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	Message: : Chapter 5: Antiquity Stage 3: End of the World : There's just one more semi crossover with the underrated gem I compare this : game & Doom Eternal to. Just roll with it, OK? : : Act 1: Deep in the Grotto : Last time on Tour of Duty, Hathor reformed on the brink of death and I : helped her stop the W’rkncacnter in the past by killing it with a Trih : Xeem. I didn’t even know that killing an elder god was possible. It was : only a fleeting victory as the Yucatan one escaped detection thanks to our : assassination and it was set loose. I also learned I am the chosen one and : that Hathor was picked by the W’rkncacnter as their pawn in a similar way : I am to the Jjaro, making her the W’rkncacnter Trigger in more ways than : one. : Now I return to the Shield World Installation 04 and its library to finish : off Hathor as I would have done had I not stayed my hand. However, the : downside is that this will fire the Dyson sphere and destroy almost all : life in the galaxy. I’ll spare you the journey through the level again as : usual. : Along the way I find another of Lia’s new areas in the map. Some kind of : loading bay for the library, though the lift is too small and the : roll-down door is locked. : : It leads to a passageway under the library to a computer bank. I smash a : circuit inside the bank to open the maintenance hatch connected to the : right side elevator by the waterfall in the atrium (when facing the : falls). There’s a rock tunnel under the water at the bottom of the shaft : but I can’t get into it. Currently I’m back at Hathor’s terminal off the : library’s atrium. : Sorry Hathor, but I can’t listen to you this time. I smash the circuit board : panel in the wall and Hathor fully dies. Or so it seems… : : So that’s it. I just fired the Marathon version of a Halo ring and wiped out : a large percentage of the galaxy’s life. As Forrest said, you would have : done this in Halo had that not been scrapped. The closest we have in the : final series is... *SPOILER ALERT!* : ...firing the first Halo’s replacement while it’s still at the ARK and out : of range of any life let alone sentient life other than what’s currently : on the ARK. The ARK is Installation 00; basically a glorified Master Key : for all 7 rings, which we saw in the SPV3 Tour of Duty, mostly when I : provided the Halo CEA terminals. : *END HALO 3 SPOILER ZONE* : : It’s Leela! I’m back in the previous timezone I left and she found me. : However, she isn’t alone: as Guilty Spark tells me, the Pfhor are also : waiting outside and take the chance to rush inside the Shield World when : it opens. They were not expecting the W’rkncacnter’s : kamalas/nightmares/whatever to be in here however. While I listen to : Spark’s message, I hear a trooper fighting them upstairs, either a skitter : or a nightmare. Fighting the pfhor after several long levels of PID : Monsters only strangely feels very good, almost exactly like Two Betrayals : in Halo where you finally fight the covenant again after the Flood replace : them for 1½ levels. Also, what happened to the living Jjaro that used to : be in this chapter in 1.1? They were Bob palette swaps with alien clothes. : While it is a little disappointing they are gone, honestly I always liked : the idea of you being utterly alone in Chapter 5 against the horrors. Even : with the Monitor for company. : : Reasoning with the Pfhor is out of the question so I may well need to destroy : the ship. With this in mind, I quickly save and return to the library : entrance. : : Christ, it’s a warzone! As soon as I run into the middle of the grotto’s : topside area, the monitor teleports me out. Now, Cybernetic Junction; : Raise the curtain for our final show! : Act 2: This Message Will Self-Destruct : : “drictelt ‘06” Raven : Not only do I get a pattern buffer and 2X Shield charger straight away, I : also get a respawning purple shield canister too. The goal here is simple: : kill everything you can and flick switches. I still need to find a : terminal to find out my actual objective, which is likely destroy the : ship. We can’t let the kamalas get off this Dyson Sphere and the map title : hints at that. : East of where I start, hunters and enforcers get slaughtered by the shadow : monsters after I aggro them. West of here are more pfhor and some banshees : & nightmares. I learn the hard way that killing hunters with the dark : energy swords makes them explode as if I used fusion or explosions. I also : know from the Rampancy stream that Jjaro weapons make you immune to : attacks from those weapons if you are holding them, such as that of your : teammates. This isn’t a co-op run so I don’t get to see that last part. It : even kills commanders in 1 hit, as I saw when I found one hiding in a side : room. : Side note for context above: I don't often play co-op with my friends in : Marathon now as not all my friends have it and my brother doesn’t like : Marathon anymore since I whupped his ass at Slayer on Thunderdome in the : Xbox version of Marathon 2, as revenge for him kicking my ass at Halo : since we were kids. : The corridors of this ship are a spaghetti junction of blue and purple rooms, : some with small thundrillium solution pools. There’s a big pool of the : liquid crystal close to the start which is quite important. I find a : terminal somewhere north of where I was. : : *Pfhor Translator Active* : “We’ve got contacts, lots of ‘em! But…they’re not humans or reshep! : T,T,They’re just tearing through us! What the...Ohhhh nooooo!” : *End Translation* : I find a second purple shield charger in a semi-circular room with liquid : thundrillium pools just next to this area. I also find out for definite : that enforcers pop like popcorn when using dark energy swords on them, as : if I used grenades. Not that it matters much as I have plenty sword and : portable Halo charges anyway. There’s a switch here I need to hit. All : buttons you find must be pushed to raise an incredibly long stairway : catwalk over the big pool to reach an outer deck on the spine of the ship. : Another button and pattern buffer I find next to a green shield charger : (1X) just east of here. : Another button is inside what looks like a large ovary. : : To the east I find an identical terminal next to a save point and stumble : onto a big battle at the base of the large stairs by the thundrillium fuel : pool. : : Another button guarded by fighters lies on the far east. Next to the start, I : find a panel in a room I missed that starts an elevator in the first room. : The blue passageway above has a 2X shield station which I admire with the : glory of mipmapping (or is it bump mapping?) : : It snakes past another to a brand new catwalk up top. I could try and jump to : the stairs from here as I can’t seem to find the remaining buttons. : : I get to see the outer hull and what appear to be pulse laser turrets as I : follow this secret catwalk. : : That group of pillars is the outer deck so this seems to either be a shortcut : or the new way to get up to it. I kill the hunters, drones and few shadow : dream monsters up here and check the terminal. The Monitor has come to : realise that the pfhor are meddlers. : : Ah, so the thundrillium is coolant here? It usually is depicted as such in : Marathon 2 and Infinity, though in a couple of levels at least. The button : in here must raise the final portions of the stairs. As I thought, the : only option is to scuttle the ship. I need to overflow the coolant and : flood the ship for a Bengal cat destabilisation. Not to be confused with a : wildcat one, that’s for fusion engines. : Besides being the new way to raise the final parts of the stairway leading : here, the switch by the Monitor’s terminal also opens the power core : access room to the left when facing down the stairs near the bottom. : : I use my portable Halo to destroy the circuit board and damage the power : core. : : That did it! The engine’s gone critical! Well, into meltdown, not critical as : the latter just means it’s turned on. The thundrillium coolant rises at a : slightly faster pace than you so you better get a head start. All this : needs now is some fires from overheating equipment and the Escape theme : from Another Metroid 2 Remake. It flows onto the hull too so be fast. The : Monitor teleports you out once you stand on the floor of the hull area. : Act 3: We Met Once in the Garden : : “drictelt ‘07” : In a canyon in a cavern, excavating for a mine : Dwelt the miner forty-niner and his daughter Clementine. : (I don't get it. Is that a Scooby Doo reference?) : : This map uses What About Bob and while the song isn’t shit unlike Freedom, : this map used to use Rushing and it was WAY BETTER FOR IT. It gave the : impression of you running full pelt for your life while still being a : badass. What About Bob better fits a mid-game battle level like Third Rock : from Lh’owon or Babylon X. I’m very disappointed that Rushing has been : demoted to its niche status in terms of appearance like in the main : trilogy, which is bad as Craig’s Rushing is even more badass than the : original MIDI and a different flavour of pure awesome than the CD version : and Eupfhoria remix. : Anyway, this is it. The Final Run. 343 Guilty Spark has teleported me to none : other than the Shield World’s copy of Kingdom Valley itself. He contacts : me via the terminal as I’m joined by fusion turrets and he’s got some very : bad news: : WHAT?! If having to choose between firing the Shield World and nuking it with : a Trih Xeem, I don’t know which is worse! A Trih Xeem fired at a planet : would have a similar effect to the Little Doctor device from the Ender : Saga books, except this one will spread. DON’T be here when it blows! : : : The Shield World has an escape hatch at the very top (south pole?) that leads : out into space. If I move now I can make it! The paths are mostly gone or : broken but my god does it make the best Sprint of Faith platforming : since Whatever You Please. : This is a daring charge through the tall, water filled canyons of the Dyson : Sphere’s recreation of Kingdom Valley. My goal is an elevator to the : highest part of the Mount Point in the far northeast by a large lake. The : Pfhor are fighting a dire final battle against the W’rkncacnter’s : nightmares in the canyons and they even have Juggernauts out in force. Be : wary of the fusion turrets as they can and will likely hit you when trying : to shoot the actual hostiles. Some are even hiding in cracks in the rocks : so you may not see them until they shoot you. : Saving at the Pattern Buffer and dashing through the door on the side of the : building the terminal is on, I run past an elevator used for getting back : up if you fall in the water and run like hell through the canyons, jumping : between rock ledges and sprinting over streams and pools. : : : : : : : Hang on, what’s this I spy through this waterfall? : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MDwKzH4ez8&t=1286s : : : : : : : : : : : Hey, we passed through Rocky Plateau and Refraction Canyon too! This lake was : supposed to be a final boss arena where Hathor would have gained a new : Battleroid body and you’d fight her before the final level. I’ve seen the : 3D model they made of her on the Pfhorums; she looks kind of like SHODAN. : : : Straight ahead over the lake I find a pattern buffer, a broken terminal and a : 1X shield station. The elevator is up the stairs through a fissure in the : rocks. There’s fighters tumbling down them. : : Hmm. This elevator shaft looks familiar. Quickly, I get on and it starts up. : I need to hurry: things are getting noisy down there. : Act 4: Where Giants Have Fallen : : : SURPRISE! The Kingdom Valley cliffs above the bay I saw in my dreams were the : Mount Point of the Jjaro Shield World all along. Only this time, it’s no : dream. Unlike every other time I’ve been here, I need to climb up to the : door at the original entrance this time. The Dyson Sphere’s star core is : expanding! There’s no more time! I have to hurry! : : : : https://youtu.be/5fOXvXrCaTA?t=21 : : The waves of the sea in the sky are now a tsunami. It’s only a matter of time : before they come crashing down and flash into steam. : : It’s the creek! I can’t get up the cliff by the waterfall so I need to follow : the other pass over the edge of the valley mountain. : : : : *INCOMPRESHENCIBLE SCREAMING* : NOT THOSE! IT’S A LITTLE PARTING GIFT FROM HATHOR IT SEEMS! OR THE STAR IN : THE SHIELD WORLD IS IMPLODING INSTEAD OF GOING NOVA! OR IS IT JUST ABOUT : TO EXPLODE AND THESE BLACK HOLES ARE ALL MATTER FALLING INTO THE STAR : FISRT? DON’T MATTER, FUCKING RUN FOR IT! : : DAMN! THE ONLY WAY PAST IS TO SLINGSHOT AROUND THEIR GRAVITY WELLS! THIS IS : SO STUPID! WHY AM I GETTING THIS CLOSE TO THOSE THINGS WILLINGLY?! JUST : DON’T MAKE EYE CONTACT! : : : I finally make it to the door at the very top of the Shield World and run : inside. This was always locked in the dream levels. 343 Guilty Spark has : some parting words at a terminal. : : LEELA! AM I SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU! : : : We won’t know that for sure until either Bungie finally make an official : Marathon 4 as a sequel to this or we get Marathon Chronicles to carry on : from both this and Rubicon. The chip I found on my way in this area can go : in a slot by the shield terminal and I cannot ram it in there fast enough. : This opens up the escape hatch: the giant tube in the middle of the room. : I was distraught when I played the original Eternal X and got here as I : thought Leela died for real. I didn’t play the failure planks on my first : run of 1.0.3 however so I’d missed the fact that Leela would survive via : her backup which is also in the Macroverse. Not that she meets up with me : once I get there. : : With mere seconds to spare before the black holes outside and the imminent : nova catch up to me, I throw myself down the bottomless pit and go : hurtling out into deep space. : “What if…we don’t make it?” I hear Leela’s voice say. “We’ll make it.” I : respond calmingly. As the Jjaro shield world goes up in a massive fireball : of plasma and burning dust and metal, I hear this version of Leela’s last : words I’ll ever hear unless she appears in Chronicles. “It’s been an : honour serving with you, Marcus.” : : It’s rather a pity, really. Now the universe is down to 699 wonders. : Final Timezone Epilogue: Eternity : : Final stage: The Near Side of Everywhere : : : Wha? Where am I? Wait. I recognise this place. I’m…back on K’lia. In the : future. Above Fourth Earth. And I’m not dreaming. : Honou no Saiyaku may be out now, but it’s now snowing golden embers. Those : are Pre-Battleroid Hathor's sparks, likely a gift from Solaris to me : presumably to rebirth her no longer as the Dark One. All of this, my : encounter with Hathor, my time travel, but what she said…I wrote this down : back on Kill Your Television but I was largely incoherent. : Now I need to write this down, but with clarity this time. There’s a computer : right there to do it: the first one I spoke to Hathor on at the start of : all this. How fitting. : : The decayed hand in the Infinity ending screen is mine. And now I take : Hathor's hand, in unity at last at the end of the world. : : : : : I still crave my next meeting with the real person, involving no battles or : anything like that; just reconciliation for a misunderstanding. The real : thing is nothing like her Marathon EU equivalent, though they do share : the same beauty: eyes like galaxies in a warm nebula and hair of star : plasma, burning and searing the air with divine light. But that's quite : enough of that for this series. Back to more Marathon and/or Bungie in : general's story focused naval gazing, coming right up. : : I am…the architect of Earth’s own destruction. In my quest to save it by : changing the past, I changed absolutely nothing and now I’m back. It is : still snowing golden lava embers. I consider that my baptism. So this is : it. This, is the way the world ends. : : All the Bobs are gone. I’m the only one left: K’lia is completely empty. Is : it really the end of the world? Will the langoliers show up and consume : everything else? : With a heavy heart, I walk through the fiery flurry, catching as many golden : magma snowflakes as I can on my tongue and return to the terminal I wrote : my diary in what feels like millennia now. I save a backup copy of myself : in the pattern buffer I started by, not that it matters anymore. : : Cycle? From what I try to interpret from Durandal and Thoth, this was all a : time loop. And the Jjaro in the Macroverse FORCE this cycle on us? My god… : Even Solaris does not want that. Those Jjaro must be rogue. No wonder : Solaris granted the snowing embers on K’lia: it was to give me hope. They : also seem to metaphorically represent the molten gold inlay of the : monument I destroyed in that ancient battle with the Dark One, whichever : form she took then. How dare the W’rkncacnter make Hathor their next pawn! : I will avenge her. : : : The W’rkncacnter are indeed elder gods, but they, like all gods, are organic : alien lifeforms bonded to cybernetics and vast technology we struggle to : conceive of. They just happen to be titanic leviathans with such tech. The : Jjaro, original human and all species in that collective fear so much to : become like their enemy, they end up just as bad if not worse anyway but : through other means. Just like us. Forrest has mentioned in the past that : this theme was based on the war on terror back when it was fresh, post : 9-11. Presumably Al Queada and Islamic State are represented by the : W’rkncacnter and the Jjaro by Western Europe and the united states. : *Last tangent below, I promise. It's in firebrick to mean "skip this : section if it ain't your cup of tea"* : If you excuse the final rant, another way of looking at the Jjaro unrelated : to terrorism is that their failure is the same reason that good guys in : some TV shows and movies are fucking pussies and would rather let : blatantly always chaotic evil beings live instead of killing them, or just : sitting and taking abuse from bullies or other bad people because fucking : DEFENDING themselves they see as “stooping to their level”, quoting : that in the most demeaning, whiny, mimicking voice I can. This also : spreads to deliberately missing their attacks, sticking to shitty melee : weapons (looking at you, both versions of Thundercats, Tygra's fusion : pistol in the only good one notwithstanding) and not even swearing at the : bad guys to make it clear they think they are dicks. : I never realised this before but the transsentient Jjaro are now what happens : when you take the tired old thing parents tell their kids, the “Never : fight back and protect yourself from people harming you because you’ll be : as bad as them” blatantly false BULLSHIT too far. I knew that way of : thinking would lead to the end of the world. That was my interpretation : when I first played Eternal X 1.03 back in 2013, anyway. : Rant over, back to Durandal! : : This is where Marathon Eternal is the perfect Marathon 4 or interequal to an : official one because it takes place all over the already established canon : with barely any time spent in the time post Infinity where it begins. This : allows it to come after Infinity and immediately precede any of your own : favourite mods and future official Marathon games if any are eventually : made. There may be contradictions in official ones though, but we shall : see. All those events after this game can be seen as us trying to prevent : the Jjaro from deliberately steering the timeline to its doom. Full : victory at a more deserving end of the Marathon saga will be when that is : achieved at last. : : Like the Forerunners under the Ur-Didact, Shadow of Sundered Star, the Jjaro : may be enemies now. I answer to Solaris, Bast, Sekhmet & Nyarlathotep : anyway, not the Jjaro. Come get some. : : If you still didn't believe Durandal actually escaped the closure post : Infinity before, you will now. He only “didn’t” cause he already has. : That is it. Durandal teleports me off of K’lia and to the past for the final : time: to my own time where I left off at the conclusion of Marathon : Infinity. Then our quest to free ourselves from Jjaro control and stop the : Pfhor and W’rkncacnter all at once will begin. That is for someone else to : cover, in a separate timeline to this glorified novel(fan fiction) that I : bled into this text let’s play as a retelling of how I first experienced : the Marathon Eternal X 1.0.3, now in Eternal X Omega 1.2 to accommodate : the actual LP. : (:ike Freeman’s Mind was in Half Life Source, with plenty of Accursed Farms : and Psychedelic Eyeball style weirdness to go along with it) : Thank all of you with putting up with all my ramblings this Tour. This is : Lion O Cyborg, and in signing off, I now both leave with another hymn : -this one a song that should be the main theme of both Marathon Infinity : and Marathon Eternal X, especially Eternal- which I'll put under paragraph : breaks so you can safely ignore it if it isn't your cup of tea and one : final message for Marathon fans as a whole you can count as the actual end : of this writeup: : Most people think time is like a river, that flows swift and sure in 1 : direction. But I have seen the face of time and I can tell you: they are : wrong. : Time is an ocean in a storm. You may wonder who I am and why I say this. Sit : down, and I will tell you a tale like none that you have ever : heard. : : : : : *Ending Song/Personal Alternate Main Theme of Eternal* : : In the night light do you see what you dream? All your troubles, are they all : what they seem? : : Look around you then you may realise, all the preachers all with their lies. : : And I might know of our future… : : …But then you still control the past. : : Only you know if we’ll be together. Only you know we shall last. : : In the night light, do you still feel your pain? : : For the valour, you wait. It never came. : If you were able, would you go change the past… : : …To end a foe-pa with one last chance? : : And I might know of our future… : : …But then you still control the past. : : Only you know if we’ll be together some day. : : Cause every night, I will save your life. : : And every night, I will be with you. : : Cause every night I still lay awake and I dream of an absolution. : : Cause every night, I will make it right. : : And every night, I will come to you. : : But every night it just stays the same. And I dream of an absolution. : : : In the nightlight, do you see what you dream? All your triumph and all you’ll : ever be. Look around you then you may realise : : My happiness lies TRAPPED IN MISERY! : : And who knows what of our future? : : We can all try to change the past. : : Only you know if she’ll be together with us at last. : : Cause every night, I will save your life. : : And every night I will be with you. : : Cause every night I still lay awake and I dream of an absolution. : : Cause every night, I will make it right. : : And every night, I will come to you. : : But every night it just stays the same and I dream of my absolution. And : you’ll see what you’ll be. All you can be. Cause every night and every : night, I will dream. : : And you’ll see that this is my dream. Every night I will always dream of what : we can be. And every night I will always dream, my dream of an : absolution. :
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