: In writing WMaiD, I've come across this many times - how does one (and how
: did Bungie?) get around fate influencing the marine, and in turn, the
: marine influencing the destine events dictated by fate? It involves some
: chicken/egg logic, which is why I find it so perplexing.
The way I've always treated destiny in relation to the Marathon player-character is that he is not the author of "Destiny", by which I mean effectively the same as "history", but forward-looking instead of backward-looking - he is not the one who designed what events have happened or are going to happen. Rather, he is the enactor of destiny - the one who actually makes those events occur. The authors, of course, are the Jjaro.
To use a metaphor, the Jjaro are the writers and directors of the great play that is the universe (or at least the 'version of the universe' [i.e. timeline] which they are directing). The player is their main character, and is dictated by the script to do such-and-such. If he screws up his part, the directors can always shout "cut!", rewind the scene and try again until he gets it down right.
The W'rkncacnter, as I envision them as basically "bad Jjaro", are effectively beings who've managed to get into the director's chair but they keep breaking the fourth wall and stepping into the scene to move shit around without a cut and re-take. The resulting play makes no sense to an objective audience and good directors would get pissed if some of these bad ones tried to direct their play that way. Which ironically is what the player's role in the Jjaro's play is about: to anticipate the crap that the W'rkncacnter are going to pull and do things in such a way that they never get a chance to cheat through the fourth wall. The metaphor kind of breaks down here, though.
Of course, I also hold that all such "plays" happen, every "cut!" take actually continues, and another take is begun parallel to it from the point the re-take starts from. Hence, in the fourth failure dream in Eternal, when Hathor has become like a W'rkncacnter and effectively conquered that version of the universe, she says "Make yourself another [timeline] if it matters to you, I already have what I want." We go back in time and try the universe again, but Hathor's conquered timeline in that future still 'exists' in a multilinear sense of the word 'exist'.
