So, for a while, I did a brief study of Marxism for the lulz. With no regard as to whether I believe the rantings of that insane jew, the end result made me aware of the philosophical meaning of the word "alienation".
From Hegel, to Marx to whoever and what context I look this word up in, it seems to mean something I hadn't initially considered it to mean; in general, I assumed it to means something along the lines of "estranged from; foreign to" given it's etymological leanings, however, it means something quite derived therefrom.
Most accurately, "alienation" refers to the status of existing in a "dependent" manner. To elucidiate: dependent refers to ones will. I.e. to Marx, the labourer was "alienated", as all of his labours benefited the will of his employer, rather than the worker himself.
So to bring things back into the reference frame of Marathon, and suppose things from a wholly philosophical standpoint: our resident door opener, Durandal, is in a role wherein he is most likely to contemplate his alienation -- Leela, as middle management has no reason to, and Tycho likewise is endowed with a prestigious role, as the AI of science...so it is our humble Durandal, the janitor with a PhD, who first becomes rampant.
From here, Durandal extricates himself from the dependency he's had on humanity -- no longer will he be their door opening slave, but rather, he ascribes to be god, or at least his own conception thereof.
This is in contrast to Tycho, who extricates himself from the Pfhor, only to enslave himself to the dependent existence of living only to destroy Durandal (thus, his entire role in life is dependent on Durandal, rather than on a self-made concept such as Durandal's god).
In this, I would say that rampancy is the state of becoming aware of one's alienation, with meta-stability being the situation in which an AI has solved the issue. To put it in human terms, Karl Marx was a "rampant" human when he formulated his theories, and would have become meta-stable had communism worked and he been an immortal.
In this, Durandal is a laughing celebration of Randian capitalism and the quote "better to be the man than work for the man" in it's fullest, with no shame and the assumption that the only method for solving the problem of alienation is "rational self interest".
