Marathon (disambiguation)

Summary

Marathon is a series of science fiction first-person shooter computer games from Bungie Software released for the Apple Macintosh.

The first game, Marathon (1994), was followed by two sequels: Marathon 2: Durandal (1995) and Marathon Infinity (1996). Marathon 2 was also released for Windows 95. You can also download all three games via H.B.O.'s download page.

Games in the series

Marathon

Marathon was released for the Apple Macintosh and was one of the earliest first-person shooters to appear on the Macintosh. Unlike some other similar games of that era (for example, id Software's DOOM) Marathon and its sequels, Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity were notable for their intricate plots.

Set in the year 2794 A.D., the game placed the player as a cyborg Security Officer aboard the human starship UESC (Unified Earth Space Council) Marathon, orbiting a colony on the planet Tau Ceti IV. Throughout the game, the player attempts to defend the ship and its inhabitants from a race of alien slavers called the Pfhor. As he fights against the invaders, he witnesses the three shipboard AIs' interactions, and discovers that all is not as it seems aboard the Marathon.

Marathon 2: Durandal

Marathon 2: Durandal was the sequel to Marathon. In addition to being released for the Apple Macintosh, a Windows 95 version was also released.

Marathon 2 begins 17 years after the first game ends, as the player's ship arrives at the ruined S'pht homeworld Lh'owon. Durandal sends the player and an army of ex-colonists to search the ruins of Lh'owon for information which would give Durandal an advantage against the Pfhor, who are planning a new assault on humanity. Among the new characters in this adventure are Durandal's evil counterpart Tycho, a Lh'owon-native species known as F'lickta, an ancient and mysterious race of advanced aliens called the Jjaro, and the long-lost S'pht'Kr clan.

The game engine itself underwent several changes from its first incarnation. Although most of these changes were "under-the-hood", a few were visible to the user. The Marathon 2 engine offered preformance gains on some machines, in addition to support for higher resolutions, higher color depths, and better quality sound. The enhanced engine also allowed the loading of maps from external files, allowing for users to (later) create and play their own maps.

Marathon Infinity

Marathon Infinity included more levels than Marathon 2, which were larger, scarier, and part of a more intricate plot. The game's code changed little since Marathon 2, and many levels can be played unmodified in both games. Marathon Infinity was only released for the Apple Macintosh. The most dramatic improvement in the game was the inclusion of Bungie's own level-creating software, Forge, and their physics editor, Anvil. Forge and Anvil allowed a new generation of players to create their own levels using the same tools as the Bungie developers themselves. In Forge, distance was measured in World Units, which are roughly equivalent to 2 metres (6 or 7 feet). Another improvement was the ability to include separate monster, weapons, and physics definitions for each level, a feature heavily used by Double Aught, who designed the Marathon Infinity levels.

In addition to the three Marathon games, several games (e.g. Damage Incorporated and ZPC) used the Marathon 2 engine.

Marathon Infinity begins as the Pfhor destroy Lh'owon using a stolen Jjaro doomsday weapon known as the Trih'Xeem (early nova). Unfortunately, the weapon also releases a powerful chaotic being which threatens to destroy the entire galaxy. Because of the chaos, or by means of some Jjaro tech of his own, the Marathon Cyborg is transported back in time and finds himself jumping between timelines and fighting for various sides in a desperate attempt to prevent the chaotic being's release.

Halo and Marathon

Halo: Combat Evolved shares many features with Marathon and could be considered Marathon 4 (though Bungie claims that it is set in a different universe). Common features include the Marathon logo embedded in the Halo logo, Hunters, and SPNKr (also known as Jackhammer) rocket launchers. Halo plays very much like a modern, high end version of Marathon (although it is far more linear). Bungie often recycles components, famous phrases and jokes from its games.

See here for a list of the Marathon references in the Halo games.

Characters

The Pfhor

The Pfhor are an extraterrestrial ancient spacefaring race of alien slavers seeking to control the galaxy and perform numerous evil deeds in the games. The Pfhor are bipedal, somewhat taller than humans, have three red eyes and green skin, and come in a variety of classes and flavors. In Marathon, the three eyes are arranged in a triangle, pointing down, making the unmasked Pfhor look a little clownish, but the later games shifted the "arrow" to point up, with the third eye in a more "enlightened" position in the middle of the forehead.

The most basic variety is the Fighter, a lightly armored pfhor wielding a shock staff (and a projectile weapon in the case of the blue and orange types). Fighters come in four flavors, in order of ascending rank and nastiness: Green, Purple, Orange, and Blue.
Troopers are heavily armored and pack automatic rifle/grenade launcher combo weapons. Troopers come also in Green and Purple flavors.
Hunters are the Pfhor assault troops. They wear very heavy armor and have shoulder-mounted energy cannons. They come in four flavors: Brown, Green, Purple and Blue.
Enforcers are the Pfhor MPs. They wear strange cloaks and possess alien flamethrowers. They come in two different types, with blue/orange enforcers being tougher and faster than green/blue ones.
The Juggernaut (aka The Big Floaty Thing What Kicks Our Asses) is the Pfhor tank. These flying armored weapons platforms are like a mix of a tank and an attack helicopter, only bigger and badder. They fire dual homing RPGs as well as machineguns/alien shotgun bursts. They come in two flavors: Bad and Worse (Grey and Brown).

Exceedingly tough, monochrome-colored versions of all of the Pfhor (except for Juggernauts) appear in the Vidmaster Challenge stages, a series of skill challenges hidden at the end of Marathon: Infinity.

The Pfhor also utilize the 'Conditioned Ranks', or enslaved soldiers, who are forced to fight for the empire. Conquered races make up the majority of the conditioned ranks. However, only the S'pht and Drinnol appear in-game.

Conditioned Ranks

S'pht
The S'pht are a race of alien cyborgs, cybernetically enhanced by the Jjaro to terraform Lh'owon. They were enslaved by the Pfhor c. 1810 A.D., and liberated en masse by Durandal and the unenslaved and technologically superior S'pht'Kr clan in 2811 A.D. The S'pht consist of extremely complex brains carried in flying cybernetic bodies. They are armed with a built-in energy pulse weapon and some carry cloaking devices.

Drinniol
Known to the Marathon's crew as 'Hulks', these creatures stand over ten feet tall. Slow-moving, they are nevertheless deadly at close range due to their heavy crushing strikes. They appear only in two levels in Marathon, both times threatening BOBs. It appears that the Pfhor use them only on prisoners.

It should be noted that Halo 2 was planned to include a Covenant-controlled creature called the Drinol.

Wasp
Wasps are large flying insects which appear to be used to distract, confuse and injure any humans who offer resistance. Although able to spit a corrosive compound at their enemies, they are easily killed and pose little threat. It is not clear whether or not they are controlled by the Pfhor, but it seems likely.

Looker
Lookers are large, floating beetle-like creatures who run at the player or the BOBs and explode violently, dealing a considerable amount of damage. As they often inhabit tight corridors, it can be difficult to escape these explosions. It is not clear whether or not they are Pfhor-controlled, but this seems likely.

Flick'ta

Flick'ta are native creatures of Lh'owon, living in sewers, water pools, and lava. They are ancestors of the S'pht and often harass Pfhor forces. Flick'ta have a simplified digestive system, absorbing nutrients from the sludge they live in, and are extremely irritable. Entering their home turf unarmed is not recommended. They take on various colors and properties depending on their surroundings-blue Flick'ta in water (who have powerful melee attacks, but no projectile attacks), red Flick'ta in lava (who melee weakly, but can throw lava) and green Flick'ta in sewers (who strike powerfully and throw damaging sewage). Flick'ta allow their eggs to develop in their large mouth-like orifices located on the front of their abdomen.

The Jjaro

Little is known about the Jjaro, an extremely advanced species which disappeared from our galaxy millions of years ago (they are not seen in-game), leaving much of their technology to fall into the hands of the Pfhor. The Jjaro are known to have possessed high-quality cyborg technology (such as that used to create the S'pht), a star-destroying weapon known as the Trih'Xeem, and the ability to move entire planets by warping space around them (as used by the S'pht'Kr). Only two individuals, Yrro and Pthia, are ever named.

The Jjaro were first used in an earlier Bungie game, Pathways Into Darkness.

BOBs

Other than the player's character, the human characters in the game are all referred to as "BOBs" (which stands for "Born On Board"). They wear different-colored suits, but all have the same face. In Marathon, most are harmless and generally ignore the player (and occasionally announce "They're everywhere!"); in Durandal and Infinity most carry weapons and will attack the enemies. If the player begins to attack them, they will consider him a traitor and eventually return fire. However, a few, called simulacrums (or "assimilated BOBs"), are actually living bombs; upon seeing the player's character, they will run directly towards him (usually shouting things like "I'm out of ammo!", "Thank God it's you!" or the infamous "Frog blast the vent core!" (see below), and when close enough (according to Durandal, less than 3 metres) they will explode and inflict severe damage to anyone nearby. This is especially a problem on levels where a certain number of BOBs must be protected to succeed. There are other differences between human Bobs and Simulacrums: apparently the assimilated Bobs have red eyes, only two toes, no genitalia and disformed teeth (though these differences do not appear in-game). Also, assimilated Bobs will run directly towards you - whereas humans will run erratically, and assimilated Bobs never shoot at anyone.

The Cyborg

The character portrayed by the player is known only as the Marathon Cyborg. In many ways, he bears resemblances to the Master Chief: he is a two-meter cyborg who wears green battle armor who never speaks in-game. At the start of Marathon, he appears to believe that he is merely a human, although a talented, dangerous and powerful one. However, persistent references to "nine MJOLNIR Mark IV cyborgs" throughout the game has led many fans to believe that the Cyborg is in fact the tenth member of this group. However, the cyborg himself does not come to realize this until Marathon Infinity, when he starts having surreal flashbacks, trips into his own mind, and spontaneous, bizarre dreams.

It has been speculated, probably correctly, that the Cyborg's mind is that of an AI in a human's body. In Infinity, he seems to be undergoing a sort of rampancy. (The first three stages of Infinity are called Despair, Rage, and Envy, which would seem to parallel the three stages of rampancy- Melancholy, Anger and Jealousy.) Since rampancy is defined as "an artificial intelligence's coming to realize that it is not real", this seems to show that the player is not, in fact, human.

The Cyborg's mind and personality, unlike the Chief's, are mostly left up to the player to speculate on. Although Durandal describes him as "a magnificent killing machine" and asks if being allowed to kill more Pfhor will "make you happy", the AI is more likely being malicious than accurate. Certainly, the Cyborg does not seem to be a mindless psychopath. However, in the third game of the series, he seems to lose any sense of morality he may previously have possessed, working for the indisputably evil Tycho and killing BOBs on Tycho's orders. In Infinity, we are given greater access to his mind and feelings. He seems to recognize some sort of guilt for the atrocities he has committed, and appears to believe that he has been forced to do what he has done. Ironically, this seems accurate. All three games consist chiefly of doing what various people tell him to do - only once does he act of his own initiative, and this is in the Marathon manual, which is not an entirely reliable source.

The AIs

The Marathon possessed three artificial intelligences, all of which, at some point in the series, control the cyborg's actions, and all of which undergo rampancy.

Leela
The ship's command AI, Leela, was the Cyborg's first 'master', guiding and helping him through the original attack on the UESC Marathon. Although she does seem to care about the cyborg's well-being, she is rather cold, and does not show high levels of emotion at any point. Although she manages the Marathon through the events of the first game, she is later captured by the Pfhor and dissected.

Durandal
The ship's function-control AI, Durandal, is the plot focus of all three games. Indeed, it could be argued that he, not the Cyborg, is the main character of the series. He undergoes rampancy over the course of the first game, have been purposely brought to that state by abuse from one Dr. Bernhard Strauss. By the beginning of the sequel, he is meta-stable, and guides the player through the whole game. Although he has a cruel sense of humor, and seems to despise humans, he is not inherently evil, and is never seen to show absolute callousness to the cyborg or any other human.

Tycho
The ship's science AI, Tycho, features only briefly in the first two games. It seems that he was captured and conditioned by the Pfhor. By the events of Marathon Infinity, Tycho seems to have lapsed into a permanent Anger stage of rampancy. He kidnaps the cyborg and uses him as a tool to take control of a Pfhor fleet as the first stage of the game. He seems, however, to have been rampant as early as Marathon, proclaiming floridly to the cyborg, "I AM TYCHO! I SHALL DESTROY DURANDAL!" Cruel and bitterly sarcastic, Tycho is probably the least sympathetic character in the game.

Thoth
An ancient AI, created by the Jjaro and given to the S'pht'Kr, Thoth is an enigmatic, powerful being. Although he only ever speaks in strangely written, choppy free-verse poetry which is hard to decipher, he has very definite goals. He seems to care little for the wars between the S'pht, the Pfhor and the humans, serving only to keep the Wrk'ncacnter imprisoned. In one of the potential realities created by the waking of the Wrk'ncacnter, he merges with Durandal, creating a strange hybrid.

The Wrk'ncacnter

The Wrk'ncacnter were a race of "chaotic beings" who existed at the same time as the Jjaro. Said to destroy and corrupt everything they interacted with, the Wrk'ncacnter caused Yrro and Pthia to flee their home and come to Lh'owon. When the Wrk'ncacnter followed the pair, Pthia was killed. Yrro, in a rage, flung the Wrk'ncacnter into Lh'owon's sun. All but one seem to have been destroyed in their imprisonment. This one is the main plot point of Marathon Infinity, as it struggles for release, attempting to destroy the cyborg, the Pfhor, the S'pht and everything else around it.

The Wrk'ncacnter also figured previously in Pathways Into Darkness, referred to as "the Waking God".

"Frog blast the vent core!"

This is a phrase synonymous with the Marathon series. Explosive Bob "simulacrums" occasionally shout the phrase, trying to blend in with the regular BOBs and explode around a large amount of humans. Since they are only piecing together random words, their nonsense gives them away. Doug Zartman, who performed the BOB voices, was instructed during recording to improvise a random phrase, and this is what he came up with. It is very popular to say in the text chat of a network game of Marathon; meant more as a joke than anything; the sheer randomness of this phrase means it can be used at any time.

The phrase has appeared hidden in other games, such as Myth, Tron 2.0, and Oni.

External Links

http://marathon.bungie.org
Download the Trilogy
Marathon Open Source Project
GURPS Marathon - A Marathon sourcebook.
Marathon's Story Site - An essential reference if you're lost in Marathon's plot.
MaraWiki - Wiki site dedicated to all things Marathon.
http://www.marathon.org