Marathon (1994)

Official icon used to represent the Marathon franchise. This article is a stub. You can help CyberAcme by expanding it.
Official icon used to represent the Marathon franchise.
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Main
Marathon
5x7 crop of Classic Marathon loading screen

Developer(s):

Bungie
Soli Deo Gloria (iOS)

Publisher(s):

Bungie
Soli Deo Gloria (iOS)

Platform(s):

Release date(s):

December 21st, 1994 (Macintosh)
July 7th, 2011 (iOS)

Other release(s):

Super Marathon
Classic Marathon

Genre(s):

First-person shooter

Mode(s):

Single-player, multiplayer

 
Classic
Classic Marathon
Official Steam Library Artwork

Developer(s):

Bungie (Original)
Aleph One Developers (Classic)
Dome-C Studio (iOS)

Publisher(s):

Aleph One Developers
Dome-C Studio (iOS)

Platform(s):

Release date(s):

June 19th, 2023 (iOS)
May 11th, 2024 (Steam)

 

Marathon is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by Bungie.

Plot[edit]

On July 3rd, 2794, Mjolnir Recon number 54 was flying The Marita near the UESC Marathon above the Tau Ceti IV colong. He was forcefully ejected from The Marita while by Durandal shortly before it is destroyed by a Pfhor scout ship, Sfiera. He arrived on The Marathon to discover that the Pfhor had already boarded and started taking over The Marathon. MR54 made contact with Leela who began to guide him as to the best defense of the Marathon and alerted him to the fact that S'pht Compilers were attacking the Marathon's network, specifically it's 3 AIs: Durandal, Leela, and Tycho. Tycho, according to Leela, had already been destroyed. MR54 managed to retrieve more appropriate arms for defending the ship as well as retrieved chips able to reactivate the damaged security systems. During that time, the Pfhor managed to bring Tycho back online to aid them in the attack. MR54 also found a terminate detailing how Durandal was responsible for the Pfhor attack on the Marathon, but with no specific indication as to why.

Once the reactivation of the ship's defenses were taken care of, Leela turned her attention to another threat. Durandal had become rampant and his growth was causing failures in other systems. Leela led MR54 to activate key system lockouts to halt Durandal's expansion into cruicial systems. Durandal retaliated by exposing areas that were all ready secure to Pfhor attackers, putting civilians in danger. MR54 was tasked with averting the crisis by rescuing crew members, corralling them in new safe zones, terminating Pfhor troops in those areas, and by closing doors that would allow Leela to vent specific sections of the Marathon to space. With the security systems online, Durandal's growth routed, and a major portion of the crew having been saved, Leela decided to send a message back to Earth to warn them of the Pfhor threat. This required MR54 to gear for vacuum combat due to the fact that the communications array had been exposed to space in the initial Pfhor attack.

After the message was sent, Durandal made a secondary retaliation by redirecting the player to a seemingly unimportant area of the ship to kill a large number of Pfhor. Durandal passed this off as a game. Leela was eventually able to redirect MR54 back to the engineering section which had come under attack by the Pfhor. The crew in that area reported that the Pfhor had planted a bomb and MR54 was sent to stop it from exploding. In the time it took for the MR54 to complete his task, Leela had finally succumbed to the cybernetic attacks by the S'pht and was no longer functioning.

Leela had handed defence of the Marathon to Durandal, but expressed to MR54 that he was in the Jealousy stage of Rampancy and was not entirely stable. Durandal guided MR54 to various parts of the ship to exterminate more Pfhor while offering cryptic messages about existentialism and physics. The messages ultimately culminated in Durandal's plan to acquire technology to escape the closure of the universe. "Escape will make me God."

To further the purpose of technology aquisition, Durandal had MR54 retrieve a S'pht device crafted for him to give to MR54 for the purpose of accessing Pfhor systems. Durandal revealed he had been working with the S'pht to the best of their ability, but they were not willing participants in the Pfhor assault. They had been mind linked to a Pfhor cyborg against their will in order to control them. MR54 was sent to Sfiera for reconnaissance where he learned that the Pfhor were capturing humans from the Marathon and the Tau Ceti IV colony for the purpose of slave labor. MR54 is called back to the Marathon to search for Bernhard Strauss, the science director who was likely a MIDA agent, that purposefully caused Durandal's rampancy. M54 was unable to locate Bernhard on the marathon, so Durandal sent him back to the Pfhor scoutship.

MR54 was called back to the Marathon to handle some defense drone's Durandal accidently caused to go rogue as well as prepare for another attack on Sfiera. Tycho had a conversation with Durandal about knowing his full plans and attempting to stop him at every possible turn. Durandal mostly ignored the threat. MR54 was able to arm up and destroy the offending drones before being sent back to Sfiera to kill the cyborg controlling the S'pht, which began a complete S'pht rebellion. With the help of the freed S'pht, MR54 was sent back to retake the Marathon. Durandal was also able to have his S'pht reactivate Leela who commented that the colony on Tau Ceti IV had been obliterated by Pfhor weaponry. Durandal downloaded his entire core to the Sfiera in order to take command of it. The freed S'pht renamed the vessel Narhl'Lar (Freedom and Vengeance). MR54 was successful in defending the Marathon and was immediately stolen back to Narhl'Lar and put into stasis to be used as a weapon when needed by Durandal.

Gameplay[edit]

Appearances[edit]

Characters

Mjolnir Recon number 54
Durandal
Leelah
Tycho

Species

Humans
Pfhor
Drinniol
Wasp
Tick (Looker)
S'pht
Chockisens

Organizations

UESC
MIDA
Traxus

Location

UESC Marathon
Sfiera
Tau Ceti IV

Vehicles

Equipment and technology

Pfhor Energy Converter

Weapons

Fists
.44 Magnum Mega Class
MA-75 Assault Rifle/Grenade Launcher
Zeus Class Fusion Pistol
SPNKR SSM Launcher
TOZT-7 Backpack Napalm Unit
Alien Weapon

Miscellaneous

Features[edit]

Gallery[edit]

Preceded by
Pathways into Darkness
Marathon (1994) Succeeded by
Marathon 2: Durandal