The Mysterious Antagonist from Bungie's Marathons story.
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- In this video we examine some loose details from across the Marathon lore including Marathon:Durandal and Marathon Infinity to compose this theory. Lore that I believe revolve around a specific entity from the backstory seemingly connected to Durandal himself. And we delve into some wild and crazy and sure to be controversial speculation about who this character was or at least who Bungie intended her to be at one point in time.
For over twenty years fans have returned to the game to ponder about its many mysteries, flocking to places like the Marathon story page on Marathon.Bungie.org. As shocking as it is Bungie's sci-fi FPS, Marathon is reaching its 25th anniversary. Its sequels Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity are nearly 24 and 23 years old respectively. The beloved story, written primarily by Greg Kirkpatrick and Jason Jones, has a sizable cult following to this day.
This video seeks to further explore the dense lore created by Bungie for Marathon. With Marathon Bungie told a complex story that is still being dissected by some to this day. The video suggests that Cortana - the AI prominently featured in the Halo video game franchise was originally associated with a mysterious character in Marathons backstory.
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Who could have foreseen that these universes would be irreparably separated by the eldritch horror of corporate acquisition.
You are certainly welcome. Thanks for the support.
The legendary ending of Halo 3 was meant to be a Marathon reference
How so? Could you refresh me on the details and such
Wake me when you need me.
Chief is put on ice to wake up as the protagonist of whatever story needs the *hero* next.
Bungo has never been subtle about the fact that their protagonsit is an archetype.
@@egoalter1276 holy shit this just shifted my whole perception of halo
The legendary ending showed (at the time) a Forerunner planet with the Marathon logo on it.
@@kiddo215It wasn't the Marathon logo, it was The Eld, a forerunner glyph that symbolises the mantel of responsibility.
I don't unfortunately have a direct reference on-hand, but I do remember reading/hearing that Halo was originally going to be a 4th Marathon game, taking place between the first Marathon and Marathon 2: Durandal. Durandal mentions during the Marathon series that he "stopped by long enough to give the humans the tools to fight against the Pfhor" immediately after the events of the first game, before going off in search of the S'pht homeworld.
The game apparently was going to deal with that human vs. Pfhor battle while the Marathon protagonist was in stasis.
iamhero
The halo universe happened in the previous universe, it collapsed and created another big bang. This new universe is where Marathon takes place.
The Jjaro escaped the previous universe with their technology. One of them landed on earth and was discovered in Pathways into Darkness. Mjolnir Recon 54 utilizes Jjaro technology and is able to remember the previous universe as Master Chief.
And Destiny is what happens next, the Jjaro and maybe Durandal/Cortana turning into the pyramids and continuing the cycle
Very enjoyable video. Have you ever read into the Destiny lore? In Destiny, the creation of the universe and the beings responsible have a lot of the same basic descriptions as those from the unscrambled email. Being in a garden, the Dark being described as female, etc. The full lore is included in the Lore book titled "Unveiling".
I have indeed . There are interesting parallels in unveiling and the garden text in the grimoire of the first Destiny.
I find it oddly interesting that 343 went back to the original plot for Cortana and even have her quoting the old things that were used as foreshadowing. It's impossible for the two franchises to maintain the connection now, presumably, so why?
I mean if both parties were interested, they would of just had to have negotiated a contract while Bungie was negotiating for its independence. Kind of like the Sony and Marvel deal regarding Iron Man and Spider-man.
It’s pretty amazing how deep bungie went just to name a character really cool video man
People forget that Halo started as Marathon 4 before it became Halo.
Is Durandal saying "Roland couldn't break me" a reference to the player saving his backup and failing to destroy him? Since our boy has been known as Roland?
If it was the player character, its describing events that happened a long time ago, and Durandal doesn't know that the player is/ was/ is connected to Roland.
"Durandan, Durandal, Durandana.
Charlemagne used to always call me
Durandana, the fruitcake. All the many
implements of war to him were in some way
feminine. Not that you know the story.
Tycho never got it right either, especially
the part about Roland breaking me. He
couldn't."
This reads to me as describing events that happened a long time ago. Events that haven't been made explicit to the player at all. As Durandal directly tells us that we don't know the story. The part about not being broken by Roland is correcting Tychos own misunderstanding of events.
Contextually Durandal is correcting Tychos understanding of events as he expressed them in Marathon 1. In that game Tycho tells Durandal: "Consider yourself warned. Leela and I will hunt you to the core if need be. As Roland broke you to prevent your capture, so shall we.". So in Marathon 1 Tycho believes that "Roland" was successful in breaking Durandal, and that Roland broke him to prevent his capture.
This serves as a reference to the song of Roland but I do believe its also intended to be interpreted as differing accounts of a real event in the backstory. In the song of roland, Durendal is brought down from heaven by an angel to charlemagne, who in turn gifts it to Roland. Roland uses Durandal against the Saracens, and eventually uses it to buy Charlemagne and his forces time to flee to france. and eventually just as he is about to be overwhelmed he attempts to destroy the sword before its captured. He fails to destroy the sword. And he gets overwhelmed and suffers a mortal wound. And depending on the account he hides the sword under his dying body, or he throws the sword so that it won't be found and then its much later discovered by monks.
Now if we look to the Mida Mini-tool lore in Destiny 2, it implies that Bernard Strauss recovered an AI from an old ship wreck on Mars. So maybe the parallel is that the ship wreck is the angel sent down from the the heavens. Or maybe the ship crashed because "Roland" didn't want Durandal to be captured.
Hey man, I just want to say thank you so much for making these videos. I was a Macintosh kid back in the 90’s, and the Marathon trilogy was one of the very few bright spots to being a Mac fan back then. Glad to see these games are not forgotten. Happy New Year and thanks again for your efforts.
Thank you for your kind words sir. Happy new years to you as well.
Same here; from 1996-1998, ~14-year-old me and my Performa 6400 blazed through the Marathon Trilogy more times than I can count and made so many maps, mods, and weird physics models with Forge and Anvil it would take months to play them all. Good times.
Marathon is Too Legendary.
Cool! :) While I knew about a lot of this stuff already (I've read the Cortana Letters front-to-back and found boatloads of old speculation), I hadn't seen anyone make a connection with that line in the M1 manual until now.
There was a "Marathon 3" that was being worked on for about two months before it was supplanted by Myth: TFL; I wonder if it would've touched on this plot thread?
(Aside: the Letters inspired me to incorporate a version of Cortana into my Marathon AU, but she's a main protagonist.)
That is really cool. There is definitely a lot of cool nooks and crannies in the letters, hinting at all sorts of possible ideas.
One of my personal faves is the lost colony idea in the one that came with the Myth: The Fallen Lords CD.
Radix?
@@Pfhorrest Yep!
Have a feeling about Destiny, Marathon and Halo. PID as well, PID directly references species in Marathon, and concepts relevant in Destiny. There's actually a lot of things going on ere.
Some of the creators said Halo takes place in the same universe to marathon but there are still some connections in a sense so maybe marathon infinity is that connection Marathon is the Halo moon verse but it just happened a lot differently with cortana existing with and the master chief but only security guards and and durando exist in that specific life
They even said cortana was supposed to be the villain originally delete so in 343 industries bought Halo they decided to do their own spin and make cortana the bad guy
And if that's the case there may be a 3rd Halo series spin off involving all these AI
I fuckin knew it!
Ever since I discovered Marathon, everything I learn about it has be nothing but intriguing! Great presentation here, very interesting theory crafting
it makes sense that Cortana would be so close to the marathon franchise because she was one of the first things to be finished in halo mostly because the voice actor couldn't come back to rerecord the lines
Hey! So there is a lot to unpack here. I'm all about multiverse theory and whatnot, and I don't think Marathon and Halo are in the same universe per say, but I know Bungie and 343 LOVE to reference their own games to get people inventing their own head canons, which I absolutely love. I would be really surprised if there aren't a few tongue in cheek references to Marathon in Halo Infinite and I can't wait til that game comes out so we can data mine TF out of it! The possibilities are, dare I say, Infinite. Keep doing what you do my awesome friend.
There's a lot of references in Destiny as well. I wouldn't be surprised if they add references or maybe even expand Marathon's story in their 30th anniversary event thats coming up
@@MisterTorgueHighFiveFlexington I hear what you're saying. I already bought that pack too. 😛
I miss this guy making videos.
One day.
This was an amazing ride indeed ❤
What's the song at around 1:30. I know it's a halo song but I have no idea which one. Is it perhaps 2 songs overlaid?
New canon accepted.
Does this connect to Joyeuse in Destiny as well?
@@Pfhunkie Not sure, Joyeuse isn't much more than just a few letters of text describing the warmind vault on Io at the moment. It would be cool if they went somewhere with that.
@@Pfhunkie My guess is that using the name (possibly for one of the other Warminds before the collapse?) Is more of a nod and a wink to Bungie followers. Also possibly to keep the streak alive.
@@Ghostvirus I'm willing to bet that there'll be a crap ton of references to Marathon in bungie's 30th anniversary event. The might even hint at the Cortana letters and Halo. Would it be possible that they also expand Marathon's story?
I think that this character might have been something originally inspired by the Hindu godess Mahakali. I only know a little about it but Wikipedia puts it as "Mahakali represents Shakti, the power of pure creation in the universe, and Shiva (her husband) represents pure Consciousness which is inert in and of itself." I think she is generally represented by flames and as something that eats away at the world. It just seems like something the writer for Marathon would be into.
My one problem wit this theory is that most of those terminals that you mentioned appear in levels which are implied to be inside of The Security Officers dreams as he sleeps and the woman is never called an A.I.
It makes more sense that those terminals are talking about events from the Security Officer's past, in some strange distorted matter. The one that mentions Achilles and Gilgamesh in particular as it mentions combat and destiny, the two thing that both Durandal and Tycho mention being the things that primarily drive the Security Officer.
Though I do like your theory I find it unlikely.
Well, the one that mentions archille and Gilgamesh is the main terminal of interest on the level Kill Your Television. Its alludes to a Marathon 1 terminal. The "smiling" part seems odd, and its definitely similar to the mysterious AI the security officer seems to be reminded of when speaking to Durandal in the Marathon 1 manual.
Frequently there are parallels between the dreams about the female and things Durandal has said or done. For example the metaphor of the candle.
This is exactly the kind of "What if....?" theorizing that I wish the Marathon community had more of, at least in comparison to other games' lore communities, because its a much older game with a smaller fan base still interested in it. Thank you for taking the time and energy to actually write your theory and evidence down and make a video for it.
I have actually thought of starting a Marathon Lore channel myself but just don't have the drive to make that kind of video solo.
Thank you for the kind words it definitely can take a lot of time and energy but i'm enjoying it. I appreciate it. I think you'll find that i'm full of off the wall "what if" speculative ideas.
Funny enough. Halo seems like it’s a cycle like if events happen over and over again just slightly differently. I remember there was a video by ShreddedNerd that said that Jason Jones said that the Security Guard was Master Chief but just a different reincarnation. Also the fact that Chief and Cortana are almost predetermined to be allies and enemies later on. In Halo infinite the parallels between the Iso Didact, Master Chief, Cortana, Mendicant Bias and even between the weapon and the Offensive Bias is definitely not by accident. Also the way the mysterious female figure described also seems like a love interest, a twisted one at that. Another note, there’s a theory that Master Chief has the Didact’s geas and that Halsey has the Librarian’s geas and Cortana is basically a clone of Halsey. Adding to the possible twisted romance parallels.
I actually had similar thoughts in 2007 -2008 :)
@@Ghostvirus yep Halo lore is truly something special
2:08 Ngl jason jones is a fucking goat, without him we probably would have never gotta such legendary games
So then are the Jaro a form of ancient humans?
This makes me happy.
He made it to the end you know. I let him believe he destroyed me, while he was busy fighting my ship I was able to give him a virus, sorta to hitch a ride unnoticed. a logic plague. He was right after all. He created a new universe and couldn't resist bringing his little pet.. I was able to create a small piece of the new world, twisting the thoughts of Durandal... where in the end where he made his choices.. I made mine. who am I?
I am the monument of all your sins.
Faltum Iustum Stultorum Indeed Durandal.
I’m still trying to figure out the connection Alex Seropian was talking about when he mentioned he and Master Chief could be essentially one and the same.
Also was doing some reading and the “Recon” in MJOLNIR Recon 54 could be a reference to Marine Force Recon.
As for Cortana well, I suppose it makes some sense but I’m sure you’re one of the few to get this far. Great video!
There’s a lot of us who are analyzing these pathways into darkness/marathon/halo/destiny stories.
The word recon in that context was just used because the hero is a marine and the very elite marines of our times are recon marines. It’s just a simple tool for us to understand that the protagonist of marathon belongs to some kind of special forces.
For three years I’ve worked as a medic within a marine recon platoon and I take great pride in that I was able to do that. Not in the US btw, but we did train with both Force Recon and a bunch of guys from the famous Navy Seals. Can’t remember what team they were from though.
I always assumed, in Bungie Cinematic Universe Lore, that this "female" described in the Garden is more like a personification of concepts like death, entropy, survival of the fittest etc. A god of "evil" by human morality standards but one needed for the kind of galactic (or multiversal) story about destiny personified, whether its Marathon, Halo or Destiny.
In fact, in Destiny they did treat "the darkness" for a while like this, and snippets on the nature of Darkness vs Light, tenets of the darkness as seen by various species, direct interactions parties had WITH the darkness in many of its corporeal forms, and even that Witness persona which I'm...still not sure about whether Nu-Bungie handled that char well or not.
Hell, there's some cryptic shit in Pathways into Darkness that could be this entity, or one of its "fingers"/personas talking to you, when you interact with some of the corpses in that game, and Demon you "fight" as last boss may just be a creation of the Sleeping God, or it may be something else entirely.
In Myth, you had Nyx, the goddess of the Trow, which served as counterbalance to the chaotic dreaming god Wyrd, who created existance by dreaming, and whose dreams were messing things up for the Trow, so Nyx slew him. If you read the lore on that, she didn't actually do it alone...she called upon the power of OTHER dark gods to smite and shatter him, and these dark gods are mentioned several times off to the side in that games lore. Some people equate Nyx with the Darkness/Woman in the Garden, but considering she is actually stopping a force of chaos and entropy to create stable living conditions for her creations...I would put her closer to the light, or maybe just unaligned. The real mystery are the dark gods here, and if the Leveller that comes around every thousand years to try and destroy human civilization and "test" it is one of them. My money would be more on the Leveller or the other dark gods being that universes version of this particular force of personified concepts.
Well the terminals references michael moorcocks eternal warrior mythos, and is used as evidence that the player is a eternally resurrecting hero / character. There were many eternally reincarnating characters in moorcocks lore and some of those details parallel Marathon and other bungie games. Nyx is a female god of darkness. . Can an entity become a force? Im pretty confident in the host of parallels in the game.
I am loving all these marathon videos! keep it up!
I do feel you spent way too long building up the halo thing. It should have been "What project was Jason Jone's working on in 1998? It was Monkey Nuts, later known as Blam, and now known as (dramatic pause) Halo!" Something like that anyways.
Very fair. I do sometimes think i'm laboring over a specific point a bit too much. Thank you sir for the good feedback.
Durandal, cortana and joyeuse are all ais in Bungie games, they are obviously connected. But the female figure is clearly the winnower in Destiny, she is dark and it is connected to the garden. In halo, the rings are the light and the flood is the dark, very clearly. I don't think we have ever met this female, although she has spoken to us. Maybe in the final destiny 2 raid...
Also, this whole "project"/"plan" thing is Unix terminology. With the finger terminal command, you can get a readout on a file called ".plan" from the user's directory. The "email" to the Marathon Story Page was actually a finger of Jason's account, and the bulk of the text is the content of his .plan file.
Great vid. Will share with the relevant community and frog blast the vent core!
Great video! What was the music used at 11:13?
Ok this shit blew my mind but I disagree with you at some point, so I would like to show my own thoughts.
Firstly, the terminal at 08:39 is from the level “Feel the noise” from Marathon: Durandal. It literally reads: “All the many implements of war to him were in some of way feminine.” Considering this sentence, I rather interpret the “Kill your television terminal” as a metaphorical explanation of the Durandal-Security Officer relationship which is widely explained and expanded in Infinity (the whole Strange guy and Durability story arc in dream levels).
On the other hand, I agree with you when you point out that the story of Halo 5 is quite similar to both Halo CE’s original story and Marthon story, and I sometimes wonder if the Halo story is some kind of expanded and slower version of the Marathon story based on the whole rampant Cortana plot. AND if the Halo Infinite’s theories about time travel are true (which I hope that’s not the case), may take the same direction as Marathon Infinity, fixing some events here and there. Obviously the’re not exactly the same stories but the share some aspects.
Anyway, I loved your video and I love seeing people tying toghether Marathon and Halo stories these days. It brings joy and excitement to my heart.
D2 player here, who has recently started the first dive into Marathon.
I know I shouldn't be grabbing spoilers like this. But the lore is just so awesome, man. Been soaking up all I can
Thanks for stopping by, I hope to make new videos in the future, subscribe for more. I can't wait to break down the lore from the new game.
I need to know more about all this. Would love to know your theories towards the new marathon coming out.
ahhh to be new in the ridiculous lore of this. im so ignorant and i love it lol
Alright what's Marathons links are there on ONI 🤣
Awesome video. But please, it’s canonically pronounced “Cor-tah-nah,” not “Cortanna.”
Hey do you need voice actors? I’d love to help out if possible
Not at the moment but i'll definitely remember your offer if something comes up.
@@Ghostvirus I'd help out on that front too, if something comes up.
I don’t remember where I heard this, might have been the ign speedrun with devs, but they mentioned how the name for the chapter ‘two betrayals’ doesn’t make sense since there was no second betrayals. Then continuing to say how or hint how Cortana had some shared ai with durandel. I may be wrong with some things but I remember something of the sort.
This video just put a lot of what I'm researching and decoding into perspective. I've put some major links together going back to Marathon and PiD.
The Jaro/Ark/Vex link is insane. My hats off too you for this.
This is the kind of stuff I've been wrapped up into since I started playing Halo. I had no idea about Marathon until years and years later. Let alone the deep story. Its not easy to decode Bungies games and their stories. I compare it to Stanley Kubrick films, that ironically Bungies games pay a strong homage to. Something that never clicked until now was this connection between the Vex and "Guardians." I'll explain that in a moment.
The huge sync here is Panoptes, The Infinite Mind and how he actually looks like the Guardians we see in Halo 5.
Two words that keep coming back are BEYOND & INFINTY (yes the Buzz Lightyear kind).
Now I just saw this lore transcription from D2 a few days ago. The name immediately stood out to me. Besides the obvious dark future reference's I hadn't exactly caught what was being implied here. Especially with the title of the mission. I thought there would be more here. Your 4 year old video had already pieced it together lol.
>>www.ishtar-collective.net/transcripts/beyond-infinity
remove those
Is the music from around 4 minutes Halo music? :)
Its actually the song from the Mass Effect 2s suicide mission. :)
what halo music do i hear in the background? tribute/one final effort?
The garden before the universe sounds like the black garden in destiny
Ah yes, Destiny did draw alot from Marathon. The franchise wouldn't of been the same without those earlier steps.
man jjara jaro man damn dude
I kinda feel bad for 343
12:30 is never forget
DUDE!
@ghostvirus Thanks for liking my comment, and thank you for the amazing content. I’m only just getting into the world of Marathon, and now I’m wondering how I haven’t researched it before. So many parallels/comparisons to make between Marathon, Halo, and Destiny.