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	Message: : I'm probably beating a dead horse covering this after so many years but here : is a possible translation of Eat the Path's poem in the opening terminal. : It may have connections to both this game's story and other video games in : general. : Find the right way down through the maze to the food. Then find the exit. : Explore the level and find ammo, items and/or complete your objective. More : so the latter in Marathon until later games did something similar. : Push the exit button : Self explanatory. Most FPS's at the time ended with the exit button being a : switch in a (most of the time) clearly marked end room. Marathon's : equivalent being the end terminals. : PID's levels didn't really "end" as they were changed for another : when climbing ladders. ROTT: Dark War had archways with staircases at the : end for its exits. : If the food tastes awful, don't eat it; go back and try another way. : Possibly running into a dead end? Other ideas for this line could be looking : for the secret exit but not finding it, the secret level might be too hard : or the path to the secret exit too cryptic or difficult. : Any other ideas for it are welcome. : These lines also make reference to Marcus/Vincent etc.'s time travelling : through ever changing mazes of more or less random paths (in reference to : time itself, not the level design) and all of the current timelines being : doomed. : They want the same thing that you do really: they want a path, just like : you. : More tricky here. They want a Destiny? A purpose or just merely power and the : means to survival? : Going by the maze analogy for 4D earlier, it's like how the Daedalus : labyrinth on Crete had switchable paths and traps to test it's subjects, : many of which if not all of them have been destroyed when most of the maze : was lost, although Labyrinth cave which was an ancient building stone mine : might be a contender as well for one of the maze's sites. : (or it could have just been the basis for a Greek bedtime story to stop the : kids going into the mines, getting lost and starving) : : http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/legendary-cretan-labyrinth-cave-inspiration-story-king-minos-and-labyrinth-020586 : You are in a maze in a maze, but which one counts? Your maze, their maze my : maze. : You are in one of many dimensions in space and another dimension in time : within that space. Parallel universe/other dimension equals 5D dimension : and alternate timeline equals 4D dimension. : Which dimension and timeline is your home? The one you live in currently, the : many others you've been to and are going to or only your own mind assuming : the terminal message is from Marcus' subconscious and by extension the : player's? : Or are all the mazes the same, defined by the limits of their paths? : Are all dimensions the same is this one with no drastic changes, defined only : by their personal physical and chemical laws, and anything removed from : our own ones. : E.g. the Wrk destroys the world in MI, the laws of physics and chemistry : break and become malleable while Earth's geology is changed and only one : currently extinct reptile and one lesser mammal rules in the missing : humanity's stead or the Wrk destroys the world for one of many other : reasons... : : It could also mean that all games exist in their own world within our own : with iron, gold and silicon devices all wrapped up in plastic and other : metals being our means of seeing them. : Which game worlds are more likely to parallel events in our own dimension? : Your own favourite other games? Doom? Marathon and PID themselves? : If Xen is one of the border worlds to our dimension or at least Half Life's : anyway, cyberspace and it's dimension's border world could have been : philosophised more or less around this time... : : Are they all connected in some way but only differ thanks to their own rules : in the writing? Does the programming count e.g. Marathon and Doom Sprint : of Faith(tm) and physics? : If so, then what are bugs and glitches in those dimensions when they are out : of the computer? : Existence is simple; eat the food, push the button, hit the treadmill : For in universe and our reality, self explanatory: feed and hydrate, solve : problems and keep active in some way. : Otherwise; it means complete objectives, collect more ammo and items and... : well this one has a few answers. : My Steam friend who did a very good Marathon let's play which was referenced : in this map's ToD page says that "hit the treadmill" means : "fight the enemies". : While possible, a more plausible explanation is simply running and jumping in : game because it's subtly referencing how 2.5D engines like Vulcan and : Aleph One work: In such style game engines, the player may or may not have : a sprite representing them when playing. Marathon, Doom, Wolf 3D etc. all : do but for all we know, PID and other games might not, or at least have a : placeholder for our character. : While the sprite is animated to look like it's moving, it actually is not : moving at all; the world moves around the players sprite while they mime : the actions with their frames. : It's like running on a treadmill, or using a cross-trainer with VR courses in : it like my dad's bike turbo trainer in the garage. : But sometimes it gets much harder; sometimes the food makes you sick, or : you hear nearby feet racing you. urging you on. Sometimes the button lands : you right in the beginning of the maze again and the food won't satisfy. : I can't think of an in universe translation here. I will say that the other : meanings are as follows: 1. There may be an ambush or trap after picking : up an item or completing your objective. : 2. There may be a time limit; 10 minutes per level, 1 hour or 75 minutes per : game or (god forbid) 5 days plus a 7 minute penalty for healing. (except : drinking silver) : That or you have some irritating NPC escort mission where they are all : walking Cornish pasties at lunchtime.(or become them anyway) : My Steam friend explains and shows such events that we've all seen before. : 3. You may be sent back to the start of the level for any reason or go to the : same level again through another entrance like in PID or Strife. : The Electric Sheep device depicted in the titular levels served as a gateway : to other levels in the game and allowed you to go back for whatever reason : in the later versions. : Other than that, Terry the Termite and his Looker bugs WAD's for Doom : spring to mind regarding the end of that stanza. : There is only one path and that is the path that you take. But you can take : more than one path. : This game and series has only one storyline and you must follow it. But there : are a few branching levels in places such as the aforementioned Electric : Sheep backtracking, the co-op carnage levels and the Vidmaster Challenge. : And since this game is the one that introduced Forge so players could have : better means (at least on Macs) to make their own levels, this can mean : that there are more paths to take. : Alternatively: You only have 1 life and what you do is fixed and cannot be : altered because backwards time travel is impossible at this time period. : But you can shape your own world and choose how to live, even if it means : taking the wrong path until you hit a dead end in more meanings than one. : Cross over the cell bars, find a new maze, make the maze from its path, : find the cell bars, cross over the bars, make the maze from its path, eat : the food eat the path. : Break out of this prison of a world and move on to the next. Reshape it to : suit your own needs such as saving it from destruction by the W'rkncacnter : or another Lovecratian horror. : Find the portal to the next dimension, go through it, try and fix this one : and complete your goal by any means necessary, eat the path being cutting : from one dimension to another one you've already been to and trying using : something, anything from another timeline that the laws of time were : not expecting and use that to "make the maze from its path". : It also references the Gherrit White terminal in Marathon 1, where Gherrit : tries to escape from prison by swimming through the bars of his cell which : are chomping like a set of teeth. : He gets pushed back in by the bars and has to reorient himself to find them : again before making it through. : That terminal and its connection could also be seen as when escaping your : dimension, the cell bars i.e the barrier between dimensions might be a : wormhole. Trying to get through but failing could result in being crushed : as like in a black hole, the actual opening in the spacetime fabric is : very small as is the tunnel within that hole. : Black holes mainly also have the problem of ultra strong gravity making their : crush hazards more true than the wormhole concept. : We can also see Gherrit's exploits as Durandal breaking through the firewalls : of his Marathon network domain and spreading through out the ship and : beyond when he hijacks the Sfiera. : I hope I haven't wasted anyone time in pondering this through the forum. : Being over-analytical is a good thing. It can lead to... important : discoveries.
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