: Looks to me like there are Lovecraft references in Marathon that go beyond
: the familiar Cthulhu mythos, in this case from the story "The Rats in
: the Walls". In this story the protagonist keeps hearing phantom rats
: in the walls and comes to a horrifying discovery about his family
: heritage. It ends with the protagonist incarcerated in an asylum (which is
: no spoiler to anyone remotely familiar with Lovecraft's work!) uttering
: the following classically Lovecraftian lines -
: They must know it was the rats; the slithering scurrying rats whose
: scampering will never let me sleep; the daemon rats that race behind the
: padding in this room and beckon me down to greater horrors than I have
: ever known; the rats they can never hear; the rats, the rats in the walls.
: This doesn't sound all too different from this sentence in Tfear's
: description of the W'rkncancter's assault on Aye Mak Sicur in the failed
: timeline, does it?
: But the trackless whisper chattering through
: the hollow space in these cursed walls buzzes
: and threatens madness.
: Given that the W'rkncacnter is a creature of total chaos and is associated
: with doubt too, that it should also cause mental madness right out of a
: Lovecraft story seems appropriate.
: Also, the association of an unearthly, buzzing voice or sound with madness
: comes out of Lovecraft too. There's the novella "The Whisperer in
: Darkness", which features choice descriptions of the voice of an
: extraterrestrial being, which, while not remotely as monstrous as Cthulhu
: or the W'rkncacnter, is nevertheless well capable of driving people mad -
:
: I think I am going crazy. It may be that all I have ever written you is a
: dream or madness. It was bad enough before, but this time it is too much.
: They talked to me last night—talked in that cursed buzzing voice and told
: me things that I dare not repeat to you.
Interesting.
The Lovecraft story "The Rats in the Walls" has been mentioned in relation to the Gheritt White terminal but not the W'rkncacnter.
http://marathon.bungie.org/story/gheritt.html
: Perhaps Greg K. or someone else at Bungie was into classic Lovecraft? These
: really don't seem to be a coincidence in light of the previous
: thinly-veiled allusions to Cthulhu.
The Lovecraft references/allusions are certainly ramped up in Marathon Infinity. So I am thinking this is Greg K with some help from Chris G.
http://marathon.bungie.org/story/cthulhu.html
Cheers
Hamish