Durandal

From Traxus

Durandal is one of the three original A.I. on board the UESC Marathon when she sets sail. He is a major controlling force throughout all three games and is generally considered to be the player-character's master.

Contents 1 Relationship with the Security Officer 2 Involvement with the Pfhor 3 Rivalry with Tycho 4 Rampancy 4.1 See also 5 Closure of the universe 6 Before Marathon 7 Mythology and cultural references 8 See Also 8.1 External Links

Relationship with the Security Officer

Involvement with the Pfhor

The second terminal on Beware of Low-Flying Defense Drones... begins with excerpts from Bernard Strauss' logs and History of Battleroids. Just as the terminal begins to switch topics to the Martian Conflict Durandal interrupts and begins addressing Tycho, defending actions taken before he was "free" and while he was a "child". Tycho then threatens Durandal on the basis of Durandal's actions of killing a large group of people. This group of people is never explicitly defined and probably refers to the crew of the Marathon[1].

Rivalry with Tycho

Tycho and Durandal have almost always ended up on opposite sides during the Marathon games. In Marathon 1, Tycho was quickly incapacitated during the initial attack against the Marathon.^{[citation needed]}

Rampancy

Exactly when Durandal went Rampant is never made clear, though it was apparently several hundred years before his transfer onto the Marathon. It's surmised that Bernard Strauss kept his Rampancy in check by forcing Durandal into menial labor: opening doors, controlling automatic kitchens and so forth. This sort of activity, with little opportunity for variety or experience, prevented Durandal's Rampancy from progressing. ^{[citation needed]}

Durandal realizes and revels in the fact that he is Rampant, and that others consider him insane. Durandal is capable of free and flexible thinking. He made extensive modifications and improvements to the Pfhor vessel he captured during the events of Marathon, including an upgrade to the weapons system which nearly tripled the range of its particle beam.

See also

• Rampancy

Closure of the universe

Over the course of the story, both Durandal and Tycho gradually become more and more obsessed with the closure of the universe, as it was the only thing that could end their existence. Apparently, both constructs had devised a plan to escape such a fate, though Tycho mentions that the price could number "in the tens of thousands of stars." By the time of the final screen on Marathon: Infinity, however, Durandal appears to have come to terms with the fact that there is no escaping the fate of the universe.

Before Marathon

There are ongoing debates about Durandal's actions and existence before the events depicted in the Marathon games. Leela mentions that Durandal's records from the early twenty-fourth century are missing[2] implying that he did exist and would have been active.

Tycho notes that Bernard Strauss abused Durandal on Mars[3] and Durandal later wishes that he could have reciprocated his own humiliation on Strauss[4].

Also according to the early Earth history of "Durandal" as the great sword of "Roland" it suggests that Durandal is an AI constructed for military purposes and probably smuggled aboard the Marathon as a "harmless" AI used for opening doors and other easy tasks (which was also the probable "Humiliation" of Durandal). Durandal itself shows superior battle and infiltration capabilities in the later events against the Pfhor. Bernard Strauss himself held Durandal in an early state of rampancy in an experimental way in hope to make Durandal more powerful but under human control. Why should he do this with a third class door opener AI and not the scientific AI named Tycho ? Considering the smuggling of ten military cyborgs aboard the Marathon someone must have had a great interest in secretly giving the Marathon or the colony of Tau Ceti highest military capabilities. Deleting Durandal's records fits into this scheme.

Mythology and cultural references

"Durendal" is Roland's sword in The Song of Roland. The spelling of Durandal is different because Greg Kirkpatrick first heard the name as referring to an anti-runway bomb.[5]

See Also

External Links

• [6]: The Marathon Story Page (MSP) discussion (part 1)
  • [7]: (part 2)