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Marathon is a series of science fiction first-person shooter computer games from Bungie Software released for the Apple Macintosh.

The first game, Marathon (1994), was followed by two sequels: Marathon 2: Durandal (1995) and Marathon Infinity (1996). Marathon 2 was also released for Windows 95. An emulator named Aleph One is currently capable of running Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity on a PC running Windows XP.

Games in the series

Marathon

Marathon was released for the Apple Macintosh and was one of the earliest first-person shooters to appear on the Macintosh. Unlike some other similar games of that era (for example, id Software's Doom) Marathon and its sequels, Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity were notable for their intricate plots.

Set in the year 2794 A.D., the game placed the player as the Chief Security Officer aboard the human starship U.E.S.C. Marathon (formerly the moon Deimos of Mars), orbiting a colony on the planet Tau Ceti IV. Throughout the game, the player attempts to defend the ship and its inhabitants from a race of alien slavers called the Pfhor. As he fights against the invaders, he witnesses interactions between the three shipboard AIs Leela, Durandal and Tycho, and discovers that all is not as it seems aboard the Marathon. Durandal has gone rampant and appears to be playing off the Humans against the Pfhor to further his own agenda.

Marathon 2: Durandal

Marathon 2: Durandal was the sequel to Marathon. In addition to being released for the Apple Macintosh, a Windows 95 version was also released.

Marathon 2 begins 17 years after the first game ends, as the player's ship arrives at the ruined S'pht homeworld Lh'owon. Durandal, having captured the Security Officer at the end of Marathon, sends the player and an army of ex-colonists to search the ruins of Lh'owon for information which would give Durandal an advantage against the Pfhor, who are planning a new assault on humanity. Among the new characters in this adventure are Durandal's evil counterpart Tycho, a Lh'owon-native species known as F'lickta, an ancient and mysterious race of advanced aliens called the Jjaro, and the long-lost S'pht'Kr clan.

The game engine itself underwent several changes from its first incarnation. Although most of these changes were "under-the-hood", a few were visible to the user. The Marathon 2 engine offered performance gains on some machines, in addition to support for higher resolutions, higher color depths, and better quality sound. The enhanced engine also allowed the loading of maps, physics and graphics from external files, allowing for users to (later) create and play their own maps more easily than with Marathon.

Marathon Infinity

Marathon Infinity included more levels than Marathon 2, which were larger, scarier, and part of a more intricate plot. The game's code changed little since Marathon 2, and many levels can be played unmodified in both games. Marathon Infinity was only released for the Apple Macintosh. The most dramatic improvement in the game was the inclusion of Bungie's own level-creating software, Forge, and their physics editor, Anvil. Forge and Anvil allowed a new generation of players to create their own levels using the same tools as the Bungie developers themselves. In Forge, distance was measured in 'World Units', which are roughly equivalent to 2 metres (6 or 7 feet). Another improvement was the ability to include separate monster, weapons, and physics definitions for each level, a feature heavily used by Double Aught, who designed the Marathon Infinity levels.

Marathon Infinity is considered one of the most confusing computer games of all time. For example, Infinity begins as if large parts of Marathon 2 never happened. Through time travel granted by the Jjaro, the Security Officer finds himself jumping between alternate realities, seeking to prevent a chaotic entity from being released from Lh'owon's dying sun. For example, the Security Officer begins the game as Durandal's ally, only to be transported to a reality where Durandal did not capture the Security Officer after the events of Marathon. As such, he is controlled by the Pfhor-tortured Marathon AI Tycho.

Through multiple instances of these 'jumps', the Security Officer (seemingly the only being who realizes he is being transported between possible realities) activates the ancient Jjaro station, preventing the chaotic entity's release - if it even really existed. The ending screen of Infinity aids little in understanding, taking place millions of years after the events of Marathon Infinity.

In going from Marathon 2 to Marathon Infinity, Bungie was given a joke award by MacFormat magazine for 'largest version number increase'.

Aleph One

Shortly before being acquired by Microsoft, Bungie released the source code for the Mac version of Marathon 2. This was ported by fans of the game to many platforms, including Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and even Sega Dreamcast, and features various enhancements including Internet play, OpenGL rendering, scripting, full support for all Marathon Infinity levels and physics, and in-level music. The name Aleph One was chosen as it is a larger number than infinity (in this case assumed to be Aleph-null).

Halo and Marathon

Halo, a more recent game by Bungie (now a division of the Microsoft Game Studios conglomerate), shares many features with Marathon and early on was widely considered to be Marathon 4. Bungie has 'officially' stated that Halo and Marathon are completely separate universes, other writings from Bungie comment that there are connections between the two game series, but they will never make direct connections. Nods to the series include the Marathon logo embedded in the Halo logo, Hunters, Mjolnir battle armor, and SPNKR rocket launchers. Both plots involve aggressive alien races attacking humans, highly advanced ancient races who leave artifacts behind, well-written AI characters, in both games the player is a cybernetically enhanced human. Halo plays very much like a modern, high end version of Marathon (although it is far more linear). Bungie often recycles components, famous phrases and jokes from its games - the most powerful sword in Minotaur (a very early Bungie game) was called "Durandal" after Roland's sword, and this is also the name of an AI in the Marathon series.

Miscellany

In addition to the three Marathon games, several games by non-Bungie developers (e.g. Damage Incorporated and ZPC) used the Marathon 2 engine.

Characters

The Pfhor

The Pfhor are an extraterrestrial ancient spacefaring race of alien slavers seeking to control the galaxy and perform numerous evil deeds in the games. The Pfhor are bipedal, somewhat taller than humans, have three red eyes and green skin, and come in a variety of classes and flavors. In Marathon, the three eyes are arranged in a triangle, pointing down, making the unmasked Pfhor look a little clownish, but the later games shifted the "arrow" to point up, with the third eye in a more "enlightened" position in the middle of the forehead.

The following varieties vary only slightly between the games.

• The most basic variety is the Fighter, a lightly armored pfhor wielding a shock staff (capable of firing a "projectile" in the case of the blue and orange types). Fighters come in four flavors, in order of ascending rank and nastiness: Green, Purple, Orange, and Blue.
• Troopers are heavily armored and pack automatic rifle/grenade launcher combo weapons. Troopers come also in Green and Purple flavors.
• Hunters are the Pfhor assault troops. They wear very heavy armor and have shoulder-mounted energy cannons. They come in three flavors: Brown, Green, and Blue.
• Enforcers are the Pfhor MP's. They wear strange cloaks and possess alien shotgun weapons. They come in two different types, with blue/orange enforcers being tougher and faster than green/blue ones.
• The Juggernaut (aka The Big Floaty Thing What Kicks Our Asses) is the Pfhor tank. These flying armored weapons platforms are like a mix of a tank and an attack helicopter, only bigger and badder. They fire dual homing RPGs as well as machineguns/alien shotgun bursts. They come in two flavors: Bad and Worse (Grey and Brown).

Exceedingly tough, monochrome-colored versions of all of the Pfhor (except for Juggernauts) appear in the Vidmaster Challenge stages, a series of skill challenges hidden at the end of Marathon: Infinity.

The Pfhor also utilize the 'Conditioned Ranks', or enslaved soldiers, who are forced to fight for the empire. Conquered races make up the majority of the conditioned ranks. The S'pht and the Drinniol (or "Hulks") are the only conquered races encountered during play in the Marathon games, while the Nahk are referred to as a now-extinct race that once attempted rebellion. The Nar are also mentioned as another race presently resisting Pfhor enslavement, but are likewise never witnessed in person (although images of them appear alongside some of the game's terminal texts).

The S'pht

The S'pht are a race of alien cyborgs, cybernetically enhanced by the Jjaro to terraform Lh'owon. They were enslaved by the Pfhor c. 1810 A.D., and liberated en masse by Durandal and the unenslaved and technologically superior S'pht'Kr clan in 2811 A.D. The S'pht consist of extremely complex brains carried in flying cybernetic bodies. They are armed with a built-in energy pulse weapon and some carry cloaking devices.

F'lickta

F'lickta are native creatures of Lh'owon, living in sewers, water pools, and lava. They are ancestors of the S'pht and often harass Pfhor forces. F'lickta have a simplified digestive system, absorbing nutrients through their skin from the sludge they live in, and are extremely irritable. Entering their home turf unarmed is not recommended. F'lickta allow their eggs to develop in their large mouth-like orifices located on the front of their abdomen.

The Jjaro

Little is known about the Jjaro, an extremely advanced species which disappeared from our galaxy millions of years ago (they are not seen in-game), leaving much of their technology to fall into the hands of the Pfhor. The Jjaro are known to have possessed high-quality cyborg technology (such as that used to create the S'pht), a star-destroying weapon known as the Trih'Xeem, and the ability to move entire planets by warping space around them (as used by the S'pht'Kr).

In S'pht mythology, the two creators Yrro and Pthia were most likely to be either specific members of the Jjaro race or personifications of the whole race.

The Jjaro were first used in an earlier Bungie game, Pathways Into Darkness.

There has also been a popular theory that the Jjaro are the Forerunners alluded to in the Halo (video game series) games - at the very least, they fulfil a similar role in the series.

BOBs

Other than the player's character, the human characters in the game are all referred to as "BOBs" (which stands for "Born On Board"). They wear different-colored suits, but all have the same face. In Marathon, most are harmless and generally ignore the player (and occasionally announce "They're everywhere!"); in Durandal and Infinity most carry weapons and will attack the enemies. If the player begins to attack them, they will consider him a traitor and in return start attacking him. However, a few, called simulacrums (or "assimilated BOBs"), are actually living bombs; upon seeing the player's character, they will run directly towards him (usually shouting things like "I'm out of ammo!", "Thank God it's you!" or the infamous "Frog blast the vent core!" (see below)), and when close enough they will explode and inflict severe damage to him and to other BOBs. This is especially a problem on levels where a certain number of BOBs must be protected to pass to the next level. Some common signs that a BOB was assimilated were: speaking certain phrases, if they ran towards you, a green uniform (though only some "normal" BOBs had green uniforms, assimilated BOBs always wore green), and if tagged by a bullet, yellow blood.

"Frog blast the vent core!"

This is a phrase synonymous with the Marathon series. Explosive BOB "simulacrums" occasionally shout the phrase, trying to blend in with the regular BOBs and explode around a large amount of humans. Since sometimes they are merely only piecing together random words, their nonsense can give them away. Doug Zartman, who performed the BOB voices, was instructed during recording to improvise a random phrase, and this is what he came up with. It is very popular to say in the text chat of a network game of Marathon; meant more as a joke than anything; the sheer randomness of this phrase means it can be used at any time.

The phrase has appeared hidden in other games, such as Myth, Tron 2.0, and Oni.

One of the latter stages of Bungie's successful XBox game Halo involves the player throwing frag grenades into a ship's reactor vent core. Whether this is also a reference to the above line is still unclear.

External links

• http://marathon.bungie.org
• The Trilogy Release: site holding free, legal downloads of the entire Marathon Trilogy
• Marathon Open Source Project
• Marathon's Story Site: an essential reference if you're lost in Marathon's plot.
• MaraWiki: Wiki site dedicated to all things Marathon.
• http://www.marathon.org
• the Battle Cat's Litterbox: Marathon map making tutorials and resources.
• Lh'owon Ar'kives: The most complete collection of Marathon maps and related files.
• Marathon Story Forums: The deep Marathon story line is still being discussed after all these years.
• The Aleph One Quick Start Guide: Contains information for Linux, Mac and PC users including networking, graphics and scenarios.

• Mac OS-only games
• First-person shooters
• 1994 computer and video games
• 1995 computer and video games
• 1996 computer and video games
• Science fiction computer games
• Fictional spacecraft