Upon reading the the replies, it occurs to me that both my responses and the thread at large were still woefully inadequate to describe just how absurdly deep the Marathon rabbit hole truly goes.
So, in service of new Marathon lore fans, here is a definitive (though still incomplete) list of must-read/watch material for fans hoping to better understand the depths of Marathon lore:
• The Elric Saga and The Eternal Champion, both by Michael Moorcock - If you only care to read one thing from this list, make it one of these. These two series are honestly a must-read for bungie lore in general, as literally every one of their games pulls from them in some way or another. The original Elric Saga is a 6 book series that also has a 7th (lol) novel called Elric At The End Of Time that is worth going through, but the first 3 novels are a great starting point.
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Phillip K. Dick - lots of different releases of this one online, must-read for anyone trying to understand how Marathon handles it's explorations of artificial consciousness, especially during the events of Marathon Infinity. Notably also Inspired Blade Runner.
• The Pandora Sequence, a 4-book series of novels by the Legendary Frank Herbert and co-wrote by Bill Ransom from book 2 on. The 2nd book, The Jesus Incident, is of particular note in that the nascent godlike AI, Ship, bears similarities in attitude and motivations with Durandal, who is arguably the main character of the Marathon universe.
• The Song of Roland - A famous 11th century epic poem that details the exploits of the legendary French hero Roland, wielder of the unbreakable sword Durandal. The specifics of the plot itself have little to do with Marathon, but it's a short read and the themes and specifically the exploits of Roland himself as romanticized by the epic greatly inform the subtext of the OG Marathon trilogy's player character. You can easily find readings of it on YouTube if that's your preference.
In addition to these literary works, there are several excellent resources on YouTube that cover the specifics of Marathon:
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@Lord_Mandalore's Bungie Rabbithole series - these were talked about a couple times in the thread and already pretty much ubiquitous, but I figure it'd help to have these here. Also covers Pathways into Darkness and the first two games of the Myth series, and how they connect to Marathon.
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…
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@JakeTheAlright's The Entire History of Marathon and Marathon: The Story So Far - Two fantastically produced overview videos that go from the earliest events in the world of Marathon, cataloging all the most important historical events leading up to the upcoming game.
youtube.com/watch?v=yu7uN6-l… youtube.com/watch?v=hSiX35Ie…
• Emms Marathon: The Movie playlist - complete walkthroughs of the original Marathon Trilogy that cover the terminals of the game as audio logs, criminally underrated.
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…
Other things to read/watch/play if you like Marathon:
• Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow
• BLAME!, NOiSE, Knights of Sidonia, and related works by Tsutomu Nihei
• Halo if you're one of the 3 humans ever who haven't
any tips for recommended reading for Marathon before launch? I have one month to lock in 🤪