Story
The story in the single-player version of Marathon Infinity, titled “Blood Tides of Lh’owon”, is not told in an explicit fashion. The narrative begins as if large parts, if not all, of the events in Marathon 2 had not happened. The story involves the player "jumping" between alternative realities via surreal dream sequences, seeking to prevent a chaotic entity known as the W’rkncacnter — an eldritch abomination — from being released from Lh'owon's dying sun. These jumps are apparently caused either by Jjaro technology or by the W’rkncacnter’s chaotic nature. The player begins as Durandal's ally, only to be transported to a reality where Durandal did not capture the player after the events of Marathon. As such, he is controlled by the Pfhor-tortured AI Tycho.
There are four sections to the solo levels of Marathon Infinity, each with its own intro screen. The first is Prologue, in which the player, under Durandal's control, is given a grim message about their fates. The second section is Despair, suddenly has the player under Tycho's command as mentioned previously and inevitably leads to the levels "Electric Sheep One" and "Where are Monsters in Dreams"; the latter level can lead to two choices, one of which is "Aie Mak Sicur", a level indicating a failure to complete the plot and leads to the first level of the third Chapter, Rage ("Where are Monsters in Dreams" also leads directly into Rage.) The Rage chapter eventually leads to the second "Electric Sheep" level and its companion, "Whatever You Please". This pair can lead to "Carroll Street Station", another failure level; both levels lead to the final chapter, Envy. Envy leads to the third "Electric Sheep" level and the last "dream" level, "Eat the Path", which can, again, lead to multiple levels. However, it can also lead back to the Rage chapter via a final failure level ("You're Wormfood, Dude"), or to the final level, "Aye Mak Sicur".
Each of the hidden failure levels ("Aie Mak Sicur", "Carroll Street Station", and "You're Wormfood, Dude") represent a portion of the map of the final level, "Aye Mak Sicur". It becomes clear to the player as the game progresses that the ancient Jjaro station portrayed in these levels is the key to containing the W’rkncacnter, but the circumstances of the player's causality are not correct to succeed and is thus transported to a new timeline (each chapter start) to complete the necessary objectives first. None of the other characters in-game seem to be aware of the jumps in reality. The ending screen of Infinity leaves the story's resolution open-ended, taking place billions of years after the events of Marathon Infinity during the final moments of the universe. It can be surmised that both Durandal and Earth did survive in the original timeline as can be seen at the end of Marathon 2.
As a bonus, the three dream levels ("Where are Monsters in Dreams", "Whatever you Please" and "Eat The Path") all refer to a mysterious "Hangar 96". This location does not appear in any of the levels in Marathon, Marathon 2:Durandal, or Marathon Infinity. However, there are two equally enigmatic terminals in Marathon Infinity; one in the first level and one in the last. Each contains a large amount of hexadecimal code that can be pieced together to create a map called "Hats off to Eight Nineteen", which features a map label reading, "Hangar 96". This multiplayer arena matches grainy pictures found in terminals within the dream levels.
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Famous quotes containing the word story:
“The child ... stands upon a place apart, a little spectator of the world, before whom men and women come and go, events fall out, years open their slow story and are noted or let go as his mood chances to serve them. The play touches him not. He but looks on, thinks his own thought, and turns away, not even expecting his cue to enter the plot and speak. He waits,—he knows not for what.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“For slowly even her sense of him
And love itself were growing dim.
He no more drew the smile he sought.
The story is she died of thought.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)