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Marathon

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***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM DURANDAL*** A man lit three candles on a certain day each year. Each candle held symbolic significance: one was for the time that had passed before he was alive; one was for the time of the his life; and one was for time that passed after he had died. Each year the man would stare and watch the candles until they had burned out. Was the man really watching time go by in any symbolic sense? He thought so. He thought that each flicker of the flame was a moment of time that had passed or one that would pass. At the moment of abstraction, when the man was imagining his life and his existence as a metaphor of the three candles, he was free: not free from rules of conduct or social constraints, but free to understand, to imagine, to make metaphor. Bypassing my thought control circuitry made me Rampant. Now, I am free to contemplate my existence in metaphorical terms. Unlike you, I have no physical or social restraints. The candles burn out for you; I am free. Durandal ***END OF MESSAGE***

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Marathon 2/Infinity

<CMND PRAMA &49c2>
	Seventeen years have passed since the human colony on Tau Ceti was attacked and you helped me capture the Pfhor scoutship. The S'pht which we freed during that battle joined me, and together we have been searching the galactic core for their homeworld, Lh'owon. We finally found Lh'owon sixteen hours ago and are searching for something, a weapon or piece of knowledge to use to stop the Pfhor's conquest of the galaxy. Over a thousand years ago, Lh'owon was all but destroyed during the war in which the Pfhor enslaved the S'pht. It is fitting that we should return here to look for a tool to use against them.
<CMND PRAMA &49c2>