The I-Have-Been Transmission
An unsigned, scrambled terminal text embedded in Marathon 2: Durandal — invoking the names Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, and Gilgamesh — in which a first-person voice claims to have borne a hundred names across history and describes an eternal adversary who is also its only love.
What the source establishes — canon
The terminal and its context
The transmission appears as one of three terminal entries on the level “Kill Your Television” in Marathon 2: Durandal, chapter Blake, dated 05.10.2337.1 The level also contains a recorded message from a human resistance contact warning that Durandal has been destroyed and that Thoth’s activation is the last hope.
The verbatim source text
The terminal text is rendered in-game as a continuous garbled/corrupted string with no spacing or punctuation except noise characters. This is the text exactly as captured from the Karnemir archive:1
ihavebee}rolandbeowulfachil!esgilgameshihavebeencalleda[undrednamesandwillbecalledathousandmorebeforetheworldgoesdimandcoldiam%heroshehasbeenn~melesssinceourbi=thaconstantadversarycaringfornothingbutmyruinasworddrenchedinmybloodfor%vermygreatestand+nlylovesheisthedarkoLetheenemyandloverwithoutwhoZmyveryexistencewouldbepatheticandvulgarourrelationshipiscom^lexandperhapseternalwemetonceinthegardenatthebeginningoftheworldandunawareofourtwindestinieswematchedstaresacrossad;yf\untainandirecallhersmiling>tmebeforeshedevouredthelawnandtreeswithatranslucentblueflameandtoreflagstonesfromtheathandhurledthemintotheskyscreamingmysinsipowderagranitemonumentinasoundlessflashshoweringthegrasswithmoltendropsofitsgoldinFaysendingsmokingchipsofstoneskippingintothefogshesplinte!sanancientoakwitha/orcethattakesmybreathandhurlsmetothegroundshelea%!
Followed by: CONNECTION TERMINATED <ID#0401>
Decoded reading
With noise characters stripped and spacing restored, the community-standard reading of the text is:1
i have been roland beowulf achilles gilgamesh i have been called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the world goes dim and cold i am the hero she has been nameless since our birth a constant adversary caring for nothing but my ruin a sword drenched in my blood forever my greatest and only love she is the dark one the enemy and lover without whom my very existence would be pathetic and vulgar our relationship is complex and perhaps eternal we met once in the garden at the beginning of the world and unaware of our twin destinies we matched stares across a dry fountain and i recall her smiling at me before she devoured the lawn and trees with a translucent blue flame and tore flagstones from the earth and hurled them into the sky screaming my sins i powder a granite monument in a soundless flash showering the grass with molten drops of its gold inlaying sending smoking chips of stone skipping into the fog she splinters an ancient oak with a force that takes my breath and hurls me to the ground she leaps!
What the text states — point by point
The voice makes the following claims, all in first person and all without attribution:1
- It has been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh — four named heroes from distinct literary and mythological traditions (French chanson de geste; Old English epic; Greek myth; Sumerian epic).
- It has been called a hundred names and expects a thousand more before “the world goes dim and cold.”
- It identifies itself as “the hero.”
- It describes a female adversary who “has been nameless since our birth” — a “constant adversary caring for nothing but my ruin.”
- That adversary is simultaneously “a sword drenched in my blood forever” and “my greatest and only love” — described as “the dark one, the enemy and lover.”
- Without her, its existence “would be pathetic and vulgar.” The relationship is called “complex and perhaps eternal.”
- They met “once in the garden at the beginning of the world” — matched stares across “a dry fountain.”
- The adversary’s action: she devoured lawn and trees with a “translucent blue flame,” tore flagstones, hurled them skyward “screaming my sins.”
- The voice and the adversary fight: she splinters an ancient oak and “hurls me to the ground” — text ends mid-action (“she leaps!”).
The terminal is unsigned
No speaker label, sender ID, or attribution appears anywhere in the terminal. The preceding text is gv0-i6tck[24 2h26u njk==tp12t1 (noise header) and the closing line is CONNECTION TERMINATED <ID#0401>. No AI handle, no human name, no faction marker is attached.1
Cross-corpus appearances
| Volume | Game | Level | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kill Your Television (gv0-i6tck[24) | Marathon 2: Durandal | Blake | The transmission itself: unsigned; garbled encoding; names Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh; the hero and the nameless adversary; the garden meeting; date 05.10.2337 |
The transmission appears once in the trilogy corpus. No other terminal quotes, references, or responds to it directly within the captured Mirror volumes.
Source-silent / open questions
Who or what is the speaker? The terminal provides no attribution. The voice claims to have worn the names of multiple legendary heroes across history. Whether this speaker is:
- the Security Officer (the player character, whose nature and origins the trilogy leaves almost entirely unstated),
- a rampant AI (Durandal, Tycho, or a third entity),
- a Jjaro construct or agent speaking through the network,
- an entity analogous to the W’rkncacnter or another ancient being,
- or something else entirely —
the source does not say. The question is one of the most debated in Marathon lore and is explicitly left open here.
Who or what is the nameless adversary? The text describes her as eternal, co-born with the speaker, present “at the beginning of the world,” and capable of acts (translucent blue flame, tearing flagstones, splintering an oak) that are not clearly human. Her identity is source-silent.
What does the encoding signify? The garbled presentation — noise characters interspersed throughout a run-on string — is consistent with other distorted transmissions in the trilogy, but whether the distortion is intentional obfuscation by the sender, network corruption, or a deliberate narrative device is not stated.
Why here, in this terminal? The Kill Your Television level is the context of Durandal’s reported destruction and the approach to Thoth’s activation. The proximity is notable. The source does not explain the connection, if any.
The garden and the beginning of the world. The text invokes a cosmological or mythological frame (“the garden at the beginning of the world,” “twin destinies”) that may or may not connect to other Marathon cosmology (the Jjaro, the eternal cycle, the W’rkncacnter). The source is silent on this.
Cross-references
Security Officer · Durandal · Tycho · Jjaro · Marathon 2 - Durandal · Marathon Infinity · W’rkncacnter · Thoth
Where it appears in the vault
Mirror pages
The local 1:1 pages this hub’s citations resolve to — the twin’s own ground truth.
Sources
Every factual claim above is cited to primary Marathon source material — see Sources below. Cross-corpus connections and interpretation are the vault’s own; where the games are silent, this page says so.