- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
There are a number of similarities between the two series but bungiew has said officially that the two are unrelated (that doesn't mean that halo isn't somewhat inspired by it though)
The Pfhor are an alien race that enslaves client races to fill their ranks, they also have most of their technology looted from an ancient and powerful race called the Jjaro (is that right I forget) that dissappeared many years ago.
This sounds a bit like the covies enslaving new races in their religion, then pirating most of their tech from an ancient race (note that we merely refer to the forerunners as forerunners. This meaning means only those who came before or etc. They have a name that they refered to them selfs as perhaps Bungie will use the Jjarro for a third time (they used it in pathways into darkness, and marathon perhaps the name is not in retirement yet)
Along with many other little cosmetic similarities such as the marathon logo everywhere in the halo games (well in halo 1 yes but in halo 2 not so much)
The pillar of autumn called a marathon class vessel, they refer to the chief as rampant in halo one if you shoot the capatain on the bridge (rampancy is what happend to just about all the AI characters in marathon when they go crazy).
The grunts yell "they're everywhere" but the BOBs screamed this all the time in marathon. In the novels they refer to tau ceti which is the colony in the first marathon game. The MA5B assault rifle in halo 1 was clarly inspired by the MA75B assault rifle from marathon 2.
Just play both games and you will pick up on a lot of this. The small connections are numerous and many may have not been found yet (minor references perhaps),
If you're curious marathon is a FPS with roughly doom style graphics but you can look up and down. You also can set to mouse control for those who like most current FPS games. The three marathon games are great to play and I would suggest them to anyone who likes the halo story line as they play alomst like the two could swap some of their story features and you wouldn't even notice.