The Marathon was a colony ship, built by the Unified Earth Space Council using Deimos as its frame.[1] Politically controversial at the time of its construction, the Marathon would take over 60 years to complete. Officially, the vessel was sent to the Tau Ceti system in the hopes of establishing a colony.
The ship was launched in 2472 and arrived in the Tau Ceti system in 2773.[2] It carried over twenty-four thousand colonists, eleven AIs, and, unofficially, ten Battleroids.
The Marathon was attacked in 2794 by the Pfhor ship Sfiera, but successfully overcame the attack. A further attack by Pfhor reinforcements meant that the ship was later lost along with the Tau Ceti colony.
Early history
Development
The Martian government sold Deimos to the UESC in 2395 at the height of its power. The vessel's preconstruction began in 2405. However, as the CRIST orbitals began to break down and fall into disrepair, the Mars colony began to economically implode. Rampant starvation and poverty struck the planet.[1]
Construction continued without issue as the planet below continued to fall onto harder and harder times. Martian citizens began to see the ship as a symbol of oppression by the UESC. They called for the ship to be made into a CRIST, but the concept was never seriously considered by the UESC.
The exact details of the Marathon's status are unknown during the Third Martian War. MIDA never took a serious effort to weaponize the ship. However, this would be known historically as one of their greatest missed opportunities.[3]
Afterwards, construction continued seemingly without issue until the ship's maiden voyage in 2472.[2]
Conspiracy
After the failed MIDA coup, sympathizers and saboteurs dreaming of Martian independence infiltrated the project.[4] [5]
The scale of the conspiracy is unclear. However, over the course of the Marathon's construction, they smuggled weapons aboard in the hopes of beginning a new rebellion far from the UESC. So far, Dr Bernhard Strauss is the most notable, and only named member, of MIDA among the Marathon's command staff.[6]
Colonization
After its arrival in Tau Ceti, the Marathon would complete development of the Tau Ceti IV colony in 2787.
The exact details of the colonization effort are unknown. Beyond harassment by the local Chockisens, nothing suggests efforts were particularly gruesome.[7]
One of the settlements may be called New Cascadia.
Battle of Tau Ceti
Initial successes
On July 25, 2794, the Marathon came under attack by elements of the Pfhor Empire thanks to the plotting of the ship's rampant AI, Durandal.
In the initial attack, a lone Pfhor scout ship dropped out of FTL above the colony and deployed forces to seize the colony and the Marathon itself. Tycho was taken offline by S'pht compilers and Leela came under relentless cyber attacks.
All personnel were ordered to arm themselves and fight for their lives.
The player character, who boarded the Marathon while under fire from the Pfhor scout ship Sfiera, came under Leela's command. The two of them got to work solidifying defenses, saving civilians and sending a distress beacon back to Earth. However, by Leela's own estimation, the message would take 92 years to reach Sol.
Leela was unable to weather the cyber attacks by the S'pht and fell out of contact. The player character was then kidnapped by Durandal himself. He revealed that he was the one who lured the Aliens to the colony as reprisal for humanity's transgressions against him. Specifically, the torturous experiments conducted by Bernard Strauss on him. However, Durandal had not allied himself with the aliens. He planned to use hijack their FTL capable ship to explore the universe before its eventual end. [8]
In his communications with the aliens, he'd grown sympathetic with one of their client races, the S'pht, and had resolved to help free them from Pfhor captivity.
The player character managed to destroy the Pfhor control system holding the S'pht in line, and the newly freed slaves aided the humans in repelling the Pfhor.
With the S'pht no longer attacking the Marathon's systems, Leela came back online. She quickly regains control of the situation and sends the player character to secure the last few holdouts of Pfhor aboard the ship.
On the colony below, the 9 Battleroids who'd been living among the populace managed to repel the Pfhor onslaught with minimal damage to the colony itself. The surviving Pfhor surrendered to any human they came across, even the unarmed ones.
In the chaos, Durandal seized the Pfhor scout ship for himself. Before leaving with his new S'pht allies, he teleports the player character and an unknown number of colonists into stasis chambers for later usage.
Orbital armageddon
The Pfhor managed to drop a distress beacon before being completely overtaken by the humans. Reinforcements soon arrived, and the colony was unable to repel the much larger battlegroup. Even with 9 Battleroids, there was nothing they could do.
Leela and Tycho were seized by the Pfhor, and the colony was glassed from orbit. The only known survivors were the colonists in stasis aboard Durandal's ship. [9]
Aftermath
Contact with the colony was confirmed lost in 2795, and the UESC has commissioned Project Goliath to reestablish contact with the colony.
Staff
Initially, the Marathon's crew included:[10]
- 50 Senior Staff
- 1150 Officers
- 24,000 civilians
This does not include BOBs, personnel born on board while the Marathon was in transit.
3 Shipbound AIs:
8 Colony AIs
- Ar_1814419v4.93
- Ba_0423419v4.89
- Da_1907420v4.86
- Ga_2815420v4.81
- Ic_1624420v4.73
- Jo_0309421v4.69
- Li_1817421v4.65
- Na_0602422v4.61 [11]
Unofficially:
10 Mjolnir Battleroids [8]
Systems
- Front Long Range Radar & Scanning System
- Colony Fabricators
- Waste Recycling & Purification
- Colonist hybernation & Active habitats
- Moon Harvesting systems
- 4 Sublight Engines [12]
Notes
- All details are under development. As more information about the new Marathon game comes out, this Article will become increasingly out of date
- This was one of the first articles written as a part of this wiki. Referencing standards may have changed, and as such please follow the links in the reference tab for more information.
- Dates in the original game were officially retconned by Bungie in the "Lost Network Packets" document. Any dates given are based on that article.
- Play the original games for free here: https://alephone.lhowon.org/
References
- ^ a b Marathon, Couch Fishing, Terminal 2
- ^ a b | Marathon Lost Network Packets
- ^ | Marathon, The Rose, Terminal 2
- ^ | Marathon, Blaspheme Quarantine, Terminal 2
- ^ | Marathon, Ingue Ferroque, Terminal 3
- ^ | Destiny 2, MIDA Minitool Lore Entry
- ^ | Marathon Manual, Pg 6
- ^ a b | Marathon, Beware Low Flying Defense Drones, Terminal 2
- ^ | Marathon 2 Durandal, Endscreen
- ^ | Marathon Manual, Pg 15
- ^ | Marathon 202x, ARG Document, AI rampancy memo
- ^ | Marathon 202x, Leaked internal Marathon design