While Craig never posted any information about this image the smoke
belching ship/craft/thingy reminds me of the Nar's coal-powered spacecraft.
On the secret Bungie credits terminal on 'All Roads Lead To Sol...'
Jason Jones wrote:
For the Marathon Scrapbook Rob McLees gave an
extensive history of the Nar, an alien race that we
never actually encounter in the games.
Only part of this history was printed in the Scrapbook.
Here is the full text.
THE NAR
The Nar sprang into being exactly one week after the Universe
sprang into being. They are an ageless race of immortal beings who, in
the four billion odd years of their existance, have yet to develop a
written language. This tends to hinder their scientific endevours as
they speak entirely in metaphore.
(a note about Nar Launguage: each "family" has its own metaphorical
style and each "district" has its own colloquialisms, this combined with
an individual's own personal lyrical stylings makes the Nar language
impossible to fathom by any but the most gifted linguists.)
In the Beginning (about four days after they sprang into being) they
grew tired and fell asleep. The next morning all but twelve of them woke
at daybreak. Fearing the worst (ie. somebody might trip over them) and
not yet realizing they were immortal, those still sleeping were intered
in what is now known as 'the coil revealed by sorrow'. To this day the
Nar still look to the 'ancestors' for wisdom, but as always, the
'ancestors' want nothing more than release from their burial cairn, so
the Nar usually leave saying something akin to: "let us be as clouds,
until the rumbling of the cairn becomes as wind through the grass."
The entire Nar homeworld has been developed. That is to say that the
entire surface of the planet has a three story building built on it. In
other words, the Nar homeworld is encased in a three story structure
that covers every square inch of the planet's surface. On the lowest
level (or "ground floor") we have the Nar - the laborers and foot
soldiers of the Nar. Living on the next level (or "mezzanine") are the
C'Nar - the artisans and artificers of the Nar. At the highest level
(living proof that filth rises to the top of any medium) are the Cf'Nar
and the CFN Kommandoes - the Cf'Nar are the "Ruling Elite" of the Nar
(mostly managers or scientific research facilities and heads of huge
industrial combines) and the CFN Kommandoes are Warriors and Leaders of
distinction, though the CFN Kommandoes usually go up to "the Roof" to
hone their Martial Arts and tend the sod.
(a note on Nar weaponry: the weapon of choice among the CFN Kommandoes
is the "menacing fist of steel". The "fist" is a sturdy hardwood cudgle
that has a magnetic field generator built into the "grip" that aligns
all of the cudgle's atoms making it as strong as steel. Rumors of
"fists" covered in steel plates have been floating around for years but
no examples have ever been recovered. The Nar have never personally
developed any ranged weapons for the individual, though they will gladly
scoop up any "firearm" dropped by a fallen enemy. They toyed with a
shoulder-fired missile for a while, but at 9' long and 280lbs the weapon
was "unwieldy" at best, not to mention the cost and time involved in
training the small primate that piloted the projectile after launch.)
There is only one group of Nar that have come to the realization that
they are, in fact, immortal (or at least extremely long lived). These
are the scientific crews on the ships 'devourer of worlds on a leash'
and 'immense lusterless comet hiding in shadows' (manufactured from the
sum total of the natural resouces of the planet 'lifeless air-soaked
rock' and its moon, respectively). These ships and their crews embarked
on the 'Grand Endevor' just over 2 billion years ago from the system
neighboring the Nar system. The 'Grand Endevor' was an undertaking of
the greatest importance to the Nar -- to measure the diameter of the
universe to the nearest whole inch. This was to be achieved by tethering
the smaller of the two craft to the larger with a sturdy chain and once
they reached one edge of the universe, the smaller craft would then
travel to the other side. The larger of the two craft would house
several mining craft and a massive manufacturing plant dedicated to the
creation of the chain.
(a note about Nar spacecraft: describing a Nar spacecraft as
mind-numbingly huge would be a monumental understatement. Their smallest
craft, a two-man scout, is roughly four times the size of the
Hindenburg, while their largest craft, the world ships, are exactly what
it sounds like; spacecraft the size of planets constructed out of the
sum total of a planet's natural resources. They are powered by
hyper-efficient coal burning engines that are capable of propeling the
massive crafts at nearly one-tenth the speed of light. About half of a
Nar ship's hull is given over to a giant coal-hopper situated on top of
a small warp generator that transports the fuel directly into the
coal-burning engine, as the warp generator can only transport things
within the confines of the ship's gravity well.)
This is either a stream of consciousness from the mind of Rob McLees
or Bungie were working on expanding the Marathon universe. Perhaps the Nar
were going to make an appearance in the ill-fated Marathon 3 and what you have just read
is a legacy asset from that game.
As for the sarge.jpg image it is likely that someone will point out that it is
from 'such and such' game.
