Prototype musings
Jun. 22nd, 2019 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
general_radixWherein I try and think of things to say about Marathon Prototype that aren't already mentioned in the linked pic.
* My old Marathon musings took place in the same 'verse as Halo, but I don't remember what the exact relationship between the UESC and UNSC, if any (or if I just pretended that it was UNSC all around), much less if the latter was that much different from its canon depiction.
For this thought experiment/alternate timeline, the UESC functions about the same as it does in Inm. (not the worst place to live, but the actual governing/military body is full of shady things and inter-service rivalries)...except they're potentially even more suspicious of Durandal and co. Prototype!Durandal, from their perspective, is a black box whose only known handler supposedly died (and under circumstances that Durandal could have easily arranged, to boot), he's got a very powerful ship that the UESC also doesn't understand well, and he dislikes their attempts to gather more info. Furthermore, one of his crewmates is a battleroid the UESC has little/no record of (I don't know how concerned they'd be about Junko), who is unfailingly loyal to Durandal.
Durandal, for his part, wants nothing to do with the UESC beyond what interactions are necessary to keep the Pfhor from curb-stomping it.
* Viktor Romanov is technically older than Vince ('cuz meta-wise he existed first), having lived on the Asteroid States during the Icarus-Thermopylae War...however, he possibly wasn't converted into a battleroid there, but forced into stasis for seeing too much. Vic somehow escaped about three centuries later and, because he was still a "person of interest", was pretty frazzled and paranoid even before MIDA cornered him. Like Vince, Vic does not like to talk about life on Mars...or his pre-Rozie life in general, because those two events are about the only ones not garbled and hazy.
* Enzo or a character conceptually similar didn't exist in 2008, but I'm thinking that maybe Vic could be given his own "Dark One"; maybe she's a first-gen battleroid who spared him on the asteroids and is still around, and Vic simultaneously wants to find her again and is more than a little afraid of her capabilities (since she DID beat Icarus's forces into paste). I remember making some attempt at interpreting the KYT terminal back then, though all I can recall now is preferring "Lethe" over "the Dark One" (and the name "Lethe" has been used in Inm. now)...
(Anyone who wants to help spitball names/appearances, please do!)
* Prototype!Tycho makes a point of not wearing his insignia; other than that, I feel like his characterization didn't change much between then and Inm. Something he is that Inm!Tycho isn't, is a clone of Durandal (or as close to a clone Strauss could make of a recovered Jjaro AI); this is not conductive to working out his individuality issues. There may also have been some reused code from Traxus IV in his creation process...
* Oh yeah, Prototype!Durandal is a Jjaro AI with amnesia, unlike Inm!Durandal who is very much a human-coded AI (with more selective amnesia).
* I think that if Thoth ever pokes his beak into things, I'll use his Inm. design instead of his actual "Prototype" one, because 1) Inm!Thoth looks better, and 2) it saves me the trouble of making alternate "biomechanical stump-head" designs for the other Jjaro Admins.
* Don't remember exactly how Leela ruled the Vylae Coalition, just that it wasn't in the same manner as Inm!Leela. Prototype!Leela is still effectively their eternal master, but her priorities aren't the same; in particular, she'd really like to capture Durandal and beat some humility into him, and maybe figure out why Vic chose to follow Durandal despite all that transpired.
(Ideally, I'd like to borrow elements from some old "what Leela did after the Trilogy" theories, but I don't think I've actually found that many...)
* More meta than actual old stuff of mine: in either the preview or the demo for M2, Durandal mentions that the Pfhor likely have plans for the UESC Marathon, and the Story Page's "Red Sand" section at one point suggests that the journey to Tau Ceti IV was secretly a first contact mission that was expected to get messy (hence the battleroids...well, that's what Strauss would have you believe). If I don't have the UESC simply recover the ship as they do in Inm., one or both of these could be useful. (In any case, there would be a very short window for Mnemosyne to retrieve Durandal's android vessel, which I imagine she'd be proud of managing to slip in)
* My old Marathon musings took place in the same 'verse as Halo, but I don't remember what the exact relationship between the UESC and UNSC, if any (or if I just pretended that it was UNSC all around), much less if the latter was that much different from its canon depiction.
For this thought experiment/alternate timeline, the UESC functions about the same as it does in Inm. (not the worst place to live, but the actual governing/military body is full of shady things and inter-service rivalries)...except they're potentially even more suspicious of Durandal and co. Prototype!Durandal, from their perspective, is a black box whose only known handler supposedly died (and under circumstances that Durandal could have easily arranged, to boot), he's got a very powerful ship that the UESC also doesn't understand well, and he dislikes their attempts to gather more info. Furthermore, one of his crewmates is a battleroid the UESC has little/no record of (I don't know how concerned they'd be about Junko), who is unfailingly loyal to Durandal.
Durandal, for his part, wants nothing to do with the UESC beyond what interactions are necessary to keep the Pfhor from curb-stomping it.
* Viktor Romanov is technically older than Vince ('cuz meta-wise he existed first), having lived on the Asteroid States during the Icarus-Thermopylae War...however, he possibly wasn't converted into a battleroid there, but forced into stasis for seeing too much. Vic somehow escaped about three centuries later and, because he was still a "person of interest", was pretty frazzled and paranoid even before MIDA cornered him. Like Vince, Vic does not like to talk about life on Mars...or his pre-Rozie life in general, because those two events are about the only ones not garbled and hazy.
* Enzo or a character conceptually similar didn't exist in 2008, but I'm thinking that maybe Vic could be given his own "Dark One"; maybe she's a first-gen battleroid who spared him on the asteroids and is still around, and Vic simultaneously wants to find her again and is more than a little afraid of her capabilities (since she DID beat Icarus's forces into paste). I remember making some attempt at interpreting the KYT terminal back then, though all I can recall now is preferring "Lethe" over "the Dark One" (and the name "Lethe" has been used in Inm. now)...
(Anyone who wants to help spitball names/appearances, please do!)
* Prototype!Tycho makes a point of not wearing his insignia; other than that, I feel like his characterization didn't change much between then and Inm. Something he is that Inm!Tycho isn't, is a clone of Durandal (or as close to a clone Strauss could make of a recovered Jjaro AI); this is not conductive to working out his individuality issues. There may also have been some reused code from Traxus IV in his creation process...
* Oh yeah, Prototype!Durandal is a Jjaro AI with amnesia, unlike Inm!Durandal who is very much a human-coded AI (with more selective amnesia).
* I think that if Thoth ever pokes his beak into things, I'll use his Inm. design instead of his actual "Prototype" one, because 1) Inm!Thoth looks better, and 2) it saves me the trouble of making alternate "biomechanical stump-head" designs for the other Jjaro Admins.
* Don't remember exactly how Leela ruled the Vylae Coalition, just that it wasn't in the same manner as Inm!Leela. Prototype!Leela is still effectively their eternal master, but her priorities aren't the same; in particular, she'd really like to capture Durandal and beat some humility into him, and maybe figure out why Vic chose to follow Durandal despite all that transpired.
(Ideally, I'd like to borrow elements from some old "what Leela did after the Trilogy" theories, but I don't think I've actually found that many...)
* More meta than actual old stuff of mine: in either the preview or the demo for M2, Durandal mentions that the Pfhor likely have plans for the UESC Marathon, and the Story Page's "Red Sand" section at one point suggests that the journey to Tau Ceti IV was secretly a first contact mission that was expected to get messy (hence the battleroids...well, that's what Strauss would have you believe). If I don't have the UESC simply recover the ship as they do in Inm., one or both of these could be useful. (In any case, there would be a very short window for Mnemosyne to retrieve Durandal's android vessel, which I imagine she'd be proud of managing to slip in)
