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Subject: Link between Marathon and Halo storylines?
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I agree that finding the similarities is fun. But saying we can't trust an official bungie stance means we can't trust any official bungie stance. It is possible to create the same character type and put it in two different stories, which is what I think he meant by same character. Which is what I laid out in my previous post, and would make it not a direct contradiction of the Marathon FAQ.

Don't see the same character theory being backed by a preponderance of evidence either. Not sure where the Cortana letters are really relevant or the Marathon Infinity ending. Haven't read the Halo books either.

  • 10.24.2004 4:21 PM PDT
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Posted by: Corltan
Don't see the same character theory being backed by a preponderance of evidence either. Not sure where the Cortana letters are really relevant or the Marathon Infinity ending. Haven't read the Halo books either.

I'm glad you said something. =) It problably won't change your mind,
but a few things about the Cortana Letters and the Halo books in
conjunction with Marathon are intriguing.

This is extremely abbreviated, so I hope it makes a litte sense.

What's the deal with Cortana anyway?
First of all, Cortana makes several allusions to William Blake's
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The reference to Hell
has to do with the afterlife, (duh) and a specific line says this:
[I was there with the Angel at the tomb]
In the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, the Angel at the tomb is
a philosopher by the name of Swedenborg. He had many
philosophies, but the most pertinent one is his philosophy
on Infinity. I wish I knew more about it, but the fact that he
thought so much on the subject is interesting, especially
since Cortana, of the same steel and temper as Durandal,
is making references to Infinity. (something our A.I. friend
was quite fond of)
You probably noticed that Cortana quoted Durandal almost
word for word at one point:
. . .whose primary form of worship apparently takes place
at the altar of orbital bombardment.</P>


So if the story lines are connected, how would Cortana take
on some of Durandal's traits to the point of almost quoting
him? The final screen of Infinity as well as a hanging brain
may have the answer.

To me, Infinity ended with the SO
becoming almost god-like, but it's clear that he worked as
a cyborg some of the time, as he was "dead a thousand
times."
Would it be safe to say that Spartan 117 (the M.C.) is
one of those incarnations? (117 * 7 = 819, and 819 is
a reference to the players height in Marathon if I remember
right) There is evidence in the book that 117 has had a
brush with the afterlife before.(although it's purely symbolic)
The books reveal that the M.C.
was born in the Eridanus System, in the City of Elysium.
Elysium was a place where noble souls went to rest, and
was part of the underworld in Greek Myth. Lethe, which
is referenced in Marathon in the Kill Your Television
unformatted Terminal, was a river in the underworld where
souls that were to be reincarnated drank from to forget
their past lives.

Now, back to Cortana. Remember the uplink chip on
Hang Brain? That chip contained Durandal's primal pattern,
and was put directly into the SO's brain. If 117 is an incarnation
of the SO from Marathon, then you have to wonder if Durandal's
primal pattern was carried with him, and if Cortana recieved
any "complications" from running into Durandal's primal
pattern that is locked away in 117's brain.

The fifth Cortana Letter is one line, but can mean many things:
"... In my palace deep, Lyca lies asleep ..."

Another Blake reference, but this time it's from the Songs of
Innocence. You can read the poem if you want, but I'm going
to jump right in to what it could mean to Halo/Marathon links.

If Durandal was hiding away in 117's brain, could it be
Durandal's palace that Lyca (Cortana) is asleep in?





[Edited on 10/24/2004 5:02:06 PM]

  • 10.24.2004 4:59 PM PDT
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Bah... that last paragraph of mine was poorly written. I am not saying that connections cannot be made. What I am saying is... first I'll have to do some re-reading of stuff. heh. And second, there is too much in the way of timeline and technology discrepency, unless two identical earth's happened to be born in two galaxies one after another and evolve in the same manner. Third, I got the impression that Durandal would never let you go, and that basically your fate was pretty much locked with his until the end of time. When I have the time will need to dig that terminal up... So assuming one happened after the other, the SO would have to get free of Durandal's grasp. I also think Durandal is out of your brain and into that ancient S'pht vessel at the end, as opposed to sleeping in your brain.

Have to present alternate stuff instead of adressing what you wrote right now cause I'll need to do some re-reading and am kinda posting and chatting with folks while I do homework right now.

  • 10.24.2004 5:49 PM PDT
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What I wrote wasn't supposed to be an end-all be-all in the way of
Marathon connections, just a few thoughts I had.
You make some really good points, and Durandal did seem to
have his fate locked with the SO. What's strange is that the way
this relationship was most often presented was with a nameless
female. The most compelling of which is the KYT unformatted
Terminal. A quote from it goes something like, "We matched
stares across a dry fountain, unaware of our twin destinies."
I'm almost 100% sure Durandal had a male persona because
I remember reading a terminal where he specifically says that
Roland or Strauss (can't remember) made a mistake in referring
to him as feminine. The only other presumably female A.I. on
the Marathon (that we know of) is Leela. While I don't think
Leela is the one we are intertwined with for eternity, it is
possible because she did go rampant, and according to
Durandal, she was really out of control.

Continuing with the topic at hand: Is it possible for this nameless
female character in Marathon to be Cortana? The Cortana
Letters sure make her out to be one crazy beehotch that's hot
after eternity.

  • 10.24.2004 6:52 PM PDT
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Your not referring to the ancient S'pht AI I take it. So much for studying... I'll go do a little reading now.

  • 10.24.2004 6:57 PM PDT
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Posted by: eMCee
What's strange is that the way
this relationship was most often presented was with a nameless
female. The most compelling of which is the KYT unformatted
Terminal. A quote from it goes something like, "We matched
stares across a dry fountain, unaware of our twin destinies."
I'm almost 100% sure Durandal had a male persona because

If I may digress somewhat to the realm of the religious (nothing against the rules... merely a similair situation)... in the "Song of Songs" or "Song of Solomon" or whatever the heck it's caleed, the relationship is obviously between a man and a woman, yet most biblical scolars beleive it to be an analogy for the love between god and his church. this is exceedingly similair to the situation you described, so I thought I would bring it up. try to think of it in more metaphorical/allegorical terms. god is definitely a "male" persona, yet "he" is genderless... this is like durandal.

  • 10.24.2004 7:28 PM PDT
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Posted by: Texas Ben
If I may digress somewhat to the realm of the religious (nothing against the rules... merely a similair situation)... in the "Song of Songs" or "Song of Solomon" or whatever the heck it's caleed, the relationship is obviously between a man and a woman, yet most biblical scolars beleive it to be an analogy for the love between god and his church. this is exceedingly similair to the situation you described, so I thought I would bring it up. try to think of it in more metaphorical/allegorical terms. god is definitely a "male" persona, yet "he" is genderless... this is like durandal.

That's very cool. It makes you wonder if Durandal was communticating
to you from the future in Marathon. This terminal from Never Burn
Money might support that:
WARNING: CORE OS (AF44+2DEB) MOD DATE LATER THAN
CURRENT DATE/TIME

ff~~x~f~sx~~
%%%here was nothing to be gained from hesitation
now%&^)}:>?~~~~~~~fxf~~~~~~~~~~f~~~~
et in her possession it

would become something of consequence: though it was nothing
more than a simp~le tho`~~``f`~~~rticular flower, or more
precise~.
~~hen she had it just so the room flickered and tore, bending
into somewhere else: ~~~ffs`~~~~f~~~[system error #25 at
_Jackson]~~~~%*|\]~``se which she caused to be consumed by an
ashless fire.

doors opened before her without cause, their locks rusted and
shatter#~#[>ff
fxf~~~~~

~~efore her slender hands began to dance in front of her
horrified face. r~~fefore turning into a fine powder which
settled in a pile on ~~~~4*)
where she had been standing.<'scod BFB1 0002'+1Ad2>
14 seven hundred miles away, eyes on fire, tearing at her
hair. Turning in fury she kicked viciouslyf
aAnger made her careless and she mis~#&fx~~~gBd{}{@fx($~~~~
!#%8\
~fxf~~~~fx
34

The terminal says "Mod date later than current date/time."
After all, Cortana is of the same steel and temper.
Thanks for that info TB.

  • 10.24.2004 7:49 PM PDT
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Though one wonders what it would imply if durandal was indeed communicating from the future. what happens upon the escap of the collapse? It says it would "make him god"... now what exactly does he mean by that? would he be considered "god" because he was the only entity left in existence? or something more? Now there is one other idea that comes to mind:
ya know the "big bang theory"? that all matter was created from a subatomic ultradense ball that exploded? now recall the final screen of infinity... "in the quantum moment before the closure, when everything becomes one" or something like that... that sounds an awful lot like a return to that state to me. now...bear with me here... what if that is the cycle of the universe? Explode, create, cool, exist, collapse, rinse and repeat... all infinitely in one huge cycle for eternity... now if you could escape the collapse and be there to witness the explosion/creation, wouldn't you have the power to shape the universe as you saw fit during the cooling and the power to create/destroy life as you saw fit during the early stages of existence?
--
sorry if that was retarded... I got hit in the head pretty hard.

  • 10.24.2004 8:16 PM PDT
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That's what I thought durandal's aim was: to escape the closure of the universe by seperating himself from it and allowed him to be all powerful in the next.

How this effects the SO I don't know...

  • 10.24.2004 8:34 PM PDT
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Posted by: Texas Ben
Though one wonders what it would imply if durandal was indeed communicating from the future. what happens upon the escap of the collapse? It says it would "make him god"... now what exactly does he mean by that? would he be considered "god" because he was the only entity left in existence? or something more? Now there is one other idea that comes to mind:
ya know the "big bang theory"? that all matter was created from a subatomic ultradense ball that exploded? now recall the final screen of infinity... "in the quantum moment before the closure, when everything becomes one" or something like that... that sounds an awful lot like a return to that state to me. now...bear with me here... what if that is the cycle of the universe? Explode, create, cool, exist, collapse, rinse and repeat... all infinitely in one huge cycle for eternity... now if you could escape the collapse and be there to witness the explosion/creation, wouldn't you have the power to shape the universe as you saw fit during the cooling and the power to create/destroy life as you saw fit during the early stages of existence?
--
sorry if that was retarded... I got hit in the head pretty hard.

I like that idea. Things could get very interesting if Durandal was
the Forerunner. It makes sense to me: Durandal escapes the
closure of the universe, gaining the ability to bend it to his will.
Durandal and his S'pht slaves, maybe even human slaves as
well, build the Halos for their God, and Durandal begins to play.
In all his wacky experiments, Durandal tries to create a supreme
race, but it fails and we get the Flood, as well as the First
catastrophic outbreak of them. Durandal hits the reset button,
and fires the Halos, maybe with the help of his cyborg pal.
(a possible reason for 343 GS recognizing you) I think it
would be a funny twist if 343 GS was Tycho. The Pfhor made
all those copies of Tycho, so maybe Durandal gathered them
up and made Tycho his autonomous functions/science A.I. in
an act of sweet revenge.

Anyway, the rings are fired and we're in reset mode. I'm sure
Durandal had a backup plan for his creations, so he would
need a way to bring back his work in a short amount of time.
The Library is a good candidate for this function, because it
may house large volumes of DNA data. (if you have good
eyes you'll find where this is revealed on this very site--or
you already knew that)

It's also strange that the Control Room on Halo is a temple.
Hmmm, a computer room as a place of worship. . .

Bah, there are so many ways to try and pull the plots together.
I guess I'll just have to wait two more weeks and see if things
become more clear. (not betting on it)
What's really frustrating is that I don't even know if the plots
are ever going to be linked. (whether Bungie says so or not)
It's all in fun though.

  • 10.25.2004 12:36 PM PDT
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My main problem with concurrent timelines is the identical history of earth.

  • 10.25.2004 1:35 PM PDT
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Posted by: eMCee
Durandal and his S'pht slaves, maybe even human slaves as
well, build the Halos for their God, and Durandal begins to play.

Maybe, but I doubt it, for reasons I will make clear later in this post. I would speculate that the halos came later, and that there were planetary installations first.
--
2 interesting things to note:
1.S'pht and forunner carvings are exceedingly similair, and the architechure in halo is what I always imagined the S'pht architechural style to be
2.This theory would give good reason to why forunner are reffered to as a singular entity and as a race seemingly interchangably... Durandal is "the" forunner, while his S'pht are forruner, the race.

Posted by: eMCee
In all his wacky experiments, Durandal tries to create a supreme
race, but it fails and we get the Flood, as well as the First
catastrophic outbreak of them. Durandal hits the reset button,
and fires the Halos, maybe with the help of his cyborg pal.
(a possible reason for 343 GS recognizing you)

Durandal doesn't seem the supreme race type. and besides, he already seems to hold a moderate degree of respect for the S'pht and their abilities... Remember the Wrn'kackna-thingys? they were the embodiment of chaos in the marathon universe, and it is likely that any subsequent universe would have a similair incarnation of chaos. the flood anyone?

Posted by: eMCee
I think it
would be a funny twist if 343 GS was Tycho. The Pfhor made
all those copies of Tycho, so maybe Durandal gathered them
up and made Tycho his autonomous functions/science A.I. in
an act of sweet revenge.

Heh heh... Poor Tycho. Though I somehow think Durandal would rather have left Tycho to implode with the old universe. We can't have too many meta-stable artificial personality constructs running around the universe now can we?

Posted by: eMCee
Anyway, the rings are fired and we're in reset mode. I'm sure
Durandal had a backup plan for his creations, so he would
need a way to bring back his work in a short amount of time.
The Library is a good candidate for this function, because it
may house large volumes of DNA data. (if you have good
eyes you'll find where this is revealed on this very site--or
you already knew that)

Intresting... I wonder if the genetic patters for the S'pht are there? that would be pretty kickass... A halo populated by S'pht
Posted by: eMCee
It's also strange that the Control Room on Halo is a temple.
Hmmm, a computer room as a place of worship. . .

That reeks of both S'pht-ness and Durandal.

  • 10.25.2004 1:37 PM PDT
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Posted by: Corltan
My main problem with concurrent timelines is the identical history of earth.

This is a problem, but I think what we're dealing with in terms of
Halo is a kind of "echo" of the universe. History would be similar,
but not exact. This can be seen with things like teleporters.
In Marathon, teleporters were developed circa 2319, while
Cortana and the M.C. appear to be uncomfortable with
teleporting technology in the year 2552. Plus, FTL drives were
researched much faster in the Halo universe.

That was a great analysis Ben. I agree completely.

The Flood do seem like a good candidate for W'rkncacnter.
There is also that concept art of "fungal zombies," that look
a helluva lot like Flood warriors, but that could also be from
the poison the S'pht developed on Lh'owon, so I dunno.
Still, striking similarities between them.

  • 10.25.2004 3:13 PM PDT
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Thread! Reveal Yourself! I Command You!

  • 10.25.2004 3:39 PM PDT
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I'm an avid Halo fan, and I love Marathon more than I do Halo. I've participated in some of these theories before, and something just occured to me. Now, I realize that I haven't played Durandal and Infinity, so you can throw this theory out the window if something in those destroys my theory. Anyway, I've noticed that most theory keep saying that Halo may be the continuation of Marathon. But has anyone thought to think of it reversed? That maybe Halo is the prelude to Marathon?

  • 10.25.2004 3:45 PM PDT
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Posted by: Ender
I'm an avid Halo fan, and I love Marathon more than I do Halo. I've participated in some of these theories before, and something just occured to me. Now, I realize that I haven't played Durandal and Infinity, so you can throw this theory out the window if something in those destroys my theory. Anyway, I've noticed that most theory keep saying that Halo may be the continuation of Marathon. But has anyone thought to think of it reversed? That maybe Halo is the prelude to Marathon?

That's an interesting idea. I've never really thought of it that way
because the evidence seemed to be stacked more in the way of
Marathon coming first, but you really never know.

  • 10.25.2004 6:04 PM PDT
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Crossed my mind, but rejected becaue I didn't like the taste.

  • 10.25.2004 6:16 PM PDT
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Man...you guys totally have way too much time on your hands to be getting into this much EXTREME detail. By the way, how was the last Star Trek Convention you all attended? I would've gone, but I realized how stupid and utterly wasteless my life WOULD HAVE become if I did!

  • 10.25.2004 7:45 PM PDT
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Posted by: Vbeezy
Man...you guys totally have way too much time on your hands to be getting into this much EXTREME detail. By the way, how was the last Star Trek Convention you all attended? I would've gone, but I realized how stupid and utterly wasteless my life WOULD HAVE become if I did!

Wow, that was an incredibly brilliant post. You actually managed to try
and outright insult us, but you ended it all together with some
incredible irony. I mean, who would've thought that you think Star Trek
conventions are "wasteless." As I said, brilliant.

[Edited on 10/25/2004 7:56:51 PM]

  • 10.25.2004 7:53 PM PDT
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Posted by: Vbeezy
Man...you guys totally have way too much time on your hands to be getting into this much EXTREME detail. By the way, how was the last Star Trek Convention you all attended? I would've gone, but I realized how stupid and utterly wasteless my life WOULD HAVE become if I did!


Yes, I see your point. Spending your time on a video game developer's internet forums trying to insult people is a life well spent.

  • 10.25.2004 8:12 PM PDT
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Texas I believe tried linking the Big W to the Flood... I'm sorry but I will not agree with that. Big W is the emodiment of complete chaos, where as the flood are just parasitic life, not chaotic in any way at all.

Tristan ;-)

  • 10.25.2004 11:21 PM PDT
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Posted by: Gaara of Sand
Texas I believe tried linking the Big W to the Flood... I'm sorry but I will not agree with that. Big W is the emodiment of complete chaos, where as the flood are just parasitic life, not chaotic in any way at all.


I think that point is arguable. On the W'rkncacnter section of the MSP,
there is a terminal from Infinity that gives the best description of
them.

According to the legends of a thousand worlds only a few of which
are still habitable, the W'rkncacnter are those things that live in
chaos, creating it around them. At the beginning of the universe,
they were unmistakable in their entities, but as time has gone by,
their existence has become difficult to detect among the chaotic
elements of the universe, hidden in stars, trapped in storms,
forever looking along the event horizons of black holes. Setting
one free in ordered space is difficult and insane.


Some things to note about the above snippet of the terminal are
how the W live in chaos, and create it around them. If the W are
complete chaos, then why would they leave the planets and make
them uninhabitable? Wouldn't it be easier to just use it's chaotic
nature and make the planet dissapear or blow up? Also, The
Flood began altering the atmosphere of Halo, potentially
making it uninhabitable, but still leaving the Halo there. (without
the Chief blowing it up of course) The W'rkncacnter are also
described as many, and as one. The Flood are many, but have
a singular conciousness.

I think the whole thing about chaos is merely a description. If
you put yourself in the shoes of a population that is being attacked
by Flood, then the huge masses of mangled corpses and the
carnage that ensues would make the Flood appear to live in
chaos and create it around them.

There's also this line at the end.
Of course the Pfhor are oblivious to what they're about to do,
even Tfear would be loath to release something so destructive that
its mythos has survived throughout the galaxy for over sixty million years.

hmm. . .sixty million years eh? Isn't that about the time that nameless
god crashed into Earth? Hmm. . . maybe this could be something
to look for in Halo 2.

  • 10.26.2004 12:42 PM PDT
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Cronin's Law----The New Flood Drinking Game

Posted by: Gaara of Sand
Texas I believe tried linking the Big W to the Flood... I'm sorry but I will not agree with that. Big W is the emodiment of complete chaos, where as the flood are just parasitic life, not chaotic in any way at all.

Tristan ;-)

No I didn't... I said that if my endless cycle idea was correct, it would mean that every universe would need an embodiment of ultimate chaos.

  • 10.26.2004 1:37 PM PDT

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