Line #4 Awesome/Marathon


1	[[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blurred2_7372.JPG]]
2	[[caption-width-right:330:Just a typical day for the [[OneManArmy Security]] [[PersonOfMassDestruction Officer]] ]]
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4	Before [[{{Franchise/Halo}} Master Chief and Cortana]] made themselves legendary, their revered predecessors kicked just as much ass.
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6	'''Beware of spoilers'''
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10	* Basically everything Durandal ever does, but his best moments include:
11	** From the very first terminal in the second game, Durandal's snark is as powerful as his arsenal, telling you that he's introducing the Pfhor "to the ''magic'' of {{orbital bombardment}}."
12	** Killing half of the Pfhor's best battlefleet with nothing more than his upgraded corvette "Boomer". He knew he was going to lose, had nowhere to run, so he decided to go out in style, and believes that this action will get him into the Pfhor's military history books.
13	-->'''Durandal''': I'd have erased my seven times table to hear what the combat technicians on the Khfiva shouted when they learned I could focus a particle beam at nearly twice their maximum range.
14	** Durandal faking his own death, then recreating himself on board the main Pfhor flagship, and sending Tycho's ship crashing into the moon. Then he caps this off by using a plasma beam to write an inscription celebrating his victory in the moon, visible from orbit... in [[GratuitousLatin Latin]].
15	** Ten thousand years after ''Marathon II'', he buzzes Earth in a Jjaro battleship... just to say "hi" and make sure humanity doesn't forget him.
16	** And to top it all off, Durandal, as he narrates in the ending of ''Infinity'', manages to survive all the way to ''the heat death of the universe''.
17	* A few of the Security Officer's feats include:
18	** Rampaging [[OneManArmy solo]] on various Pfhor ships, particularly in the first game, where he practically starts a species-wide revolution while at it. Primarily by jamming a rocket down the throat of the commander keeping its slaves in check.
19	** Humiliating the Pfhor's best Heavy-Armor unit [[ItAmusedMe just for the hell of it.]]
20	** Jumping through time[=/=]alternate dimensions[=/=]whatever in order to stop the EldritchAbomination from destroying the universe.
21	** However, most impressive of all is this: An invasion of alien slavers, his MissionControl being deleted, being kidnapped constantly and a literal EldritchAbomination breaking down reality. The element all of these traumatic and hopeless events share? ''Absolutely none of it could even come close to stopping him.''
22	** And at the end of it all, the grandest achievement of his involves a metamorphosis kickstarted over the course of ''Infinity''. As he puts together bits and pieces of the plot, aand the true extent of his own sway on the situation, he proceeds to fuse Thoth and Durandal together to create an emergent, godlike intellect that as mentioned, survives until the end of the universe itself... that then proceeds to crown ''him'' in turn as a being of unfathomable power as a realization dawns on the AI during the final moments of the universe's collapse.
23	--> '''Durandal/Thoth''': Now, in the quantum moment before the closure. When\
24	all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.\
25	\
26	I know who you are.\
27	'''''You are Destiny.'''''
28	* Action-packed Maps that also serve to empathize the badassness of the Security Officer:
29	** '''''Marathon''''': ''Habe Quiddam'' and ''Try Again''
30	** '''''Durandal''''': ''If I Had a Rocket Launcher, I'd Make Someone Pay'', ''For Carnage, Apply Within'', ''Begging for Mercy Makes Me Angry!'', and ''All Roads Lead to Sol…''
31	** '''''Infinity''''': ''Acme Station'', ''Hang Brain'', and ''You Think You're Big Time? You're Gonna Die Big Time!''.
32	* Even off-screen, the humans of Tau Ceti IV are saved not by the Security Officer's hard-won battles on the Marathon, but by nine military Mjolnir Mark IV cyborgs, who not only managed to utterly crush the Pfhor invasion, but cut the colony's losses down so much that apparently they utterly pale in comparison to the [[LateToTheTragedy Marathon's]]. The story implies that just a single cyborg is a OneManArmy, never mind a whole squad of them. [[TomatoInTheMirror Guess who the tenth is?]] [[MindScrew Probably.]] Though it doesn't last forever, since the colony does fall by ''Durandal'' over the course of seventeen years...
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Context Awesome / Marathon