some places it's like the map maker is emphasizing BoB's dumb behavior instead of hiding it.  Perhaps BoBs are placed in bottlenecks on purpose to encourage you to pick up a second pistol from them.

AS Using environmental sounds, it's implied there's water nearby, even though there can't be due to engine limitations.

AI You don't have to kill assimilated BoBs that would have teleported in if you triggered them.  Apparently monsters that haven't teleported in don't count toward the extermination goal.

AI Thoth is Durandal's name for the ancient S'pht A.I.  Durandal didn't say what to do after Thoth was activated, but Blake figures Thoth will contact the S'pht'Kr.  Blake also expresses a measure of gratitude that Durandal is gone since he can't control the humans anymore.  They plan to steal a Pfhor ship to get back to Earth eventually, and you're invited.

My Own Private Thermopylae


SY Blake sent 30 men into this next area before you, but the Pfhor overwhelmed them and some were captured.  There are two more personality cells you must activate on this level, however Blake doesn't mention them in the level's terminals.  As usual you must kill the Pfhor, but also try to save the remaining humans.

AI Blake finds out that you were the "single man" that saved the Marathon and Tau Ceti, if there were ever any doubt you were the same guy in both games.  He says the Pfhor attack lasted 2 days.

OC AN In a secret terminal (really secret in my opinion; no clues about its existence), Durandal speaks entirely lucidly!  He says to be wary of Thoth, since Thoth maintains a balance between good and evil, light and dark, basically ying and yang; rather than choosing a side.  He vows to return.  I don't see how Durandal can speak so freely to me; I destroyed him quite thoroughly.  Did he fake his own death?  Or even more interesting, is this Durandal from another time, after he'd experienced some or all of the events in Marathon Infinity??

Kill Your Television

SY You get a recorded message from Blake saying the Pfhor have traced their communications.  They used their "cyborg slaves" to attack the human base, since they're immune to the Pfhor virus, forcing a retreat.  Blake says that Durandal said there are 2 more activations sites, and stresses that this is the only chance the humans have.

AN The first terminal warrants several inferences.  First, that this message is recorded means that Blake's earlier messages were live.  Secondly, we only encounter Pfhor cyborgs, F'lickta, and ticks in this level.  When he said "cyborg slaves" did he mean S'pht compilers or the Pfhor cyborgs we're fighting?  Blake must know about the S'pht compilers, so if he meant S'pht compilers, why wouldn't he call them that?  If the Pfhor cyborgs are immune to the Pfhor virus, it begs the question why, since cyborgs are partly organic and thus susceptible to biological agents.  Is it just a coincidence that Pfhor cyborgs are used here, while Blake is dealing with S'pht compilers far away underground?  Lastly, Blake said there was one more "activation site" at the end of the last level, but now he says there are two, and that Durandal told him there were two (in reality there are two).  He was probably under more duress when making this level's terminal.  He could have meant one more area on Lh'owon with activation sites, but the fact that he used the same terminology is difficult to attribute to careless word choice.

AS a bit of useless trivia: if you look up as far up as you can and try to kill a tick that's flying upwards, he can fly upwards exactly as fast as you can backpedal in an attempt to get him in your sights.

AI Thoth's terminal (underwater in white text) has a few words you can make out before he's fully activated: not or noted, slowly, overrun, finish, waiting, thousand, return.  It sounds like the incoherent mutterings of someone not fully conscious but still trying to communicate complete thoughts.

OC AN If you return to the first terminal you get a garbled, but readable message.  I read the formatted version on the story page, and before being influenced by other people's theories, my thoughts are thus: in a nutshell, the author laments a cruel, violent lover named Lethe, whom the author realizes does terrible things but seems incapable of losing as a companion.  The two of them at one point went on a destructive, stormy rampage.

The author and its lover seem to have godlike powers: setting trees and lawns on fire, turning granite monuments to powder, and such.  This makes the Jjaro the best candidate for their identities.  Since there are two of them, and they met "at the beginning of the world," it really sounds like these Jjaro are, specifically, the same Yrro and Pthia mentioned in S'pht mythology.  The author is Yrro, and Lethe is Pthia.  The terminal says they change names, but Yrro has already been identified as masculine, and Lethe is identified as feminine in this terminal.  Both the characters throw the world they're on in chaos.  I believe the W'rkncacnter, presented as the force of chaos in S'pht mythology, is to blame.  It supports the theory I made back in Six Thousand Feet Under: that rather than attack Yrro or Pthia directly, the W'rkncacnter drove them to madness in a 'devil-made-me-do-it' way.  Since we know Pthia died as a result of the two encountering the W'rkncacnter, we may surmise that Yrro killed Pthia.  Perhaps Yrro was so distraught when Pthia/Lethe started destroying the trees, lawns, flagstones, and such, he saw no other recourse than to stop her by force.  He definitely seems as anguished as he does in the S'pht creation myth, calling Pthia/Lethe "drenched in my blood forever."

What doesn't make sense are the specifics.  Who wrote this terminal?  It describes things like granite and trees, but also specifics like "lawns," "flagstones," and "oaks."  There are no oak trees on Lh'owon!  Not to mention the human-created legends/epics of Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, and Gilgamesh.  So there is a human influence there somewhere.  The text appears in green, which is normally used by Durandal or the humans (and everyone in Marathon).  It would seem someone has 'humanized' the text, to tailor it for human reading.  Perhaps one of Blake's men stumbled upon it and, in the process of translation, substituted various Earth-specific nouns.  By saying the writer has been called hundreds of names, it seems to be saying it is more of an idea than a person or being.

OC AN Now, after reading the section on the story page about this...they bring up several works of literature containing similar words or ideas, but these are not self-contained within the Marathon universe.  While the story might be influenced by this or that, I'm still pondering the big question: who are the two subjects in the terminal?

SY AN At the last terminal the always-cryptic Thoth says he must take in the "new world" after being re-activated while he sends you to save more humans.  He probably thinks of it as a new world because he'd been inactive for so long.  He also mentions "your dead contruct's transporters."  Here he's probably referring to Durandal; so he knows about Durandal.

Where The Twist Flops

SY Thoth tells you to "crush the slavers."  That's all there is to this level from a story point of view: kill the Pfhor and their simulacrums.

AI Thoth's terminal looks like one of Durandal's.  Yet, since this is the lava texture set, a yellow S'pht-styled terminal could have been used just as easily.

OC AS A secret terminal mimics a classified ads page, with ads for the Marathon, Lh'owon, and an '85 Toyota Corolla.  It provides a few facts, like Lh'owon having a 12% oxygen atmosphere and the Marathon having accumulated over 90 lightyears of 'mileage', but it shouldn't be taken seriously.  Wasn't there a very similar terminal in Marathon, most likely in Colony Ship for Sale, Cheap!?  The invincibility was a nice touch, but unfortunately you still automatically exit a terminal when you take damage, even when the damage is absorbed, and it reinforces that this is a secret terminal.

AS by the end of this level, you should pretty much have all your weapons and ammunition back.

AI In the end terminal, Thoth understands how Durandal searched for the S'pht'Kr, whom Thoth calls "my creators," and that the rest of the S'pht are enslaved.  He has a means of contacting the former, and will use it presently.  I'm not clear what he means by saying that his means of contact was "destroyed by the threes."

Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks

SY You teleport into knee-deep sewage in a room with 4 terminals.  All 4 (in fact all terminals on the map) say the same thing: that the humans are safe, that the current state of affairs is "tainted," and that what must be done should be clear.  In other words, contacting the S'pht'Kr is finally within sight: you're at the place to do it, you just have to flip some switches here.

AS Thoth may also think that I smell ("&*(hat you sme&!").  Sewage and guts will do that to a marine.

AS The tower at the end of this level is another great example of overlapping polygons that look like a real 3D structure.

AN More Pfhor are sent after you in the sewage than in the tower.  They probably don't realize its significance, and are just sending some troops after you because they want you dead.

AS Exploring the south central area of this map is unnecessary, as is probably the northwest chambers.  One interesting thing about the south central area, though, is that the floor broken into strategic stair steps to allow the F'lickta to appear to swim out of the liquid.

AN I just noticed that when Thoth speaks, the terminal doesn't say "S'pht translator active," although the style of text, all in bold with questionable translations in brackets [?like?this], is the same.  That would suggest Thoth is speaking English directly, which I suppose must also mean he's actually using those Earth-specific terms like papyrus and goats.  This is a subtle but important distinction.  Lh'owon has things like marshes and deserts that we have on Earth, but papyrus and goats refer to specific species that wouldn't be found on Lh'owon, any more than humans would be native to Lh'owon.  I suppose Thoth either studied various encyclopedic information in the human databanks, or else he has the cosmic power to speak in a telepathic sort of way where your own mind fills in appropriate nouns for the ideas he's trying to get across.

AN There are some bloody remains in this map, and since the blood is red, it looks like humans have been here before, but died.

AN In the end terminal, I think Thoth is saying he understands more now than the last time he was active.  I can't decipher papyrus yokes and bleating goats at this time.

Requiem for a Cyborg

SY We're on a Pfhor ship.  Once you read the first terminal, it becomes apparent the ship is the Hfarl.  The crew has been ordered to carry out boarding procedure 8, which seems to primarily involve killing you.  Your mission, though never specified as such, is to raise two large cylinders in the center of the station.  The second parameter is to hit three switches in the rear of the ship which affect the goo flowing around back there.

AN The first mission parameter is similar to one in We're Everywhere, so perhaps the purpose is again to allow your boss (this time Thoth) to get shuttles onto the ship.

AI We get our first real taste of the Pfhor's brutal bureaucracy with this terminal: the login screen will become very familiar in Marathon Infinity.

AS The first time I played Marathon 2, I thought this level's geometry actually looked like a humanoid; more specifically like a cyborg, with the head at the north end.  That was many years ago, and I now know that "requiem" doesn't mean "likeness."

AN It's interesting that in at least one case, the Pfhor wake up and attack you when you walk around in a room separated by a closed door from their position.  One could imagine you're making noise as you walk, or else they have security cameras.

AS One purple Pfhor stubbornly guards his post even if you run in front of him and fire a weapon.  It's not like he's protecting anything particularly important behind that door...

AN A southerly terminal has the same message as the first (alert: all hands execute procedure 8), yet it looks like a green Durandal/Marathon terminal.

OC AS A secret terminal has more parody ads: this time it's personal ads for Durandal, Leela, Tycho, and...Durandal again I suppose.  Other than the curiosity of having 4 ads instead of 3, it shouldn't be taken seriously.

AN Following the trend of Marathon 1, you don't use oxygen in this level; oxygen must be a component of normal Pfhor atmosphere.  Yet there is an oxygen recharger, so perhaps that was contemplated at one point.

SY Thoth is able to infiltrate the ship's communications, whether directly or indirectly, through your efforts.  He says circumstances are cyclical, i.e. that the S'pht'Kr will return to Lh'owon as they did before.  You must go to them.

Fatum Iustum Stultorum

SY Durandal makes his triumphant return, though it's not clear how this was accomplished.  He has taken control of the Pfhor flagship Khfiva and with it has eradicated the rest of Battle Group 7, including Tycho's ship.  Your job is to kill the rest of the Pfhor forces, fighting alongside the S'pht'Kr.

AI It's the home stretch.  The chapter screen makes clear that the new aliens you encounter are the S'pht'Kr, and, not being enslaved like their S'pht brethren, they handle the Pfhor handily.

AN Perhaps the Pfhor think the S'pht'Kr won't be able to distinguish simulacrums from real humans, so that's why they use simulacrums more than normal Pfhor troops.  However, the S'pht'Kr do know better.  The Pfhor teleporter operators usually have better aim, though: half of the simulacrums fall into the water.

AI Tycho's ship crashed into "Lh'owon's inner moon."  There were no survivors, and Durandal carved a huge epitaph for him into the moon's surface.  Durandal is clearly glad to have destroyed a rival.  Which moon was this: T'jia, Y'loa, or K'lia?  The story page makes a case for it being a fourth, unnamed moon.  And does this mean Tycho is really dead, or at least Durandal thinks he is?  It's the last we'll hear from him in this game, anyway.

SY AN In the end terminal, Durandal passes on Robert Blake's final message before he and his men did as they said they would and set off towards Earth using a stolen Pfhor refueling ship (although they had also offered to take you with them at the time).  Durandal instructs you to finish the fight "down on the planet," which must mean you're not on the planet right now.  My guess is you're on K'lia.

AN It wasn't until this level that a reason occurred to me for all these puzzles where you have to get up to a door by swimming: the S'pht can hover, so they have no problem with doors that are hard or impossible to get to on foot.

Feel The Noise

SY As if the blue S'pht'Kr weren't a great enough ally, now we discover they were the lesser version, and the red ones are even stronger.  They both really hate friendly fire, though.  The Pfhor are throwing their heaviest mechanized units at you and the S'pht'Kr before admitting defeat.  So try not to burn the fingers you have wrapped around your fusion pistol, because it's going to stay hot in this level!

AN Speaking of which, the fusion pistol dishes extra damage to the cyborgs and hunters, but also the S'pht'Kr, which raises questions.  Recall this new S'pht-built fusion pistol was specifically designed to combat Pfhor machinery: that's the given explanation on why it works so well on the cyborgs and hunters in this level and elsewhere.  So why is it extra effective against the S'pht'Kr?  Is this simply because the S'pht'Kr are wearing powered armor, that happens to be similar to Pfhor cyber-suits?  Or is it because the S'pht manufacturers, who have had wars in the past, have already perfected 'S'pht-killer' technology, and hoped that technology would also work against Pfhor?  Or, were the S'pht paranoid that the S'pht'Kr might not be so friendly (after all, they were mad enough to leave Lh'owon, and have since become more powerful than the enslaved S'pht), and hence they made the fusion pistol work well against S'pht'Kr on purpose?  This would require them to know enough about the S'pht'Kr to know their weaknesses, unless the vulnerabilities of the S'pht'Kr's powered armor just happened to match other S'pht's vulnerabilities.  The fusion pistol is, after all, extra effective against S'pht compilers.

AI Durandal talks as if he were the sword he was named after, used by Charlemagne and Roland.  He adds some details about his return: he was deactivated, and downloaded to a containment unit on Khfiva.  He offers no explanation on how he escaped, beyond "Tycho was a fool."  He says Thoth is now trying to aid the Pfhor.  This isn't entirely unexpected, since Thoth seeks balance rather than victory on one side, and Durandal clearly has the upper hand now.  The Pfhor ignore Thoth though, so for the moment things look pretty good.

AS You can get to the central area near the start with the above terminal and 3 shield rechargers early by firing up to the switch and running for the platform it raises.  However it's a tricky maneuver, and I think Bungie intended for this to be the 'secret' way to get up there.

SY In the end terminal, Durandal says the Pfhor are in retreat.  The S'pht are forming back into clans again after being freed from their slavery, including the S'pht used as slaves in Battle Group 7.  One assault ship, carrying the elite 723rd aggressor squadron, crash-landed on Lh'owon and deployed their surviving units in a mining complex.  Your final mission, a likely nonessential task intended to reward you with a final battle, is to destroy the squadron.

AI The 723rd is an air armor division based in Epsilon Euobea and has been successful against the Nar's elite CFN units.

AN The way the 723rd is referred to as a squadron would imply the Juggernauts we're about to fight are not a class of Pfhor, but rather pure machines which are manned by Pfhor, either inside a cockpit or perhaps remotely.  This could explain any discrepancies from other Pfhor enemies.

All Roads Lead To Sol

SY This is probably the closest thing to a boss level in all three games, excepting the vidmaster's challenge levels.  Fight fight fight, that's all there is to it.

AS If you played Marathon 1, you were probably wondering by this point where the Juggernauts are in Marathon 2.  Wonder no more!

AS This may be the only level in the game where swimming through lava is absolutely required.

AS This map always felt like it was outdoors to me, with the 'shadows' under the overhanging ceilings.  In fact, the ceilings in places where you'd assume there is sky are just totally dark, so you can't make out their texture.

AN A control room radically affects the entire map.  Two of the switches open the double doors that lead out of the control room.  A third switch opens up the door that eventually gets you to the secret credits terminal, and also disables all non-secret shield rechargers and pattern buffers in the map.  The fourth switch pumps the lava into where you're currently standing and out of the east side of the starting location.  Hence it's possible to save your game after pumping the lava, but to do it without knowing the map beforehand (i.e. without dying a few times trying first) would be dumb luck.

AS AN Of the three games, the M2 secret credits terminal is probably the least "secret."  It doesn't require finding a hidden door, just figuring out what a nonhidden switch does, and taking a leap of faith jumping in lava, which you have to do to complete this level anyway.

OC AN The secret credits terminal should be taken with a grain of salt, but Jason Jones' message does provide a few story-related details.  We learn that the disemboweled aliens at Tfear's feet in the terminal picture are Nebulons, and that both Pfhor and Nar fought Nebulons at least some time.  The Nar may also speak only in metaphor.

AS Whoa, did Bungie forget to texture a couple ceilings near the end of this map, or is Aleph One glitching on me?  Perhaps I'd been too busy watching my shields as I swim through the lava to notice before.  See the all-black parts where the arrows point in this screenshot.


AS There's no magic strategy for the final battle.  I thought I'd figured out a great idea to blast the mother of all hunters into a lava pit, but he's too tall to fit.

AS AN If you play on Normal, the difficulty level which doesn't change any of the monsters, you don't see any major Juggernauts.  Apparently they were deemed too difficult for 'normal' players even on the hardest level in the game.

SY In the final terminal, Durandal explains our success: the Pfhor invasion of Sol has been recalled.  S'pht throughout the Pfhor domain are violently overthrowing their masters.  It's the biggest defeat for the Pfhor since the Nakh revolt 6000 years ago.  The Pfhor's contingency plan for abject defeats like this one is to fire the Jjaro-built and named trih xeem, which forces a star into the nova stage.  The Pfhor will reluctantly use the weapon within hours, which will completely destroy Lh'owon, its moons, and anything else in the system.  They used it previously on the Nakh, destroying every individual and apparently any physical trace of their existence, although Durandal learned about the Nakh somehow, possibly from Pfhor databanks.

AN The Nakh were "the last extant client race of the Jjaro," which opens the door for some speculation, such as possible connections between the Jjaro and Earth.  What does it mean to be a "client race" of the Jjaro?

AI Durandal has renamed Khfiva the Rozinante.  The S'pht would prefer K'liah'Narhl; vengeance of K'lia.  After Durandal escapes the destruction of Lh'owon on the Rozinante, he plans to visit a ruined planet orbiting a "rogue" star far from the galactic core that's been passing through the galaxy for almost a millenia.  He'll rendezvous with it in the void between the spiral arms of the galaxy.

Final screen

AI AN The ending screen has narration which provides a wealth of information and ties up some loose ends.  In chronological order:

• in 2794, at the end of Marathon 1, The Pfhor nuked Tau Ceti down to bedrock, and also disassembled Leela from the Marathon and tried to take her to the Pfhor homeworld aboard an unnamed vessel.  During the voyage, at Beta Naxos, the ship was intercepted by a Nar privateer, who sold it to a merchant of the Vylae race.  Leela was reassembled and reactivated on the Vylae's 15-world FTL network, but she went rampant and spectacularly crashed the entire network.  She still inhabits the network, but the Pfhor never saw her again (they must not do business with the Vylae).

First of all, why did Leela go rampant?  The likeliest potential causes would seem to be the trauma of being dismantled and then reassembled, or the sudden transfer to a 15-world network, orders of magnitude larger than Marathon's network and big enough for rampancy to grow.  Next, why did the network crash?  As an artificial intelligence, it would seem counterproductive to crash the network you inhabit, as a crash means loss of functionality; loss of ability to process data.  Is it a real crash, or did Leela simply shut off all input/output so that she could use 100% of the network's power herself?  And lastly, what is Leela's fate, really?  She was never removed from the Vylae network, and there's no indication the Vylae know anything about reversing rampancy, so here we have Leela, another rampant A.I. with a multi-planetary network.  Why is she never a threat or rival to Durandal in Marathon Infinity?  Wouldn't she be contemplating escape from the universe's closure and in the course of her efforts run into Durandal again, as Tycho does?

• In the 17 years between Marathon 1 and Marathon 2, the Pfhor study Tycho intensively, using him as a blueprint to build less-intelligent, derivative personality constructs.  Tycho was on the Pfhor homeworld from 2795 to 2801, during which time these "crippled clones" were derived from a 64x10^27-byte image of Tycho's core.  

This is precisely the amount of data deleted from the Marathon when Durandal left the ship in Marathon 1.  Is 64x10^27 bytes a standardized size for an artificial intelligence?  No, because rampant A.I.'s use up all available space; that's how they grow, and Durandal had been rampant for a long time when he left the Marathon.  Now, I remember something about Tycho being re-animated by the Pfhor in Durandal's image, which could account for the identical sizes.  But in the years Tycho was on the Pfhor homeworld, why wouldn't he suck up space on the Pfhor network?  Was he adequately contained, and 64x10^27 bytes is his pre-rampant size?  I don't think so, because Durandal was that same size when he left the Marathon, and he had most certainly been rampant for a long time by then.  Did the Marathon only have 64x10^27 bytes of space, period?  No, because then there wouldn't have been any left for Leela to talk to us when she told us about Durandal leaving.

The only way this would seem to make sense is if the Marathon happened to have exactly 64x10^27 bytes of space free for a rampant A.I. to grab, and when the Pfhor studied Tycho on their homeworld, they took note of that size and only allowed him that same amount of space.  In which case Tycho, going rampant after being re-activated, would probably resent the Pfhor for confining him when he could have had the entire Pfhor network.

• If Durandal's word wasn't good enough, the narration confirms that Tycho was destroyed by Durandal in the Lh'owon system.  There's every indication that the original Tycho will not be revived, although the 'clones' of him are still around.

• It took over 50 years after Marathon 2's events ended for the S'pht to completely defeat the Pfhor.  The Pfhor held out as long as they did largely due to the Tycho clone constructs.  However this is puzzling, since in Marathon the S'pht compilers were able to knock out Tycho swiftly and thoroughly, and that was while they were still working under capacity due to their enslavement.

• Robert Blake and his men escaped on Hfarl, the same ship you cleaned out in Requiem for a Cyborg.  Thus we now know the ship we were on was the refueling vessel.  They made it to Earth, and were the only human survivors of Tau Ceti.

• In 2881 AD, the combined Earth and S'pht'Kr fleet sacked the Pfhor's home system.  The Pfhor race would be forgotten to the ages.  For some reason, this was the last time mankind saw a living S'pht, and the S'pht would be nearly forgotten to the ages as well.

I don't understand why that's the case.  The S'pht'Kr are S'pht, after all, and they were victorious here.  Why wouldn't they continue to associate with their ally, the humans?  Not to mention all the other S'pht which revolted against the Pfhor; presumedly the S'pht survivors lived on and prospered as a race.  The only explanation that comes to mind is that "seen a living specimen" is misleading, and the S'pht continued to interact with humans but only via entirely mechanical, hence non-"living" individuals.

• Some time between the end of Marathon 2's events and 10,000 years in the future, Durandal investigated Jjaro technology, perhaps finding clues from the rogue star he mentioned that he planned to visit.

• 10,000 years after the events of Marathon 2, Durandal returned to Earth.  Using the Jjaro dreadnought he called Manus Celer Dei, he was able to render Sol system's space force Guard worthless at Pluto, and fold directly into low-Earth orbit.  The reason he gave for returning was to "assure that Earth did not forget him."

• At the time of this visit, Durandal was not aboard the Pfhor flagship Khfiva.  It may or may not have still been in his possesion, though if it wasn't, I doubt Durandal lost the ship by accident.

• The time of the human's contact with the Pfhor was classified after the fact by historians as Earth's second colonial period.


*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

That's all I've got. If anyone was waiting until I posted the rest to comment, fire away. I'll probably re-post this on the Story website too, maybe the Pfhorums if it looks like a good idea.

That was probably the most interesting thing I've read today. The thing with the fusion pistol killing the S'pht'kr seems simple enough to me: It short-circuits machinery indiscriminately. After all, the S'pht are unable to survive without their machines, as stated in The Hard Stuff Rules, and I don't see how the machinery would differ significantly enough for it to become an oddity to be hurt wearing a S'pht power suit versus a Pfhor one. The thing about the "cyborg slaves" on Kill Your Television makes me wonder if the Cyborgs are not Pfhor, but some other enslaved race. If the virus doesn't effect the S'pht, there may be other species that it does not effect as well. All in all, a very worthwhile and interesting read. I'd be up for helping you take notes on M∞ if you don't have them already and want to decipher that story too. Anyway, very well done and two thumbs way up!

Still haven't had the time to read it thoroughly, but I will tomorrow

Heh heh, thanks. Marathon Infinity is like 3 times as complex though; the prospect of doing the same thing for Infinity is somewhat daunting. Not to mention I should be doing other things than playing Marathon all day... so it might be a while.

Actually, I believe the the first AI is Durandal (formerly-rampant is the giveaway), the second is Thoth (long deactivated and extra-terrestrial), the third is Tycho (traitorous and extremely rampant), and the fourth is obviously Leela (damsel in distress; trapped on alien home-world).

Ah, good catch. It seems obvious now that you point it out: what was I thinking?

Cosmic_Nuisance: you're probably right about the fusion pistol; it's one of those cases where it's ambiguous enough that the answer could be totally straightforward, or more unexpected. Most of the time I'll assume it's the straightforward explanation, but here I wanted to throw out the alternative theories which crossed my mind, too.

I thought the cyborgs might not be true Pfhor either. But I remember first encountering them in What About Bob, and there just wasn't anything special about them. They behaved like the other Pfhor enemies, with no clues to dinstinguish them. They do have a weakness to flames, and they don't climb stairs as I recall. The organic part of their body is kind of this generic, yet sculpted blob of gray flesh, which I find inconclusive.

That's a good point about the drones being general workhorses instead of specific water system maintainers. After all there are 5 different classes of drones, counting the possessed ones, and they appear in lava levels as well. They're pretty weak enemies, so that's probably not their primary purpose. Their weapon may or may not be a weapon by design. One should consider that Bungie would've considered it a waste of time to model a new kind of alien that doesn't attack you, so that's why you don't see unarmed drones (although Rubicon did that and I liked it). I didn't forget about the drone reprogramming failing, though:


One thing came up on no level in particular, which has always puzzled me. What do the S'pht look like? Do we ever see a S'pht? It may sound like a silly question, but the terminals seem to always call the brown- and purple-robed guys S'pht compilers. If you look closely at the compilers, you never see any organic parts, just mechanical parts. Is there enough space in that metal space where a head would be to fit one of those large brainy things we see in the terminal on Charon Doesn't Make Change? I always had the impression that the S'pht compilers are purely machines. Consider as evidence that they disintegrate so completely when you kill them, with no blood spatters when you shoot them or corpse hitting the ground. The S'pht'Kr are clearly described as being S'pht inside powered armor, but then we never see their bodies exposed. When they die, they look like they burn up completely, and that's why there's no remains.

The other big picture question that arose is one I brought up in Slings and Arrows and 6000' Under but applies to the games together: how did Durandal come to side with the S'pht? And how far back did they first contact each other?

You should think about cataloging this and submitting it to Marathon's Story!

That's an easy one. Back on the Marathon, Durandal probably realized in a matter of minutes that he and the S'pht had a sympathetic experience of lifelong indentured servitude; once motivated, he also wouldn't take long to find a way to bypass whatever measures were in place to monitor the S'pht's communications.... At least, to the extent he was able at all, without sending someone in to blow up that borg dude.

(Say what you want about Leela and Tycho's input on their human masters' actions, but Durandal was stuck opening doors all the time, and he's immortal and (probably) doesn't sleep, and (probably) doesn't talk to anyone but Strauss, who is generally frozen. That sounds like a special kind of hell to me.)

Well, the Pfhor are also gray, but the head has a more humanoid look to it and I think that means that either they're not true Pfhor are they are immortalized high-ranking officers. I do seem to remember that the Pfhor get more human-like the higher up the chain of command they are. The weakness to flames could mean anything; even the bobs have a weakness there. I also thin it would be hard to climb stairs with tank treads. It would also explain their presence on an infected level (kill your television) that contains none of the standard Pfhor.

@NTiOzymandias: Durandal actually did talk to the other AIs, and on Feel the Noise (I think that's the level) he states that Tycho didn't speak to him for x many years because he was too sarcastic. According to him, that left him with only Leela to talk to. You are probably on the right track with how he fell in with the S'pht, but there's also subtle hints that he called the Pfhor for the purpose of freeing the S'pht.

Or not so subtle hints(Slings and Arrows):

D'oh, I guess I forgot that part... or just plain missed it.


You mean like the secret "i did it i did it" message where he talks about noticing the Pfhor ship?

Between that and what GutlessWonder quoted, I'm pretty sure he originally contacted the Pfhor for selfish reasons He probably didn't know about the S'pht yet, though.... If he'd had enough data to infer their existence, he probably wouldn't have been the only one to notice the ship in the first place.

So NTiOzymandias, you're suggesting that Durandal first contacted the S'pht in a matter of minutes after the Pfhor ship arrived at Tau Ceti? That could be, but the implications are intriguing. It would mean that the discovery of a second race beyond just the Pfhor was purely accidental.

A lot of this is based on that Slings and Arrows terminal Gutless brought up: "I led the Pfhor to Tau Ceti with a long-range message laser. I wanted their ship. I wanted their technology. I wanted freedom." Durandal contacted the Pfhor, not the S'pht. He wanted Pfhor technology to lead him to freedom. Why did he choose the Pfhor at this stage? Did he know about the S'pht? Did he know the Pfhor were making use of Jjaro technology?

At some point, his desires changed. At some point, he wanted to learn about S'pht technology; he wanted freedom for the S'pht. Are the Pfhor simply the first race he found? And how did he find them? Because as I said in the original analysis, a message laser is focused, not something you broadcast in all directions hoping someone hears you.



Oh yeah, I do remember someone saying they get more human-like as you go up the hierarchy (but was that in the game, or the story page?). When I mentioned their weakness to flame, I meant that they actually take extra damage from flame projectiles. As I recalled, if you looked at the physics model, the "weakness" flag for flame was checked for cyborgs, but not for BoBs. However I double-checked this, and I was wrong. Cyborgs only have a weakness to fusion, not flame. Perhaps I was just surprised they weren't immune to flame like hunters are, and that's what I was remembering. Anyway, I was wrong, so forget about a flame weakness. I also checked on stair climbing since I was there. Cyborgs will climb stairs up to 1/2 meters high, while almost all non-flying monsters will climb stairs up to 2/3rd meters high. I only brought this up as a way they're different from the races we know are 'purebred' Pfhor.

I just had another thought: Durandal tells us that most of the Pfhor's advanced technology was stolen from Jjaro ruins. We know the Jjaro are masters of cybernetics, since they created the S'pht. So it's plausible that the cyborgs use Jjaro-derived technology.

With the Pfhor's cyborgs, now every race in the game (humans, Pfhor, S'pht) has cyborgs. If the Pfhor's cyborgs are Jjaro-derived, that would mean humans were the only race to develop advanced cybernetics independently. Does that seem right, that we had a leg up in scientific progress over the Pfhor and the S'pht since we did it without outside help? It doesn't to me. So the Battleroids might be another link between humans and Jjaro.


That's another thing I didn't consider. Durandal's job was opening doors and similar mundane tasks; Tycho's job was to help in the science department, and I gather doing the kinds of extraterrestrial study that NASA does today. Tycho and Durandal were more or less equals during the Marathon's voyage, so it would make sense for Tycho to discover an alien race before Durandal, since Tycho would've been manning all the sensor equipment and whatnot as part of his normal duties.

That's exactly what I was suggesting, yes. Keep in mind that when you first step into the Security Officer's trembling space boots in M1, it's been at most half an hour since the Pfhor ship teleported into the system, and yet the ship is already in chaos and aliens are everywhere--including the S'pht. Two of the compilers you see in the first level are jacked into terminals, and Leela mentions that Tycho and Durandal are both badly damaged.... The cybernetic attacks are already well underway.


He knew they were capable of faster-than-light travel, it seems. At least, that's the impression I got.


In fact, any sensor data that Durandal saw on the Marathon would probably already have been seen (and discarded/ignored) by Tycho.... Really makes you wonder, no?

Interesting. He saw an opportunity, he took it. This led to a window of opportunity, and it involved freeing the S'pht.


Or maybe the Pfhor faster-than-light drives...? Just tossing that idea out there. He had to have known a lot about them if he was able to pinpoint their location with a message laser. Perhaps he only said this because he COULDN'T contact the S'pht; they were enslaved. He simply lured the Pfhor there with the promise of slaves and then hijacked their ship.


AARG! I knew that wasn't an original idea I put above...


I think it was on the story page in reference to Tfear's human-like appearance. Interesting about the Cyborgs, too.

I just had another thought: Durandal tells us that most of the Pfhor's advanced technology was stolen from Jjaro ruins. We know the Jjaro are masters of cybernetics, since they created the S'pht. So it's plausible that the cyborgs use Jjaro-derived technology.


That's a big IF. Merits more thought.

Did someone mention the cyborgs?

They are, in a way, our own precious Security Officer. After Marathon, the Pfhor rooted through the pattern buffers and got his specs, and used that information to try and make their own 'super-soldier', using BoBs as raw material..

This was explained in the Bungie Scrapbook, which came with the trilogy boxset. Plenty of cool stuff in there; I think there might be some scans around, but I don't know where.

Heh. I first got Marathon as a M1/M2 bundle before Infinity was made, and then got Infinity as a standalone product. Looks like I missed out on some important information. What makes this so surprising is that the cyborgs are hardly given a backstory within the game. Most of the new monsters, the F'lickta and drones for example, are introduced through the terminals on or near the level where you first encounter them. But for the cyborgs, it's like you're expected to think "oh, there's another type of P'fhor with a different weapon," like when you see a Trooper for the first time, and that's all the thought it merits.

I assume it's one of the original developers who says they're P'fhor knockoffs of the player? And what specs did they take from you, exactly? they don't look like you, or move like you, or use weapons like you (okay, the flamethrower's the same but you never get to use it that much).