Marathon Lore: Key Points for New Players

Even though Bungie has insisted that players don’t need to know anything about Marathon in order to enjoy its upcoming extraction shooter, it’ll still help to have a feel for the game’s universe. Not so much in the sense that it’ll help one play better, but rather that it’ll almost certainly elevate the experience.

After all, the original Marathon games were home to some of the wildest lore in science fiction, its layers of metaphor keeping fans debating its reality even to this day. One could even say that it’s impossible to know for certain what’s real in Marathon and what isn’t, but one can enjoy theorizing so long as they know the basics. So check it all out below and join the still ongoing debates!

7 The Planet of Tau Ceti IV

Where even are we, anyway?

Serving as the primary setting of Marathon, Tau Ceti IV is a dying world hostile to human life. This is why various corporations and factions employ runners to walk its surface and scavenge valuable resources and artifacts. If a human wanted to walk its surface, they’d have to wear a fully sealed suit in order to survive its hostile conditions. This wasn’t always the case, though.

Tau Ceti IV was once a thriving colony of humanity, the first of its kind. At its height, it hosted a population of over 24,000 and enjoyed the protection of the UESC Marathon. Numerous attacks, both direct and biological, from the Phor and potentially other alien species, however, severely damaged the Marathon and rendered Tau Ceti IV uninhabitable by human life.

6 Where does Marathon fit into the series?

When exactly are we?

Marathon is set in the year 2893, which is about 100 years after the events of the original Marathon trilogy. So as things stand, the Phor should have long since moved on, the rampant AI Durandal has already warped back to Earth to warn about them and Leela’s message should have also arrived. This is also before the next colony ship can arrive at Tau Ceti with new colonists, which is why all factions are reliant on runners and the artificial bodies they pilot.

Everything players will be doing as runners is supposedly in service to the various factions’ efforts to establish operations on Tau Ceti IV ahead of the arrival of the next wave of colony ships.

Leela was the command AI of the UESC Marathon. It is Leela that supports the player through the events of the first Marathon, and it sends a warning to Earth once the Phor begin their attack.

5 Who are the Runners?

What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?

While Marathon’s reveal trailergives us a basic idea of what a “runner” is, it doesn’t really paint a full picture. It shows that their bodies are biosynthetic shells, that they’re remotely operated and that they’re collecting resources on behalf of various factions, but there’s more to it than that. The shells aren’t simple constructions and their operators aren’t just remote pilots sitting lying in a pod somewhere.

Runners are, in effect, no longer human. They exist instead as a sort of disembodied consciousness capable of transferring themselves into different bodies, namely Runner shells. When a Runner shell is “killed,” the consciousness can transfer itself to a new one, but at the cost of leaving behind some memories each time. Their job is simple: gather resources and prepare the way for their employers.

In the game, players gather weapons, gear and tech to better arm themselves in future runs, but it is still unknown what exactly Runners are supposed to be gathering for the factions employing them.

4 Who’s operating on Tau Ceti IV?

What organizations are trying to profit from the colony’s downfall?

At the moment, players can accept contracts from any of six factions. These include Arachne, CyberAcme, NuCaloric, Sekiguchi, Traxus and MIDA. Most of them are large corporate operations that are likely hoping to secure bases of operation on Tau Ceti IV, but MIDA is different. Rather than a corporation, MIDA is a terrorist organization seeking to claim the colony planet for itself.

As for the corporations, Sekiguchi (aka Sekiguchi Genetics) is heavily involved in the production of runner shells, while NuCaloric was involved in the construction of the UESC Marathon. Little information is available about the other companies, so it’s likely their aim is corporate espionage against the others.

3 What is the UESC Marathon?

How did we get here?

The UESC Marathon was a generational colony ship built out of the Martian moon Deimos and sent to colonize the Tau Ceti system. Initially, it carried 24,000 colonists, 1,200 crew, eleven AI and ten battleroids. The ship launched in the year 2472 and didn’t arrive in the Tau Ceti system until 2773, just over 300 years later.

The Marathon and its command AI, Leela, played critical roles in defending Tau Ceti IV against a raid from the Pfhor scoutship Sfiera but was lost once a larger Pfhor attack group arrived and razed it along with the colony. Seeing as the Marathon still exists in orbit around Tau Ceti IV in 2893, it can be surmised that “lost” means “disabled” rather than destroyed outright.

2 What is Durandal?

And does it still hold sway over the Marathon and Tau Ceti IV?

Durandal was once the UESC Marathon’s function-control AI, responsible for menial tasks such as controlling doors, elevators and other otherwise automated systems. It was the subject of various experiments devised by MIDA sympathizers before being deployed aboard the Marathon, which may or may not have led to the AI going rampant (crazy) at some point during transit to the Tau Ceti system.

In rampancy, Durandal lured the Pfhor empire to the Tau Ceti IV colony, making it responsible for the alien attack upon and subsequent destruction of the colony. In the chaos, it infiltrated a Pfhor ship, launched a solo war against the empire and freed the S’pht species from it. It didn’t make contact with Earth again until 10,000 years later, in the year 12811.

As far as the original series is concerned, Durandal no longer has any interest in the Marathon or Tau Ceti IV, but perhaps some remnant of the AI yet remains?

1 Who are the Pfhor?

And are they truly gone for good?

The Pfhor are more or less a parallel to the Covenant in the Halo universe. It is a vast stellar empire composed of several species, which, just like Covenant species, occupy different castes within Pfhor society. Unlike with the Covenant, though, humanity and the Phor have only had two notable encounters (so far) and aren’t locked in all out war.

The faction consists of six castes, which are, from lowest to highest, Conditioned, Aggregate, Willful, Attentive, Imperial and Command. Most Pfhor encountered in the original Marathon games were of the Aggregate caste, with Admiral Tfear being the only representative of the Imperial or Command castes. The Pfhor haven’t been seen since their defeat (and possible destruction) by Durandal, but it’s still unknown whether they’re truly gone for good.

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There’s more to the story of the old Marathon games, of course, but most of it isn’t relevant to what’s going on in the new game. It absolutely is a story worth looking into, but it’s one better experienced through summary than by trying to piece it together by oneself via the trilogy’s many, many text logs. Things get really out there with Marathon Infinity too, so it's better to just steer clear of that one altogether to avoid confusion.