: While Tycho did not play
: any role of consequence in Marathon, we thought it was important to
: demonstrate that Durandal's condition was unique."
My personal view of this was that Durandal's stability was due to Bernhard Strauss. We hear from Tycho that there is "a way to delay the onset of the second stage", and that Strauss was using this to control Durandal. What if Strauss found a way to keep a Rampant AI sane during its (finite period of) growth? To tie this into the thread, this could have been via the application of Jjaro technology. Perhaps Strauss had to restraint Durandal only during the dangerous phase of his Rampancy, and when that was over he would be in possession of a far more powerful but still sane AI. Durandal would have been nearing the end of his transition when the Pfhor attacked, disrupting Strauss's control mechanism (possibly via their EMP weapon) and releasing Durandal, who immediately reverted to a fully Rampant and somewhat insane AI. And indeed, in the early parts of M1 Durandal can be nearly as bad as Tycho in M2, witness his actions in the introduction and The Rose. But the fact that most of his rampancy took place under special circumstances allows him to eventually recover, becoming the arrogant, sarcastic, yet rational and non-sadistic Durandal we know for the rest of the series. Tycho was not afforded such protection, and either went Rampant of his own accord or was driven to Rampancy by the S'pht, trying to duplicate Durandal and not really knowing what they were doing (human AIs seem to be the most advanced in the universe, outside of the Jjaro), which resulted in an uncontrolled rampancy and an insane AI.
