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


Does the marine know he is a cyborg?
Posted By: ThomasDate: 5/23/01 5:47 p.m.

In Response To: Original points: (Jonah)

: I think some of my original points were lost: First: We dont know why the
: marine is so damn powerfull. Obviously, he can be killed by things, and
: has a low probability of suceeding against a lot of things, such as a
: tank. (Yes, we all know he beats juggs, but thats becuase they have
: incredibly slow shots and missles. Give one a high powered minigun, and
: you'll see one heavily ventilated marine.)

Indeed.

: Second: Only the Mjolnirs can use the patern buffers for this psuedo time
: travel. This is why they were so terribly effective, becuase thier
: commanders, who only saw them when they did succeed, saw them getting
: incredibly lucky over and over again, and probably had no idea why. After
: all, why would a dead soldier that can survive a few shots and run faster
: then anyone else be so skilled? The only reason they are so powerfull is
: due to the Jjaro technology, thats for sure. But if it doesn't allow the
: pattern buffer trick, what exactly does it do?

With respect, I believe it is a mistake to assign as much significance to them as you do. They are a feature for the game, not really a part of the universe. It is where the immersiveness of the environment compromises for the necessities of the fact that we are playing a computer game. I really do doubt that the point of the Mjolnirs is that they are some sort of time-traveling warriors that use pattern buffers to restart themselves at various points if they fail.

Also we don't know that the Mjolnirs were the only ones that can use pattern buffers, and upon consideration it seems unlikely that they were. Consider for a moment the presence of the pattern buffers. If pattern buffers are expressly for the use of the Mjolnir cyborgs, how do the humans account for their ubiquitous presence throughout the ship? Indeed, what about their presence on Pfhor ships? True, that was probably stolen Jjaro tech like most Pfhor tech is, but I doubt they'd be perfectly compatible with your own Jjaro technology even if it did come from the same race. After all, Mac and Windows came from the same race. :-) The colonists cannot know that there are Mjolnir cyborgs because it is perfectly evident from Leela's closing message that their presence on the colony was a complete surprise. A few conspirators may have known, but evidently the presence of the Mjolnirs was not common knowledge. So the colonists would naturally wonder, why do we have all these pattern buffers around that only Mjolnirs can use? Decoration? Surely that could never do.

As even more evidence that pattern buffers are not just for Mjolnirs, Leela is unaware that you are a cyborg. As I said before, Leela was unaware till the end of the game that the cyborgs were even present and seemed quite surprised, and is still evidently unaware that you are one as well (Ingue Ferroque terminal 3). However, she instructed you to use pattern buffers often early in the game (the first terminals in Arrival, Never Burn Money, The Rose).

That's more than enough I think, but there is one thing I would like to extract. Indulge me, if you will, as I go off on a slight tangent.

Suppose we are to assume the presence of these pattern buffers is for the use of Mjolnirs only. There would have to be some way of explaining away their presence to the other humans. Perhaps to the colonists what we know as pattern buffers could really be something else (food station maybe), while we alone are aware of their hidden functionality.

For the reasons above I don't really believe that's a possibility, but here's my point. We are certainly aware of their hidden functionality of being able to save our state, then the marine MUST know that he is special, and I'm not referring to special in the sense that he is "bigger and stronger, and a better shot," I mean he knows he is special as in different at a more fundamental level.

We as those playing the character do not know that he is a cyborg (at least at first), but in the Marathon universe (unlike in the Oni universe, say) we don't know what our character is thinking. There's no internal dialog. So, here's the question: does the marine know that he is a cyborg?

: All I know is that the Mjolnir is incredibly powerfull, and him being us, we
: should know why. Where our real power comes from in the game is saving our
: game. After all, how many of you beat any of the marathon games without
: dying once?

Again, the necessity of good gameplay raises its ugly head. A game like Marathon MUST have a save game option, if only for the sake of being able to resume play at some other time. Given that it does, that dictates that the game go up in difficulty considerably.

If we can escape from inside the Marathon world for a moment, I'm of the mind that pattern buffers are just a convention to allow saving, and that is all. Bungie wanted to preserve the quality of gameplay by not being able to save every time you fire one bullet. I believe that is the end of their signifiance.

But I'd like to hear about whether or not the marine knows he is a cyborg. I believe the answers are in the M1 manual if anywhere. Thoughts?

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

Replies:

BattleroidsJonah 5/22/01 6:13 p.m.
     Re: Battleroids7revor Smith 5/22/01 6:45 p.m.
           Re: BattleroidsJoyeuse 5/23/01 12:23 p.m.
     Pattern Buffers... the tru7hDoctordude 5/22/01 7:29 p.m.
           Re: Pattern Buffers... the tru7hAnaphiel 5/22/01 7:43 p.m.
                 Re: Pattern Buffers... the tru7h•Mimer 5/23/01 3:15 a.m.
                       Re: Pattern Buffers... the tru7hFriend of a Friend 5/23/01 5:16 a.m.
                             Re: Pattern Buffers... the tru7h•Mimer 5/23/01 6:53 a.m.
                             Re: Pattern Buffers... the tru7hMark Levin 5/23/01 6:57 a.m.
                                   Re: Pattern Buffers... the tru7hFriend of a Friend 5/23/01 7:22 a.m.
                                         Re: Pattern Buffers... the tru7hThomas 5/23/01 8:00 a.m.
                 Re: Pattern Buffers... the tru7hThomas 5/23/01 7:43 a.m.
                       Re: Pattern Buffers... the tru7hThomas 5/23/01 8:07 a.m.
                             Original points:Jonah 5/23/01 10:07 a.m.
                                   Re: Original points:Jonah 5/23/01 10:09 a.m.
                                   Does the marine know he is a cyborg?Thomas 5/23/01 5:47 p.m.
                                         Re: Does the marine know he is a cyborg?Jonah 5/23/01 6:20 p.m.
                                               What gives the Mjolnir his power?Anaphiel 5/23/01 6:47 p.m.
                                               Re: Does the marine know he is a cyborg?Thomas 5/23/01 8:45 p.m.
                                         Re: Does the marine know he is a cyborg?Anaphiel 5/23/01 6:32 p.m.
                                               Re: Does the marine know he is a cyborg?Thomas 5/23/01 9:19 p.m.
                                                     Re: Does the marine know he is a cyborg?Thoth Wannabe 5/24/01 8:42 a.m.
                                                           Re: Does the marine know he is a cyborg?Smeeisqualityfootrot 5/24/01 2:13 p.m.
                                                                 Re: Does the marine know he is a cyborg?7revor Smith 5/24/01 4:07 p.m.
                                                                       Re: Does the marine know he is a cyborg?Forrest of B.org 5/26/01 11:21 a.m.
                                         my ideasfallout 5/23/01 6:33 p.m.
           Re: Pattern Buffers... the tru7h[Tycho?] 5/23/01 11:04 a.m.
     more pb drivel...Yossarian 5/23/01 8:28 p.m.
           Re: more pb drivel...Some guy 5/24/01 4:53 p.m.
                 Re: more pb drivel...7revor Smith 5/24/01 5:44 p.m.



Problems? Suggestions? Comments? Email maintainer@bungie.org

Marathon's Story Forum is maintained with WebBBS 5.12.