History Characters / Marathon

* DoesNotLikeShoes: The Fighters and Troopers don't wear any in the original games. Freeverse's redesigns for the XBLA release of ''Marathon 2'' add shoes for the Troopers, but the Fighters still go barefoot. Notably, the Pfhor only seem to have two toes.

The large, bipedal animals native to Lh'owon (or not), and from whom the S'pht were uplifted from.

* CloseRangeCombatant: Blue F'lickta (from whom the S'pht were uplifted) are limited to just slashing claw attacks.

!!'''Jjaro'''
An ancient and extremely advanced race of beings whose technology is occasionally found by the modern races. Not much is known about them, but what is clear is they were almost frighteningly technologically competent.

* FromNobodyToNightmare: Before the first game, Durandal was just an AI being experimented on to test Rampancy and solely handled the doors of the titular UESC ''Marathon'' starship. Then he goes rampant, causes the Pfhor invasion of Tau Ceti, and begins a series of events that threatens not only humanity and the solar system, but vast swaths of space and distant civilizations.

* FromNobodyToNightmare: Goes from being a glorified doorman to a formidable combat strategist, [[spoiler: and eventually merges with Toth to ascend to near-divinity.]]

An ancient S'pht AI left deactivated on Lh'owon since the the S'pht's fall to the Pfhor. Durandal has the Security Officer reactivate him to acquire his assistance against the Pfhor. The name "Thoth" was given to him by Durandal.

* Myth/EgyptianMythology: Thoth's namesake is a keeper of knowledge.
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Begins aiding the Pfhor after the return of Durandal and the arrival of the S'pht'Kr, due to the aforementioned BlueAndOrangeMorality. Durandal notes that they're just ignoring him though.]]

* SuddenSequelHeelSyndrome: In the first game he antagonistic to Durandal on the behalf of humans. Come the sequel and one painful reconstruction[=/=]torture by the Pfhor later, and he is firmly in camp evil.

* GrenadeLauncher: The shoot these at range.
* MoreDakka: Get too close and they fill you full of holes.

* ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon: The Troopers' rifles are as innacurate as the Security Officer's, so they don't even bother to shoot with them until nearly point blank, prefering to use thier grenade launcher equivalents for longer ranges, which itself falls short of what even the lowly shock staff's bolt can reach.

* PoweredArmor: Implied to built around the Phfor rather than worn.

* FireBreathingWeapon: The use their flamethrowers when in close range.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: The Lookers.

* MechaMooks: Drones, Tank Cyborgs and Juggernauts.

* PraetorianGuard: Tycho pits you against Admiral Tfear's personal guard in ''Infinity'' level ''You Think You're Big Time? You're Gonna Die Big Time!''. They consist of pairs of Elite gray-armoured fighters, troopers, hunters and one brown Juggernaut. And they are all '''mean'''.
* ScaryDogmaticAliens: Closest to the Conquistadores type.

* HeavilyArmoredMook: The first enemy you encounter that is quite resistant to standart ballistics.

* TheBusCameBack: Having been ''physically'' absent from the second and third games (Durandal reveals what happened to her, but she does not appear in person), she plays a major role in the fan scenario ''Eternal'', however; she serves as MissionControl again for a rather large portion of the scenario.

* TeamMom: Of the three [=AIs=], she is the one who is in general command of UESC ''Marathon''.

* HeelFaceTurn: Shifts back to the Face side in the fan mod ''Rubicon'' and particularly ''Rubicon X'', [[spoiler:though he's very much an {{antihero}}.]]

* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Begins aiding the Pfhor after the return of Durandal and the arrival of the S'pht'Kr, due to the aforementioned BlueAndOrangeMorality.]]

* StupidNeutral: [[spoiler:Due to his desire to maintain the balance of power, he changes alliance and begins aiding the Pfhor when Durandal makes it plain that he's not dead after all. This turns out to be because originally he was built by BenevolentPrecursors to keep the S'pht clans from ever destroying each other. This intelligent design turns stupid once {{Outside Context Problem}}s show up and Thoth is unable to adapt.]]

* TheAllConcealingI: The series has an odd variation of this - you play a character that is treated like a tool by most other main characters, and as such, the only dialogue you get is overheard conversations in which you aren't mentioned or someone talking to you giving you orders. Aside from a short, vague prologue in each manual, there is no background for your character, and he is never heard. Plenty of hints are in the game, with mentions of [[spoiler:military cyborgs and soldiers made from the reanimated dead]], but [[WildMassGuessing arguments still go on]] as to what exactly he is.

** JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Compare his rough treatment of the Security Officer in the first game to him regarding the SO more as a partner (and human being) in the next two.

** TheBusCameBack: Plays a major role in the fan scenario ''Eternal'', however; she serves as MissionControl again for a rather large portion of the scenario.

** [[spoiler:HeelFaceTurn: Shifts back to the Face side]] in the fan mod ''Rubicon'' and particularly ''Rubicon X'', [[spoiler:though he's very much an {{antihero}}.]]

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Thoth is a nickname Durandal gave to him, after the Egyptian deity. We never find out his actual name, though since he's a S'pht AI, his actual name would also presumably be meaningless without a translation. (For that matter, it's entirely possible that the S'pht themselves named him after one of their own myths, in which case his name would be meaningless without the context of the myth.) In some cases, he is not even referred to by a nickname - in some of ''Infinity''[='=]s timelines, Tycho simply calls Thoth "the S'pht AI", since Tycho wouldn't know (or be particularly inclined to use) Durandal's nickname for Thoth.

* TheGhost: Bernhard Strauss, a scientist who was hinted and later confirmed by ''VideoGame/Destiny2'' (along with a new detail of MIDA affiliation) of deliberately driving Durandal into Rampancy in order to study the process and harness the power of AI metastability, is only mentioned in-game by others. The player is actually tasked with attempting to find him in one of the Pfhor ship levels in the first game, [[spoiler:but doesn't - it's implied that he was dead already]].

* TheClan: ''11'', to be precise - S'pht'Lhar, S'pht'Hra, S'pht'Nma, S'pht'Kah, S'pht'Vir, S'pht'Yra, S'pht'Val, S'pht'Shr, S'pht'Mnr, S'pht'Yor, and S'pht'Kr.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: They are generally presented positively, but there are hints that they had some darker tendencies in some terminals - would a truly benevolent race create a weapon that destroys an entire star system? Durandal also refers to the Nakh as "the last extant client race of the Jjaro" in "All Roads Lead to Sol", and whether this means the Nakh were slaves or servants of the Jjaro remains unclear. (However, see BenevolentPrecursors - if their treatment of the Nakh was similar to their treatment of the S'pht, this may have been relatively benign.)

* AttackDrone: The Pfhor have these in the latter games.

* GiantMook: The Drinniol, or Hulks, are much bigger (they stand ten feet tall) and bulkier (and that's all muscle - they have almost no body fat) than their Pfhor masters. They still go down to enough grenades though.

* DefeatEqualsExplosion[=/=]GoingCritical: When they die. Being near them when that happens will definitely kill you unless you have at least 2 1/3x shields, and you will need at least 2 2/3x to be assured of survival[[note]]specifically, it does between 350 and 400 damage, where the yellow bar is 300 and the purple bar is 450. As a result, you need at least 400 health to be assured of survival, since you die when your shields drop ''below'' 0[[/note]], regardless of the difficulty setting. Which, considering that we're talking about ''Juggernauts'', is extremely unlikely to be the case.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The World Killers, Gaze in Stunned Disbelief at the Tool of Our Destruction, The Big Floaty Thing What Kicks Our Asses

** However, [[spoiler:The Security Officer ends up being [[FromNobodyToNightmare this to them]] too by the simple virtue of being able to [[DimensionalTraveler dimension hop]] to {{Alternate Timeline}}s, since the W'rkcacnter's ''only'' limitation seems to be to exist in only one particular timeline at a time rather than everywhere, at any time, all at once. Because they can learn about the W'rkcacnter in spite of it's continuous annihilations of the realities it exists in, the Security Officer is able to eventually do the impossible and [[DidYouPunchOutCthulhu defeat it]] in a war of attrition through time-and-space and [[SealedEvilInACan seal it back in it's can]] in his journey's GoldenEnding.]]

* ImmortalitySeeker: Durandal's lifespan is limited only by the closure of the universe and he plans to overcome even that. All while mocking the Security Officer's own limited lifespan.

* MortalityPhobia: Is obsessed with his own mortality, and searches the universe to try to find a way to escape its inevitable destruction known as the Big Crunch.

* HiveMind: The S'pht have a unified racial consciousness, which is why the Pfhor used brainwashing to control them instead of rule by fear (or just nuke them if that fails) since the necessary "infrastructure" was already there.

!Characters in Bungie's trilogy

* HairTriggerExplosive: When powered down, a single plasma bolt can make them explode.

* ShoulderCannon: The Hunters' weapon.

* BoomStick: The Pfhor fighter's signature shock staffs.

* CannonFodder: The Fighters.

* ArmCannon: The Pfhor Tank Cyborgs.
* TheBlank: The Cyborgs (the enemies with tank treads for feet, not the Mjolnir Mark [=IV=]s), and according to WordOfGod, those are made from captured Tau Ceti colonists.
* MechaMooks:
* TankTreadMecha: The faceless Tank Cyborgs that replaced the Drinniol as the damage sponge that now can shoot back with variety of weapons.

* AirborneMook:
* BossInMookClothing: The Juggernauts.
* DegradedBoss: Compared to their late apperances in ''Marathon'' and ''Durandal'', The Juggernauts appear earlier and more frequently in ''Infinity'' and various mods.

* HairTriggerExplosive: When powered down, a single plasma bolt can make them explode

* BossInMookClothing: The Juggernauts

* HeavilyArmoredMook: The Hunters.

* ThePoliticalOfficer: The Enforcers are described as such.
* TortureTechnician: In addition to their commisar duties, the Enforcers also can work as these.

* SkullForAHead: The Juggernauts' head in ''Marathon''. It was redesigned in the sequels.

* ArchaicWeaponForAnAdvancedAge: The shock staffs of the Pfhor fighters. They can shoot a slow moving projectile by swinging it, but compared to the weapons of other Pfhor enemies they are pathetic.
* ArmCannon: The Pfhor Tank Cyborgs.

* TheBlank: The Cyborgs (the enemies with tank treads for feet, not the Mjolnir Mark [=IV=]s), and according to WordOfGod, those are made from captured Tau Ceti colonists.
* BoomStick: The Pfhor fighter's signature shock staffs.

* CannonFodder: The Fighters.
* CloseRangeCombatant: The Lesser Fighters can only hit you with their staffs. The Drinniol/Hulks (who, to be clear, are not Pfhor but rather their slaves) are also limited to just slashing claw attacks.

* CrystalWeapon: The Shock Staff is basically a crystal on a stick.

* DegradedBoss: Compared to their late apperances in ''Marathon'' and ''Durandal'', The Juggernauts appear earlier and more frequently in ''Infinity'' and various mods.

* ExtraEyes: The Pfhor tend to have three eyes, while Enforcers in ''Durandal'' and ''Infinity'' have ''seven''.

* GasMaskMooks: The Fighters have their lower half of the head covered with the breathing mask.

* GlowingMechanicalEyes: The Pfhor drones and the Juggernauts. Also, the troopers in the original ''Marathon 2'' artwork; you can only see their eyes through their helmet (however, in Freeverse's redesigned artwork and in the original ''Marathon 1'' shapes, you can see their whole faces).
* HeavilyArmoredMook: The Hunters.

* ThePoliticalOfficer: The Enforcers are described as such.

* ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon: The Troopers' rifles are as innacurate as the Security Officer's, so they don't even bother to shoot with them until nearly point blank, prefering to use thier grenade launcher equivalents for langer ranges, which itself falls short of what even the lowly shock staff's bolt can reach.
* ShoulderCannon: The Hunters' weapon.
* SkullForAHead: The Juggernauts' head in ''Marathon''. It was redesigned in the sequels.

* TankTreadMecha: The faceless Tank Cyborgs that replaced the Drinniol as the damage sponge that now can shoot back with variety of weapons.
* TortureTechnician: In addition to their commisar duties, the Enforcers also can work as these.
* UnwillingRoboticisation: WordOfGod says that the Tank Cyborgs from ''Durandal'' and ''Infinity'' are made out of captured Tau Ceti colonists.