The W'rkncacnter
"The sun burned them, but they swam on its surface"
"The sun burned them, but they swam on its surface"
On "Six Thousand Feet Under" we are introduced to the W'rkncacnter in a S'pht history terminal.
In primordial space, timeless creatures made waves. These waves created us and the others. Waves were the battles, and the battles were waves.Fleeing all W'rkncacnter, Yrro and Pthia settled upon Lh'owon. They brought the S'pht, servants who began to shape the deserts of Lh'owon into marsh and sea, rivers and forests. They made sisters for Lh'owon to protect and maintain the paradise.
When the W'rkncacnter came, Pthia was killed, and Yrro in anger, flung the W'rkncacnter into the sun. The sun burned them, but they swam on its surface.
<Six Thousand Feet Under (Terminal 4)>
The W'rkncacnter only appear in this single terminal in Marathon 2 but from this small piece of text it is possible to gather a few facts.
The W'rkncacnter appears again in a number of terminals in Marathon Infinity but only in the singular:
The S'pht'Kr will arrive momentarily, with all of their vengeance, and the Pfhor will soon be pressed to use the trih xeem. S'bhuth knows only legends about the W'rkncacnter, imprisoned in Lh'owon's sun. If the Pfhor are allowed to use the trih xeem, the W'rkncacnter will escape from its gravity prison.According to the legends of a thousand worlds only a few of which are still habitable, the W'rkncacnter are those things that live in chaos, creating it around them. At the beginning of the universe, they were unmistakable in their entities, but as time has gone by, their existence has become difficult to detect among the chaotic elements of the universe, hidden in stars, trapped in storms, forever looking along the event horizons of black holes. Setting one free in ordered space is difficult and insane.
Of course the Pfhor are oblivious to what they're about to do, even Tfear would be loath to release something so destructive that its mythos has survived throughout the galaxy for over sixty million years.
To stop the Pfhor from their folly and our demise, you must activate the ancient station that Yrro used eons ago to trap the W'rkncacnter. If we can activate it in time, it will crush the Pfhor fleet before we're all destroyed.
<You Think You're Big Time? You're Gonna Die Big Time! (Terminal 1)>
Although this terminal only mentions one W'rkncacnter trapped in Lh'owon's sun it does provide a plausible explanation for the events described in the S'pht history terminal on "Six Thousand Feet Under". Yrro trapped the W'rkncacnter in Lh'owon's sun using a gravity field generated by the Jjaro space station. We also learn later that the space station was originally used to terraform Lh'owon.
This station was built by the progenitors of the S'pht and used to make Lh'owon into a paradise. It is capable of generating multiple gravitational fields, and if focused properly, we should be able to create a singularity capable of swallowing the nova before the W'rcacnter is able to break free.
^4u235hriamgw
^wrealn030-34
The foci are at either end of the spindles, and need a second chip inserted here, at this relay held by Tfear's elite spiral guards.
The chip is trapped here, in a containment field the Pfhor are unable to breach.Ê We think you will be able to reach it. The Pfhor dug in around it are fighting to the death.
Speed is of the essence.
The W'rcacnter groans under his slab.<Aye Mak Sicur (Terminal 1: 1st Message)>
For some reason on the level "Aye Mak Sicur" the name W'rkncacnter is spelt W'rcacnter. The 'kn' is dropped. This may simply be a spelling inconsistency.
Both Scott Jaeger <pepino@indy.net> and Brandon Seifert <looney@thepentagon.com> point out that the descriptions of the W'rkncacnter are very similar to sleeping God in Pathways Into Darkness. They note the following similarities:
Similar origins.
According to the legends of a thousand worlds only a few of which are still habitable, the W'rkncacnter are those things that live in chaos, creating it around them. At the beginning of the universe, they were unmistakable in their entities, but as time has gone by, their existence has become difficult to detect among the chaotic elements of the universe, hidden in stars, trapped in storms, forever looking along the event horizons of black holes.<You Think You're Big Time? You're Gonna Die Big Time! (Terminal 1)>
It was a member of a race whose history began when the Milky Way was still a formless collection of dust and gas-- a powerful race of immortals which had quickly grown bored of their tiny universe and nearly exterminated themselves in war.(Pathways Into Darkness manual page 1)
They both appear to have existed around the same time.
Of course the Pfhor are oblivious to what they're about to do, even Tfear would be loath to release something so destructive that its mythos has survived throughout the galaxy for over sixty million years.<You Think You're Big Time? You're Gonna Die Big Time! (Terminal 1)>
Sixty-four million years ago, a large extra-terrestrial object struck the Earth in what would later be called the Yucatan Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico.(Pathways Into Darkness manual page 1)
Try pronouncing W'rkncacnter correctly.
This particular being, whose name no human throat will ever learn to pronounce, was part of the cataclysmic battle that formed Magellanic Clouds, billions of years ago. It died there, or it came as close to dying as these things can, and drifted aimlessly for millions of light years before striking the Earth.(Pathways Into Darkness manual page 1)
A possible connection between the W'rkncacnter in Marathon, the dreaming God in Pathways Into
Darkness and the Cthulhu Mythos has already been mentioned by
Brandon Seifert <looney@thepentagon.com> in the
The Cthulhu Mythos in Marathon section.
Did the W'rkncacnter actually exist?
At the end of "Aye Mac Sicur" we learn:
You've done it.The jjarro station is online, and we're wrapping the nova in its containment fields. The creature, or creatures S'bhuth fears are either dormant or a myth--we've seen nothing to account for his terror.
Could the W'rkncacnter have been a simple myth perpetrated by the S'pht or indeed their elusive progenitors?
Charles S. writes:
True, we never saw whether the W'rkncacnter was real or not in the game, but from the manual text it seems pretty obvious that it does exist.
Yes the Manual text relates the destruction of the Pfhor fleet by an unknown force following the nova event. Durandal describes it simply as the "horror" which seemingly has the potential to destroy the galaxy.
These events appear to be re-enacted on the Prologue level "Ne Cede Malis" though in this case a nearby Pfhor ship (believed to be commanded by Tycho) seems to be still intact. Durandal describes his demise at the hands of a "chaos".
Many people have conjectured that it is this "chaos" that causes us to shift in time, finding ourselves starting back, in an attempt to find a new (more successful) path.
Thus the events described at the beginning (or end) of Infinity would support the existence of an unknown chaotic force inside Lh'owon's sun.
We also find that in one of the "failed" timelines ending on "Aie Mak Sicur" we again meet Tfear who describes the destruction of his ship. Though this time he would appear to be observing events from the Jjaro space station.
The trih xeem broke against my dying vessel and smashed a fine patina across the mystery shields of this station.
The station however provides no safe sanctuary from the "abomination".
The shields are gone, not down, but gone, and so are the engineers. It's coming back, I'm sure: and my last mercy is immolation.