Aug 25, 2004 (Wednesday)

The Marathon music remake continues. Craig Hardgrove <craig@eiganhat.com> has added an another track to his list of Marathon 1 level music remakes. This one is Chomber. A full list of his remakes can be found at fireball here

Aug 8, 2004 (Sunday)

Vid Boi <sippan@macnytt.com> continues his transcribing of the level notes for Marathon with Level #11 on the Story forum.

As Anaphiel <anaphiel@earthlink.net> noted in this Story forum post Craig Mullins has updated his website. Don't know who Craig Mullins is? Then check out these sites devoted to his Marathon artwork.

Marathon Art Gallery - Craig Mullins
Marathon Art: Craig Mullins
The Art of Craig Mullins
and
Craig's home page

Muller spotted in Wisconsin? Check the Pathways Into Darkness page for details.

Aug 7, 2004 (Saturday)

There's a growing thread on the Story forum entitled When did you first play a Marathon game? Want to share your experiences or simply learn how others got hooked... then join in the discussion.

Aug 6, 2004 (Friday)

Blast from the past...

Back in June 20, 2001 the seven glyph puzzle was solved revealing a cornucopia of early Marathon development documentation including the original level notes for the first Marathon game. To see these you had to visit arrival.bungie.org and type in ARCHIVE in the top box and OUTLINE in the bottom box. Shortly after there was an attempt on the Story forum to transcribe these notes without going through the hassle of viewing the scans of the original pages and trying to decipher the hand writing. More recently this attempt was revived by Vid Boi. The full list of the levels transcribed so far are as follows:

Level #0 by Mark Levin <haveblue@mac.com>

Level #1 by Mark Levin <haveblue@mac.com>

Level #2 by Mark Levin <haveblue@mac.com>

Level #3 by Mark Levin <haveblue@mac.com>

Level #4 by Joe Mahma <joemahma7@home.com>

Level #5 by Joe Mahma <joemahma7@home.com>

Level #6 by Joe Mahma <joemahma7@home.com>

Level #7 by Joe Mahma <joemahma7@home.com>

Level #8 by Joe Mahma <joemahma7@home.com>

Level #9 by Vid Boi <sippan@macnytt.com>

Level #10 by Vid Boi <sippan@macnytt.com>

Posted out of sequence:

Level #13 by mnemesis <tvansinden@earthtech.com>

Level #26 by Alexander S7range <astrange@ithinksw.com>

The Marathon 2 Durandal story outline was also transcribed from the original scanned pages. You can read the first page and also the third page. So what happened to the second page?

July 7, 2004 (Wednesday)

Happy Bungie Day to Story page readers... everywhere!

Charles Craig <fortunato2000@yahoo.com> provides some insightful commentary on the The Unformatted KYT Term. Message:

Just wanted to write in with a little tidbit that applies to the "Facts and Puzzling Things About" section - it generally applies to "The Unformatted KYT Term. Message" (I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh...) and, to a lesser extent, to "You".

As William Spencer pointed out, it's definitely reminiscent of Michael Moorcock's "Eternal Champion" concept, wherein a lone human is reincarnated, over and over, each live fated to become a crucial figure in the battle between Law and Chaos. In the very first story, within the opening chapters, we see this:

"And the names? Was I John Daker or Erekosė? Was I either of these? Many other names - Corum Jhaelen Irsei, Aubec, Sexton Begg, Elric, Rackhir, Iliam, Oona, Simon, Bastable, Cornelius, the Rose, von Bek, Asquiol, Hawkmoon - fled away down the ghostly rivers of my memory."

Even more interesting is that the above is actually the REVISED version of that same text - Moorcock rewrote portions of the story when getting it printed in novel form in 1970. The original novella version, circa 1962, presented a slightly different refrain...

"Shaleen, Artos, Brian, Umpata, Roland, Ilanth, Ulysses, Alric"

Any of those names seem familiar?

In essence, as Moorcock developed the idea of the Eternal Champion, he started to assign many of his other fictional works to that pantheon, making the lead characters of most of his stories (and indeed, a number of minor characters as well) incarnations of the Eternal Champion. However, in the earliest draft, he simply used figures out of actual history. Artos is the Latin of Arthur - the somewhat famous figure out of British legend. Brian is most likely Brian the Blessed, who also figures into Irish and British myth (his head being buried under the Tower of London, protecting England from invasion). Ulysses (or Odysseus) was the main character in the Odyssey, and came up with the idea for the Trojan Horse (he also fought with Achilles). Alric was the leader of the Germanic tribe which eventually sacked Rome. Ilanth MIGHT be Iolanthe (a Fairie, from the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta of the same name). I have no idea about Umpata or Shaleen, though as for Roland, I think we all know him by now...

Moorcock is fairly well-known in fantasy/sci-fi circles - consider that TSR looted his works as well as Tolkien's when they created Dungeons and Dragons. I'm sure at least SOMEONE at Bungie could be pushing for the idea that many important characters in the Bungie mythos are bound by a similar destiny, if not one-and-the-same (consider the Pathways/Marathon/Halo main char connection - it COULD be the same char).

Hope my first contribution to the story page interests you - having just gotten into the Marathon world via Halo, I'm deeply impressed by the amount of work you've put into the page. Being deemed worthy of adding to it would be great, but I also understand if it never gets posted (is okay, I have self-esteem, I can cope ~wink~). Either way, just wanted to point that out to you, in case you'd missed it.

Winston Churchill <agent_c1874@yahoo.com> writes concerning the acronym "IWLML" that appears on the Halo PC box:

IWLNL on the Halo PC box could be I Like Winning Not Losing. In the Halo novels the authors keep bringing up the fact that the Master Chief always wins.

See the Box Acronyms section for full details on Bungie's box acronyms.