The Care and Feeding of Switches

Once you've figured out how to get to the Dam Control Tower, you have undoubtedly found the switches there. And you must have activated them, right? If so, and you are reading this, something didn't work. It could be a problem with your switch throwing technique. In Marathon, there are basically four types of switches: ones you throw once and forget, ones you throw repeatedly, ones you break (only once!), and ones you activate and then you deactivate at some point in their cycle. This last type of switch is important to be aware of, because they are usually used to jam doors open or platforms in place. The switches in the Dam Control Tower are like this. The Control Tower has two sets of switches which I have arbitrarily labeled #1 and #2 as indicated here.

Both switches (actually, each has two individual switches, but I didn't want to talk about #1, #2, #3, and #4) are activated the same way, as follows:

Approach the switch. It is inset next to a blue wall section. It is the regular, throw- once-and-forget type of switch.

Activating this switch reveals a second switch to the left of the blue section:

This second, previously hidden switch is of the stop-me-before-I'm-done variety. When activated, it controls a door in an area you haven't been to yet. If you activate it once and let it go it will open and close that door and you won't be any better off. If you activate it and then deactivate it when that door is all the way open, the door will stay open. That would be good. It may seem like it would be sheer guess work for you to deactivate the switch at the right time, since the door is far away, but the people who designed this level are one step ahead. When you activate this switch, the blue section of wall to the right of this switch will raise until it's bottom is level with the top of the switch. Then it will pause and descend. Thanks to some real skillful design, this blue section shows the opening and closing of the far away door. So if you deactivate the switch when this blue piece is all the way up, the far away door will be all the way up, too. When done right, it should look like this:

The second switch in the Control Tower works the same way, only the door it controls leads out of the control tower. After finishing the second switch you should see the exit from the control tower. Head that way.

A couple of points. First, while you are in the control tower, there is a Juggernaut flying around the reservoir, probably shooting at you. Dodge him or kill him, that's your choice. Second, when talking about activating switches in the control tower, I recommend using the action key not your fist, grenade, etc. Some of the switches are destroyable and if you destroy them in the wrong postition you will be stuck!

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