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	Message: : : And now the saga continuums. : That’s how they started Red Dwarf series 3, and it seems to fit here. Welcome : to Tour of Duty series 3, with a flash new header from Perseus, and plenty : else new to boot. : To recap, the last we knew, Tycho had been destroyed, Durandal resurrected, : Thoth awakened, the S’pht’Kr called, and the Pfhor advance on the Sol : System repelled, at least for the time being. Our M2 final screen reported : on future events, some more than 10,000 years out. : So, as we find ourselves in a dark room looking at a ship out the window, : what are we doing here now? Where is here? When is now? And as the vacuum : BoBs will come to ask us: Whose side are we on? : The Story page reports the most pertinent parts of the Infinity manual in : quite a sensible order – as usual of most interest to us, a report that : could have been sent through a terminal. This from Pfhor High Admiral : Tfear, whom we probably didn’t catch a glimpse of in a terminal we : probably didn’t see back on Bob’s Big Date. Simply because it was a tricky : message to read; I’m not talking about time travel and such just yet ;). : Report to Lh’owon Command : : : The battle on Lh’owon had gone according to projections: that to trap : Durandal and end the threat of Tau Ceti, we would, as we did with the : Drinniol rebellion, be forced to use the “trih xeem”. Forcing a star into : early nova has proved most satisfactory at destroying what we could not : control. : To a commander, the presence of things beyond one’s control leads directly to : the conclusion that they must be destroyed. In the countless encounters of : the Pfhor Naval Arm, there has never been an ultimate defeat. We have, : through our supreme power and tactics, always prevailed. : All of this explains why as our Great Admiral, and with my own destruction : now completely assured, I give you, High Council of Pfhor, warning that we : have met our demise. Yet it comes not from threat of Tau Ceti as we : feared, but from a being of such destructive power that to control it : would be to control the universe. : What follows is my briefing of the events here on Lh’owon leading up to the : current situation: The trap we set for Durandal went off as planned. We : tricked him into believing that we were weeks away from Lh’owon while, in : fact, we were hiding in the outer Lh’owon system. We waited quietly while : Durandal dispatched the garrison fleet’s picket ships, and we used the : data from this battle to discover some of the modifications that Durandal : had made to our captured scoutship. : When we sprung our trap, it appeared at first that our quarry had expected : it, but we adapted our positions, surrounded, and disabled his ship with : acceptable losses. We caused his retreat to a heretofore undetected : station located in an asteroid field on the fringe of the Lh’owon system. : (Of course, according to protocol, the appropriate officers were notified : and executed.) : Although he evaded destruction, he was nonetheless trapped. This contingency : was taken into account in the overall battle strategy. The battle plan was : proceeding according to acceptable parameters. : I ordered the deployment of the “trih xeem”. : Almost immediately, our enemy then began transmitting ridiculous warnings : concerning some sort of ancient chaotic being trapped deep in the Lh’owon : sun. Of course, at this point mercy was unacceptable. The time to end the : collective dream of the S’pht had come. : I ordered the fleet to retreat to a safe distance, and waited for my moment : of glory. What happened next is the reason for my warning at the beginning : of this report and the destruction of the Western Arm of Pfhor Battle : Group Seven. : The nova went off on time and for a moment our simple victory was assured. : But then, in a pathetic failure of discipline, the fleet’s ranks broke in : an all-out retreat. All quarters reported the same thing: half of the sun : had gone nova, but the readings from the other half were impossible. It : was as if the universe had forgotten its own rules. : I can’t tell you what’s going on now, I can only hope that this message : reaches you through whatever is surrounding us. I gave the fleet general : order “Attack at will” but none of our weapons seem to affect whatever : we’re firing at. This battleship has only seconds of integrity left, and I : have no more information except for Durandal’s warning: “On the Marathon, : I saw your stupidity through the lens of victory. And now I see it in : defeat. Maybe it is fate that your ignorant pride would unleash this : horror and destroy the galaxy.” : : : Hmmm, that’s not quite how we remember things – we remember being victorious, : helping to awaken Thoth and then helping him to call back the S’pht’Kr and : pretty much wiping out the Pfhor both on a handy dandy refuelling ship for : our human comrades and planetside including the Big Floaty Things What : Kick Our Butts. : We did have that period where we thought Durandal was truly gone, and we : don’t know where he was at during that time, but clearly he managed to : escape. To escape. And if he visited an out of the way station and found : out about nasty things to come, he failed to mention it on his return. : We’re still of the assumption that he was involved in Tycho’s demise, : and Durandal was rather cock of the walk in general, not freaked out as : that transmission suggests. : At the very end of All Roads Lead To Sol… Durandal did mention the “trih : xeem”, and implied that the Pfhor were about to use it in the Lh’owon : System, but it was more in passing than as a sign of impending doom or : anything. His main point was that we were leaving on another mission. But : it seems that it was potentially a very salient aspect…. : We did also have one mention of a being trapped deep in the Lh’owon sun , a : long way back on Six Thousand Feet Under. : : That name we have all come to know and love, though not to know how to : pronounce, the W’rkn’cacnter. It was just another part of the S’pht : mythology then … but to return to reality for just a minute, it was a part : of the S’pht mythology that really captured the imagination of certain : people, and for that we are ever thankful. : : We start with this – and even before the story starts, things look bleak. : Arms reach out of an unclear dark area into an unknown and messy light. : The arms do not appear to be attached to anything … possibly the arms of : the armless and legless corpses we soon meet in dreams? : We -appear- in a rather dark spot. Questions of where we were before we : appeared here and under whose control this occurred are best left alone. : There is a new ambient sound in town, which so brilliantly evokes the : feeling of hopelessness, or despair, that goes along with what is to come : – I think of it almost as the sound of nothing , emptiness – there is the : subtle sound of computers/machinery whirring constantly, and then at : intervals, the masterful [?howl] . If it weren’t for the theme, we might : wonder if this was Durandal laughing. Every level on this dark Jjaro : station uses this sound and, especially when there are no Pfhor around, it : does add to the atmosphere of the large abandoned structure. The level : name also hits the spot, roughly translated, as the Story page tells us, : as do not give in to misfortunes , which is of utmost importance here – : and just when we thought things were going so well. : Around from our starting spot we see a ship out in space through a window. : There’s a new texture set, and there are two switches here :). There is : also the sound of doors opening and closing in very quick succession. For : now, the first switch briefly opens a window in the wall to its left, : resulting in our being shot at by a Projectile Fighter. We might get a : shot at him, but killing him is very unlikely, because the window only : stays open a second or two, and as soon as it closes, he goes and jumps : off his platform – it seems not only we would survive the fall. On the : side between the two switches is a brightly-lit opening that leads to a : locked door – actually two of them as we will soon learn – and on either : side, a window to the room wherein lies the switch for one of the doors, : so conveniently positioned just out of reach from here. The left window : reveals the source of the sound of doors – what looks like a series of : crushers reminiscent of Defend THIS … but I won’t go into the same : reaction to them as then, and anyway, we won’t see them again for a while. : More exciting at the moment, going back to our starting area, is the second : switch that we can access, which permanently opens the next wall, allowing : us to carry on down a rather wide corridor, with panels of bright lights : on the walls – like the floor panel lighting they always tell us will : guide us in an aeroplane emergency. The level has a lot of interesting : lighting effects – the overall outlook on things is dark, but there are : also a lot of intense light sources, and there isn’t much in between – : perhaps drawing on ideas of balance again *ahem* Thoth? There is also a : new-look terminal visible at the end of this corridor. And on the way to : it, a very narrow staircase going across the corridor at one point, and a : switch on the right wall that is quite subtle behind a wall that juts out. : The switch opens an equally narrow door in the left wall. The staircase is : actually so narrow as to be annoying to get down onto, with always run : turned on (sorry I make it so). For now it leads us to a 1x recharger, but : we’ll find ourselves down there again a few times. : Back up in the main corridor, as we near the terminal, five Fighters wake up : and head our way, some from the left, some from the right. That’s right, : they’re at it : [?again] / [?already] / [?as if from an old dream] . In killing them, we : notice a change: they now take 8 magnum shots to kill instead of 6 (TC of : course) … someone has been messing with our history books! : The terminal gives Durandal’s perspective on the report from the manual … or : something like it. : : : Awry indeed! Just while I’m thinking of it, I’m not a fan of the HD terminal : graphic with the opening paragraph here printed on it … but anyway. So, : first of all on our new the what now? list, we have Durandal saying he : easily defeated the Western Arm of Pfhor Battle Group Seven, when Tfear’s : report said that they disabled Durandal’s ship with acceptable losses and : set off the “trih xeem”, and only then fell to the ensuing chaos. So : either someone is stretching the truth a bit or, as has been proposed on : the Story page, we already have two histories/timelines right here. Also : pertinent is that this station is the focal point for : [?hope] / [?destiny] in the game, and the point where it seems that we can : (once we know how) observe the convergence of the Infinity of timelines. : Reading for the first time, probably the bigger headscratcher is Durandal’s : saying if only there were time to explore the ruins of Lh’owon … when we : spent most of M2 doing just that. As the manual and Tfear’s report : suggest, the universe has forgotten its own rules. Things are not as we : thought, but what has always been unclear to me is what the Security : Officer experiences, as compared to the player. Is he scratching his head : with us or did whatever time stuff happened to get us here give him the : memories of this timeline? Are we in fact now the SO from that [?failed] : timeline? And the really big one: when did whatever happened happen, and : how could it possibly have happened and the events of the M2 final screen : have happened as well? For simplicity, I’m going to write as though the SO : has the same experiences as the player – as though he’s standing in front : of this terminal scratching his helmet with that damned magnum … but it : makes you think, doesn’t it :)? : The concept of escape is back, in spades, and the closure of the universe : that Durandal has always feared and been trying to cheat, suddenly seems : much more immediate and relevant, and D actually suggests to -us- a path : to escape, even though it seems he cannot – quite generous coming from : him. Durandal also suggests that Tycho is [?back] and in charge of the : ship we saw out the window at the start. Given some of the above, and I : think it has been posited before, perhaps this is the ship we end up on : for the next few levels, its presence here some kind of indicator of the : closeness of the timeline it occupies? : Finally here, of course, we have the map/objective guide at left, but it is : never mentioned in the text. Unless of course we play the Infinity Demo, : then it’s all quite clear ;). : : : : First of all we have a slightly different picture of [?the nova event] and : a beautiful if short description of just what we’ve been discussing! We : can see your fate countless times. The convergence of timelines? And all : reported as failures ( Death. ) – Ne Cede Malis indeed! As far as [?fate] : / [?destiny] is concerned, I guess the path we eventually eat was : unforeseen here. : Next are our most quoted quotes, Thoth-like in their brevity and crypticity, : Durandal-like in their humour / sarcastic quality. Like the eventual : merger of the two, but somehow less useful, except that it does tell us : about our objective in no uncertain terms, unlike the final text as : discussed above. So the demo is perhaps yet another [?failed] timeline, : in which Durandal and Thoth merged but still could not figure out a means : of escape. Was this because we were not present in the timeline? They can : see our fate countless times, but only from this point on – we have no : idea what happened beforehand in these failures, and they make no mention : of it. Interesting. : Finally at 2,500 words (including the report from Tfear though) we move on : from this first terminal! To the right we see a fan on the wall, which : opens when actioned to reveal a long curved duct too small for us to : enter, and too curved for us to map fully. Past that we go through a wide : door that has a new logo on it – one that we will become more familiar : with later. Remembering back to the logon symbols of Durandal and Thoth, : very round and very square respectively, this new one certainly looks to : be somehow representative of a merging of the two. But this is on an : abandoned Jjaro station, right? Was this part of what was foretold? That : it should have appeared here all along? To jump ahead a bit, it appears on : the terminals that guide us when we move between timelines, in a version : with the map of Aye Mak Sicur superimposed to make it look almost dirty, : and then it appears without that, right at the end, cleaned? There is one : exception to this rule, on this level, and we’ll come to it shortly. : But back to that door. Inside we find two more doors – from whence those : Fighters came. Through the left one we find some ammo – on TC it is useful : to run past the Fighters to get it, as we otherwise run out. We also : notice a small corner with a much higher ceiling, and the map shows that : it comes from a corridor above – a secret corridor! The fact that we guess : there is a secret from seeing the high corridor on the map reminds me of : the We’re Everywhere secret. Anyway, through the right door, we find more : ammo and also an oxygen charger and a pattern buffer, both with new looks. : Finally in here (now that I have the map I can call it point : "E"!) is a magic switch that opens both of the doors that we’re : here to open – it was left over from debugging or some such, and is hidden : in the wall somewhere, but I always forget exactly where and end up just : tabbing the whole place. Let’s just forget about it for now :). : Now is a good time to have a look at the map – courtesy of PS and his shiny : new computer. It reveals a lot of small areas and narrow corridors, and we : know that this level was designed to bring to mind Arrival, all those : years ago. : : Back in the corridor there are stairs going down, stairs that lead to a : switch that opens a door that I’m going to ignore - at point "A" : on the map. Back up the stairs and on past the terminal there are openings : left and right, and a locked door at the end, with needle-like narrow : passages leading out left and right before it. The left opening leads us : to a switch that opens a door about halfway … our first real gameplay déjà : vu moment harking back to Arrival. There is also a switch through a window : that we can action if on the right angle, but the room is still : inaccessible. The right opening from the main corridor leads first to a : compiler reading a terminal – more Arrival-like, and it even says : spurious interrupt unauthorized access , even more so! : : It also has the cleaned Jjaro / Durandal-Thoth logon image, the exception to : the rule as I mentioned just earlier. Perhaps this is another one of those : situations where if we had been allowed to read more, we might have been : able to skip past some of our adventure? Another phew! If she’d gone that : way she would have gone straight to that castle! moment? Maybe. : Interestingly it also gives us a sneak preview of the new vacuum-enabled : and Fusion-Pistol-wielding BoB, whom we don’t meet until Naw Man He’s : Close. Unless of course we play the Infinity Demo, in which case they : show up at the end of this level, but we’ll come to that. At left is a bit : of a shout-out from the developers, and the all-important MARATHON RULES; : ALL PLAYERS RULE; ON TO THE FUTURE closing. Well, it’s now 20 years since : M1 came out, is that future enough for you? Is it? : Further on we find a staircase leading up to a narrow corridor that runs : east-west over the top of most of the area we have already explored. There : are three places where we can drop down from here. If we go straight ahead : and drop, we find ourselves in a sprawling narrow corridor that is very : similar indeed to one area of Arrival, with several places that drop down : into it. If we didn’t hit the switch to open the door that I ignored : earlier, we would be skipping ahead in the level a bit, so let’s not drop : down straight ahead. If we drop down at the far end of the corridor to the : right, we find ourselves on the other side of the halfway open door, and : looking straight at the first of our objective switches. Hit it! There’s a : corridor leading out opposite this – it leads to another switch, which : drops down some stairs and we suddenly realise we’re perpendicular to that : corridor where we found our 1x recharger, and the stairs have just joined : the two. It’s only a shame we won’t need to come back here. But we can : recharge if necessary and then head back into the terminal corridor – : because we hit that switch near the start. : If we drop down at the far end of the corridor to the left, we find we’re : actually on a lift, and to the right at its lowest point, we see the other : end of the curving duct from near the terminal! Straight ahead is an odd : room with a bunch of small polygons each at a different height. Sort of a : staircase puzzle where you just have to keep looking for the next highest : point and take a flying leap. It doesn’t look like it’s much use to : anyone, but it hides the secret corridor we observed on our map earlier : on. From the highest point we can jump to the northwestern polygon in the : room and open a hidden door – then go up a lift and find a compiler : reading a terminal. A terminal the contents of which seem rather : incomprehensible, but have been found to be part of a network map file : with binhex compression or some such. An homage to our very own godot in : fact – see the Story page for more information than you could possibly : imagine. The rest of the file can be found in a terminal on the very last : level of the game. For now, for the record: : : : : Lovely. Unless of course we play the Infinity demo – then the terminal : gives some depressing verse on the sort of subject we’re expecting at this : point: life, beginnings and ends, fear, time, fate. (I’m pretty sure I : have these in the right order, but this could be the final terminal, I : don’t have the demo handy, only the Story page, wherein the terminal : numbering doesn’t match that for the level in the full game.) : : : Either way, heading on we find a single Napalm Canister before dropping down : into that ammo room from the start. This also takes us back to Arrival : where we found a secret room containing a Napalm Canister. : Now on with the level – we are heading for the sprawling narrow Arrival-like : corridor, and just like then, we can get in there in various ways: from : where we just dropped down, we can go out the door and down the stairs to : where we hit a switch to open a door earlier; we can up out to the : stairwell to the 1x recharger and drop down; or we can go up the other : stairs from before and drop down straight ahead. Whatever. We follow the : path around to find a compiler reading a pattern buffer … not sure how : that worked out for him, but happily he doesn’t respawn when we kill him : :). : Then up a round staircase we find ourselves overlooking another Arrival room : – the one with the switch that opened the door to the final terminal on : that level. It is very similar here, we can snipe at Fighters from our : initial vantage point, or we can jump across to a ledge to the left, and : find a secret door – the first time around this was where that napalm : canister came from. This time it holds a shotgun and a little ammo for it. : Handy. Back outside the secret room, we kill the Fighters, hit the switch : (at point "C"), and jump through a small door that starts : opening and closing at intervals. With that little detour out of the way, : we head back up the round staircase but take an earlier turnoff, and find : that we can jump across to a lift that was behind that compiler. Even that : little puzzle is reminiscent of Arrival, where some of the early narrow : corridor work was really a bit of a nasty introduction to exploring the : Marathon. : The lift takes us up to a corridor that ends in a dropoff, into a small : brightly-lit octagonal room, with a door leading out on one side. The next : room is the crusher room we observed right at the start, and so we find : the second objective switch here, though it is quite easy to miss the : first time! Through the crushers we head towards a big dropoff. There is : another raised spot we can jump to across and to the left, and we are just : across from where we sniped the Projectile Fighter through the window : right at the start. First of all here however, a compiler comes to meet : us, and we kill him. Then we drop down to find that Projectile Fighter, : and a little ammo to the left, at the end of what turns out to be a long : narrow corridor with lifts going up and down at different heights – a : puzzle reminiscent of Welcome to the Revolution…. Hey, actually in one of : my writeup runthroughs just now, I didn’t open that window at the start, : and then found the Projectile Fighter on the opposite raised platform! I : always assumed he was on the near side – I guess that better explains why : he jumps down when we look away! : Ascending to the top of the lift puzzle we find some ammo and a pattern : buffer. This corridor also has those needle-like extremities we saw : earlier on. We venture down the next corridor to yet another dropoff – and : we start to hear the sound of running water, or sewage as it actually is : on this level. Straight ahead is a 1x recharger, but I somehow hardly ever : end up facing straight ahead, like I’m in a hurry or something. : The sewage is in a large circular room (at point "B"!) with : different heights going on down the bottom, a few column-heater-like : objects strewn about, and a compiler lying in wait – he wants to fight us : up on the surface, but it is more fun to get him down under where he can’t : fight back. Actually there are four of these rooms – you can see which way : you need to head to advance from the map, but the doorways are at : different depths as well. The one down on the ground between the third and : fourth circular rooms is the best place to head, and to then take on all : three of the compilers, as they will come down there trying to chase you. : At least now we know why there was that oxygen charger back near the : start! : In the fourth room there is a structure in the middle, and we swim to the : surface to find a ledge around the back, and a switch. This calls down a : lift inside the structure, and there is a simple door into it just to the : right. The lift takes us up to the end of the corridor with the terminal : from the start. The door still doesn’t want to stay open though, so it : will always be a one-way thing. : Now of course we have our objective doors open and we rush to see what lies : beyond! A staircase with some Fighters climbing out of the darkness : towards us. Then a door, some ammo, another locked door and a lookout over : the deathstar room as it has come to be known. High brightness, weird : inaccessible alcoves, locked doors, a teleporter, and Fighters. There is : one on a high alcove to the left, but we can barely see him and certainly : can’t shoot him, and he hides around a corner soon after seeing us, but he : keeps taunting us with that Pfhor cry, knowing we will never get the : satisfaction of killing him. There are more Fighters down in the pit. : Unless of course we play the Infinity demo, in which case there are a few : Hunters and some vacuum BoBs – the only ones that are ever actually on our : side (whose side?) : It is a long way down, but the only way is down. Additional to the Fighters : down below, there are a couple on very high ledges – out of sight from our : initial overview, but the room is long enough for us to aim up to their : levels. There is the curious dip in the floor, with very low paths leading : out on either side, forever mysteries. And then there is the teleporter : (at point "D"). It leads us to another high alcove, straight : opposite another Projectile Fighter, finally, on the staircase that leads : us to the final terminal. He can really catch us off-guard, but nothing we : can’t handle. There is also a ledge off to the right that has a few more : locked doors, and some shotgun shells, accessible if we run straight : across to the terminal staircase and then immediately on to the right, but : as we are about to lose all our weapons and ammo, it’s not much use. : Unless of course we play the Infinity demo, where that is not the case – : and anyway, we don’t know it yet. : The terminal holds another of our quoted quotes. It is Thoth-like in its : poetic quality and white text, but whatever this is communicating with us : is more confident with English, at least in terms of not having question : marks … it still doesn’t always make sense ;). : : Unless of course we play the Infinity demo, in which case the terminal is : very short, to the point, and as depressing as ever. : : Not encouraging. But the show must go on. Or start again, as the case may be. : I will hand off to Viking for a couple of levels at this point – after : this I need the rest :)! It seems that at this point we are guided by : whatever benevolent force is out there – we don’t know what is going on, : but we know that there is nothing good here: things have gone terribly : awry, and recent history is not as we remember it. But what if there were : a way to change it? (Reminds me of the end of Looper.) Well, first up it : seems that we are guided down a rather extreme path of change – I have : detected one ship nearby, which I can only guess is being commanded by : Tycho. So at this convergence of timelines, it seems there was at least : one where we were on that ship … let’s play that back. : Again from the manual: In Marathon Infinity, you find yourself caught in a : web of ever-shifting allegiances. Durandal, Tycho, the Pfhor; each is a : power, with its own agenda and its own uses for you. There are loose ends : that need to be tied in the Lh’owon system, and you’ve got the reputation : for getting things done. : You can’t be sure who the enemy is anymore. The only thing you can be sure of : is a swift and bloody end if you let your guard down.... : True enough. To get us started, I hand over to our local VikingBoyBilly, for : Rise Robot Rise.
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