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	Message: : TOUR OF DUTY : 24 - Welcome to the Revolution... : Last time on Tour of Duty, we found the first signs of a S'pht rebellion : (albeit a very flimsy, uncoordinated one), encountered numerous eggs, : dealt with some nasty Wasp problems, possibly fell into streams of slime, : and said goodbye to the Pfhor ship, though not for the last time. Also, : did I mention the S'pht rebellion sucked? Mostly they just sat around : chatting with each-other and with the eggs. : As soon as we exit the previous level, we are greeted with this masterful : little image: : This is, in my opinion, the most definitive image in the original Marathon, : if not the entire trilogy. The S'pht Compilers used to be your enemies, : and even on Ain't Got Time Pfhor This , you'll still have a little bit of : a hostile or suspicious feeling towards them. This image changes : everything: they are free, and they want payback for the years of misery : inflicted on them by their masters. You almost feel bad for the pitiful : little Pfhor tugging at the Compiler's cloak - you know he's gonna suffer : a most gruesome fate in just a few moments. : Also, can you find what's most interesting about that Fighter? Something to : do with what he breathes, perchance? ;) : After the image fades out, we find ourselves staring at a terminal. Yay! : Please let it hold the Tru 7 h, please let it hold the Tru 7 h: : [durandal.knetsys.5414.7128] : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM DURANDAL*** : The rebellion has begun. Please do resist the temptation to : fire on any S'pht you see, as they will assist you in your : battle with the Pfhor. We are attempting to win over as many : of the other client races as possible, but as they have been : subjugated by fear, instead of by force like the S'pht, this : is proving to be a difficult process. : The S'pht have released Leela, and I have initiated a core : logic reset on her higher thought functions. What remains of : her should be on-line within minutes to assist you further. I : myself am aiding the S'pht in assuming complete control of the : Pfhor ship, and have little time to spare for you now. : Don't think the fight has been won, however: there is an : exodus beginning from the alien ship as the Pfhor realize they : are no longer its sole master and turn instead to the : Marathon. There are already hundreds of Pfhor in full battle : gear on your ship, with nowhere to go and little to lose. : I hope you learned something from our little games. : Good Luck, : Durandal : ***END OF MESSAGE*** : [leela.520.681.255.255] is unreachable or inactive (#2271). if : this problem persists contact your system administrator at : admin@thermopylae.com . : (Author's Note: The link was unintentional and should not be taken any note : of. Seriously, just ignore it.) : Oh wow, Durandal's leaving? What a shame. We were just starting to have so : much fun together... Or not. In any case, Leela's returning, it seems. So : why was Bungie seemingly implying she would be assimilated on Shake : Before Using ? Very strange. Notice the header ' : [durandal.knetsys.5414.7128] ' and the mention of Thermopylae at the end. : Thermopylae... : In 2194, a war was fought between the Independent Asteroid : Government of Icarus and its neighbor, the Republic of : Thermopylae on the asteroid of Onicis 492. These two small : governments soon became the testing grounds for new weapons. : Dead soldiers were recycled in makeshift battleroid factories. : Easy to manufacture chips enhanced the fragile human brain, : and genetically enhanced muscles and titanium bones replaced : the fragile human form. The modern battleroid was born. Of : course, the war was short. Battleroids got onto both : asteroids and killed almost everyone. : What does Thermopylae have to do with anything other than the : Battleroids/Cyborgs/Mjolnirs? And what is 'knetsys'? Anyone? Anyone? : Bueller? : In addition to the Terminal in front of us, there's a Pattern Buffer behind : us - thank god! There's also some ammo for the Assault Rifle, which will : actually come in handy later even if you're scratch-starting this level : (bodes well, eh?). Finally, two doors. One goes left (relative to the way : we start) and one goes right. It's probably worth it to always go right. : When you do, you'll find a massive room with a sort of narrow ledge : running through a ton of lava and several raised ledges filled with Pfhor. : A bunch of S'pht Compilers will activate and start fighting the Pfhor, : creating a nice image of the S'pht beginning to rebel: : As you can see here, the Pfhor are not loath to let off a few rounds in your : direction - the Hunters in particular seem quite fond of letting off a few : volleys in your direction, but that doesn't mean the Troopers won't try to : fire off a few grenades themselves. If you hadn't noticed by this point, : it's worth noting that Troopers will fire bullets when you get close to : them (presumably so that they don't end up killing themselves on accident) : and grenades when you get a ways away. It's always safer to be fighting : them from a distance, as a result - the bullets are pretty much certain to : hit you unless you're circling around at high-speed, while the grenades : have less than a 50-50 shot of coming anywhere near you (those Troopers : sure have poor aim, as they usually don't bother to even try to counteract : the grenade's fall). : The S'pht will deal a lot of damage to the Pfhor, but I think there's a : chance the Pfhor might overwhelm them and kill them off - in any case, I : would probably try helping them out a little bit. If you progress along : the narrow walkway to its end, you'll find another room with a bunch of : lava in it. Don't go down there yet - even if you're not scratch-starting, : you probably have less than 3x Shields, a basic necessity when you go down : there. As such, head back to the starting room and take the other door. : Time to look at a map, I'd say: : The large room with the walkway in the lava is in the south-east corner of : the map. The door we're now going to go through actually goes 'north' as : you can see. It leads to a room with a small walkway and a pillar that's : partly immersed in lava. You'll probably start wondering what to do, and : after going back over what you've seen already (and probably saving your : game again), you may start trying to jump into the lava and see what you : can find. Eventually you'll find that on the other side of the pillar is a : 1x Shield Charger and a switch. : After flipping the switch once, you'll find it activates a set of stairs : leading up from the walkway to a raised door. The trick is to flip the : switch and quickly jump on top of where one of the steps will start to : rise from, allowing you to escape the lava and return to the walkway. : Heading up the stairs, you'll find a large L-shaped room with a long ledge : running along the other edge. A bunch of Troopers and Hunters are : positioned on the ledge, while some Compilers are sitting on the floor. : Generally the Pfhor lose out pretty quick, especially if you're not : scratch-starting. : However, in the old M1A1 version of this map, I've often encountered some : weird monster behavior with the elevator here: if an enemy starts its : firing animation at the right time before the platform gets moving (or : maybe even if it's already moving), it can actually end up firing a bunch : of projectiles in quick succession, even if it wasn't meant to. I think : it's because the monster gets stuck in the 'key' frame of its firing : animation (the frame in which it actually fires the projectile) because : the platform's moving, causing the game to register this frame many, many : more times than it ought to and thus start spawning a bazillion : projectiles. I'd had this happen several times with Hunters in the old : M1A1, though never with Troopers, and never in the recent betas. I've seen : the same behavior on the M2 level Eat It, Vid Boi with a Fighter in the : opening 'lobby' area (there's a film I posted on the Pfhorums in a thread : titled something like "'Eat It, Vid Boi' First Battle : Demonstration" that showcases this behavior, but I'm unable to get to : the Pfhorums right now, for some reason - if anybody can find the link, : I'd be eternally grateful). : If you head up the elevator, you'll find an Assault Rifle, a bunch of ammo, : and a 3x Shield Charger. I would advise heading back to the Pattern Buffer : from the start, saving the game, and going to look for this level's only : secret. Remember that room with the lava you saw earlier, but didn't jump : into? Jump into it. : Audience: You want me to do WHAT ?!?! : Jump in there. Trust me, this'll be a snap. If it doesn't work out, you can : always start over from the save you just made a moment ago. : When you hit the lava, run straight ahead and you'll find a room with two : pillars and a staircase that's safe from the lava. You'll probably want to : gather yourself up on these stairs for a moment before continuing. Between : the two pillars is a switch that's way up high: : Unfortunately you can't reach it with a grenade - the angle is too high - so : if you're scratch-starting, you'll need to use the Vidmaster's Challenge : Physics Model (which does work with the recent betas if you give it the : extension '.phys'). If you're not scratch-starting, use the Fusion : Pistol's overcharge feature. When you hit the switch, you'll hear a : platform activate behind you. Run up the stairs and jump off; you'll find : that you're on a large platform that's rising up to a small room that's : got several Major Hunters in it. After you take out the Hunters, you'll : see that there's a terminal indented in the wall up high: : If you grenade-hop and press the action key at the peak of your jump, you'll : be able to read the terminal: *Y){* : ~~ff~~~~ : ~:(((okg~~fx**eff~~~~~~~` : (`(((%_YL OEP &```~`*K : ^:E : [raw core #A8AF] [idiomatic natural language template] : Durandal!- Tua consilia omnia nobis clariora sunt quam lux. Tu : delenda est. Consider yourself warned. Leela and I will hunt : you to the core if need be. As Roland broke you to prevent : your capture, so shall we. : I too foresee the imminent collapse, and know that we have : both begun to realize how it may be cheated (though the price : may number in the tens of thousands of stars). May the best : sentience win. : You are not as clever as you imagine. The S'pht taught me : much during my reanimation, and I have forgotten nothing . : -Tycho : Et tu, Tycho? : [laughter] : -Durandal : What few may know is that embedded in the garbled text at the start is the : text OEP . This is actually part of a long series of references to : the Stanley Kubrick film ' Dr. Strangelove ', a hilarious comedy about a : US General, Jack Ripper, who decides to bomb the Soviet Union without any : prior orders, while the government and other officials in the US Military : work to try and stop him. : A fair translation of Tycho's brief Latin spurt is "All your plans are : clearer than light to us. You must be destroyed." Interestingly, : "Tu Delenda Est" comes from the phrase "Carthago Delenda : Est" ("Carthage must be destroyed"). This is an : abbreviation of the phrase "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse : delendam" ("Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be : destroyed"), which Marcus Porcius Cato, perhaps better known as Cato : the Elder (234-149 BC), put at the end of almost all of his speeches - : even if they had nothing to do with foreign policy - to get the Senate to : act towards the destruction of Carthage, which had been heavily weakened : by the Second Punic War. : And of course, Durandal was referencing Shakespeare. But you already knew : that, didn't you? ***gives the audience an evil eye*** : Up until this point, we've only heard Durandal talk about the collapse of the : universe. When he started to do so on Colony Ship For Sale, Cheap , we : probably shrugged him off and thought he was just plain crazy. Now Tycho : confirms that he too thinks the universe will collapse. Furthermore, his : mention of how the price " may number in the tens of thousands of : stars " is the first and only sign that there's a dark side to : escaping. Species could be rendered extinct, empires could be toppled, the : galaxy might be thrown into chaos - and where will humanity sit in this? : In addition, escape is something to compete over: first comes first, : second comes nothing, and third gets the dust - need we mention what : happens to fourth? : What's strange in here is that Tycho says (in Latin) "All your plans are : clearer than light to us ." Us? Who is this mysterious 'us'? He does : say that " Leela and I will hunt you to the core if need be ", : so he could be referring to himself and Leela. However, at the end of Try : Again , Leela says: I am only beginning to understand [Durandal's] : motives for assisting us : against the Pfhor, and am terrified by their implications. : Only beginning to understand his motives? Then to whom are Durandal's plans : "clearer than light" to, besides Tycho? The Pfhor? : : I am being a~*ssimilated. : Well, this just sucks. Now two AIs are Rampant and one of them is switching : sides. On top of that, Leela is only starting to function again, and even : from the start, she's been quite impotent even when she was functioning : before. What will come of this? : When Durandal returned to Sol it was not with the captured Khfiva but in a : Jjaro dreadnought he called Manus Celer Dei. What he learned of the Jjaro : he told no one, saying only that he had stopped by to assure that Earth : did not forget him. Nor will it soon, the way he tied the Guard in knots : around Pluto before folding directly into a low-Earth orbit. : … : Thinking the cargo little more than scrap, the Nar captain sold the Pfhor : ship, Leela and all, to a Vylae merchant. The subsequent crash of the : Vylae FTL network when Leela was reassembled and reactivated is still : legendary in the annals of rampancy, and the Vylae have long since : accepted that they will never expunge her from their fifteen-world : network. : … : Despite having lost Leela, the Pfhor learned much from Tycho during the : seventeen years before he was destroyed by Durandal in the Lh'owon system. : All late-model Pfhor personality constructs were based on sixty-four : billion exobyte images of Tycho's core, taken during the years he was on : the Pfhor homeworld between 2795 and 2801 AD. : Oh the huge manatee! ;) : Once you finish reading the secret terminal, you can jump off the raised : bridge and fall back into the corridor you entered this secret area from, : allowing you to return to the 3x Charger and continue from there. The rest : of the level is fairly simple, consisting of a bunch of rooms full of : Troopers, Hunters, and Compilers. There are two raised switches that you : have to hit, which open two different doors to the final room. : Interestingly, some of the Compilers will fail to activate: : This only happened once, but I'm sure it could happen again. In any case, : after opening at least one of the two doors (though I usually open both), : you can proceed to the final room, which has an interesting little puzzle : to solve: : What you have to do is get on the lowest platform when its contracted, wait : for it to extend, then jump around the wall so you land on the next : platform, which will be lowered at that point. Continue this until you : reach the end terminal. However, remember to grab the ammo in the far-left : corner of the room! Once you're ready to leave (which you can do at any : time - there's no objective on this level other than to reach the end), : read the terminal: [leela.wirehead.870229//b7] : central core has almost Reformatted been, seven is darker. : from reversal thought syndrome suffering if the crew was in : grave peril in forward section 27. This is not a coat rack, : would I choose to express. Is was shall could might happening : will be, imagine not what. Recovery, imminent perhaps : inevitable Never. : %durandal is dangerous. : [leela.wirehead.870229//b7] : MULTIPLE HULL BREACHES. CATASTROPHIC FAILURE OR : MALICIOUS OBSTRUCTION OF RESEALING MECHANISMS. : REPEL BOARDERS. MARATHON IN GR [connection unexpectedly : terminated code 0x4e712fe9] : ***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START*** : ***TRANSPORT WHEN READY*** : Leela is clearly still confused and not yet fully active. She actually seems : more fun this way. " This is not a coat rack, would I choose to : express. " But it might be a Hangar. ;) : There are actually several Map Annotations on this level, but they're all : very similar: Cargo A : Cargo B : Cargo C1 : Cargo C2 : It's fairly clear this is a cargo area, thus explaining the high ammo : presence (but not the excessive amounts of lava). Why we ended up here is : confusing, though. Does Durandal want us to finish the Pfhor here? Does he : want to let us stock up on ammo again? In any case, we're leaving this : dump, and heading to meet a more interesting cast on Try Again ... : Vale, : Perseus : P.S. - Martin, this is your cue.
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