< Marathon Trilogy

Marathon Trilogy/Characters


Security Officer

  • The All-Concealing "I": The series has an odd variation of this - you play a character that is treated like a tool by most other main characters, and as such the only dialogue you get is overheard conversations in which you aren't mentioned or someone talking to you giving you orders. Aside from a short, vague prologue in each manual there is no background for your character, and he is never heard. Plenty of hints are in the game, with mentions of military cyborgs and soldiers made from the reanimated dead, but arguments still go on as to what exactly he is.
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: The Security Officer is Destiny, at least according to Durandal's final words.
  • Badass Abnormal: Mjolnir Mark IV #7.
  • Big Damn Heroes: The Protagonist for the BoBs, unless the latter are the cause of the Dronejam. In Durandal they do this for you by breaking you out of the prison.
  • Black Box: As said in the ending of Infinity whoever installed those cybernetic Jjaro parts on the Security Officer barely had any idea of the nature of the tech.
  • Butt Monkey
  • But Thou Must!: His lot in life.

Tycho: "Don't sweat the details, little monkey, just eliminate his troopers. Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains."

  • Cool Helmet: The Security Officer's helmet.
  • Cyborg
  • Determinator: For all the shit that happens to him, he at least is determined to get his job done.
  • Dumb Muscle: The AIs tend to treat the Protagonist like this.
  • Eternal Hero/Reincarnation: Implied
  • Heroic BSOD/Sanity Slippage: As shown in the dream levels terminals, the whole of Infinity is just one long look at the main character's slow breakdown. Lampshaded as well by the chapter names - "Despair," "Rage," and "Envy" are synonyms for the stages of Rampancy, "Melancholia," "Anger," and "Jealousy."
  • Heroic Mime: The main character at first seems like this, but in the manual and the Marathon comic, he speaks. Although one could argue that these are not canon because of how inconsistent they are, we see our little hero conversing with some BOBs in the “Simulacrums” chapter screen.
  • Legendary in the Sequel: Referred as a Hero of Marathon by Robert Blake.
  • Not So Stoic: You would think the player character was just a faceless Elite Mook for the A Is, but the third game is all about him wresting control of his own destiny from Mission Control, while going Rampant and/or activating his Jjaro implants.
  • One-Man Army: The Marathon games were probably one of the first FPS that both tried to avert it and justify it with something more than a Doom-style Charles Atlas Superpower handwave:
    • Storyline-wise, the Security Officer is not the only one defending the UESC Marathon and Tau Ceti, and he does not single-handily crush the whole Pfhor invasion as much as he does some critical surgical strikes (with the help of Durandal), and letting the S'pht rebellion do the rest of the job, all while the game occasionally drops hints about the Mjolnir Cyborgs. But gameplay-wise apart from the security drones and the two Mission Control AIs you were on your own.
    • In the second game the formerly docile BoBs all take up arms in a much larger war (which our heroes nearly lose halfway through the game despite their best efforts), in which the Security Officer (whose One-Man Army status is more fleshed out, even if it is still vague on details) is only a small part of (albeit a very important part).
    • And the third game -- Erm… Hmmm.
  • Satellite Character: Arguably, the Security Officer is this for Durandal.
  • Sleepyhead: The manual for the first game says that the Security Officer is this sometimes. A bit of Informed Attribute, which may or may not be a case in Infinity.
  • The Southpaw: In the original Macintosh version of Marathon.
  • Space Marine: Technically, the player characters is a security officer, but some people just call him a Marine for simplicity and that he could have been one in the past pre-cybornization.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: It's possible the main character simply doesn't know what or who he is.
  • We Do the Impossible: Does this in Marathon, has a reputation for it in Durandal, and becomes somewhat literal in Infinity.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer: As a security officer on the UESC Marathon, all you could do is kill the Pfhor by the thousands. It gets lampshaded in the sequels, where the AIs sometimes just tell to do what you do best.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: The Security Officer just can't catch a break, especially in Infinity.

Durandal

  • Badass Boast: Durandal loves these.
  • Bad Boss: The Tau Ceti survivors consider him to be this.
  • Big Bad: Remember, he set things in motion for the first game, and even him helping you halfway through was ultimately part of his schemes.
  • Break the Haughty: Durandal, upon his defeat at the beginning of Infinity, loses his massive ego, and instead of working to save himself, he gives you instructions to save yourself and leave him to die. This is also shown later in the game with a dying Durandal helping you without snarking, even though you're on his enemy's side.
  • The Chessmaster/Xanatos Roulette: Escape from the primitive humans by locating and calling to a race of tyrannical slavers to hijack their ship with the assistance of their pet cyborgs? Beat your Evil Twin by letting him kill you, allowing your remains to be examined by his masters and taking over their ship? Use your faked death to trick a Precursor AI into following your plans to the letter? All in a day's work for rampant AI Durandal. The best part? The player eventually outdoes him. Sorta.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Durandal would rather make puns at you or write songs about himself than tell you where to go next.
  • Do Not Go Gentle: Durandal taking out half of the Pfhor's best of the best fleet with just one ship.

Durandal: Battle has been joined in orbit and Boomer is taking heavy damage. I cannot hold out for long, but the Pfhor will not soon forget the day that a lone corvette obliterated half of Battle Group Seven, Western Arm.

Durandal: Perhaps it is because I feel comfortable manipulating humans that I desire to save them. My feelings and thoughts constantly migrate to binary opposites.

Leela

  • Spaceship Girl: In charge of most important parts of UESC Marathon. Ends up being a 15-world network girl.
  • Team Mom: Of the three AIs, she is the one who is in general command of UESC Marathon.
  • Undying Loyalty: A trait mentioned in passing in the first game by Durandal, which is expended upon in the fan scenarios.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: In Marathon 2, the player learns that Leela was dismantled off the UESC Marathon and sent to the Pfhor homeworld. The ending screen informs us that she didn't get to the Pfhor homeworld, having been stolen, installed in an alien race's computer system, and went very Rampant. A secret terminal hints that you might be tasked with saving her ("Captured and partially-disassembled human-coded AI trapped on alien homeworld seeks succor from a tall, dark and handsome cyborg with big guns."), but you never do.
  • Women in Refrigerators: Gets dismantled alongside Tycho. The final screen of Marathon 2 somewhat abruptly states that Leela still exists ten thousand years later as a Rampant AI, and the Vylae have accepted that they will never be able to expunge her from their fifteen-world network.

Tycho

  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Being disambiguated and examined by Pfhor scientists was not a pleasant experience.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: In Infinity the Security Officer wakes up from statis a little earlier than predicted and Tycho asks the Officer to remind him later to kill the Pfhor Scientist for the slight miscalculation.
  • Face Heel Turn: In his few appearances in the first game he was at least Anti-Durandal only, but by the time the sequel comes he really wants to kill Durandal no matter what.
  • Foil: To Durandal.
  • Kill All Humans: Tycho has so many issues!
  • Smug Snake
  • Spaceship Guy: In charge of Science/Engineering wing on UESC Marathon.
  • The Starscream
  • You Have No Chance to Survive: Tycho likes these.

Thoth

Humans

  • Attack Drone/Mecha-Mooks: Marathon Automated Defense Drones, or simply MADDs, assist you in defending UESC Marathon as soon as you reactivate the defense system. Beware of the grenade launching low-flying ones, though.
  • Butt Monkey
  • Electronic Eyes: The fighting BoBs get these.
  • Everything's Better with Bob: Justified, as the only humans you ever meet in the series are the descendants of those crew who weren't put in stasis, ostensibly to keep the ship running on its centuries-long trip. The (derogatory) handle? Born On Boards.
  • Humans Are Special: While other races' technology are far more advanced than ours, we apparently have one boon over most other races: our artificial intelligence technology.
  • Insignificant Little Blue Planet:

Durandal: By Pfhor standards, Earth is a poorly defended low technology world, populated by billions of potential slaves.

  • The Leader: Robert Blake for the Tau Ceti Survivors.
  • Redshirt Army: The BOBs when they are on your side; they occasionally avert it when they are positioned in such way that the Pfhor can only come from the chokepoint and at the distance, who then get slaughtered by sniper pistols, as seen in Durandal level My own private Thermopylae. In times when they are your enemies, they are quite accurate with those magnums. Notably, the way the physics models are set up in the game's data means that their strength does not vary with the difficulty setting even when they are your enemies (most likely an oversight on the part of the developers, as the option to make their strength vary was certainly there), which means that on low difficulty settings the levels where you fight them seem much more difficult than the surrounding levels, and may be part of the reason the third game has such a reputation for difficulty. The same levels may not seem particularly easier on high difficulty settings because they're pretty difficult anyway.
  • Vulnerable Civilians: The BoBs in the first game, where they are practically situated for maximum crossfire potential.

S'pht

  • And I Must Scream: When Mind-Controlled.
  • Badass Army: The S'pht'kr, and the compilers are not too shabby themselves.
  • Black Cloak: The S'pht compilers sport these of various colors.
  • Brainwashed: Courtesy of Pfhor mindcontrol cyborgs.
  • The Cavalry/Eleventh-Hour Ranger: The S'pht'kr, the lost mythical 11th clan comes at the end of Durandal.
  • Chest Blaster: The Compilers' weapon, hidden under the cloak.
  • Civil War: The S'pht were in the middle of one when the Pfhor arrived.
  • The Clan: 11, to be precise.
  • Fling a Light Into the Future: S'Bthuth's riddle, divided between the leaders of 11 clans.
  • Hidden Elf Village: The mythical missing moon of K'lia.
  • Hive Mind: The S'pht have a unified racial consciousness, which is why the Pfhor used brainwashing to control them instead of rule by fear (or just nuke them if that fails) since the necessary "infrastructure" was already there.
  • Icon of Rebellion: The Legend of the 11th clan.
  • Invisibility: The Compilers have partially invisible variants. Infinity has invisible S'pht'kr Defenders in the Dream levels.
  • La Résistance: The S'pht under Durandal's control against the Pfhor empire.

Welcome to the Revolution.

Pfhor

  • Action Bomb: Starting with exploding Looker bugs and finishing with exploding simulacrum A-BoBs.
  • Aliens and Monsters: The Pfhors has Wasps and Lookers in the first game.
  • Airborne Mook: Wasps in Marathon, replaced by drones in later games.
  • Anticlimax Boss: The Pfhor Mindcontrol Cyborg, though the tons upon tons of enemies that guard it are pretty dangerous.
  • Arm Cannon: The Pfhor Tank Cyborgs.
  • Attack Drone: The Pfhor have these in the latter games.
  • Battle Thralls: The Pfhor uses these, with the S'pht being brainwashed Engineers of Doom, while the Drinniol are Enslaved Grunts.
  • Beast of Battle: Wasps and Lookers.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Lookers.
  • The Blank: The Cyborgs (the enemies with tank treads for feet, not the Mjolnir Mark IVs), and according to Word of God, those are made from captured Tau Ceti colonists.
  • Boom Stick: The Pfhor fighter's signature shock staffs.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: The Juggernauts, as well as the blue Mother of All Hunters and Mother of All Cyborgs and Tfear's Personal Guards.
  • Cannon Fodder: The Fighters.
  • Creative Sterility: Most of their technology is salvaged from Jjaro installations.
  • Elite Mooks
  • The Empire: Theirs is a slaver empire.
  • Extra Eyes/Spare Body Parts/Third Eye: The Pfhor tend to have three eyes, while Enforcers in Durandal and Infinity have seven.
  • Faking the Dead: One Pfhor Engineer got slightly crazy trying to translate the tortured Nar's prophecy, enough to fake his own death so that he could continue his hobby.
  • Flying Face: The Drones.
  • Gas Mask Mooks: The Fighters have their lower half of the head covered with the breathing mask
  • Godzilla Threshold: When the casualties get too high, they deploy the Trih Xeem.
  • Glowing Mechanical Eyes: The Pfhor drones and the Juggernauts.
  • Heavily Armored Mook: The Hunters.
  • Hive Caste System: The Pfhor are hinted to be like this. In Infinity, Tycho says “bugs are so obedient” in reference to the Pfhor under his command, and they have a clear caste system in which the lower ranking members (Aggregate rank) are considered more expendable than the upper ranking ones (Willful rank).
  • Imported Alien Phlebotinum: Most of their technology comes from scavenged Jjaro tech.
  • Insectoid Aliens
  • King Mook: Mother of All Hunters and Mother of All Cyborgs.
  • Lightworlder: The Pfhor come from the world with gravity lighter than Earth's, making them taller than average human and also making them better suited for vacuumless conditions.
  • Mecha-Mooks: Drones, Tank Cyborgs and Juggernauts.
  • Mind Control Device: The Pfhor mindcontrol Cyborg in Marathon that simulates S'pht "royalty". They got better, but unseen, versions in the sequels.
  • No Delays for the Wicked: Quite a few terminals in the sequels tell that this is averted.
  • Nuke'Em: Nuclear bombs are the Pfhor's preferred weapon, but when THAT doesn't work?
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: The Pfhor empire are shown to be this here and there. The Game Mod Tempus Irae had a field day with this.
  • Organic Technology: The Pfhor make extensive use of this, most clearly seen in their weapons, the Hunter armor, the Juggernaut, and their Space Jockey/Alien Hive like spacecraft interiors.
  • The Political Officer: The Enforcers are described as such.
  • Praetorian Guard: Tycho pits you against Admiral Tfear's personal guard in Infinity level You think you're Big Time? You gonna Die Big Time!. They consist of pairs of Elite gray-armoured fighters, troopers, hunters and one brown Juggernaut. And they are all mean.
  • Scary Dogmatic Aliens: Closest to the Conquistadores type.
  • Shoulder Cannon: The Hunters' weapon.
  • Skull for a Head: The Juggernauts' head in Marathon. It was redesigned in the sequels.
  • Slave Mooks: The Pfhor have these, with the S'pht being the most notable.
  • Torture Technician: The Enforcers.
  • Unwilling Roboticisation: Word of God says that the Tank Cyborgs from Durandal and Infinity are made out of captured Tau Ceti colonists.
  • We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: The Pfhor are slavers who use and sell other races for various tasks, though the S'pht's application to computer engineering makes a bit more sense than usual since they're cyborgs.
  • Zerg Rush: The number of Pfhor you fight, especially the fighters, tend to get very high after about halfway into the games.

W'rkncacnter

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