: All very odd. Of course, there is the fuss about the fully automatic setting
: on the Assault Rifle, which you can read about here.
The AR is certainly a head-scratcher. Were I writing some sort of adaptation of Marathon I'd explain the supposed ".75 caliber" as a typo where "7.5 mm" would have been much more appropriate because 7.5 mm or .30 cal is a standard AR caliber today while a 3/4" round is something more likely to be found in an anti-aircraft cannon.
The theta error is described in the Marathon manual as a manufacturing defect, which is plausible if the weapon we're using was perhaps a clone or "shop model" made by Martian rebels/separatists and hidden in the Marathon and/or eventually added to its security inventory. It seems to me that a military-grade weapons manufacturer wouldn't have made so many rifles with such an obvious flaw; perhaps given the layout of Mars bases, space stations, and the Marathon itself, which are really only tight corridors or expanded enclosed spaces, it made more sense to have a repeating rifle that was more effective at clearing things at close ranges than shooting accurately at great distances (which the grenade launcher seems better suited for).
Such a "modification" may have been desired by rebels/separatists/illicit arms dealers in a similar way that sawed-off shotguns are.
