Thoth

"Beware. The mythical Thoth was concerned
with maintaining the balance between
creation and destruction, yes and no, light
and darkness, not the triumph of one over
the other."

On "God Will Sort the Dead..." we read

Durandal gave the name "Thoth" to the
ancient personality construct we are trying
to activate.  Someone here said that Thoth
was the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom,
with a human body but the head of an ibis.

<God Will Sort The Dead... (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

More importantly Thoth served as an arbiter among the gods. The protector of the weak. We later learn of this fact in a secret terminal on "My Own Private Thermopylae"

Beware.  The mythical Thoth was concerned
with maintaining the balance between
creation and destruction, yes and no, light
and darkness, not the triumph of one over
the other.

Do you remember the days when computers
were simple, unreasoning things you could
turn off and on like flashlights?  Is
memory what we perceived or what we want?
What does Thoth think?  He concerns himself
with the states of off and on, good and
evil.  Isn't his perception simple?
Doesn't it have to be?

I will return.

<My Own Private Thermopylae (Terminal 2)>

Michael Hanson <hanson@cs.stanford.edu> writes:

"...so Thoth embodies "active neutrality", he always fights for the underdog (witness Durandal's comment that he wouldn't have been so helpful if he hadn't thought Durandal was gone)"

Yes indeed, on "Feel the Noise" Durandal remarks:

But it was convenient for me to be absent,
as Thoth might not have been so helpful had
he known I still lived- that's something
I'll have to explain later when we have
more time.  Thoth is now trying to aid the
Pfhor, but they are obstinate and continue
to ignore him.

<Feel the Noise (Terminal 1)>

This also explains why Thoth tries to aid the Pfhor against Durandal. Durandal's presence upsets the balance of power and thus must be countered.

Michael also notes that references to balance and unbalance can be found in the first terminal on "Where the Twist Flops" in both the 1st message

        @%(Ufevil3%&~FF`fx

You must crush the slavers,
return to your [?people].


        ^*`14balan~~ce

<Where the Twist Flops (Terminal 1: 1st message)>

and in the 2nd message

        `&}\devoured by incandescence

I understand.

Your construct searched for my
     creators,

wishing to tell them
(that their old brothers are now)
slaves;
waiting to be freed.

A connection [?ansible] was left;
awaiting the next quiet [?peace];

and though destroyed by the threes,
it will scream over the void one time.


        )_*(GGunbalance~0*fxf`~F

<Where the Twist Flops (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

When we activate Thoth on "Kill Your Television" he appears on several terminals with a characteristic black and white symbol. Yet this symbol also features in a terminal on "We're Everywhere" long before we activate Thoth.

To see this you might like to use Bo Lindbergh's Durandal Terminal Browser. It's available from this site. Click here to find out how to download it.

The text itself is white on black and is bizarre enough to be attributed to Thoth, see below.

       readdress2^knstnt 49-f

[4
l9c

                          11

i was left behind                &ci1lc

our paths conv^rge

our fates are shared

chance tears and bends

n %


        *&#4xption failW$% 434

<We're Everywhere (Terminal 2)>

Noah Schaubaker <nms@spot.Colorado.EDU> writes:

"I believe that the Thoth-like terminal in We're Everywhere is actually Tycho, speaking from "a nearby system" You notice the &ci1lc text off to the far right is red, red being Tycho's signature color. Besides, if you think about what it's saying, Thoth wouldn't say something like "our fates are shared". Tycho and Durandal are both meta-stable personality constructs that both realize what they can do to preserve the universe."

Noah's interpretation is indeed valid. The text could be Tycho. The "i was left behind" line could refer to Tycho being left at Tau Ceti while the "our paths conv^rge" line is presumably reference to their (Durandal's and Tycho's) inevitable confrontation at Lh'owon.

The only problem appears to be the nature of the terminal on which this message is displayed. How could Tycho be using the interface of "a dormant S'pht AI". An AI that isn't reactivated by us until "Kill Your Television". Indeed all the evidence indicates that Tycho was communicating to Durandal through the Pfhor net.

Tycho has fallen in with the Pfhor like I
suspected.  He left a message for me in one
of the Garrison's tertiary computers,
encoded in a manner that only one of the
Marathon's original three AIs could decode.

<What About Bob? (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

and

Speaking of Tycho, I have detected his
presence in the Pfhor net.  I assume he is
using the Pfhor's faster-than-light
communications technology to enter the net
remotely from a nearby system.  His
appearance can only foreshadow the arrival
of Pfhor reinforcements.

<We're Everywhere (Terminal 1: 1st message)>

Gabe Rosenkoetter <acrosenk@artsci.wustl.edu> writes:

"i don't think that that's tycho speaking to durandal... the red text is, i don't know, leakage... a red herring by bungie (no pun intended)..."

Indeed Gabe may also be right. On both "If I Had a Rocket Launcher, I'd Make Somebody Pay" and "Sorry Don't Make It So" there are messages from Durandal containing red text. Thus it would appear that red text is not totally synonymous with Tycho or the Pfhor.

Gabe goes onto to say that perhaps the message on "We're Everywhere" is a recorded message left by Thoth.

Again this could be correct. As Thoth hasn't been reactivated at this stage a recorded message would seem to be the only feasible explanation. Indeed our first sign of the reactivating Thoth is the 1st message on the 2nd terminal of "Kill Your Television". This garbaged message is presumably meant to portray Thoth's partial activation.

        61efa 21YjmPMH& r f7(P

~
                                   []
^r                               /  !
              x ~^
                       j
@Wnot ed%UJIr     Rslowly FYMHr &(P
          $  !
                                     /
[0]
        45 * !
+_
5                ovr erru   JSRfinishYr RK
        4 !        ;','41!!
waiting
                 EYthous
3w4t                        g g
WGJDN!!!K)(2             ~~fF~fx
                4!@
   ?!$                          .414.14
pnz.


        CILCI@1C    0f1returnrpvcs!S

<Kill Your Television (Terminal 2: 1st message)>

        NDfdiscared @%041/3$!1

Humans of yours are near [?death],
but by your dead construct's
     transporters
to [?save] them I will send you;
while I seek [?perception] of this
     new world.


         mi41nor 7*(^tf

<Kill Your Television (Terminal 2: 2nd message)>

Further evidence to suggest that the message may be from Thoth is that the piece of red text in this message (see below)

&ci1lc

CILCI@1C 

If the message was left by Thoth who was it intended for and what does it mean?

The first line of the message "i was left behind" probably refers to when the S'pht'Kr left Lh'owon. On "Where the Twist Flops" Thoth says

I understand.

Your construct searched for my
     creators,

wishing to tell them
(that their old brothers are now)
slaves;
waiting to be freed.

<Where the Twist Flops (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

indicating that the S'pht'Kr built Thoth. So when the S'pht'Kr departed Lh'owon Thoth was left behind.

The difficulty occurs when trying to interpret the other lines. Indeed the rest of the message suggests fore-knowledge of the intended recipient. Yet how could Thoth have left a message some 1000+ years ago with the knowledge that the recipient's fate would be shared with his?

The Thoth-like terminal on "We're Everywhere" has generated a considerable amount of controversy. Is it a message from Tycho, Thoth, or dare we say it a mistake?

Lets take the last point first. There is a certain inconsistency in the way terminals are used in Marathon 2. Two examples, on "On Charon Doesn't Make Change" there is a terminal with the characteristic yellow S'pht writing but the message is a Pfhor one from Science Manager 7 concerning the F'lickta and on "Come and Take your Medicine" there is a Pfhor terminal with the charactistic red Pfhor ensign but the message is from F'tha, the S'pht-compiler. Admittedly this later message is seemingly a live transmission from F'tha to you thus it may be more appropriate to have this displayed on a Pfhor terminal rather than on a S'pht history terminal.

Durandal himself appears on Pfhor terminals but not S'pht terminals. On "Waterloo Waterpark" he first appears on a terminal displaying the red Pfhor ensign. On the next 3 levels he appears on terminals displaying the green Marathon logo. By level 5 "Come and Take your Medicine" he's back on a red Pfhor terminal and on the next level he's returned to a Marathon logo terminal again. One might explain these differences as a consequence of Durandal accessing the Pfhor computer network and changing some of the screens on certain levels (he's that kind of guy!). Alternatively one might attribute it too limited textures in a texture set.

Turning to the Thoth-like terminal on "We're Everywhere" you might be mistaken in thinking that this terminal is an inactive S'pht terminal. It is yellow but does not have the characteristic S'pht writing. These apparently inactive looking terminals do work however.

The message displayed is white on black apart from a small piece of red text. There is also a characteristic black and white symbol. All features (except the red text) that we later learn are synonymous with Thoth. However let us ignore this for the moment and considered this terminal in the light of the story so far. On "What About Bob?" Durandal tells us:

Tycho has fallen in with the Pfhor like I
suspected.  He left a message for me in one
of the Garrison's tertiary computers,
encoded in a manner that only one of the
Marathon's original three AIs could decode.

Poor Leela.  The only interesting thing
Tycho said was that Leela had been
dismantled and shipped to the Pfhor
homeworld for study, along with most of the
other computer systems aboard the Marathon.
Leela was so loyal and tried so hard; she
deserved better.

<What About Bob? (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

Eylon Caspi "eylon@glue.umd.edu" writes:

"...since the terminal contains a personal message, it should _NOT_ be a Pfhor terminal. All the Pfhor terminals contain public messages from Pfhor to other Pfhor. This terminal, if it is a personal message from Tycho to Durandal, was probably not meant to be read by the local Pfhor troops. So it makes sense that Tycho would choose a different terminal...".

Althought Tycho's message was encoded in a manner that only one of the Marathon's original three AIs could decode hence no Pfhor could read have read it it is possible, as Eylon points out, that Tycho did not want the Pfhor to know that he had left a personal message for Durandal so he left it on another computer system.

Eylon writes further on whether the Thoth-like terminal could be a mistake:

"The terminal type is not a trivial thing to encode - it includes several screens, images, colors, and typefaces. I find it hard to believe that the terminal type was 'accidentally' made a Thoth type. Even if Bungie's authoring tools can create entire terminals with one click of the mouse, they should still have caught the error when editing the terminal."

Thus the available evidence would point to a message left by Tycho on a tertiary computer system.

When Thoth is reactivated on "Kill Your Television" he too uses the same display interface. Interesting to note that Thoth is not restricted to the terminals he can appear on. Thus he appears on terminals with the red Pfhor ensign (Kill Your Television), terminals with the green and red Marathon logos (Where the Twist Flops and Requiem For a Cyborg), and the S'pht terminals (Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks). The fact he appears on terminals with the green Marathon logo, typically Durandal's terminals, does bear some consideration.

Bach <kirill@lava.net> writes:

"I think you need to give more credibility to the "limited textures in a set" theory. Here's a breakdown of the types of comm. devices available in each texture set (each texture set has a characteristic media type and will be associated with that):

WATER: (eg: "Waterloo Waterpark","Ex Cathedra")
- 1024x512 Pfhor terminal

LAVA: (eg: "Eat it, Vid Boi!","All Roads Lead to Sol...")
- 1024x256 Marathon terminal
- 1024x256 S'pht terminal (or two 512x256 S'pht terminals)

SEWAGE: (eg: "The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune","We're Everywhere")
- 1024x256 Pfhor Terminal
- 1024x256 Marathon Terminal
-  512x256 `Broken' S'pht Terminal
-  512x256 S'pht Terminal (with big, blocky S'pht lettering)

GOO: (eg: "If I had a Rocket Launcher, I'd Make Somebody Pay.")
- 1024x256 Marathon (green) Terminal
- 1024x256 Marathon (red) Terminal

Simon Rowland <simon@eagle.ca> writes:

"I notice that the image displayed for Thoth... is just like a yingyang--two opposites (Black and White) which converge in the center, making half black (albeit with a white border) and half white. The image stands for everything Thoth does."

Bach <kirill@lava.net> provides a similar interpretation:

"Notice how the Thoth term logo is a balance between black and white, there are two while pieces and two black pieces... kinda goes with the Thoth balance gig."

Eylon Caspi <eylon@glue.umd.edu> provides an interesting interpretation of the cryptic Thoth message on "Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks":

Glyphs never understood while
     [?young?alive]
now reveal the end of my creation:

When one of foreign speech
casts a [?papyrus] yoke upon the
     marsh,
Bethink you to keep the
     [?bleating goats]
far from Lh'owon.

<Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

Eylon writes:

"I believe that this refers to the "final message" left by the S'pht'Kr before they departed from Lh'owon. Their message is discussed in "Six Thousand Feet Under" promising to return to Lh'owon when the circumstances are right:

The royalty of the clans have shared their
knowledge of the S'pht'Kr, each Master
holding a line of the truth in secret and
another line in common.  

Each clan possessed two pieces of the
whole, gifts from S'pht'Kr before
departing.

We know the truth of the Eleventh Clan,
that they awaited our unity to join us
again.  These tunnels will be flooded and
sealed.  

Any who find this place can learn the final
message of the S'pht'Kr, but we have no
time to decipher its meaning.

K'lia, whom we have taken,
Between Y'loa and T'jia,
All in a line,
Replace K'lia with the marsh,
Take the place to be the mark.
Mark the time from our Exodus,
Every 459.231 rotations.
Search the T'jia side,
Quarter way to the sun,
Around and under the marshes,
When all are one,
The S'pht'Kr will return.  

<Six Thousand Feet Under (Terminal 5)>

"Thoth's words "Glyphs... now reveal the end of my creation" suggest that Thoth's ultimate purpose ("end" = purpose) was to participate in the return of the S'pht'Kr. Notice the last 2 lines of the S'pht'Kr's final message:

When all are one,
The S'pht'Kr will return.  

"Corroborating evidence of the S'pht'Kr's motives and of Thoth's purpose can be found in an earlier Thoth terminal on "Where the twist flops":

 I understand.

Your construct searched for my
     creators,

wishing to tell them
(that their old brothers are now)
slaves;
waiting to be freed.

A connection [?ansible] was left;
awaiting the next quiet [?peace];

and though destroyed by the threes,
it will scream over the void one time.

<Where the Twist Flops (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

"Unfortunately, Thoth did not fulfill his purpose in quite the right spirit. The S'pht did cease their clan wars, and they did unify -- 1000 years ago, in the face of attacking Pfhor. However, Lh'owon did not exactly settle in peace. it was conquered and abandoned. Still, the S'pht'Kr were satisfied enough to return to Lh'owon. In fact, they returned with full will and conviction to save their brothers and their homeland."

Eylon goes on to say that the lines:

When one of foreign speech
casts a [?papyrus] yoke upon the
     marsh,
Bethink you to keep the
     [?bleating goats]
far from Lh'owon.

<Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

"[are] more difficult to interpret. My guess is that it concerns the enslavement of the S'pht at the hands of the Pfhor. The "one of foreign speech" and the "bleating goats" are references to the Pfhor (I guess they do sound like goats...). The "yoke upon the marsh" probably refers to the conquering of Lh'owon (the marsh) and the enslavement of the S'pht (cast a yoke)."

"But what does "papyrus" mean? It sounds like an adjective for the word yoke, suggesting that the enslavement of the S'pht is somehow akin to a papyrus yoke. Does that mean "easily broken?" Papyrus is easy to break, as are laws written on papyrus. (Thoth seems to have an affinity for ancient Egyptian symbolism... :-) )"

"Also, what does Thoth mean "Bethink YOU to keep the... "? Is this a request from Thoth that you take care of the Pfhor? Thoth does request that of you on another occasion -- "You must crush the slavers" in "Where the Twist Flops"."

Bach <kirill@lava.net> writes concerning the lines:

When one of foreign speech
casts a [?papyrus] yoke upon the
     marsh,
Bethink you to keep the
     [?bleating goats]
far from Lh'owon.

<Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

and offers another interpretation:

"I would explain this as the final Pfhor thrust, the weapon the Pfhor save for slave revolts. This would "cast the yoke", or put the mark of enslavement on Lh'owon. Why is Thoth saying, "Bethink YOU to keep the bleating goats away from Lh'owon"? Because the Bobs are the bleating goats, who would be killed if they stayed on Lh'owon."

Bach explains further that the trih xeem (early nova) will:

"...cast the yoke over the planet, and that yoke is the expanding star."

"...it will not enslave, it will punish, showing that the Pfhor were still in command."

Bach's interpretation is interesting in that it helps to explain why on the next level (Requiem For a Cyborg) we suddenly find ourselves on the Hfarl . Was Thoth's remark "Bethink you to keep the [?bleating goats] far from Lh'owon." a clue to our job here. To clear the ship of Pfhor so that the BOBs (the bleating goats) could use it to escape the "early nova"?

Eylon Caspi <eylon@glue.umd.edu> writes:

"The Thoth terminals are interesting in that, unlike the S'pht and Pfhor terminals, they do not contain the message "Translator Activate." Also, they do not contain text in another language. This seems to imply that Thoth is doing the translation himself. How could Thoth translate to English, a language which he has presumably never heard before?"

The Thoth messages are also interesting for another reason. They are composed of three types of text.

(1) bold text.
(2) non-bold text in squared brackets [] and ALWAYS with a leading question mark.
(3) non-bold text in round brackets () NOT always with a question mark.

We can attribute the bold text to Thoth himself. But what of the other text?

Eylon writes:

"Assuming that the non-bold text is the work of a translator, I think the two brackets have the following meanings:"

"Square brackets with a question mark indicate a problem translating vocabulary words. The English language has no word corresponding to the S'pht word, so a reasonable substitute is placed in brackets."

"Round brackets without a question mark indicate a problem translating _semantics_. The parentheticized text translates a S'pht idiom, or reveals an implied meaning."

"The strongest support for the later interpretation is in Thoth's message on "Requiem for a Cyborg"

The human wheel is [?could be]
a metaphor for S'pht [?time];

(circumstances are cyclical)

The Eleventh Clan will return.


You must go to them.

<Requiem For a Cyborg (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

But as Eylon points out:

"In order to make the idiomatic translation, Thoth would have to have very detailed knowledge of English."

Where did this knowledge come from?

Could Thoth have had prior contact with the English language?

Or was someone acting behind the scenes to make this translation possible?

Durandal perhaps?

Eylon writes:

"That seems unlikely, since Durandal is presumably out-of-commission at this point in the story. Also, Durandal cannot reach all the terminals on Lh'owon, so he could have failed to intercept some communiques."

The latter point is true. Durandal is seemingly unable to access the S'pht history terminals. Indeed your goal on many levels was to access these terminals for him. As some of Thoth's messages appear on S'pht history terminals it is unlikely that Durandal could have provided the translation for them.

But was Durandal "out-of-commission at this point in the story"?

The secret terminal message on "My Own Private Thermopylae" warning us about Thoth would appear to be from Durandal:

Beware.  The mythical Thoth was concerned
with maintaining the balance between
creation and destruction, yes and no, light
and darkness, not the triumph of one over
the other.

Do you remember the days when computers
were simple, unreasoning things you could
turn off and on like flashlights?  Is
memory what we perceived or what we want?
What does Thoth think?  He concerns himself
with the states of off and on, good and
evil.  Isn't his perception simple?
Doesn't it have to be?

I will return.

<My Own Private Thermopylae (Terminal 2)>

But it was convenient for me to be absent,
as Thoth might not have been so helpful had
he known I still lived-

<Feel the Noise (Terminal 1)>

And how convenient for Blake and his men to disappear leaving us stranded on Lh'owon. But as Durandal remarks:

Good-byes were always hard for me.  You
know I'll never let you go.

<Fatum Iustum Stultorum (Terminal 2)>

"You got ten more thousands years to go"

;-)

Matthew Smith <matthew@quest.net> writes:

"Why was Thoth obsessed with Balance? I had the idea it was because the S'pht'Kr wanted to make sure that the clans were "truly" unified when they came looking for the Kr. For example, let's say that after the Kr left, one clan was able to dominate the others in battle and extract the location of Thoth from the others. Thoth, although activated, would not contact the Kr because the situation was so out of balance."

Eylon Caspi <eylon@glue.umd.edu> writes:

"...the final message of the S'pht'Kr could be interpreted as directions for finding Thoth underground. Recall these lines from "Six Thousand Feet Under":

K'lia, whom we have taken,
Between Y'loa and T'jia,
All in a line,
Replace K'lia with the marsh,
Take the place to be the mark.
Mark the time from our Exodus,
Every 459.231 rotations.
Search the T'jia side,
Quarter way to the sun,
Around and under the marshes,
When all are one,
The S'pht'Kr will return.  

<Six Thousand Feet Under (Terminal 5)>

Simon Rowland <simon@eagle.ca> writes concerning the following Thoth terminal and remarks "What's the mystery? It's the easiest term in the game."

Glyphs never understood while
     [?young?alive]
now reveal the end of my creation:

When one of foreign speech
casts a [?papyrus] yoke upon the
     marsh,
Bethink you to keep the
     [?bleating goats]
far from Lh'owon.

<Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

Simon explains:

"Goats is a metaphor for the S'pht'Kr. He [Yrro] didn't want his work and assets (like livestock was in ancient times) to be destroyed when those of foreign speech [the Pfhor] came to pillage the land and put a yoke around the animals [S'pht]..."

Simon maintains that Thoth's function ("end of my creation") was to protect the S'pht'Kr from the Pfhor by sending them far from Lh'owon. This would facilitate their further development. As Durandal remarks on "Charon Doesn't Make Change":

If this mythical eleventh clan survived,
then it has had a thousand years to grow
and learn since leaving Lh'owon. 

<Charon Doesn't Make Change (Terminal 1: 1st message)>

The Pfhor invasion of Sol has been
recalled, and for now Earth is safe.  But
man's respite from war means another
cataclysmic battle for the S'pht.  The
slavers have not suffered a defeat like the
one we handed them today since the Nakh,
the last extant client race of the Jjaro,
rebelled six thousand years ago.

<All Roads Lead To Sol...(Terminal 1)>

Regarding the the term [?papyrus] yoke. Simon writes:

"Were yokes made out of papyrus? Seems plausible."

Simon is indeed right. While the word papyrus is commonly associated with paper (the word paper comes from papyrus) papyrus is a fresh water plant found mainly in Egypt. The papyrus reed is remarkably strong and versatile. See Thor Heyerdahl's RA Expeditions (1969-70) for proof of this.

As Lh'owon had once been a marsh world it is possible that a plant similar to the Egyptian papyrus plant grew in abundance and was used by the S'pht. Of course this is all very low technology stuff. Would the S'pht have been using a papyrus type plant as construction material or is Thoth speaking in metaphors as he is want to do?

Nevertheless a yoke made from papyrus or a papyrus type material would be very strong and a suitable symbol for enslavement.

Juan Mares Martin <dctmm48@fresno.csic.es> provides a new and interesting interpretation of the Thoth-like terminal on "We're Everywhere".

Juan writes:

"I agree in that, given the fact that we do not activate Thoth until somewhat later, this must be a prerecorded message, but then, who was the intended recipient? Obviously not the Pfhor, and it seems improbable that Thoth or the S'pht'Kr were capable of foreseeing our arrival or the arrival of Durandal. So this message must have been left for the most obvious recipients: the remaining S'pht clans. It was probably a reminder of the existence of Thoth and the future return of the eleventh clan. So with all this in mind, the text in the terminal makes much more sense:"

       readdress2^knstnt 49-f

[4
l9c

                          11

i was left behind                &ci1lc

our paths conv^rge

our fates are shared

chance tears and bends

n %


        *&#4xption failW$% 434

<We're Everywhere (Terminal 2)>

"We could make the following tentative translation. Although the S'pht'Kr have left Lh'owon, they have left me here to allow you to contact them in the future (I was left behind); sometime in the future, the S'pht'Kr will return and rejoin with the rest of the clans (our paths converge); because we share a common destiny deserved of the S'pht race, and our ways can not remain eternally separated (our fates are shared); no matter what misfortunes or evil fall on our people (chance tears and bends)."

Wilson Miner <wminer9@mail.idt.net> writes:

"During some research I have been doing on early computer systems and technology, I came across a book entitled, "The Thoth System: Multi-Process Structuring and Portability" (Denning, Peter J, ed. Elsevier Science Publishers, New York)... The system was developed between 1974 and 1981, (publication date of the book) approximately apparently for corporate minicomputers. Here are some interesting points I found in the text..."

"The Thoth System was developed as part of a software research project at the University of Waterloo. The objective of the project was to test two major hypotheses about computer systems. First, we believed that processes could provide a powerful way for structuring programs given a suitable program execution environment. This structuring technique was referred to as the multi-process structuring of programs. Second, we believed that an operating system could be designed and implemented such that it would be cost-effective to transport the system software & associated application software to a large number of existing computers in preference to developing new and different software for each machine. That is a system could be designed to be portable."

"And, on the origin of the name..."

"The name of the system, Thoth, was proposed by Lawrie Molen. Thoth, in Egyptian mythology, was an early ruler of Egypt. He was endowed with complete knowledge and wisdom, inventing all arts and sciences including arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, soothsaying, magic, medicine, drawing and writing. Thoth was deified after his death, becoming god of letters, wisdom and magic, messenger for the other gods, upholder of justice, and searcher after truth. He measured time, divided the world, kept divine archives, and was patron of history. When Egyptians died, Thoth weighed their hearts and proclaimed the gulty or innocent, revealing in the latter case the magic formulae needed to traverse the world in safety (note: relates to Osiris, Egyptian god of the underworld, Pluto, Greek (Roman?) god of the underworld, and Charon, who shared a similar duty as Thoth, guiding souls to the land of the dead.) In short, Thoth served as an operating system for the ancient Egyptians."

<Denning, Peter J, ed. "The Thoth System: Multi-Process Structuring and Portability." Elsevier Science Publishers(New York) 1981.>

The rest of the book was a technical explanation of the primitive operating system.

David Cornwell <goldragonne@earthlink.net> points out that on "Aye Mak Sicur" we read the following terminal:

rest.design

~old
~imes
my old Pthia, lost, vacant, doubt
chaos, overpowering, underwhelming

two forces in balance
ancient endless balance
then nothing

skim.out

David goes onto say:

Sounds much like Thoth, no? The references to balance, the fact the text is white, while on the rest of the level it is green. Notice also the reference to Pthia, commonly associated with Yrro. Perhaps Yrro is Thoth? Take a minute to think about it, and many things will fall into place.

Is Yrro Thoth?

Are the Jjaro a race of AIs?

Jim Mitchell <BobJam@aol.com> writes:

The terminal that appears on "We're Everywhere" next to the second switch that activates the large door is in fact a message from the AI we activate on "Strange Aeons". You will notice that On the terminal the text &ci1lc appears in red but seems to hold no importance to the actual text within the terminal. On the first terminal of "You Think You're Big Time? You're Gonna Die Big Time!" we are presented with the piece of text in an almost identical manner to the text seen on "We're Everywhere". In this case it appears as ci1lc without the &. But who is the AI on "Strange Aeons"? It is possible to argue that it is Thoth, and that seems to be the most likely choice as the message "awaiting far beneath my fate was written" is sent to us from Thoth(?) on Converted Church. The confusing part about this is that if we do infact activate Thoth on Strange Aeons how was he so active on previous levels? I believe that the chip we find on Strange Aeons is actually the same chip that we find on Hang Brain (Durandal's Primal Pattern). When we insert the chip into the AI I believe we are merging the two AI's (Durandal and S'bhuth). On Charon Doesn't make Change we read that S'bhuth was meant not to be alone. This may mean that he has the capacity to hold the data of another AI or that he can't function properly without another one. On a different terminal on YTYBT we read that the AI's have "contacted S'boath". I believe that S'boath is a different AI that went with the S'pht'kr a thousand years ago and he was once part of S'bhuth.

Ah the mystery of the missing &. Is it really there but never displayed?

Is S'bhuth just the S'pht name for Thoth?

How did Durandal merge so easily with a Jjaro AI. Was he...?

Who was S'boath?

And why is a thousand of our lifetimes not equal to one moment over Y'sa's pit?

Check the The Missing Terminal on Confound Delivery for details on this.

Jim Mitchell <BobJam@aol.com> writes concerning the mysterious non-displaying & on the 1st terminal of "You Think You're Big Time? You're Gonna Die Big Time!"

I found that by splitting the Marathon 2 and Infinity maps that in both cases the '&' is located there. The exact appearance is $C2&ci1lc$C0 in infinity and $C2&ci1lc$C1 in Durandal. The $C2 and other numbers is just used to color the text and shouldn't have any bearing on whether or not the '&' appears. I see no reason why the '&' shouldn't appear unless it is seen as a command for some reason.

Max Lieberman <Lieb6@aol.com> writes concerning David Cornwall's suggestion above that Thoth was Yrro:

I agree with the suggestion that Yrro is Thoth. That explains a great deal about Thoth's instability, and his apparent need for a balancing force after losing his partner Pthia. I believe that Yrro/Thoth wrote the balance- oriented unformatted KYT terminal, as this explains the references to a female entity balancing against (with?) the author of the terminal. Additionally, I have doubts at this time that S'buth is the same as Yrro/Thoth, because of passages in both Marathon 2 and Infinity which talk about S'buth as a physical form, and describe him "bleeding". Additionally, the Infinity end screen says that S'bhuth saved his entire "race", which I interpret to mean that he saved the S'pht and was a S'pht. Didn't someone from Double Aught say that S'bhuth was S'pht royalty? Then again, didn't they also say that that meant that he was a "failed Jjaro"? I'm open to debate on this issue though...

John Zero <jzero@onramp.net< writes:

I do NOT agree with the suggestion that Yrro is Thoth. The passage I was unable to find is the same Double Aught quote that Max refers to, but I remember what it says. The Double Aught individual (Ydnar? Greg K.?) said that "Yrro" is a phonetic variation of "Jjaro", and therefore the same word (I suppose in the same way that you can spell Moammar Kadafi's name as Gadafy or Qadafi without problems, because the English letters only approximate the original phonetic sounds). Given this, it would seem that the references to "Yrro" refer to the Jjaro, or perhaps an individual of that race known to the S'pht. There might have been only one Jjaro known to the S'pht, which would explain the occasional singular adverbs.

This same Double Aught passage also refers to what Max says, that S'bhuth was "S'pht royalty" and a "failed Jjaro", and also (if I recall correctly) that the two are the same thing! Which would mean that the Jjaro and the S'pht are somehow connected developmentally, perhaps that the latter are the immature, unevolved form of the former, and only the "royalty", or superior individuals, can evolve into the higher state. So Max is correct when he says that S'bhuth was not a Yrro; but evidently, S'bhuth was close.

Given this, Thoth could not be a Yrro/Jjaro, because those words don't refer to AIs. ...Or do they? Perhaps the Jjaro are a race of evolved AIs, something like Durandal would like to be.

Mark Bassett <markb@iisc.co.uk> writes:

David asks "Is Yrro Thoth?", but we can quickly see the answer is "No". On the first message in "Strange Aeons" Thoth says to us:

foresight
 foresight
 ever on ever aught
 
 the long sleep ends
  never saw the dark path here
  
  who?
  comejjrro?

Thoth is asking if Yrro has come, so he can hardly be Yrro himself.

This also contradicts Max Liebermann's latest post to the story page.

I do agree with Max Liebermann that S'bhuth is not Yrro either. He's obviously one of the AIs Yrro created to look after the S'pht, when Yrro left after the death of Pthia.

So I think my original question still stands: Who _is_ talking on the Aye Mak Sicur terminal? The logo is Durandal/Thoth but the text is Yrro.

rest.design

~old
~imes
my old Pthia, lost, vacant, doubt
chaos, overpowering, underwhelming

two forces in balance
ancient endless balance
then nothing

skim.out

Scott de Brestian <c647100@showme.missouri.edu> writes concerning the following cryptic Thoth terminal on "Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks":

Glyphs never understood while
     [?young?alive]
now reveal the end of my creation:

When one of foreign speech
casts a [?papyrus] yoke upon the
     marsh,
Bethink you to keep the
     [?bleating goats]
far from Lh'owon.

<Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks (Terminal 1: 2nd message)>

Scott writes:

While doing some idle reading this summer, I found a reference that illuminates (somewhat) one of the terminals on BOART in Marathon 2: Glyphs never understood while [?young?alive]....

I found the following in Aubrey de Selincourt's translation of the Greek historian Herodotus (the common Penguin Classics version), page 531:

"When one of foreign speech casts a papyrus yoke upon the sea,
Bethink you to keep the bleating goats far from Euboea."

The context is Xerxes' invasion of Greece. The above was an oracle from the soothsayer Bacis warning the Euboeans, but they took no heed. The obvious interpretation is that the "one of foreign speech" is Xerxes, the "papyrus yoke" is the bridge over the Hellespont, which was partly composed of papyrus cables. The second line warns the Euboeans to remove their property from the island to safety. Herodotus records that they suffered by ignoring the oracle, but gives no details. Presumably there were Persian raids after their victory at Artemisium.

Now, I have no concrete ideas on how this might apply to the storyline in Marathon 2, although if the meaning is the same it would be a warning to the S'pht of the Pfhor invasion, advising them to preserve their valuables before it was too late. Clearly they didn't follow this course of action--as Thoth says these were "Glyphs never understood", a common characteristic of oracles is that they are not properly interpreted until too late.

However, this leaves problems. The papyrus yoke may be Xerxes' bridge, but what does it have to do with the Pfhor? Bleating goats are a reasonable characterization of the property of a Greek city state, but how do they relate to the S'pht? I am open to suggestions. One last issue: Any relation between the island Euboea in the original oracle and Epsilon Euboea?

Scott refers to Book Eight of Herodotus "The Histories". It relates the events of the naval battles between the Greeks and the invading Persians off the coast of the island of Euboea. These sea battles took place at the same time as the battles at Thermopylae. Herodotus in his "Histories" noted that in each case the objective was similar - to defend the passage into the heart of Greece.

Concerning Scott's interpretation I would like to offer the following suggestions. According to Herodotus the oracle at Bacis gave the following warning:

"When one of foreign speech casts a papyrus yoke upon the sea,
Bethink you to keep the bleating goats far from Euboea."

"When one of foreign speech..." was most likely the invading Persians as indicated by Scott.

"...casts a papyrus yoke upon the sea" however could represent the Persian fleet. "Papyrus" would have been used in the construction of their ships and a "yoke" is a common symbol of enslavement. Thus the Persian fleet could have been perceived as "a papyrus yoke upon the sea".

When the Greeks retreated from Euboea they put into effect the common war practice of 'slash and burn'. Thus they slaughtered the Euboean herds on the grounds that it was better that their own troops ate them than the Persians. Thus the poor Euboens were the victims of circumstance and had they listened to the oracle they would have kept their "bleating goats far from Euboea".

So how does this help us in interpreting the Thoth terminal above?

As Scott points out the "one of foreign speech..." are the Pfhor. The casting of a[?papyrus] yoke upon the marsh would be the Pfhor invasion of Lh'owon one thousand years before Marathon 2. Of course the Pfhor ships would not be composed of papyrus hence the translators "?".

The difficulty comes with the second line:

Bethink you to keep the[?bleating goats]far from Lh'owon.

Understandbly the translator is having problems with interpeting "bleating goats". Yet just like the Euboeans had been warned to keep their herds (which by implication would have involved themselves as well) from Euboea so too the S'pht had been warned to get away from Lh'owon.

Concerning the lines:

Glyphs never understood while
     [?young?alive]
now reveal the end of my creation:

"...end of my creation" may refer to the S'pht themselves. It is generally believed that Yrro (and Pthia) created the S'pht to help terraform Lh'owon. So did the S'pht not understand or take notice of the glyphs (a form of writing) when they were young/alive resulting in their ultimate decimation and enslavement when the Pfhor arrived?

There is some discussion about the island of Euboea and Epsilon Euobea in the Historical & Mythological References in Marathon section. It's not clear whether Bungie deliberately spelt Euboea "Euobea" or whether this is an error. Others have spelt it this way too. University of Waterloo how odd. :-) There is a volcano called Euboea Fluctus on Jupiter's moon Io (eye o). Io was the originally planned name for the sci-fi movie "Outland" starring Sean Connery. The film is set on Io. I could go on!.

Those interested in Greek history might be interested in the parallels between the warring S'pht clans and the feuding Greek city-states around the time of the Persian Wars. It is a classic example of the saying "United we stand, divided we fall". It wasn't until 479 B.C. that a united Greek army defeated the Persians at Plataea. The Persian Wars were finally over.

Reading Herodotus "The Histories" further, specifically Book Seven I would have to agree with Scott de Brestian's interpretation of "...casts a papyrus yoke upon the sea..." as being "the bridge over the Hellespont". According to Herodotus one of Xerxes's first tasks prior to invading Greece was the bridging of the Hellespont from Abydos to the headland between Sestus and Madytus a distance of almost two-thirds of a mile. See map (283K). Two bridges were in fact constructed. The Phoenicians building one of ropes made from flax, and the Egyptians building a second one out of papyrus. However no sooner had the strait been bridged and a violent storm swept the bridges away. After executing the engineers Xerxes had two new bridges constructed this time with ropes composed of both papyrus and flax. This combination proved stronger and the bridges held. The bridges over the Hellespont are sometimes referred to as Xerxes's yoke. A yoke used to tether Europe to Asia. Herodotus relates how Xerxes' army took seven days and nights without a break to cross the Hellespont. The invasion of Greece had begun.

One odd thing about all this is why the Thoth terminal relates an ancient oracle warning dating from mid 5th century BCE?

Was this just an amusing addition by Bungie, presumably Jason Jones given his classical background? While the text doesn't fit perfectly since there is no Pfhor equivalent of a "papyrus yoke" the oracle's warning is famous so why not use it in the context of the Pfhor invasion of Lh'owon?

Then again it could be something more.

Kieran Wheeler <dragonpsycho@innocent.com> writes concerning Scott de Brestian's interpretation of the cryptic Thoth terminal on "Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks":

...this interpretation of Thoth's message throws all we know about him and the S'pht'Kr into question. Since Thoth was created by the S'pht'Kr, and then left as a communication device to summon them back, then they must have written the glyph. Or, if they didn't, then they must have understood it. Either way, it adds a second meaning to the S'pht'Kr's leaving. Just being sick of war might have prompted them to move to K'lia (the moon), but understanding what was to come, they left. (I think they weren't ready yet to fight off invaders, so they left a warning in hopes their brethren would understand, and left so that they would not die, and hopefully grow stronger. Then, Thoth was left behind to resummon them when the pieces were put together, so that the S'pht'Kr could not only rejoin the other clans, but also liberate them.

But then, this might mean that "bleating goats" does indeed mean personal posessions (and possibly the S'pht themselves; remember they used to be less than sentient); and, stemming from that, it means that the S'pht'Kr probably did not create thoth, they just understood the glyphs better than the others ("not understood while I was young/alive" is, I think, a reference to the other ten tribes' understanding, not that of the 'Kr). Which calls into question how old we think Thoth is.

Forrest Cameranesi <forrest@west.net> writes:

Reading through the Thoth section again, something occured to me:

i was left behind                &ci1lc

our paths conv^rge

our fates are shared

chance tears and bends

How do we know that Thoth is reffering to himself and the intended reader when he speaks of "our" paths, and "our" fates. I think that he speaks of the S'pht'Kr. He was left behind. Their paths converge. Their fates are shared, chance tears and bends. I think that, as has been suggested, this is a recorded message left by Thoth, saying that his creators, the S'pht'Kr, left him behind, and that no matter whan tears and bends that change throws their way, their paths will converge because their fates are shared. That is, Thoth was left behind specifically to call the S'pht'Kr, and this message was left as a reminder of his existance. In another term, he says:

 I understand.

Your construct searched for my
     creators,

wishing to tell them
(that their old brothers are now)
slaves;
waiting to be freed.

A connection [?ansible] was left;
awaiting the next quiet [?peace];

and though destroyed by the threes,
it will scream over the void one time.

I think that the ansible is himself, and that he was "destroyed" by being turned off. As they Pfhor deactivated him, he left the message on We're Everywhere, to remind whoever was there to read it in a future period of peace that he was there, and all they need do is turn him on and he'll call the S'pht'Kr back to fix everything.

The following has been mentioned by a number of people over the years but I've never added it to the page. Why? Well I wanted some evidence and now there is some.

Sriranga Veeraraghavan <tranga@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> writes:

I was reading about Robert Blake today, and I just happened to look at the terminals for Kill You Television. Here is the text from the second message of the second terminal:

          NDfdiscared @%041/3$!1

Humans of yours are near [?death],
but by your dead construct's
     transporters
to [?save] them I will send you;
while I seek [?perception] of this
     new world.


           mi41nor 7*(^tf

Notice that in the last line the string:

mi41nor

appears. I might be going out on a limb, but doesn't this look like:

mjolnir

If you consider that in latin (a bungie favorite) i and j are both i represented by the letter i. The letter j (more appropriately J) is a new addition. The romans never used it. It was added during the middle ages.

For example, JULIUS is often written as IVLIVS. Another example is that JEHOVA is spelled IEHOVA in latin (recall form Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy and Henry say "In latin JEHOVA is spelt with an I").

Take a look at:

http://www.ghgcorp.com/shetler/rome/rulers/tria.html

"The alphabet we use today (called the Latin alphabet) has three extra letters which the Classical Latin alphabet didn't have: u, j, and w."

Last year (or maybe 1996) National Geographic had two issues about Rome and its legacy. It covered this fact also.

I don't know how to explain the 41, but since most of the Thoth terms appear to to have extraneous characters, we can conjecture that these are transmission errors.

Of course it could equally be interpreted as the word "minor" with the number 41 in the middle. Go figure.

David Curry <CirclMastr@aol.com> writes:

Regarding Forrest Cameranesi's comment "I think that the ansible is himself, and that he was "destroyed" by being turned off. As they Pfhor deactivated him, he left the message on We're Everywhere, to remind whoever was there to read it in a future period of peace that he was there, and all they need do is turn him on and he'll call the S'pht'Kr back to fix everything."

I don't think the Pfhor turned off Thoth, or were even aware of what he was. On "This Side Toward Enemy (Terminal 2: 2nd messege)" Blake tells us, "The S'pht have verified the partial activation of the AI. The Pfhor are already curious about what we are doing, but when they realize what we have found they will go insane." and later on "My Own Private Thermopylae (Terminal 1: 1st messege)" he says, "They must realize that we intend to awaken this ancient S'pht computer, and whether they understand our reasons for doing so or not, I am certain the Pfhor will continue to make every effort to stop us." This says to me that the Pfhor at most knew there was a deactivated AI in the bowels of Lh'owon. After all, if they knew what it would do, why would they just turn it off instead of destroying it?

Also, I recall Durandal telling us that the Pfhor stopped messing with the technology they found after implanting a Jjaro device caused the worst slave revolt in some number of years, though I can't remember what terminal.

Seems to me this all adds up to the Pfhor not wanting to touch any AI they may find, which precludes them from turning him on or off.