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	Message: : Chapter 4: Legacy Stage 1: Mighty Philanthropy : : Act 1: Pfhor Far Lamm : Last time on Tour of Duty, we finally reunited with Leela and made the : S’pht Kr in the past call off the attack on the Pfhor at Lh’owon in the : past. Not before leaving instructions to them and Thoth to return once the : events of Marathon 2 play out that is. However, Hathor was reanimated and : defragmented by the S’pht while I was on ice. She begged me just to let : her have her revenge else I will somehow kill even more people both human, : Reshep cats and alien than she would which is somehow related to the copy : of Kingdom Valley floating above itself and the Soleanna bay in that : strange mixture of sky and rough ocean. : Leela has also been to the macroverse, learned what it is and saw failure : dream from that chapter. She concluded that if we don’t stop Hathor, she : will go insane. While dreaming of the aforementioned floating valley, : Durandal and Thoth gave us a detailed explanation as best as they could as : to what an W’rkncacnter is and how the universe will function if even one : is free. : Now, we’ve chased Hathor to another time period in another part of space. : Currently we find ourselves on a Pfhor ship. : : “Far far inte far far lamm” In Swedish, far means sheep. “Far” is pronounced : the same as “pfhor” or Fore. Far can also mean “get” Don Martin Antell : 2001 : The map name comes from an old Swedish joke; Far, får får får? Nej, får får : lamm. “Father, do sheep beget sheep? No, sheep beget lambs. ” Thanks TV : Tropes! : : : A throwaway reference in Marathon 2 during For Carnage, Apply Within is now a : major plot point: This is the Drinniol rebellion, which serves as a good : excuse to give the hulks more screentime and look at how they fit into the : Pfhor’s slave ranks a little more, like the S’pht got. : : : : There’s a pattern buffer, 1X shield charger and an oxygen charger in the room : I start in. The small hall to the west leads to a T-junction with a : trooper and a pair of fighters fighting a hulk. : : Let the hulk deal with the lizards if necessary. Just avoid it though as they : appear to see us as enemies right now, presumably thinking we’re some kind : of new Pfhor terminator. I head north from hear through a little green : room with a hunter in it. This leads through a couple of similar rooms : past some small booths overlooking where we started to a large chamber : with a big machine covered power conduits textured like the thundrillium : fuel/plasma slime. : : It’s chock full of enforcers with both weapons, troopers and hunters, though : the darkness makes it hard to tell if they are commander hunters (Blue : Mother of All Hunters) or Spec Ops (black/grey). There’s a lot of running : back to heal and recharge in this fight. At one point, the hulk blocks the : hall to the junction as I open the door on the way back and he smacks me : across the chops. Then he does the same on the way back again and at the : same door too! : I find out that some hunters are the usual major ones. Maybe they all were : and the lighting made the colors run together. The hulks in the machine : room seem to have killed all the other pfhor for us. That was kind of : them. The machine must be the engine core Leela was talking about, as : there’s a couple of switches in a control room overlooking it at the : northwest and south ends. The low gravity lets me vault over the conduits : nicely. : The curving ledge just past the stairs lets me jump to an empty grey room : with a pair on major hunters in it. A spiral stairway nearby leads to a : large elevator that loops back to the junction. There’s another door to : the west at the top of the lift that goes past 2 enforcers to a : thundrillium vent, with 3 pillars of the stuff on the left. The vent : spills into another large arena of aliens. I can get back to the elevator : by a switch controlled door. : There’s a secret in the other pool here: it has some kind of antenna guarded : by a major enforcer. Past this strange pillar is an overshield chip and a : 2X shield/3X health canister. The exit to the pool room heads past several : enforcers to the other control room by the engine core, but first I check : a nearby computer room with the same setup as the entrance. : : They’re too late. I do just that and head back to the start terminal. : : Act 2: The Incredible Hulk : : Last Modified 2019.1.2 (again) by aaron : No sooner do I arrive am by beset upon by enforcers battling Drinniol in a : large square room with kidney shaped lifts, made mostly of the grey lego : stuff, lego tiles and sluiceway panels. : : : In order to reach those antennae I have to enter the small side rooms up : stairs and elevators in order to unlock the doors leading to each one. The : first room on the right unlocks an elevator to three switches. This area : overlooks an outdoor rocky area. Careful! The hulks can and will follow : you through the doorways. : The buttons seem to activate the 4 elevators. The first room’s equivalent : opens the door on the lower platform with the pattern buffer. It’s a : trooper ambush. The switches here open the 2 hallways leading up some : stairs. They each have a tall room with hulks and enforcers in them, one : with a 2X shield charger. I’m forced to kill the hulks so they don’t do : the same to me. : Up the stairs in the right room (facing away from the patter buffer by the : elevators) I end up outside amid a battle between troopers and Drinniol. : Dashing past them I find an enforcer, a pattern buffer and a switch. The : left room has a 1X shield charger and also leads outside, to a curving : rocky area with another battle. In the small guardhouse here is a switch : that opens the 2 doors by the pattern buffer at the start. : The right door goes to the exit but the door at the end doesn’t open yet so I : hit the switch in the left door to open the other elevator shaft in the : main room and the switch in there to open the blast shutter behind the : terminal. : This area is flooded with pfhor, hulks, drones and… : : Oh shit! I’m in no shape to be fighting those just now! I dash around to the : left and find the first antenna. There’s a very fast elevator inside which : lets me reach the switch. The second tower is on the other side and it’s : the same. : We’re not done yet. Checking the terminal again, Leela gives us a warning: : : Only by reading this terminal message does the exit door open. I hurry : through it into huge canyons. It’s at this point I discover that after : having fixed a broken terminal in one of the failure maps for this : chapter, there was a glitch with my savegames (those having been on the : broken map) which reset the merged map to the default rainless one i.e. : The game auto selected the default map and I had to change it back to the : fixed rain WAD. Instead of wasting time redoing the whole game to this : point like I first tried which would have taken forever, by Chapter 1 Map : 3 I just decided to do something I never do: scratch start this level in : order to get back to where I was on the right WAD. : : https://youtu.be/mJcClMWtFp0?t=1155 : Scratch starting in the main trilogy (and likely other mods) is horrible. : It’s fine for those who like the challenge, but it isn’t my cup of tea, as : I prefer to either stick to Total Carnage or lower, or vid the standard : way. (normal playthrough but follow the Vidmaster tenets (this part was : written before I learned vid actually refers to scratch start vids while : what I'm talking about uses a different name)) The reason for this is : because unlike the level select in say, the Playstation and Saturn : versions of Tomb Raider 1-3, Marathon treats any level you first start on : outside saved games as a new game, as that’s exactly what you’re doing. : It’s like pistol starting in Doom, only you aren’t forced to do it. : However, scratch starting in Marathon Eternal X surprisingly doesn’t : suck: not only does it give you an inventory appropriate to the map and/or : chapter in question; if you’re smart you can build up a reasonable supply : of ammo fairly easily. The most trouble I had was getting killed by : Drinniol a lot because you still scratch start with no shields and I made : the mistake of letting them live. : : That gun is the Marathon version of the BFG 9000 that was cut from Marathon : 1, the Wave Motion Cannon. I think it’s actually supposed to be warping : space and time around itself, causing it to distort the shape of anything : it hits (or was that the other Jjaro weapon?) but I like to call it the : Portable Halo, because it does this: : That pulse kills everything in 1 hit, including juggernaut tanks. The : official name implies that it’s firing waves of radiation so I take this : to mean it fires a huge pulse of charged neutrinos that eradicate : everything in sight just like the Halo rings, hence the nickname. Doesn’t : really explain how it can destroy machines like drones and juggernauts : though, unless for jugs you assume it kills the pilot, causing the tank to : crash. The portable halo is vastly improved in its HD sprites over the : original Eternal X. The old wave motion cannon looked like a big black : metal blob and it’s neutrino pulse was just part of a S’pht Kr death : sprite. : : Further down the canyon from here is a most interesting sight. : : That is the cyborg Drinniol that kickstarted the whole rebellion and he : appears to be invincible. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. Behind : the cyborg Drinniol is the cliff wall at the end of the canyon but there : are some ledges for me to climb up. Now it’s a race along the walls to the : exit. : : IT’S SNOWING! I love snow already though it’s never happened enough in recent : years, so seeing it in games and TV is especially good now. I also have to : say that I love these huge maps with platforming over cliffs, canyons and : hills. We just need to make the vertex grid in Weland (i.e. playable level : space) much larger in order to have more of them, as it takes a lot of : polygons going by the map. I’d love to see more Marathon levels that do : this as there was never enough in the main trilogy. Ones made to make use : of my little jump script specifically can also add more to level design, : provided some gaps can only be crossed with normal jumping (Vidmasters : cannot use it unless forced to; if they can grenade jump there instead, : they have to grenade jump). : Now, this is an ice planet, going by the chapter screen, reinforced by the : mountains and the snow. I thought by the hulks in the chapter card that : this was their homeworld for some reason, except that wouldn’t make sense : as they’d need fat to survive and Drinniol don’t have any fat. I guess : they survive here because their vests are insulated. : Other than Marathon Eternal X, my favourite snow levels in games are the : Tibet levels in Tomb Raider 2, the Antarctica levels in Tomb Raider 3, : Kazakhstan in Tomb Raider Legend, most Halo snow levels, the snowspeeder : level in modern warfare 2, White Acropolis, Icecap (both 2D and 3D) and : Everwinter & The Pirate’s Graveyard in the Blinx games. : Following the clifftops I find a teleporter on a precipice for some reason. : Whatever, I save here and take it. : Act 3: Babylon X : More snow! Hooray! And more platforming too! AWESOME! : : Raven : Last modified by aaron 2019.1.2 : : : : It’s maps like this, the success dream levels, the Pfhor city and later ones : to come that are why I love Aleph One and good 2.5D engines in general. We : have huge, expansive environments with decent details to a lot of them and : excellent gameplay. Tempus Irae does something similar with city levels, : Rubicon with the swamps of Plun Darr: the Pfhor Homeworld AKA Pfhor Prime : and both the Marathon in chapter 1 and Marathon 1 Redux with the inside of : spaceships, far better than Marathon 1 tried to do. : Even though I am sad to finally admit Aleph One has gotten its ass handed to : it by other engines like GZ Doom and Build (their contributions being : Brutal Doom, Extermination Day & Hedon and Ion Maiden respectively), : the original Eternal X is the one that proved to me that you can have all : these large, richly detailed 3D levels in modern games yet not have them : actually in full 3D (2.5D sidescrollers i.e. 3D worlds but with 2D planes : only don’t count because it’s cheating), which is why I judge all 2.5D : game mods and new 2.5D games by Eternal’s standard as I said in the : prologue. Eternal X 1.2 has added to the original Eternal X 1.0.3’s : reputation even more, with new areas, improved terminals and the ever : awesome rain and conveyor belt effects. : That large building on the lower plateau is the garbage disposal facility : Leela mentioned, We need to be there yesterday! So I jump down into the : ravine and head for it. : : There’s jell-o coming out of the cliff wall. This used to be dry in older : builds. I quickly heal my wounds, charge both layers of shield and save in : the jelly pool. There’s some rock stacks behind the Drinniol that let me : climb up to a pass leading to the garbage plant. : : That’s not jelly this time: it’s pools of garbage. Eww. In the original : Eternal X, the trash pools have a more appropriate texture, looking like a : greyish soup of rubbish from god knows what. However, when Third Rock from : Lh’owon was added in Eternal X Omega 1.1 and used a harmless version of : the radioactive pfhor jelly from Marathon 1, the developers were forced to : change the garbage to use a jelly texture. This is why the pillar in the : prologue is green now when it used to be grey: it shares the same texture : as the garbage and it appears to serve as the liquid for this texture set. : The trash raises and lowers as it spills out via a crack somewhere into the : ravine before being refilled as more gets pumped out. The crack has to be : a leak as it’s meant to be teleported into space for pickup by recycling : ships. The pool is deep too in places, flooding the bottom levels of the : plant. I discover when going back for shields that the leak has polluted : the whole ravine. : : Inside the waste disposal plant, there’s a bunch on circuit boards we need to : break in order to use the main garbage teleporter. I find the first one in : a flooded area by the southwest entrance where I came in. In the south end : up the stairs by the entrance is another circuit and a switch. Troopers : hulks and hunters make Marcus an angry boy, so I give them all a face full : of chibi suns, smacking them with the staff if they follow me into the : slime. Another room where I avoided a fight in the west quadrant has the : same but with 2 pillars. : : Oh, what’s this now? The crack causing the leak is actually in the level : –it’s in the sluiceway from the inflow pipe feeding the pool- and I can : swim up it from the shield and pattern buffers as a shortcut. However, the : ceiling isn’t solid and I can surface inside the polygon, causing the hall : of mirrors glitch when I look out the non-connected linedefs (lines). : https://youtu.be/0MDwKzH4ez8?t=1286 : I aggro some troopers and hulks in the north area to get them to fight and : defend myself from drones in the dry area outside. I lose my shields in : the process and get hurt so now the crack isn’t the only thing that’s raw. : The baddies in the north were guarding a switch, an oxygen station, a 1X : shield station and a pattern buffer. The next panel is behind a divider : around the corner. : The panel after that is under some stairs to the east. A bunch of hulks crowd : on the steps. The east area of the waste plant has another panel : overlooking a glassed in box with a switch and 3 fighters. The last 2 : panels are on a balcony over the northwest stairs and in a small room : overlooking the dry area in the southeast. : All of these switches open maintenance hatches around the trash teleporter in : the centre of the plant. After killing the troopers guarding them, I smash : the circuit board panels inside, save my game and dive into the : teleporter. : Act 4: Dread Not : : DMA Antell Software 2004 : : : Urm…Oops. I think Leela and I didn’t think this completely through. : : Whew. That was close. As the map name implies, I’m now on a Jjaro : dreadnought. The door ahead is actually 2 doors to a divided hallway. The : right one is locked and has a 1X shield charger. The left one isn’t and : goes to a big room with a square elevator. The enforcers at the top give : me trouble, but I get past them and follow the corridor north to a pattern : buffer. Another divided hallway goes to a room with a kiosk in the middle : which is well guarded. : This kiosk has a switch, another shield charger and the first terminal. : I have to carefully snipe them with the scatter rifle as my shields are down. : Luckily, when I take a pelting, I retreat and find a secret switch next to : the entrance that opens the 1X shield room. : : Excuse me Leela but you’re the one who told me to use the garbage : transporter to begin with! Weren’t you supposed to teleport me onto : another ship anyway? I find S’bhuth’s line funny; it feels like someone : apologizing for their friend’s tantrum at a party. : : : : I start my search by heading back to the pattern buffer upstairs and heading : through the door next to it. The hallway behind leads to 2 doors; one has : a second pattern buffer and the other goes to a large marble and metal : corridor with troopers and hunters. There’s a secret behind a not so well : concealed hatch in the pattern buffer room: a lift that goes down to the : big vault chambers below a particular hallway of the ship. There’s a 2X : shield charger at the end and you will need it. : : The hunter end of the marble hall has 2 majors and a commander, backed up by : troopers and a bunch of drones. At the end of the hall is a small living : space looking out some windows and with lights on the pillars. Beyond that : down another lift is another corridor with a pattern buffer by a door. : : Hmm. This looks important. : : I’m in the right place. The switch opens the trigger mechanisms in the : triangular box opposite the terminal booth. Those switches open the others : and then the exit areas. : : Now would be a very good time to leave! I run down the other hall past a : health terminal to an internal junction in the centre of the ship. : : The north door goes to a small room with a balcony and a second door to : somewhere we don’t want to visit yet. The east bulkhead opposite the west : door I came in opens into the start and the south bulkhead goes to the : exit terminal in an empty room. : : : Durandal said as much back in Marathon 1. Are the wasps and explodie bugs : also kept in line by fear like he said? Either way, the intelligence and : strength of the Drinniol would come in very useful with them as allies. It : would be like that one and only time we see Covenant separatist hunters in : Halo 2. A more official Marathon 4 should explore things like this : including the hulk’s culture (and the other aliens too), just like the : Halo books did. With terminals, it should be a piece of cake. : : Leela directly mentions glassing! I have to say I squeed with delight when I : first read that on the success plank in the original Eternal X back in : 2013, as it marks a direct reference to Halo, which I played first. This : is not the first nor the last reference to Halo in this game, though most : are more subtle than others. Before chapter 5 that is… : : : And with that I teleport out. However, our mission will have to wait for the : next part. For some reason, I have a strong sense of dread, like a pilot : light in my id just waiting for a gas leak. Something big is coming and I : think I know what. Tune in next time with Viking Boy Billy for Chapter 4 : Stage 2: Honou no Saiyaku, as well as a special entry afterward: the Lost : Episodes from Chapter 2 to 3, where I share my own recordings of those : levels originally posted on my log in 2019 as well which I've been using : for notes in the main entries, including major LP plot points started back : in the prologue. This lets us see both sides and provide some context for : some ramblings of mine in the endgame parts instead of them just being a : gainax ending. : Don’t miss it!
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