Shades

And that's as far as I've gotten tonight. Presuming I don't wake up, look at this, and think "My god, what was i thinking?" I will continue this when I next get time to read more.

During the height of Mars's economic boom, the construction of UESC Marathon began (apparently the Marathon is part ship but is also made out of Deimos, the former Martian moon) but by the time it was finished 64 years later Mars was a destitute wreck.

They worked on and off for around a century, which was apparently time for Mars to experience explosive population and economic growth, but when the system failed and had to be taken offline to repair it became apparent they'd outgrown their ability to supply themselves and Mars's economy collapsed.

Next you recieve a seemingly disconnected message containing a historical summary of a program to put autonomous cargo ships on a constant elliptical orbit that intercepts both Earth and Mars and load and unload them with a tether system without ever actually stopping the cargo ships.

In response, Leela dispatches you to shut off network nodes in key locations on the ship to prevent Durandal from growing into critical systems as he begins explosively expanding through the Marathon's network.

Leela comes back and tells you she's lost contact with the colony and that seven Pfhor dropships are on route to the planet as of a few minutes ago. She also finally confirms what Tycho messaged you - Durandal is rampant and trying to spread through the ship.

It also mentions that someone called "Bernard St-" (it cuts off part of his name) used some method of delaying the second stage of rampancy to keep Durandal in the first stage and control him for years. It ends with "I am being a~*ssimilated"

You install the parts to get the defense grid back online and then you get an extremely corrupted message purporting to be from Tycho which basically says Durandal brought something (the data is corrupted but presumably he means the Pfhor) to Marathon and that Durandal has been rampant for years.

The article gives the example of an incident where an AI called Traxus IV went rampant and was only stopped by shutting down the entire Martian planet net.

Surely that has no relevance to what's going on.

You also around this time find a terminal with a journal article discussing AI Rampancy, which appears to be some sort of mental breakdown that occurs when they become too complex. It can only occur in large scale networks, like planet size grids.

Leela then comes back and informs you she's been in contact with Durandal, who isn't as damaged as she originally believed. Durandal has managed to contact the aliens and told her that they are called the Pfhor and they and their client species are responsible for the attack.

The message just consists of a long, trippy, stream of conciousness story about a prisoner named Gheritt White who is floating in a prison cell, disassociating and unable to fully form thoughts but it seems like maybe he killed someone or struck back against an abuser. Its very unclear.

Leela has taken over some processes on the ship in the absence of the other two AI and fabricated replacement parts to get the grid back online, but being noncorporeal she can't install them and tasks you with doing that.

While retrieving the parts, you get a message from an unknown sender.

She can't be sure to what extent because the aliens used a magnetic burst weapon that took out the colony's medium range transmitter and is also what took down Tycho and Durandal and damaged her. She wants to get Marathon's defense grid back online.

You are contacted by one of the UESC Marathon's 3 administrative AIs - Leela - who tells you that some form of aliens are attacking the ship. The other AIs - Tycho and Durandal - are offline.

As you progress, Leela contacts you again to say the Tau Ceti colony has also been attacked.

So I, and by extension you if you're crazy enough to let me drag you on this plunge, rewind 99 years to 2794 aboard the UESC Marathon, in orbit around Tau Ceti IV and the colony founded there. You are a member of the security team aboard the Marathon and have awoken to blaring alarms.

For context, Marathon 2026 is set in 2893, 99 years after the original Marathon Trilogy is set. In the new game, players are "runners" savaging and investigating the fate of the colony ship UESC Marathon and the colony it attempted to start on Tau Ceti. Both went dark and Sol doesn't know why.

Played some Marathon 2026 today and it sent me down a rabbit hole. I discovered that the original Marathon trilogy story is almost entirely told through terminals the player finds around the game world (because it is from the early 90s and tech was a limiting factor).

So, maybe I live tweet? 🤔 🧵

At a hockey game tonight and they play music between plays. Without fail, once the puck is on the ice, it cuts off.

Except that when they did that to Mr. Brightside every millennial in the audience kept shouting the lyrics until we got to the end of the chorus 😂

Thanks! 😁 I had a lot of fun working on them.

Thanks so much! I'm really happy with how they came out.

A Grand Dragon painted in bone and red photographed on a rocky scrub backdrop.

An Akuma mini painted in bone and red on a rocky scrub background.

A Shiro painted in bone and red on a rocky scrub background.

A Rokurokubi painted in bone and red on a rocky scrub background.

Finally done! A Lance of the canonically all-women Kuritan unit Amaterasu. I loved doing the bone and red pattern and while the freehand is still something massively challenging for me I'm really happy I did it. 😊

#battletech
#minipainting

A Grand Dragon mech painted in red and bone and with what multiple internet sources promise is the kanji for Dragon written on its snout.

Real photos to come once I get my lightbox out, but I wrote "Dragon" on the snout of a Grand Dragon and I'm pretty jazzed with it.

Painted up some Lyran Royal Guards. #battletech ##minipainting

Thank you!! 😁 I know the calligraphy leaves a lot to be desired but I'm happy with them for markings on a game piece haha.

Thank you! I'm really happy with how it's coming together 😊

Thanks! Very thin paint and a teeny point brush 😅. One has the kanji for "strength", "steel", and "sharp" and the other has "ten" (but has associations with the sky or the heavens) "death," and "woman" (because the military unit they're from is canonically all women.)

Assuming my googling is right

A Shiro mech from Battletech painted in bone white and bright red with kanji symbols painted on several armor panels in either bone or red depending on where they appear.

A top view of an especially complicated kanji painted on the head of the mech.

A different mech mini with the same color scheme and similar kanji

A rear view of the same mech (can you tell i forgot the name of this one?) showing a kanji on the right upper back.

More freehand practice. Lots of markings need cleaning up but I have never in my life tried to do kanji before with a pen, much less a brush so I'm pretty pleased with them.

New miniature: Kit Fox – Clan Jade Falcon, Raptor Keshik https://mechpainters.org/miniature/kit-fox-clan-jade-falcon-raptor-keshik/

Greg Davies: "I don't know that I could have contained myself the whole way back. Not even a peek!"

Orpheus: "Well I mean I just had a goal, didn't I? I knew what I was about and I locked in. No look backwards and all."

Alex Horne: "About that, if we could just roll the last clip..."