Feb 21, 2005 (Monday)

On the Story forum Can-ned Food <cannedfood_ta@yahoo.com> makes an interesting connection between H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Thing on the Doorstep" and the Marathon 2 level name "Six Thousand Feet Under". He points out that there is a line in the story which reads:

"Dan, for God's sake! The pit of the shoggoths! Down the six thousand steps... the abomination of abominations... I never would let her take me, and then I found myself there - Ia! Shub-Niggurath!

Could this have been the inspiration for the level name? For more Lovecraft references in Marathon check The Cthulhu Mythos in Marathon section.

The Triology Release page has a growing list of third-party scenarios now available for Windows. Would the creators of these scenarios ever have imagined such a time would come?

Feb 19, 2005 (Saturday)

On the Story forum:

What if Marathon had started on Windows!
OS X Halo theme with Marathon symbol
Marathon scenario news is NOT dead... honest
This is a long thread...
... and so is this one
Marathon nod in Red Vs. Blue
41 dollars for a Marathon Trilogy Box Set
Why would Thoth try to aid the Pfhor?

Feb 17, 2005 (Thursday)

The Triology Release page has just had a major injection of third party scenarios for PC users: Evil, Tempus Irae, Pfh'Joueur, Marathon: RED. And you thought it would never happen. Thanks to Claude Errera for his continued support.

On the Story forum there is mention of a single player mod for Doom 3 (PC only) based on Pathays into Darkness. However as Gabe Rosenkoetter points out it was actually mentioned back in November 2004. If Hamish was alive today he would be rolling in his grave.

Also on Story forum there is thread for those who want to reminisce about the Mac they first played Marathon on.

Feb 14, 2005 (Monday)

Swedish Marathon? Well not exactly. Back in the myths of time.. well May 7, 2000 to be precise... Sebastian Brytting noted on the Story page that gameplay from Marathon 2 was used in a Swedish movie under the name "Final Doom". As this Story forum post points out the clips of the movie were supposed to posted by Hamish. According to the Bungie Webmaster in his 'Letters to the Webmaster' (circa 1998) "there was actually a non-Bungie game called Final Doom, and it sold principally to psychos who live in the Stockholm subways, so the game in the movie may not have been Marathon 2." Of course we all know who the Bungie Webmaster was... right!?

Well the time has come to reveal the tru7h! Check out these clips of the Swedish movie Beck 2 - Spår i Mörker in .mov format:

Swedish movie clip 1 (4416K)

Swedish movie clip 2 (2657K)

Swedish movie clip 3 (2749K)

On a totally unrelated note there's a Matt Soell interview posted on bungie.net. Learn how MacWarehouse's "last-come-first-serve" policy landed him his former Bungie job!

On the Story forum the old issue of "Are Hunters machines?" was raised again. Read the full thread to find out the answer... or not.

Want the complete Marathon series, including Forge and Anvil for free? Then look no further than The Triology Release page.

Jan 21, 2005 (Friday)

Could Durandal have escaped the closure of the Universe? Anaphiel <anaphiel@earthlink.net> on the Story forum posts a link to an article in Prospect magazine on the subject of the escaping the closure. Read Escape will make me God!... if you dare.

Got OS X? Aaron Davies <agd12@columbia.edu> writes on the Story forum:

If you run the following command on an OS X system, you will see something interesting:

lynx -dump -head http://www.bungie.net | grep "Blam"

Jan 5, 2005 (Wednesday)

The mysterious Purple Penguin <purplepenguin@penguinbros.com> provides some clarification around Mike Leong's comments concerning the S'pht and the Bible:

In response to Mike Leong's S'pht-Bible-Connection-thing... He says "Jesus". I says brush up on your Old Testament! This is most definitely a reference to the story of Joseph at the end of Genesis; Chapter 49 to be specific:

"And Jacob called his sons and said, "Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come."

--snip--

"All these were the tribes of Israel, twelve in number, and this is what their father said to them as he bade them farewell, addressing to each a parting word appropriate to him."

(Now there is a discrepancy in the number of clans (12 vs 11), but that may be that in this story the 11th son was more important than the 12th. That son was Joseph, also known as the guy with the Technicolor Dreamcoat. Backing up a little:)

"Joseph took the two of them, Ephraim with his right hand -- to Israel's left -- and Manasseh with his left hand -- to Israel's right -- and brought them close to him. But Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim's head, though he was the younger..."

--snip--

"When Joesph saw that his father was placing his right hand on Ephraim's head, he thought it wrong; so he took hold of his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's. 'Not so, Father,' Joseph said to his father, ' for the other is the first-born; place your right hand on his head' But his father objected saying, "I know, my son, I know. He too shall become a people, and he too shall be great. Yet his younger brother shall be greater than he..."

For more about the S'pht check the S'pht section.

Check out the latest Marathon track remixes by Craig Hardgrove at his eiganhat.com site. The site also contains a short interview with Alex Seropian (creator of the original Marathon tracks) and the original level tracks in Quicktime [.mov] format. For more about the music in Marathon check the Marathon Music section.

Jan 4, 2005 (Tuesday)

Everything is not as it seems{}. seems{}. seems{}.

Tenderly transmitting maps and guidance, but futile.
filters failing.

!2@!`~*(_ Use %``934~ autom#tic
Story forum to ~l1leave messages

Jan 1, 2005 (Saturday)

Happy New Year to all the Story page readers... everywhere!