- Sardonic13
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- Exalted Mythic Member
Here is about as brief of a story synopsis as you will find.
Marathon has a complex, convoluted story. I would definitely advise starting with Marathon 1 and reading the terminals carefully. That is the best way to really get into the story.
Download the entire trilogy for free here.
I'll give it a try here, but please realize that this brief summary leaves out many vital details in the name of brevity.
Marathon 1 covers the events that took place on the Colony Ship Marathon during an invasion by a technologically advanced race of alien slavers called the Pfhor. You play as a nameless Security Officer trying to save the human colonists from becoming slaves of the Pfhor. The Security Officer is both helped and hindered by Marathon's 3 artificial intelligences: Durandal, Leela, and Tycho. Eventually the Security Officer helps Durandal to turn one of the Pfhor's slave races (the S'pht) against them. With help from Leela, Durandal, and the S'pht, the Security Officer routes the Pfhor invaders and saves the Marathon.
Marathon 2 takes place 17 years after the events of Marathon 1. At the conclusion of the battle for the Marathon, Durandal and the rogue S'pht stole a Pfhor spaceship capable of faster than light travel. With this ship, Durandal searches the universe for the S'pht home world, Lh'owon. The small catch is that rather than allowing the Security Officer to enjoy his victory on the Marathon, Durandal kidnapped him, put him into a stasis pod, and dragged him along on the 17 year search. At the beginning of Marathon 2, Durandal and the S'pht are locked in a battle with the Pfhor on Lh'owon. Durandal thaws out the Security Officer and sends him on a series of missions in order to find a way to contact the lost Eleventh Clan of the S'pht. Durandal and the Security Officer contact the Eleventh S'pht clan and call them back to Lh'owon. All 11 S'pht clans unite and rebel against the Pfhor. The Pfhor at Lh'owon are routed, igniting a war which will eventually devastate the entire Pfhor galactic empire. In order to avoid absolute defeat on Lh'owon, the Pfhor unleash an ancient and powerful weapon capable of causing a star to supernova prematurely. They use this weapon to ensure the destruction of Lh'owon. However the Pfhor are not aware that the destruction of Lh'owon's star will cause a catastrophe that could cause the destruction of the entire universe...
Marathon Infinity (certainly the most convoluted of the three games) begins immediately after the events of Marathon 2. The Pfhor use their ultimate weapon to destroy Lh'owon's star. However they are not aware that trapped inside of Lh'owon is an ancient creature of immeasurable power and complete chaos: the W'rkncacnter. This creature is essentially pure chaos in corporeal form. As such, it is even powerful enough to warp and twist the rules of physics. The Security Officer is forced to embark on a journey across multiple realities and timelines in search of a way to rework the events of Marathon 2 to prevent the release of the W'rkncacnter and the destruction of the universe.