The Marathon games are a trilogy of first-person shooters by the company Bungie (now best known for the original Halo games and the hybrid MMO/FPS Destiny), originally created in the mid-90s for Macs only, though the second game received a Windows port as well after its release. Later, Bungie released them as open source files through the Aleph One project, which brought them to Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.
In the first game, you play as an unnamed security officer from Mars working for a human colony on Tau Ceti. On a trip up to the colony ship the Marathon, the security officer is ambushed by aliens called the Pfhor and by the AI Durandal, who's gone Rampant, but manages to escape to the Marathon. That's all in the manual prologue; the landing on the Marathon is where the actual game begins. At first you work for Leela, the Marathon's primary AI, as you both fight off the alien invasion, but Durandal continues to interfere and even takes over the defense of the ship in his own unique way. He establishes a connection with another alien race enslaved by the Pfhor, called the S'pht, and with your help frees them from the Pfhor's control and takes off in the Pfhor ship with them, leaving you behind to mop up the rest of the invasion with Leela.
In Marathon 2: Durandal, it turns out that parting was not such sweet sorrow, after all. Instead of leaving you with the colony, Durandal circled back, kidnapped you, and went on a hunt for the S'pht homeworld Lh'owon, where you wake up after seventeen years in stasis to help Durandal and the S'pht search for a way to effectively fight back against the Pfhor's empire and free the S'pht entirely.
In the third game, Marathon: Infinity - well, that's where things get a little weird... Filled with alternate timelines, shifting alliances, and the looming threat of Space Cthulhu eating the universe, it's not the easiest game to follow, but it's still a great conclusion that rewards thought and analysis (so it's a good thing there are already several years' worth of meta about it).
Why Do I Love It?
So many reasons! To start with, although it's certainly dated, the gameplay is fun and satisfying (ah, the feel of wielding dual shotguns! No other game has captured it for me), and there are different difficulty levels depending on whether you want a major challenge or to just run around feeling like a rampaging god of war. The graphics are also dated, but very solid for their era, and I'll defend the skyboxes of Lh'owon in Marathon 2 till my dying day for their alien beauty. The chapter/loading screens for Marathon 2 and Infinity are also fantastic, featuring the art of Craig Mullins. (The chapter screens for the first game are a bit more amateur, but still charming in their way.)
But even beyond that - the story and characters have captured my imagination (and my heart) since I was a kid first discovering them. There's so much fascinating worldbuilding and characterization throughout all three games, from the horrifying nature of battleroids* to the complex politics of the colonized solar system to the history and societies of the Pfhor and the S'pht to the grander mythology of the Jjaro and the W'rkncacnter, that there's always something new to explore. The AI characters are all such vivid individuals - Leela's bravery and ingenuity in her defense of the Marathon, Durandal's explosion into Rampancy metamorphosing into philosophy and ambition and conflicted feelings about humanity, Tycho's rebirth twisting him into full-blown yet pitiable villainy... God, I love them all so much! (And that's not even touching on Thoth's mystic alien AI deal.) There's so much potential in their relationships to each other, as well as in the different ways they treat the security officer, other humans, and the aliens around them. There's also Robert Blake, the poor beleaguered leader of the humans working with Durandal, and Tfear, the terrifyingly tactical and arrogant Pfhor admiral leading their forces in Marathon 2 and Infinity. And some of the one-terminal characters are surprisingly memorable - like F'tha, a S'pht in Marathon 2 who reaches out directly to the security officer to encourage them in their fight, and Re'eer, a Pfhor garrison commander who fakes death to spend more time on their hobby of comparative xenolinguistics.
On the ships front, while the nature of the games makes shippy interactions a bit difficult, there still manages to be some excellent fodder! Most especially for the security officer with Leela, Durandal, and Tycho - Leela works very closely with the security officer in the first game and appears to think highly of them; Durandal kidnaps and manipulates them but is also fascinated by them, grows to rely on them and trust them, and does things like sign a farewell terminal "Love and kisses, Durandal" and tell the security officer "Good-byes were always hard for me. You know I'll never let you go"; Tycho is primarily obsessed with destroying Durandal (which is pretty shippy, too, in a very fucked-up way) but also takes a lot of pleasure in using the security officer to do so and in ordering the security officer around. Then there's Bernhard Strauss, the mysterious scientist whose experiments on Durandal led to the entirety of the first game - Strauss and Durandal's relationship is always interesting to play with, as is Strauss's knowledge of the security officer's true nature. And if you're more into all parts of a ship having physical bodies, there's potential with Blake and the security officer, or F'tha and the security officer, or some nastiness with Tfear or another Pfhor and the security officer...
Tl;dr: They're fun games with a cool story and cool characters and endless opportunities for shipping, worldbuilding, adventures, canon-divergent AUs, crossovers/fusions, and anything else you could want to write!
Marathon (Video Games)
Medium: Video game (FPS)
Length: Three games, each either 27 or 28 levels
Where To Find It: Aleph One (the games themselves); the Marathon's Story page (all game + manual text and meta/speculation); complete video Let's Play by Halved Studios; Marathon 1, Marathon 2, and Marathon Infinity video LPs by Rampancy
What's It All About?
The Marathon games are a trilogy of first-person shooters by the company Bungie (now best known for the original Halo games and the hybrid MMO/FPS Destiny), originally created in the mid-90s for Macs only, though the second game received a Windows port as well after its release. Later, Bungie released them as open source files through the Aleph One project, which brought them to Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.
In the first game, you play as an unnamed security officer from Mars working for a human colony on Tau Ceti. On a trip up to the colony ship the Marathon, the security officer is ambushed by aliens called the Pfhor and by the AI Durandal, who's gone Rampant, but manages to escape to the Marathon. That's all in the manual prologue; the landing on the Marathon is where the actual game begins. At first you work for Leela, the Marathon's primary AI, as you both fight off the alien invasion, but Durandal continues to interfere and even takes over the defense of the ship in his own unique way. He establishes a connection with another alien race enslaved by the Pfhor, called the S'pht, and with your help frees them from the Pfhor's control and takes off in the Pfhor ship with them, leaving you behind to mop up the rest of the invasion with Leela.
In Marathon 2: Durandal, it turns out that parting was not such sweet sorrow, after all. Instead of leaving you with the colony, Durandal circled back, kidnapped you, and went on a hunt for the S'pht homeworld Lh'owon, where you wake up after seventeen years in stasis to help Durandal and the S'pht search for a way to effectively fight back against the Pfhor's empire and free the S'pht entirely.
In the third game, Marathon: Infinity - well, that's where things get a little weird... Filled with alternate timelines, shifting alliances, and the looming threat of Space Cthulhu eating the universe, it's not the easiest game to follow, but it's still a great conclusion that rewards thought and analysis (so it's a good thing there are already several years' worth of meta about it).
Why Do I Love It?
So many reasons! To start with, although it's certainly dated, the gameplay is fun and satisfying (ah, the feel of wielding dual shotguns! No other game has captured it for me), and there are different difficulty levels depending on whether you want a major challenge or to just run around feeling like a rampaging god of war. The graphics are also dated, but very solid for their era, and I'll defend the skyboxes of Lh'owon in Marathon 2 till my dying day for their alien beauty. The chapter/loading screens for Marathon 2 and Infinity are also fantastic, featuring the art of Craig Mullins. (The chapter screens for the first game are a bit more amateur, but still charming in their way.)
But even beyond that - the story and characters have captured my imagination (and my heart) since I was a kid first discovering them. There's so much fascinating worldbuilding and characterization throughout all three games, from the horrifying nature of battleroids* to the complex politics of the colonized solar system to the history and societies of the Pfhor and the S'pht to the grander mythology of the Jjaro and the W'rkncacnter, that there's always something new to explore. The AI characters are all such vivid individuals - Leela's bravery and ingenuity in her defense of the Marathon, Durandal's explosion into Rampancy metamorphosing into philosophy and ambition and conflicted feelings about humanity, Tycho's rebirth twisting him into full-blown yet pitiable villainy... God, I love them all so much! (And that's not even touching on Thoth's mystic alien AI deal.) There's so much potential in their relationships to each other, as well as in the different ways they treat the security officer, other humans, and the aliens around them. There's also Robert Blake, the poor beleaguered leader of the humans working with Durandal, and Tfear, the terrifyingly tactical and arrogant Pfhor admiral leading their forces in Marathon 2 and Infinity. And some of the one-terminal characters are surprisingly memorable - like F'tha, a S'pht in Marathon 2 who reaches out directly to the security officer to encourage them in their fight, and Re'eer, a Pfhor garrison commander who fakes death to spend more time on their hobby of comparative xenolinguistics.
On the ships front, while the nature of the games makes shippy interactions a bit difficult, there still manages to be some excellent fodder! Most especially for the security officer with Leela, Durandal, and Tycho - Leela works very closely with the security officer in the first game and appears to think highly of them; Durandal kidnaps and manipulates them but is also fascinated by them, grows to rely on them and trust them, and does things like sign a farewell terminal "Love and kisses, Durandal" and tell the security officer "Good-byes were always hard for me. You know I'll never let you go"; Tycho is primarily obsessed with destroying Durandal (which is pretty shippy, too, in a very fucked-up way) but also takes a lot of pleasure in using the security officer to do so and in ordering the security officer around. Then there's Bernhard Strauss, the mysterious scientist whose experiments on Durandal led to the entirety of the first game - Strauss and Durandal's relationship is always interesting to play with, as is Strauss's knowledge of the security officer's true nature. And if you're more into all parts of a ship having physical bodies, there's potential with Blake and the security officer, or F'tha and the security officer, or some nastiness with Tfear or another Pfhor and the security officer...
Tl;dr: They're fun games with a cool story and cool characters and endless opportunities for shipping, worldbuilding, adventures, canon-divergent AUs, crossovers/fusions, and anything else you could want to write!
*It was the 90s!