: 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: just a matter of poor timing and outdated information being passed around.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!
I like this theory, and I want the next Marathon game to be based on it. It'll be like the search for Spock, but for Leela, except we won't know we're looking for her... Bungie, 3rd party scenario writers, fan-fic writers, please use this idea.
