/-/S'pht-Translator-Active/-/

	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts
	Posted By: SiliconDream =PN=	Date: 1/13/02 3:47 p.m.
	In Response To: Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts (Mark Levin) Note to self--don't post 10 pages if I don't plan to be at home the next morning... I've included references to my original post in brackets in your responses, so people don't get terminally confused. : I believe that T0 is identical to T2, exactly for that reason: There's no : conflicting evidence, and there's a good bit of circumstancial evidence : that they are the same. It's a bit forced, but we could use Durandal's : retreat to the asteroids to explain how he managed to survive capture : (after all, where's he living in Fatum Iustum Stultorum after you smashed : his previous home on Begging for Mercy?). He's living on the Khfiva, isn't he? To which (I imagine) he escaped from Tycho's vessel. For me, the main sticking point in equating T0 and T2 is the return of the S'pht'Kr; they dominate the end of every timeline. But Tfear doesn't even mention them, and he acts like Durandal's retreat made further combat unnecessary. That sounds like the S'pht'Kr never showed up in T0, which would fit with Tfear's quick defeat of Durandal before he gets a chance to search Lh'owon and activate Thoth. Also, the Jjaro station has a strong Pfhor presence in Carroll Street Station, which conflicts with Tfear's statement that he withdrew the fleet after Durandal holed up there. Maybe he was just keeping Durandal occupied with a sacrificial force, but that's a pretty big sacrifice. : I don't think the Marine starts timeline-jumping (or that D/T feels it is : necessary) until the W'rkncacnter comes into play; it is a last resort. I : still believe that no one has much control over the Marine's jumps until : late in the game. I agree that the timeline-jumps don't start until then. If T0 is a separate timeline, it's one the Cyborg never visits. Possibly it's just there to show that handing the Pfhor an easier victory wouldn't be the right path easier; they'd still set off the trih xeem, just to be on the safe side. As for control...well, I think the Thoth aspect always knows roughly which jump leads where (toward or away from Timeline 5), and tags them with Hangar 96 or blacksuit/girlfriend/knife messages accordingly. But it's certainly true that your control over your precise destination has to grow over the course of the game. : I suggest you make an image out of this[the various timelines] :) I would have--it's partially made, actually--but I still haven't mastered the art of finding a place to store them online. Suggestions? :-) : I disagree... I think the dream terminals come from one of 2 sources: Either : the Marine's Jjaro implants, or his human subconscious. When he receives : these messages, he is between universes, in a place that does not actually : exist, where time, space, and location are meaningless, so that he is : completely cut off from all outside observation and interaction until his : self-contained Jjaro abilities complete the jump. (One possible objection : to this is that he is being moved by an external Jjaro system, but then he : would not be able to gain his independence in the end.) So he has no one : to talk to but the voices in his head. But why would the "voices in his head" be able to talk to him in the real world as well? He gets messages on actual physical terminals on Ne Cede Malis and Hang Brain. And why would they speak of "us" and "you," and speak of "their own death?" I totally agree that the Where are Monsters, Whatever You Please and Eat the Path messages are from the Cyborg's own mind--whether the mind making the jump or the mind he's jumping into--but I consider them separately authored from the Electric Sheep, Hang Brain and NCM messages. In fact, that to my mind is more evidence that the latter don't come out of the Marine's head, because they're written so differently from the former. : D/T is actually capable of speaking semi-clearly and in real descriptive : English, as he does on Aye Mak Sicur. I don't think the universe of the : receiver affects one's grammar :) But that's the Durandal aspect of D/T. The last Strange Aeons message, and the "left behind by one and one" message on YTYBT, are in Thoth-dialect even though they apparently speak from D/T's perspective. That's the other aspect, I think. The one busy coordinating your movements across time while the Durandal-aspect coordinates them within specific timelines. : What about at the end of the game, when the Marine is freed by D/T? Perhaps : they form some sort of miniature three-member secret society, brought : together in times of great need when all else has failed... Perhaps. Or they don't need to keep you physically close now that "you and we are one". Maybe Durandal was so possessive of you throughout M2 because he was subconsciously anxious about your not yet being fully linked to him. : It's possible that the Marine, Durandal, and Thoth are all the results of : different schools of Jjaro thought on how to control the future. Thoth is : prototype 1, the balancer: an entity that tries to find an ideal situation : based on the current situation and then works as needed to bring things to : that point and keep them there. Durandal is prototype 2, the conqueror: He : doesn't have to seek a balance, he is a good enough strategist to be let : loose to defeat any enemy and remove their threat to the balance : completely. In general he is a more developed consciousness than Thoth, : who has a "simple perception" according to Durandal himself. The : Marine is the final model, who has the least cognitive ability (I'm sure : the Marine is an exceptional human, but he's no AI :\ ) but the greatest : ability to alter his world (due to his physical existence), and he is the : only one who can both make plans (and take orders) and implement them. So : the course of the game is everyone trying their hand at solving the : W'rkncacnter problem, with the Marine succeeding and inheriting the mantle : of Destiny. Durandal tries to win by defeating the Pfhor, which fails : because the Pfhor hold the trump card of a doomsday weapon. Thoth tries to : help first the humans, then the Pfhor, then the S'pht, then the Marine, in : accordance with his views of the balance of power in Lh'owon. Finally, the : Marine steps in (or they collectively give up and turn to him for help, if : your post is correct) and does it right, striking at the real problem and : winning once and for all. My only real counter-arguments are that a) Durandal and Thoth seem intended to merge rather than to operate individually, and b) Thoth would absolutely suck ass as a universe-saver. :-) I think the Jjaro are smart enough to build one fate-controlling construct rather than make a bunch of separate tries at it. They seem to be pretty good at predicting destiny themselves. : This is a bit contradictory: I thought you suggested that the movements were : being performed by D/T from the future, and limited by the distance they : must reach across. Incidentally, the above text is the very I agree more : with: Durandal knows of the Marine's latent abilities, and is the first : one who decides to use them. However, as in Volunteers, this is Durandal's : last resort: Throwing the Marine somewhere/somewhen back in time has a : (slightly) greater probability of final success than trying to fight the : W'rk directly. I suggested that the cross-time movements were being performed by D/T. The linear backwards time-jumps you've been doing since M1 can be performed by an unmerged Durandal and Cyborg, since they don't require Thoth's navigating skillz and you've got pattern buffers to home in on. : Except that he was rebooted way back in Marathon 1... Sure, but we have no idea of Tycho's thought processes in the 17 years since. Whatever knowledge Durandal had of your cosmic role and his own, it seemed to take a while to percolate up from his subconscious. That probably happened with Tycho too, especially since a few years of torture by the Pfhor didn't leave much time for meditation. : Perhaps Tycho is Durandal, but without the Jjaro components. He literally is : Durandal (cp Durandal.app Tycho.app; ./Tycho.app :P ), but he knows that : he is an inferior model and he knows what Durandal can do. Since he is : just as intelligent as Durandal, he might be able to deduce what's going : on. Tycho's definitely Durandal without something...it could very well be those components. : This is why I try to make the end of MI in the same universe as M1 and M2: If : the victory is in a seperate timeline, then the Marine hasn't actually : done anything at all! He's just looked for a nice place and settled down : in it, leaving his "home" timeline to be destroyed. But now his home timeline never existed in the first place...the victorious timeline is the only timeline. As long as the Marine's consciousness graces one timeline with actuality, his existence means the life of one timeline and the death of all others. The one which lives might as well be the successful one. His home timeline is most likely unsaveable anyway...he'd definitely have to branch it off before Ne Cede Malis, and probably before All Roads Lead to Sol, in order to get to the station in time. And he probably couldn't get the station online without D/T's help, so that means branching off somewhere around Begging For Mercy. Remember, the Cyborg's experience of the 17 years since Marathon consists of a whole lotta stasis, and then a few days of running around causing carnage. I doubt he has much affection for any particular timeline. : I think this ["your former self destroyed"] instead refers to his development as a cosmic power throughout : the game. His former self is a marine from Earth, reincarnated as a : battleroid, shipped to Tau Ceti, kidnapped by Durandal|Tycho and brought : into an alien war. His new self is Destiny, or possible the intermediate : state during the game when he's trying to master his abilities. Could be, although it was a pretty painless and gradual transition; also, he's still a battleroid, and still the "eternal hero." I'm not sure that "destruction" would be an appropriate term. Furthermore, I'd say he started becoming Destiny way back in M1. : I think this problem [the Cyborg's lack of memories of other timelines] disappears by the end of the game. I doubt we know either way. Even as late as By Committee, the Cyborg's still having memory troubles, and we never get another chance to see him time-jump. And the final screen could be viewed as D/T explaining the Cyborg's identity because he needs to...you still can't be sure yourself. : The "crushing center" may also be the "nexus" popular in : time-travel stories, the single point in time, space, and the plot that is : the most important determinant of the future. That works... : This ["the way grows dim"] could also refer to the Marine's "way" of merely following : orders and killing what he is told to kill. It has long since become : obvious that this alone isn't working. True, but then it would probably be more appropriate to say that that way is going astray, or something like that. Here, we're told that the way's actually getting hard to see, not that it's leading where it shouldn't. : The "falling path" may be the failed timeline. If the W'rkncacnter : destroys the universe, that timeline may go with it (begging the question : of where exactly it goes, and how this affects attempts to travel to it). Agreed, You're being asked to look past the failed timeline to see a better one, which contains a future with these billion unborn S'pht. : Slicing open the sky is also a fairly common mythological event. I believe : the turning point of Ragnarok occurs when someone does this. From what I recall of Ragnarok, a dramatic turning point occurs every five minutes or so. :-) I remember a similar occurrence in Arthur C. Clarke, though. : I don't believe W'rks are capable of real creation. They are the embodiment : of chaos, entropy, and destruction, and as such they should only be : capable of negative actions. The creations of the dreaming god in Pathways : break almost every known law of nature, and I suspect that they vanished : with its death (aside from the destruction of the pyramid by the nuclear : device). Well, chaos and entropy are separate concepts...the "disorder" defined in discussions on entropy has very little in common with the "chaos" that implies unpredictability. Entropy is itself part of the laws of nature, and W'rkncacnter can doubtless reverse the increase of entropy as they can violate all natural laws. Their brand of chaos can generate both positive and negative actions, I think...it's just that the positive actions don't stand out except in a formerly bare and lifeless universe. Eddings himself observed that all the pyramid creatures were not created equal. Some, like the Zombies, violated natural law in certain ways; some, like the Phantasms, were pure impossibilities; but some, like the Ghouls and Headlesses, seemed to be entirely "ordinary" biological entities. Eddings even speculated that these were descended from natural creatures which had wandered into the pyramid and been transformed. If you can't swallow the W'rkncacnter being able to create "ordinary" life directly, perhaps they catalyzed the creation of advanced life from more primitive elements. : The scenario An AI Called Wanda had an interesting take on this: I believe it : said that W'rkncacnters were accidentally created by the Jjaro during a : failed experiment, which would explain why the Jjaro feel so obligated to : defeat them. (::Does penances for bringing outside information into a : Marathon debate::) It could be, but we're told that the W'rkncacnter were around "at the beginning of the universe." Overall, I think we have much more evidence for their primacy and antiquity than for that of the Jjaro. --SiliconDream

[ | Message Index | Read Prev Msg | Read Next Msg ] Pre-2004 Posts

Replies:

	Dream Terminal Thoughts	SiliconDream =PN=	1/13/02 1:53 a.m.
	Good grief!	Hamish Sinclair	1/13/02 5:44 a.m.
	Holy Doctoral Thesis Batman! *NT* *NM*	Ernie	1/15/02 3:27 p.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Mark Levin	1/13/02 6:46 a.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Tycho7en	1/13/02 8:20 a.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Cpt. Sqweky	1/14/02 8:32 p.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	SiliconDream =PN=	1/13/02 3:47 p.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Andrew Nagy	1/14/02 7:00 a.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	SiliconDream =PN=	1/14/02 1:54 p.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	SiliconDream =PN=	1/14/02 2:59 p.m.
	Duplicate post, sorry *NM*	SiliconDream =PN=	1/14/02 3:04 p.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Andrew Nagy	1/18/02 7:24 a.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Tru7h	1/18/02 9:11 a.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	SiliconDream =PN=	1/18/02 1:10 p.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Andrew Nagy	1/14/02 7:00 a.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Tycho7en	1/13/02 7:43 a.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	SiliconDream =PN=	1/13/02 1:22 p.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Tycho7en	1/13/02 3:06 p.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	SiliconDream =PN=	1/13/02 11:31 p.m.
	Wow, it all makes sense now!	Jonah	1/15/02 12:37 a.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Tycho7en	1/15/02 4:04 p.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Rincewind MoG	1/13/02 1:23 p.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	Tru7h	1/13/02 1:49 p.m.
	Re: Dream Terminal Thoughts	SiliconDream =PN=	1/13/02 3:59 p.m.
	Oh, and...	SiliconDream =PN=	1/13/02 4:01 p.m.
	Re: Oh, and...	Smasher	1/13/02 7:29 p.m.
	Re: Oh, and...	SiliconDream =PN=	1/13/02 10:55 p.m.

Problems? Suggestions? Comments? Email maintainer@bungie.org Marathon's Story Forum is maintained with WebBBS 5.12.