Apr 28, 2005 (Thursday)

Lovecraft and Pathways Into Darkness.

Missing terminals on Where some rarely go?

Craig Hardgrove's site now has the original Marathon .midi files.

Featured Marathon site #29

Chuck Fox's Marathon Art. Chuck's works features along side that of Craig Mullins at Marathon Central. When you see it you'll know why. His Ray Dream rendering of a Juggernaut is a classic. Makes a great desktop.

Apr 27, 2005 (Wednesday)

The Pathways Into Darkness page begins to uncover the tru7h behind Muller's mission.

On the Story forum:

Marathon's 10th Anniversary Contest Results
Nick Hoad wants your opinion about MPID
The Long Lost Marathon 1 and 2 Cheat Code
MSP sold! Thank you very much
Why did MrHen cross the road?

Featured Marathon site #28

Stephen Beveridge's Homesick Pfhor painting. Yes the painting was inspired by Marathon. Stephen, a fellow Scot, wrote on the Story page back in Feb 25, 1999:

I appreciate the link from the story page to the painting as more than a few of my paintings were painted in between games. I can remember a painting, which I haven't photographed, that was hugely influenced by my immersion in the clutches of Durandal. I couldn't paint without flashes of corridors and doors in my minds eye. Even walking about I would hesitate at the corner and stick close to the wall.

Apr 26, 2005 (Tuesday)

Featured Marathon site #27

The Marathon Magazine home page. Well actually the resting page. Edited by Ben Chess, the first version of Marathon Magazine ran from February 1995 until June 1996, with a total of 13 issues (yeah unlucky number). It was later revived by Nik Manak in 1997 but his issues are not to be found at this site. Originally Marathon Magazine did not have a web site instead you simply downloaded a .hqx file, from AMUG or other ftp site, which contained the magazine in DocMaker format and a bunch of associated media and files. You can still download them. So go relive the nostalgia of those mayhem filled days.

So what happened to Nik Manak's version of Marathon Magazine? And wasn't there a Marathon Net Magazine?

Apr 25, 2005 (Monday)

Secret pages... secret lists... obscure pages... pages that move... ?

Featured Marathon site #26

Rudi Gunther's Deathworld onlne comic strip. Rudi's Deathworld comic strip has been around since 1995, about the same time as Marathon. If you've followed the strip you'll have noticed the occasional Marathon reference. Indeed a number of the strips are directly Marathon related. For example check the Archive section for "Met-a-Pfhor" and "Un-Pfhor-gotten".

Apr 24, 2005 (Sunday)

The Marathon Cheat Codes page revealed... again!

Featured Marathon site #25

The Battle Cat's Marathon Page. The maps, map making tips and humor of Gary Simmons (aka the Battle Cat). What would Christmas be without Gary's rendering of "Christmas Aboard the Marathon". There's also "Net Play Etiquette and Other Marathon thoughts" and "Kirkpatrick VS the Battle Cat". Definitely worth a visit.

Apr 23, 2005 (Saturday)

New EO build... see the Story forum for the full thread.

Featured Marathon site #24

psyjnir.org's Marathon music page. Contains original (Power of Seven) and fan inspired Marathon music... plus music from Double Aught's ill-fated Duality project. Oh and under the Misc section you'll find Chris Pruett's excellent ballad about the Bungie Webmaster, aptly titled "That bastard".

Apr 22, 2005 (Friday)

Leela on a grand piano by Craig Hardgrove. And on the subject of themes on a piano why not check out this excellent Halo theme.

Scenario News updated.

Marathon's Story Page For Sale, Cheap... but would you buy it?

Featured Marathon site #23

Aerianne Connor's Marathon Trilogy page. It's worth visiting this site for the compilation images of many of the enemies and items in Marathon and also a few from Marathon 2 and Infinity. Nice to see the sprite shapes compiled into one pic.

Apr 21, 2005 (Thursday)

Is the Story page being updated secretly?

Featured Marathon site #22

RJ Coopers Wheels!. The Marathon engine used for something more than just fun. In this case power wheelchair simulation training. A great idea and you don't have to have a disability to play it. Monsters are 'evil' clowns and 'mad' robots. Just like the Pfhor and Durandal. ;-)

Apr 20, 2005 (Wednesday)

Where the Jjaro and the W'rkncacnter one in the same? The answer is so obvious you must have an opinion... right?

Swimming in Marathon explained?

Featured Marathon site #21

Mac Hall Comics' "Now With Better Support" strip. Ever wondered where that famous "Jjaro boxers" joke originated from? Well look no further than Matt Boyd and Ian McConville's Mac Hall Comic strip. The Jjaro boxers strip dates from 1 July 2001 (Bungie day) though the actual date on the drawing by Ian is 6-29-01. So now you know where our "elusive destroyer" gets his ability to travel back in time... or not! ;-)

Apr 19, 2005 (Tuesday)

Featured Marathon site #20

Dr. Lex' Marathon Page. Ever wanted to create a QTVR Panorama of your favorite Marathon map or listen to the way the Marathon background music original sounded under QT2.5 even with QT3 or 4? Yes there is a difference! Then Alexander Thomas' site is for you.

Apr 18, 2005 (Monday)

On the Story forum there is some interesting discussion about Muller's mission. It includes Sentinels, the Tlecoatchan tribe, Big-Thing-What-Jjaro-Throw-Into-Sun, zombie dust and Muller himself offers his interpretation of events.

Also on the Story forum the NeverEnding Story continues... yeah well it's never ending right? Craig "Marathon Music Remakes' Hardgrove has some concept pieces you might like to listen to. Some folk seem to have missed the point and Mr. Angry tells it like it is... or not. And Cody Miller is looking for Marathon v 1.0... now's that's a blast from the past!

Featured Marathon site #19

University of Chicago's Gameboys article. Alumni Profiles of the dynamic duo - Alex Seropian and Jason Jones, dating from June 1995. So what were the three languages Marathon was available in? You can also scrowl up a bit to read about the Logic King. Interesting to note that the URL for this page ends with June95BOBProfiles.html#Gameboys. So what's the BOB for? Coincidence or something more?

Apr 17, 2005 (Sunday)

An interesting tidbit from GregED <chaos@channel1.com> on the Story forum. I've quoted part of it below. GregED writes:

I was glomming through the old MI archives on the Story board, and noticed something: the sole terminal on Carrol Street Station opens up with the header 'haga.kure'. Finding this sounded familiar, I Googled that term.

The direct translation of 'Hagakure' is 'hidden leaves' - not so useful in and of itself - but it is also the name of a book about the 'way of the samurai'. That would seem to have to have a lot in common with our ubiquitous security officer, wouldn't it?

- Father told us to 'always fight with honor', and honor is one of the major precepts of not only the way of the samurai, but all of Japanese culture at the time

- Samurai were devoted to a single ideal, a single path of thought, to the exclusion of all else: their chosen profession of warrior was all. And so it seemed to be as well with our 'hybrid, elusive destroyer'...

- A central point that the books keeps coming back to is 'The end is important in all things.' Considering this is linked to a screen where a failed timeline has seemed to come to pass, endings would seem to be very important here (a further theme espoused by the book is that 'if things end badly, all good that may have come before it will be erased'.

A reference to Hagakure was also noted in Marathon 2 by Rich Williams on the Story page back in Apr 25, 1997. Rich wrote:

When I first read the first terminal on "A Converted Church in Venice, Italy" the word "Hagakure" caught my eye:

We've been cut off from the surface, and Pfhor dropships have entered the cone.  Send all fusion units to the towers to harass Pfhor units assaulting the field power generators.  Hagakure Base is overrun, and the last transmission was over twenty minutes ago.  All transporter relays have been destroyed, and the network is about to be compromised.

This only caught my eye because Kage-Maru, my favorite character of the Sega arcade fighting game series, Virtua Fighter, was born and raised in a village called Hagakure, and fought a Hagakure style of Ju-Jujitsu. These names were really fictional, and/or just honorary...the VF2 FAQ, in the Kage section, points this out:

"Be aware that Hagakure is not a village or school but a fascicle manual for samurai. The Hagakure (translated as In the Shadow of Leaves) has 1,300 short anecdotes and reflections. It is completed in 1716 and is considered as one of the classics on bushido. Its first verse is: "The way of the bushi is to die."

Chia Jin Ngee's (the writer of the VF2 faq) description of the Hagakure sums it up pretty well. It's one of the many famous philisophical texts that deal with martial arts and war, like The Art of War and the Tao of Jeet Kune Do. And I guess many of the philosophies in the Hagakure could apply to Marathon, especially in net games.

Featured Marathon site #18

The Marathon Fan Fiction Archive maintained by Blayne Scott. Not easy to create a site devoted solely to Marathon fan fiction since most of it is to be found in the 100s of scenerios that have been created since 1995. Afterall the real way to read Marathon fan fiction is through in-game terminals between fire fights... right? No cosy nights in front of the fire with a good book for UESC Marathon marines! Nevertheless the Marathon Fan Fiction Archive contains a few gems from authors such as REB and Yossarian. There is also an illustrated story called 'The Tale of Seefit'. Drop in for a read... just don't forget to stuff a fresh clip in your assault rifle. ;-)

Apr 16, 2005 (Saturday)

Featured Marathon site #17

Steve Wood's Marathon page at Marathon Central. Actually the server seems to be down at the moment so I have rebuilt the AMUG verson of the site here. Steve's page is the probably the oldest Marathon site still in existence. Created in March 1995 it contains some early Marathon screenshots taken from Inside Mac Games magazine and some rare pieces of Usenet humor. In particular "Kazem Edmond needs Sound Manager 3.0". You will no doubt miss the humor of this if you were not around in December 1994. The Marathon demo had just been released but you needed Sound Manager 3.0 to play the background music. Sound Manager didn't come with the Marathon demo so there was a scramble on the Net to find it. It wasn't easy to find. To this day I still remember wandering around the first part of "Blaspheme Quarantine" without any music before figuring out that you could run jump gaps and the only sound was the noise of that damn platform... clunk click... clunk click... clunk clink... the stuff of nightmares! Steve Wood should also be remembered for creating Marathon Pfhile Central the graphical interface to AMUG's ftp site, the largest site of Marathon files at the time. The forerunner to all those Marathon archives that have come and gone over time.

Past Featured Marathon sites:

16. Ben Reiter's A brief history of Marathon
15. Bungie's Marathon page
14. The Conversatron on Durandal
13. Randy Reddig's ydnar on infinity page
12. Steve Levinson's Marathon Rubicon Volunteers site
11. arrival.bungie.org. Type in the word ARCHIVE in the top box and OUTLINE in the bottom box
10. Hastur's Workshop
9. Max Etchemendy's Unified Earth Space Council Network
8. Jay (aka. Anaphiel) Faircloth's Digital Art site
7. Agents of Cool interview with Alex Seropian, Doug Zartman, Rob McLees and Mark Bernal
6. Shogoki's Marathon Trilogy Page
5. Craig Hardgrove's Marathon: Soundtrack Remakes
4. Miha's Marathon Workshop
3. John Wallin Liberto's Marathon Art
2. Matthew Lewis Carroll Smith's Games and Games Humor site
1. William Spencer's Marathon Graphic Comic

Apr 15, 2005 (Friday)

On the Story forum we have some odd stuff about the Rubicon video, your comments on the MPiD demo are wanted and Durandal versus Cortana who would win?

Featured Marathon site #16

Ben Reiter's A brief history of Marathon. Primarily a synopsis of Marathon and Marathon 2. Not an easy thing to do. After all the Marathon's Story page is equivalent to a "fucking doctoral thesis". Ben's site is where you should point Marathon newbies to. The Marathon's Story page on the other hand carries a health warning... Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate.

Apr 14, 2005 (Thursday)

Eternal fame at last and what's this... regular updates at marathon.bungie.org? No way! ;-)

Featured Marathon site #15

Bungie's Marathon page. In the past Bungie's Marathon pages (and there were many) contained pretty much the same type of stuff... a little blurb about the games, a few screenshots, a link to the demos, a link to where you can buy the games and an FAQ (to reduce the calls to Matt Soell). However Bungie's current Marathon page breaks the tradition and offers you 28 (hmmm... 7 X 4) never seen before concept art sketches.

Bungie's new look Marathon page was mentioned back in Apr 14, 2004. Yes exactly one year ago (was this all planned or what?). Here's the news piece from back then:

28 pieces of Marathon Concept Art have been unveiled at the new look bungie.net. The artwork by Reginald Dujour and Robert Mclees is from both Marathon and Marathon 2. Interesting to see some of Reg's early work on Marathon 2 before he left Bungie. The list of descriptions with each image are as follows:

Marathon 2, sketch used in ad
Syphon Tick corpse
Phfor Warrior hard death corpse
Hard death for Pfhor Enforcer
Hard death for proposed Phfor Fungal Zombie
Hard death for the Syphon Tick
Soft death for Pfhor Enforcer
Hard death for Pfhor Enforcer
Running leg animations for Fighter
Running legs for player character
Sketch of Hunter running. Animation test
Sketch of player running. Animation test
Concept stuff for Fungal Zombie
Sketch for another Terminal image
Concept sketch for Marathon 2 Compiler
Final line art for the Compiler
Animation test for Syphon Tick hard death
Final line art for unused Fungal Zombie
More final line art for unused Fungal Zombie
Components of Marathon (one) Compiler
Unused Apocalypse beast concept
Concept of the Pfhor Probe
More concept of Pfhor Probe
More concept of Apocalypse Beast
Concept of the S'pht 'Kr
Concept for Fungal Zombie
Limbs for alternate Fungal Zombie
Concept for alternate Fungal Zombie

Note that the 'Apocalypse beast' should actually be called the Armageddon Beast. See the Missing Aliens section of Facts and Puzzling Things About...

Apr 13, 2005 (Wednesday)

Featured Marathon site #14

The Conversatron on Durandal. The what? Go click the link!

It starts off innocently enough with the question "Can you briefly summarize the plot of the Marathon series?" and then all hell breaks loose in pure Abbott and Costello fashion. It still brings a smile to my face when reading it. This Conversatron topic dates back to August 2000 but unfortunately it is not listed in the Conversatron's archive. So this is your only link to it. Enjoy.

Apr 12, 2005 (Tuesday)

Featured Marathon site #13

Randy Reddig's ydnar on infinity page. Shamelessly stolen archived from Double Aught Software's first generation web site in early 1997. Those who were around at the time will no doubt remember how innovative those early Randy 'ydnar' Reddig designs were. Part of DA's site contained an Infinity section called 'ydnar on infinity'. He's the blurb from the oo4 version of the site:

ydnar on infinity
words and pictures from the
marathon infinity scenario as
interpreted by one of our
designers.

"just another day for a cyborg."

If you missed it at the time or yearn to see it again then click the link above. It has the distinctive ydnar style with a mixture of terminal pics, in-game screenshots, terminal text and a few new elements thrown in. Still stylish even today.

"Is it true that the Story page has every Marathon page ever created stored away in its vast archives?" Well hands up how many people remember 'ck on infinity'? :-)

Apr 11, 2005 (Monday)

Return of the Bungie Webmaster and those box acronyms. Will it ever end?

So you think you know your music and could it be true?... Marathon on Nintendo DS

Featured Marathon site #12

Steve Levinson's Marathon Rubicon Volunteers site. Following the example of the Marathon Volunteers series Steve Levinson and other Marathon Rubicon fans have discussed the intricacies of one of the most popular third-party Marathon scenarios. If you haven't played Rubicon then of course Steve's page won't make much sense. You can find the Rubicon home page here.

I'll leave the final words to Steve himself: Shhhh... Don't tell anyone. I'm a Marathon junkie. Hey! no kidding welcome to the madness... since 1994! George Orwell never saw that one coming! ;-)

Apr 10, 2005 (Sunday)

On the Story forum the age old question... who would win? and those famous Jjaro boxers.

Featured Marathon site #11

arrival.bungie.org. Type in the word ARCHIVE in the top box and OUTLINE in the bottom box and hey presto a little cornucopia of early Marathon development documentation, including:

numerous Bob sayings
story outline which was the starting point for Marathon 2: Durandal
original level notes for the first Marathon game
Two ad proposals and a bumper sticker (rejected because of the emphasis on gore)
... and a Marathon barf bag!

Some background to the origin of arrival.bungie.org can be found in this Story form post and also this one.

Over the years there have been a number of attempts on the Story forum to transcribe the original level notes without going through the hassle of viewing the scans of the original pages on arrival.bungie.org and trying to decipher the hand writing. The levels notes 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>

Level #11 by Vid Boi <sippan@macnytt.com>

Level #12 by Vid Boi <sippan@macnytt.com>

Level #13 by Vid Boi <sippan@macnytt.com> and another Level #13 by mnemesis <tvansinden@earthtech.com>

Level #14 by Vid Boi <sippan@macnytt.com>

Level #15 by "Can-ned Food" <cannedfood_ta@yahoo.com>

Posted out of sequence:

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?

Apr 8, 2005 (Saturday)

Marathon Scenario news reports that the demo of the conversion of Pathways Into Darkness to the Aleph One engine is now available. Go check it out. Remember you need Aleph One

Featured Marathon site #10

Hastur's Workshop. Back in 1996 Greg Kirkpatrick (Hastur or better known as toolboi) and Randy Reddig (Grendal or better known as ydnar) of Double Aught Software created Hastur's Workshop as part of their 'Infinity' section. For those that don't know Double Aught Software created the Marathon Infinity scenario "Blood Tides of Lh'owon". Hastur's Workshop explains those little map making tricks which made us go 'wow' back in the days of Marathon Infinity. Learn how to simulate bridges on "One thousand thousand slimy things", create long views on "Son of Grendal" and design a realistic space station environment in "Acme Station". Just a few of the tricks of the map masters. Hastur and Grendal also explain some of the tricks used in third party scenarios, such as Siege of Nor'Korh and Hata.

Hastur's Workshop was saved for posterity by Gary Simmons (aka the Battle Cat) at his Litterbox home page. Nice one Gary.

Apr 8, 2005 (Friday)

Marathon's Pattern Buffer's explained at last? Well this guy should know right?

Featured Marathon site #9

Max Etchemendy's Unified Earth Space Council Network. The UESC Network is an independent roleplaying project based on Bungie Software's Marathon trilogy, designed for Steve Jackson Games' Generic Universal Roleplaying System (GURPS). it took Max four years to create GURPS Marathon and extends and adapts the original Marathon story like many scenarios. If you are a Marathon fan and also like role playing games then this site is for you.

Max Etchemendy was a frequent contributor to the Story page between 1999-2000. Back in Oct 2000 he wrote the following about "The First Marathon" story given at the end of the Marathon manual:

According to the manual 6,400 Persians and 192 Greeks died in the battle giving a kill ratio of 1:33.33 and a kills minute rate of 13.73. To kill 6,592 people at a rate of 13.73 per minute would take 8 hours. However at the same rate it would only take 7.77 hours to kill the Persians. :-)

Apr 7, 2005 (Thursday)

Featured Marathon site #8

Jay (aka. Anaphiel) Faircloth's Digital Art site. Marathon images galore. Jay's Marathon art first came to the attention of the Story page back in January 2001. Back then he sent in this Marathon Marine pic (217K) on the level "Try again". He wrote:

That level traumatized me for life the first time around, never mind the Vid-Master edition of it. I think I have that failure message memorized still. I have a couple more lurking in my brain that should see the light of day soon.

Since then Jay has created an enormous amount of Marathon artwork from original paintings to amazing remakes of the Marathon textures. You need some serious bandwidth to view all his work. Go visit and visit often.

Jay's work has graced the opening page of the Marathon's Story page at www.marathon.org since early 2001.

Apr 6, 2005 (Wednesday)

MrHen <marathon@mrhen.com> goes Rampant on the Story page forum re-examining Durandal's shame and asking is Durandal a white rat?. Wouldn't want to be in him on the first colony ship to Tau Ceti.

That Cybertonics thread keeps on going... and going... and...

Marathon and the movie Pi

Featured Marathon site #7

Ok so featured site #7 should be special... right? So we created one... well more like we reanimated a 'dead' one. This is the 1996 Agents of Cool interview with Alex Seropian, Doug Zartman, Rob McLees and Mark Bernal. That should give you some idea of what to expect in the answers. Opening question is the best... "Were you influenced by the Micronauts?" Read the answers and then go read the Marathon & The Micronaut Influence? section of the Story page. You'll also find out how old Alex is in the interview and some interesting facts about Doug. For old school Bungie fans. Enjoy.

"Is it true that the Story page has every Marathon page ever created stored away in its vast archives?" Well stick around for 770 more featured sites to find out! :-)

Apr 5, 2005 (Tuesday)

Ok let's see. We featured Craig Hardgrove's Marathon: Soundtrack Remakes site yesterday and he posts about his remake of the Marathon music track 'New Pacific'. Coincidence or... ;-) Go check it out and the other Marathon soundtrack remakes on his site.

Featured Marathon site #6

Shogoki's Marathon Trilogy Page. Shogoki's the aka for Eric R. Eric's site contains a number of amusing Bob Pictures. In particular check out 'Pseudo Simulacrum', 'Marine Without Remorse' and 'My Fault'. Fun stuff. The Halo marine pic is missing even if you call up the directory listing. You'll also find some films and maps. Last updated July 17, 2002.

Apr 4, 2005 (Monday)

Like a Rampant AI this thread has grown with some great discussion. Join in if you think your impenetrable brainpan can handle it.

An offspring of the above thread is this interesting post on the Stages of Rampancy in Human Psychology.

Join in on The NeverEnding Story. You never know where this could end up.

Want to buy a rare copy of Pathways Into Darkness? You can always check the Pathways Into Darkness page for a free copy.

Sign a petition to bring Marathon and PID to the Nintendo DS?

Featured Marathon site #5

Craig Hardgrove's Marathon: Soundtrack Remakes. Craig's high quality remakes of some of the background music tracks from Marathon. Craig writes on his site:

"The Marathon songs, I believe, had a lot more to say than they originally were able to. My goal with the remakes was to attempt to bring them to life, as I hear them... and as I believe Bungie would have if they were to have made them today (they would do a better job than I am though)."

The site slso contains the original Marathon background music tracks (.mov format) and an interview with Alex Seropian about the music he created for Marathon. His site first came to our attention in this Story forum post a year ago.

Apr 3, 2005 (Sunday)

On the Story forum there is an interesting post from J-M <thugichu@hotmail.com> on Rampancy and AIs. It is well worth reading and commenting upon.

Also on the forum Tyler <tsterdan@mts.net> puts forward his suggestions for a new layout at marathon.bungie.org. What's really needed however is a webmaster who will update the page on a regular basis. If you have any comments or suggestions feel free to make them known on the Story forum.

Featured Marathon site #4

Miha's Marathon Workshop. Long before Vidmastery became fashionable there was Michio Hashimoto (Miha) and his friend Tomoaki Deguchi (DEGU). Between them they produced some of the earliest Vidmaster films dating back to early 1995. They pushed the boundaries and thought outside the box. What Miha did in the Deprivation Chamber still fills me with awe! Miha's site contains his and DEGU's Vidmaster films, along with his 12 page Marathon comic and other Marathon sketches. There is also a few maps and a handy utility called 'Marathon Map Demerger'. Miha's page was originally called "Miha the VidMonkey's Workshop" and the URL has changed a number of times which makes the site difficult to find sometimes. Good to see that it is still around.

Apr 2, 2005 (Saturday)

Featured Marathon site #3

John Wallin Liberto's Marathon Art. Ok it's only one picture but it's a good one. Similar to the work of Craig Mullins. It first came to our attention in this Story forum post back in late 2002. John hails from Sweden and the rest of his work can be found at his home page. If you check his site though you won't find the Marathon marine picture in any of the sections. Only by calling up his directory of images can you find it or using the link above. Here's a self portrait of the man.

Apr 1, 2005 (Friday)

Water found on Mars! Thanks to doughnut at hl.foreunners.org for this find. Nice one.

On the Story forum blake37 <blake37@forerunners.org> posts an interesting piece about the novel "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes and draws a parallel with the concept of Rampancy in Marathon. In the novel, which later formed the basis for the film 'Charly', Dr. Strauss artificially increases the inteligence of a young man (Charlie Gordon), originally with an IQ of 68, to that of a genius. In doing so Charlie becomes more self aware and learns of his terrible childhood and his present difficult circumstances. Sadly the rise in intelligence is not sustained and Charlie reverts once more to his original IQ.

MrHen <marathon@mrhen.com> raises some interesting questions about Tycho... but who has the answers?

Also on the forum there is more discussion on how Marathon and Halo are linked... or not

Featured Marathon site #2

Matthew Lewis Carroll Smith's Games and Games Humor site. Matthew Smith (aka poenas dare), a long time Bungie fan, created an enormous amount of fan content for many of their games, including Marathon. His work on the Marathon's Story page itself is legendary. His 'Games and Games Humor' site is a great legacy to his enormous talent. His last creation and undoubtedly the most time consuming was The Penultimate Bungie Giga-Quiz. 343 Bungie-related questions to test the most ardant fan.

Hats off to MLCS!

Mar 31, 2005 (Thursday)

News from the Story forum:

Another source to download Bungie games for free!
The mysterious New Forge city
A call to update the Marathon Wiki

The Pathways Into Darkness page has a link to a full free version of Pathways Into Darkness v2.0. Copy protection disabled.

The Story page's Jjaro tech web spiders have been out and about searching for the long lost M3 plot-line. In the process they have uncovered some interesting and perhaps forgotten web pages. So without futher ado I present the first in a series of featured sites.

Featured Marathon site #1

William Spencer's Marathon Graphic Comic. Started on 29 June 2001 it ran for only five pages but had a nice layout to it, particularly pages 2 and 3. Good to see it still around.

If you are a long time reader of the Story page you'll remember that William Spencer was a frequent submitter to the Marathon's Story page a few years back. An unsung hero of Marathon-lore.

Mar 29, 2005 (Tuesday)

A few theories on what that unknown (and unfinished) Craig Mullins Marathon pic is have appeared on the Story forum. Is it the marine being implanted with Durandal's chip or the Pfhor interrogation of Robnar from the level "Thing What Kicks...".

Another possibility is that given the picture's name 'chamber.jpg' it is a work in progress of one of those "unreliable Pfhor stasis chambers" mentioned in the first terminal of "What About Bob?" which is also the first level in the Volunteers chapter. Thus having this as a Chapter screen and then reading about it in the first terminal would make some sense.

On the Pathways Into Darkness page you'll find an article about the making of the game. It includes a rare pic of the PID editor, the art of Colin Brent, and the events leading up to the Boston Macworld Expo in August 1993.

Mar 28, 2005 (Monday)

It was noted on the Story forum some time ago that Craig Mullins had updated his website to include a revamped Bungie section. One of the pictures in this section was completely new. The image is entitled chamber.jpg and it is not entirely obvious what it is since it is a work in progress and the final version was never released. But perhaps you know differently.

More updates on the Pathways Into Darkness page. Read the AOL chat with Alex Seropian from August 1993. Old nostalgia stuff. Note that Alex doesn't give much away. So just where did the company name come from? ;-)

Devin Sanera <ambrosia512@mac.com> found the full lyrics of Steve Rodgers' Durandal song. Where else but Steve's page. You just had to go searching for them

bjanga <bjanga@gmail.com> has put together some hi-res Marathon desktops using Halo and Halo 2 images.

A new form of Marathon-inspired fan fiction?

Mar 27, 2005 (Sunday)

The Pathways Into Darkness page now includes an interview with Jason Jones from October 1993. In it we learn of Minotaur 3D, the rejected plot lines for Pathways Into Darkness, Jason feelings about the game's diffculty and player's speed, the possibility of Pathways sequel, the upcoming new game from Bungie called 'Mosaic' and a game in development called... Marathon.

Mar 25, 2005 (Friday)

On the Story forum over the last couple of days:

Marathon fan Fiction Archive updated
New Duality content on the way!
Remember this pic?
More on those Steve Rogers' Durandal lyrics
Marathon inspired in-car entertainment system
Marathon stuff on eBay

The Pathways Into Darkness page has had a number of updates.

Mar 21, 2005 (Monday)

Even though Double Aught have long gone and with it their game 'Duality' it doesn't stop some people creating web pages for their old screenshots. And in so doing uncovering unseen Duality screens. Go relive the nostalgia.

Marathon Scenario News gets an update with news of 'Infested' and the conversion of 'Pathways into Darkness' to the Aleph One engine.

You can also see an even bigger version ofthe USEC Marathon colony ship pic from Tycho here.

Mar 20, 2005 (Sunday)

Following up on Matt Soell's comments about the Bobs in M1 being 'racially indeterminate' a number of people have written in to point out that not only do Bobs look coloured in the game but they look distinctly tanned in the Reprisal chapter screen. So either they have been spending too much quality time on G4 Sunbathing or Reginald Dujour (who is black himself) created 'Bob' in his own image. A point raised by REB <biomeca@hotmail.com> in this Story forum post almost three years ago. Conspiracy theoriests will no doubt have a field day with this one.

Mar 19, 2005 (Saturday)

Do Bobs in Marathon 1 all have dark skin? Matt Soell, former Bungie employee and long time contributor to the Story page, provides a rare insight into the ethnicity of the 'Born on Boards' in this Story forum post. It's also quoted in full below. Matt writes:

Re: Player's Suit/Ethnicity
Posted By: Matt
Date: 3/18/05 7:23 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Player's Suit/Ethnicity (Ryu'Toth)

: Is the player black? Are all Bobs black? For the tru7h check out this forum
: thread!

I'm sure I mentioned this somewhere before (for all I know someone's already linked
to it) but Reg told me the Bobs were designed to be racially indeterminate. They're
neither white nor black but could pass for either, so no one who cared about that sort of
thing could be offended.

That didn't stop an angry woman from writing in once to complain we were a bunch of
white supremacists because there were no black people in Marathon. Reg was right:
people see what they want to see.

-Matt

What do you see?

Brian Wise <im_mr_cactus@yahoo.com> makes an interesting observation on the Story forum regarding the Pfhor fighter image used on the Story page to mark St. Patrick's day (see below). You can also see it at the top of The Pfhor section of 'Facts and puzzling things about...'. He points out that the third eye is missing. The image is actually taken from the cover of the July/August 1995 issue of Inside Mac Games magazine which featured a sneak peak of Marathon 2. The Pfhor fighter in the foreground is actually a drawing rather than an in-game shot. Who drew this image is not clear. Between the release of the Marathon 2 Preview (July 1995) and the Marathon 2 Demo (October 1995) Bungie inverted the arrangement of the Pfhor's eyes from 'two up one down' to 'one up two down'. Robert McLees in the Marathon Scrapbook described the original eye arrangement as akin to a 'circus clown'. Thus the Pfhor fighter image on the cover of Inside Mac Games magazine is perhaps a first indication that Bungie were moving away from this clown-like look.

Mar 18, 2005 (Friday)

And now for something completely different...

Published in October 2004 The Algebraist is Iain M. Banks' 10th science fiction novel. The Algebraist is not set in the Culture universe but it contains many of the elements that one expects from a Banks 'M' novel. We have the Dwellers, an ancient alien race who inhabit gas giants. The Mercatoria, whose rule is both military and religious, and who have banned artificial intelligence as an abomination. Hmmm... sound familiar?

You can read an extract from the book over at Orbit Books.

Mar 17, 2005 (Thursday)

On the Story forum there is a very nice hi-res image of the USEC Marathon colony ship plus talk of a Marathon MUD .

Mar 13, 2005 (Sunday)

On the Story forum MrHen <marathon@mrhen.com> tries to make sense of the 'eyes on fire' term on 'Never Burn Money'. Interestingly in the resource fork the terminal is referred to as 'Random.Term3'

Mar 9, 2005 (Wednesday)

Craig Hardgrove <craig@eigenhat.com> reminds us in a Story forum post that you can pick up the original Marathon background music tracks (.mov format) at his site eigenhat.com. In addition, Craig has remade some of the tracks in MP3 format. The tracks are:

Swirls.mp3 [4.2 MB]
Guardians.mp3 [2.9 MB]
Rapture.mp3 [3.1 MB]
Leela.mp3 [3.4 MB]
Flowers in Heaven.mp3 [3.4 MB]
Chomber.mp3 [4.0 MB]
Landing.mp3 [3.2 MB]
Flippant.mp3 [1.8 MB]

Craig writes on his site:

The Marathon songs, I believe, had a lot more to say than they originally were able to. My goal with the remakes was to attempt to bring them to life, as I hear them...

He goes on to say:

For me, the game of Marathon is an experience and a piece of art that shaped me into the person that I am today. These remakes are my acknowledgement of that influence, and my sincere thank you to the creators.

Check out eigenhat.com.

Mar 6, 2005 (Sunday)

Well the Story page still has it uses. Over at the Wideload Games fan site wideloadgames.org there is an interesting piece of detective work on the Wideload domain name. The reference source is the Story page's news section from 1998. Yes that's seven years ago! Coincidence or...

Mar 5, 2005 (Saturday)

On the Story forum over the last couple of days:

A fan site for Bungie's first game... Gnop!
A reference to UESC in Halo 2?
Doug Zartman, Marathon, Oni and... Blind Snakes?!!
Will marathon.bungie.org ever be re-designed?
Steve Rogers' Durandal lyrics
The start of a long but interesting thread about conversions

On the subject of Marathon music don't forget to check out psyjnir.org's Marathon music page. It contains original and fan inspired Marathon music... plus music from Double Aught's ill-fated Duality project.