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


Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stuf
Posted By: MartinDate: 4/14/18 10:21 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stuf (VikingBoyBilly)

: So... eh, the games are deep, but may not have been as well planned out as we
: give them credit for. They do a good job of giving plenty of pieces to
: construct working narratives out of it though.

I love when these discussions come up (circumstances are cyclical!) and reading everyone's takes on things is Great. I feel this is the one forum where we all actually take the time to read through on things like this, and it is awesome.

And I think that the above quote is one of the reasons we are still discussing it. The story as a whole and on face value is good, at least through M2's end, but the complexity that is there when we dig deeper, plus the lack of planning and subsequent loopholes, are what make for this sort of discussion. Whether all that was intentional or not :).

For mine, I'm happy enough with the explanations so far given to explain away our ending up with Durandal at M1's end. Do we actually know how much they knew about the sequel when that ending was penned? Quite possible that things changed and they just ran with Durandal, right? Maybe the SO wasn't even going to be involved? Anyway.

While I am happy with those explanations, I have other ideas as well. While it makes perfect sense that we played through M2 first, it comes across as the -successful- timeline. In terms of solving all of the problems we came encountered in Infinity. Problems that were only hinted at im M2 and only really became ideas for another sequel at its very end with the trih xeem and links back to what we had read about the W'rkncacnter in something of a throwaway terminal much earlier.

That these problems were then suddenly real gave rise to their needing to be solved, and pre-emptively at that. Enter Infinity. Could it be the first Jjarro timeline manipulation that takes us to Ne Cede Malis, a station that seems to exist outside of time as we normally experience it, rather usually watching over the very end of time. We are there every time we fail, and that one last time, which, while seeming to tell of our success, is maybe just the end we could not escape, as lamented in the final screen.

On Ne Cede Malis, Durandal is somewhat confused to say the least, and the simple fact that he says it is a shame we did not have time to explore the S'pht ruins suggests that -time- has gone back to before M2, although on the station it is always the end, which is what he is trying to reconcile.

Whatever entity then sends us back, it takes that contentious point of the end of M1 as the important one, in terms of where things needed to change. Somewhat poignant here! We follow our timeline with Tycho, which doesn't work. We observe the end of time again from that station, and get sent back again to where Durandal wakes us up earlier. How these different decisions are made in terms of the timeline is of course not clear, but in this case at least, it has been pointed out that the flooding of the Minor River was reported on Waterloo Waterpark, and that is where -that- timeline ends, possibly suggesting that M2 was really a failure after all, in and of itself.

Anyway, when we actually reach a solution, we become able to harness the power of that station across all timelines, and we 'Go' back to the M2 timeline but with the W'rk contained and so not loosed by the Trih Xeem.

Exactly what that means for the SO, in terms of when he is able to retain knowledge across timelines, is unclear, but I do feel it is neat in terms of dealing with the inconsistencies. The outcome of M2's timeline was definitely the best deal for humanity, and I feel that possibly letting us go back there was a gesture from the Durandal/Thoth entity, which stayed behind on the station for the truly inevitable end.

That puts a ring around Infinity and lets the story exist with or without its influence, but helps explain some inconsistencies without the more blatant "how it had to be" nature of -that- uplink chip. Let's see where another 25 years gets us :).

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Pre-2004 Posts

Replies:

Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stuffMarathoner325 4/13/18 12:31 p.m.
     Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufForrest of B.org 4/13/18 2:33 p.m.
     Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufVikingBoyBilly 4/13/18 5:00 p.m.
           Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufMartin 4/14/18 10:21 p.m.
     Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufGeneral-RADIX 4/13/18 7:32 p.m.
           Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufShining Raven 4/13/18 9:59 p.m.
                 Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufGeneral-RADIX 4/13/18 11:13 p.m.
                       Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufShining Raven 4/14/18 1:53 p.m.
                 Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufukimalefu 4/14/18 6:32 a.m.
                 Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufMarathoner325 4/14/18 10:43 a.m.
                       Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufShining Raven 4/14/18 2:05 p.m.
                             Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufGeneral-RADIX 4/15/18 12:04 a.m.
           Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufMarathoner325 4/14/18 10:59 a.m.
                 Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufShining Raven 4/14/18 2:09 p.m.
     Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufNevets01 4/20/18 9:09 a.m.
           Re: Marathon 2 is its own timeline, and other stufDurandal_1707 4/20/18 4:11 p.m.

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Pre-2004 Posts

 

 

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