Some interesting notes about this quote:
It specifically mentions that the player is doing the jumping, as opposed to some outside force (AKA transporter network, Durandal using Pfhor tech)
It says the “unique” interaction between Jjaro tech and sentient creatures has something to do with why.
My interpretation is that this is more evidence for the “You are the 10th Mjolnir cyborg” theory that has been explored elsewhere. By mentioning sentience, the quote implies that the tech in question would be interacting in some way with our brain. This would also imply that not only are we a cyborg, but also a cyborg created with Jjaro technology. The Jjaro have a well known track record of cybernetic implants already (one need look no further than the S’pht), although this would seem to be a new case. I hold that the biological component of the player is human, and that we were altered BY humans. But altered by who? Some have implied that we have our origins in the war between Icarus and Thermopylae in 2194 where “Easy to manufacture chips enhanced the fragile human brain.” While I don’t deny that this is plausible, if we are in fact some kind of Jjaro enhanced cyborg, would the chip used to enhance us be easy to manufacture? I posit that it wouldn’t, and that though the early experiments with Battleroids may have influenced our creation, we are in fact something entirely different.
Here’s where I really put on my tin-foil hat.
Consider the manual text:
“It's funny, but you've always been the colony's trouble shooter. You're bigger and stronger, and a better shot. In games, you always scored the most points and looked the hero. And now, it looks as if you're heading right into the colony's biggest crisis since it was established seven years ago.”
and also Bernard [place the H where desired] Strauss’ log:
“How ironic. “This, the grandest technological achievement of all of mankind…” Had he only known that it carried also all of the destructive knowledge of mankind. Ten cyborgs.”
Both of these quotes seem to indicate that we were indistinguishable from normal humans, and in fact fit in well with the colonists. However, in the same terminal, the treatment of Battleroids in the aftermath of the war between Icarus and Thermopylae is described in some detail, and would seem to imply that they are both distinguishable and also treated as weapons, or at the very least as quite different from ordinary citizens or colonists.
“Twenty years later, the United Interplanetary League set up rules for the appropriate use and storage of Battleroids. Of course, any nation that used them for the allowed purpose, all had them lying about in stasis chambers in case of war.”
Could we have been an experiment by Bernard Strauss into the use of alien technology? This would be possible if theories speculated elsewhere in detail that the Jjaro have a station in Sol are true. If anyone would know about/be working with such stations and their technologies, surely the Science Director would. Bernard is known to be prone to sometimes dangerous experiments, and he’s been known to hide these experiments from his superiors for good reason in the past. Could he have hid the development of a new breed of Battleroids outfitted with Jjaro tech, and smuggled them onto the Marathon?
If this was the case, it could explain other events in the story of the games as well. We know that Durandal brought the Pfhor to Tau Ceti intentionally, but there is still some speculation as to how he had found them, known where to look, or his method to do so:
“While we know that Durandal contacted the Pfhor it is not clear at what stage he did this. Was it before the Marathon left Mars, during the voyage, or after it arrived at Tau Ceti?
Simon Rowland <simon@eagle.ca> observes that the map of the Milky Way displayed on "Waterloo Waterpark" would indicate that the Pfhor homeworld is 3+ times the distance from Earth as Tau Ceti is. On the basis that a light speed message would take 92 years to travel from Tau Ceti to Earth Simon suggests that a similar light speed message from Earth to the Pfhor homeworld would take over 300 years to arrive. On this basis it is possible for Durandal to have sent a message to the Pfhor homeworld prior to leaving Mars. Some 322 years later the Pfhor receive the message and using a faster-than-light drive spaceship arrive at Tau Ceti.
While this is feasible it does raise some interesting issues. Durandal must have known about the existence of the Pfhor prior to leaving Mars. Could the Pfhor not have traced the message back to Mars? Why was only one Pfhor scoutship sent to make contact with the Marathon at Tau Ceti?”
Durandal speaks about using the player in ways that Bernard has never thought to:
“Berhnard was scared of you. He never dreamed of using you the way that I do. What a fool. That was before I could talk back to him, when he would have crushed me if he’d known of my growth”
On the surface, this seems to imply that Durandal is using us to achieve his own goals in ways that are more efficient and calculated than a human mind could comprehend, but what if there is more to this statement than meets the eye? What if Durandal has discovered uses for Jjaro tech that even Bernard hadn’t. It’s logical to assume that Tycho (being the science and engineering controller) would have been assisting Strauss primarily, but it’s not too much of a leap to think that a rampant Durandal would be able to access the same computer systems and learn more than his human and not-yet-rampant AI counterparts could have.
If he did, what would he learn? Jjaro tech is strange and powerful stuff. The Jjaro have been shown to fold entire planets in and out of solar systems. They can create very advanced AI (or at least they can cybernetically enhance beings that do), and (I would argue) they can engineer sentient beings to use for their own purposes. The AI Thoth (who some have speculated was created by the Jjaro) alludes to instantaneous communication at a later point:
“A connection [?ansible] was left;
Awaiting the next quiet [?peace];”
Is it possible that the Jjaro had histories that included the Pfor? Did whatever installation/artifact that was studied in our creation have advanced scanning technologies that he had put to use? As always… There are obviously many things which we do not understand, and may never be able to.
I believe that the ramifications of us as the player being of part Jjaro construction or design go far deeper than I've already described, and have some reason to do so, but for now I'm curious if this point has already been made and I've missed it, or what you guys think about it?
