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	Message: : Just a thought about one of the "facts and puzzling things about" : entries concerning Leela - I think there's a lot less going on than is : suspected. : This is Durandal's second-hand information about Leela's fate - : : Poor Leela. The only interesting thing : Tycho said was that Leela had been : dismantled and shipped to the Pfhor : homeworld for study, along with most of the : other computer systems aboard the Marathon. : Leela was so loyal and tried so hard; she : deserved better. : Yet we learn in the Marathon 2 Final Screen that Leela never reached the : Pfhor homeworld - : : While Tau Ceti was being nuked down to bedrock in 2794, Pfhor scientists : disassembled and removed the AI Leela from the Marathon, loading her : aboard a vessel bound for the Pfhor homeworld. But the ship fell into the : hands of a Nar privateer between jumps at Beta Naxos, and was never seen : by the Pfhor again. : Thinking the cargo little more than scrap, the Nar captain sold the Pfhor : ship, Leela and all, to a Vylae merchant. The subsequent crash of the : Vylae FTL network when Leela was reassembled and reactivated is still : legendary in the annals of rampancy, and the Vylae have long since : accepted that they will never expunge her from their fifteen-world : network. : : This confirms that Leela never reached the Pfhor homeworld, as previously : suggested, but rather the Vylae homeworld. : I'm going to go on a limb and suggest that neither Tycho nor Durandal were : lying about her fate. The ship carrying her didn't jump directly to the : Pfhor homeworld but got caught between jumps, which suggests that - (1) : Analyzing Leela wasn't actually a high enough priority for the Pfhor to : provide the ship with an escort to prevent the ship from falling into the : hands of a Nar privateer or similar threat, and (2) that the ship probably : had other business en route to the homeworld, which is why it lingered at : Beta Naxos between jumps long enough to be captured (3) the news of the : ship's capture may not have reached Tycho before he passed on that : information to Durandal. : So Leela is indeed pulled apart by the Pfhor and sent to their homeworld, a : fate that Tycho accurately reports to Durandal, and the loss of the Pfhor : ship containing her probably didn't reach him until well after the event : and got lost in the midst of all the other doings. No lies necessary - : just a matter of poor timing and outdated information being passed around. : Even mighty rampant AIs like Tycho and Durandal aren't omniscient. : Oh, and about her name, there's something I'm surprised didn't see getting : mentioned on the MSP- : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila_ (Hinduism) : Lila or Leela is the name for "divine play" in Hinduism, the idea : that all the cosmos is a game or playful creation of the gods, with the : exact interpretation depending upon the school of Hindu thought. It's also : a somewhat common, if old-fashioned, female name. Given the player's : god-like status and Leela's tendency to help the player throughout the : original game, perhaps the reference to the Hindu concept was intentional? : I certainly see it as quite a bit more applicable than the Dr. Who : character!
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