Jjaro
An ancient and vanished race — disappeared millions of years ago — whose galactic outposts seeded the known world, whose plundered ruins underpinned the Pfhor empire, and whose language named the weapon capable of detonating a star. The deepest structural layer beneath S’pht history, Pfhor technology, and the W’rkncacnter’s imprisonment at Lh’owon.
What the source establishes — canon
Disappearance and timescale
Gone millions of years ago. The Jjaro “disappeared from our galaxy millions of years ago.” 1 No cause, mechanism, or survivors are given. The pack treats absence as the total and permanent condition.
Galactic footprint
Outposts throughout the galaxy. The Jjaro left behind “military and civilian outposts on the moons of many habitable worlds.” 1 The scope is explicitly galactic; the placement pattern is moons of habitable worlds. No individual outpost is named in this volume.
Durandal connects S’pht myth to a Jjaro outpost on Lh’owon’s moon. Tycho (writing from Durandal’s captured memories) reports that Durandal “connected the myth of the lost [S’pht] clan with Pfhor records of the technology of an ancient race, the Jjaro” and “surmised that the S’pht myth of the disappearing moon was due to their discovery of an ancient Jjaro outpost.” 1 Tycho calls this a “failure of intuition” and labels the conclusion “ridiculous.” The pack does not confirm or refute whether the outpost existed.
An unidentified station in deep Lh’owon orbit — “obviously not of Pfhor construction.” A terminal describes a scanning buoy in deep Lh’owon orbit as “obviously not of Pfhor construction,” used by the Pfhor as a sensor relay station. 2 The terminal does not identify the builders; Jjaro authorship is not stated in this volume.
The station described as built by the “progenitors of the S’pht.” A terminal at the Lh’owon endgame describes the ancient orbital station: “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.” 3 The terminal names the builders as the S’pht’s “progenitors,” not explicitly as the Jjaro. See §Yrro and the W’rkncacnter below.
Pfhor inheritance of Jjaro technology
Most Pfhor technology is Jjaro salvage. “Most of the Pfhor’s technology was plundered from sites abandoned by the Jjaro.” 1 The Pfhor did not develop their technological base independently; they are inheritors of ruins they could only partially understand.
Technology the Pfhor could not exploit — and destroyed. “The Pfhor found much that they were unable to exploit, and they destroyed all known traces of these technologies after a foolhardy Pfhor scientist implanted a Jjaro cybernetic junction into a Drinniol, causing the most terrible and destructive slave revolt in Pfhor history.” 1 The Pfhor actively suppressed surviving Jjaro technology rather than preserving it; the Drinniol revolt was the direct cause.
Planetary-scale spatial technology — planet-warping capability. “In an earlier accident, the Pfhor learned that the Jjaro had the ability to warp entire planets between solar systems.” 1 This is treated as established Pfhor knowledge (from “an earlier accident,” distinct from the Drinniol revolt), and is the proximate basis for Durandal’s belief that the S’pht moon-myth described a Jjaro outpost that moved.
Confirmed prior deployment of trih xeem against Drinniol. Tfear’s transmission to Pfhor High Command states the Pfhor used the trih xeem “as we did with the Drinniol rebellion,” and that “forcing a star into early nova has proved most satisfactory at destroying what we could not control.” 4 The Drinniol rebellion is an established prior use of the weapon, distinct from the Nakh revolt.
The trih xeem — Jjaro-built stellar weapon
Conceived and built by the Jjaro. “In the language of the Jjaro who conceived and built the device, it is called the trih xeem; a fair English translation would be ‘early nova’.” 5 The Pfhor did not invent it; they inherited or recovered it. The Jjaro linguistic attribution is explicit in the source.
Pfhor use doctrine — reserved for slave revolts. “The Pfhor have a weapon they save for slave revolts; a weapon which even they hesitate to use in the ordinary conduct of war.” 5
A corrupted fragment links the trih xeem’s trajectory to the sun’s core. A heavily corrupted terminal contains: “The trih xeem plummets (yawning) towards / the sun’s core (heart), and the firey prison of the W’rcacnter (doubt) where…” followed by data corruption. 6 The source presents this as corrupted; the name “W’rcacnter” may be a spelling variant.
Tycho’s ship carries the trih xeem. A terminal from Tycho’s perspective confirms: “My ship carries the tri xeem — the early nova device. One way or another, it ends here.” 7 The spelling “tri xeem” is used here; both variants appear in the source.
The W’rkncacnter and the trih xeem’s consequence. “If the Pfhor are allowed to use the trih xeem, the W’rkncacnter will escape from its gravity prison.” 8 The pack does not state the Jjaro built the trih xeem with this consequence in mind; it is an established danger, not attributed intent.
The Nakh — last extant Jjaro client race
The Jjaro had client races; the Nakh were the last still extant. “The slavers have not suffered a defeat like the one we handed them today since the Nakh, the last extant client race of the Jjaro, rebelled six thousand years ago.” 5 The phrase “last extant” implies other Jjaro client races had already ceased to exist by the time of the Nakh revolt.
The Nakh revolt reached the Pfhor homeworld. Battle Group Three earned decorations “for turning back the loyalists at Tahrm’s Gap and holding the approaches to the Pfhor homeworld itself during the slave revolt of the Nakh.” 9 The revolt was significant enough to threaten the Pfhor homeworld directly.
The Nakh were annihilated. “There is not a single Nakh alive today, and if you look for their stars, you will only find ever-expanding clouds of superheated gas and dust light-years in diameter.” 5 The trih xeem destroyed an entire species and its stellar systems. The same fate was prepared for Lh’owon and the S’pht.
Yrro, the W’rkncacnter, and the Jjaro-era station
Yrro and the S’pht creation myth. The S’pht creation account (via S’pht Translator) describes: “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.” 10 The myth names Yrro as master of the S’pht and agent of terraforming, but does not use the word “Jjaro.” The connection between Yrro and the Jjaro is drawn by later interpreters, not stated in the source text. See Source-silent / open questions.
The ancient station — Yrro’s instrument of imprisonment. “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.” 8
“The Yrro station” named. “The Pfhor fleet is in disarray, and Tfear has deployed the trih xeem, moving his flagship to board the Yrro station.” 11
The W’rkncacnter’s galactic mythos. “Even Tfear would be loath to release something so destructive that its mythos has survived throughout the galaxy for over sixty million years.” 8 The W’rkncacnter mythos predates the Jjaro disappearance by many millions of years; Yrro’s act of imprisonment is the event that connects the two.
“Yrro(farcast)” — a corrupted Pfhor terminal gloss. A severely corrupted terminal uses the compound “yrro(farcast)” to describe pattern chips needed to activate a power grid. 6 The terminal is too corrupted for reliable reading. Whether this represents Pfhor naming of Yrro’s technology after Yrro, or a translator artifact, is source-silent.
Thoth — an ancient personality construct (Jjaro attribution: NOT in source)
Thoth is described as “an ancient personality construct.” A human survivor on Lh’owon reports: “Durandal gave the name ‘Thoth’ to the ancient personality construct we are trying to activate.” 12
The pack does NOT name the Jjaro as Thoth’s builders. None of the four volumes in the Thoth hub attribute Thoth to the Jjaro. The word “Jjaro” does not appear in any Thoth-specific terminal in the captured Mirror. The description “ancient personality construct” is consistent with Jjaro authorship but the source does not make that connection. Any claim that Thoth is a Jjaro construct is an inference, not a source statement.
Thoth’s orientation and post-activation behaviour. After activation, “Thoth is now trying to aid the Pfhor, but they are obstinate and continue to ignore him.” Durandal also notes: “it was convenient for me to be absent, as Thoth might not have been so helpful had he known I still lived.” 13
Pfhor deployment at Lh’owon — the trih xeem fired
Tfear’s first-person account — blast and aftermath. Tfear records that the trih xeem “broke against my dying vessel and smashed a fine patina across the mystery shields of this station,” and afterward the shields “were not down, but gone,” and the engineers were lost. 14
Outcome — half the sun as expected; impossible readings from the other half. Tfear’s report to High Command: “The nova fired on time. Half of the sun went nova as expected, but the other half produced readings that were impossible — as if the universe had forgotten its own rules. The Western Arm of Pfhor Battle Group Seven has been destroyed.” 4
Durandal’s warning transmitted. Tfear transmitted Durandal’s words before the end: “Maybe it is fate that your ignorant pride would unleash this horror and destroy the galaxy.” 4
Lh’owon destroyed. “The evacuation of Lh’owon has already begun. In a matter of hours this planet will be a thin shell of plasma riding the shockwave of its exploding star.” 5
Durandal’s account of chaos released. Durandal states: “There are things that can destroy me with the ease that I slaughtered the Pfhor naval garrison and the Western Arm of their Battle Group Seven. But in their final gasp they used a weapon that I thought they had retired, even Tycho tried to keep them from using it. Now I fear what that weapon has unleashed will destroy us.” 15
Durandal’s post-Lh’owon Jjaro dreadnought
A direct, named acquisition of Jjaro technology. Ten thousand years after the Lh’owon campaign, “when Durandal returned to Sol it was not with the captured Khfiva but in a Jjaro dreadnought he called Manus Celer Dei.” 16 This is the pack’s only volume describing Durandal in direct possession of an intact, functional Jjaro vessel — distinct from the salvaged and reverse-engineered Jjaro technology the Pfhor inherited (see §Pfhor inheritance, above). Durandal names the ship in Latin (“swift hand of god” or similar), and pilots it well enough to evade the Guard: “Nor will it soon, the way he tied the Guard in knots around Pluto before folding directly into a low-Earth orbit.” 16
Durandal’s silence on what he learned. The same volume states: “What he learned of the Jjaro he told no one, saying only that he had stopped by to assure that Earth did not forget him.” 16 This establishes that Durandal had ten thousand years of unsupervised access to Jjaro technology and, implicitly, further Jjaro sites or records sufficient to acquire and pilot a dreadnought — and that whatever he learned in that time was deliberately withheld from any recorded source in this pack.
Cross-corpus appearances
| Volume | Game / Level / Section | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| For Carnage Apply Within (traxIV<40c>) | Marathon 2 / Durandal arc | Jjaro: disappeared millions of years ago; galactic outposts on habitable-world moons; Pfhor technology is Jjaro salvage; Pfhor destroyed surviving Jjaro tech after Drinniol accident; Jjaro could warp planets; Durandal connects S’pht myth to Jjaro records |
| All Roads Lead to Sol (tranced.Finale<0-05>) | Marathon 2 / S’pht’Kr arc | trih xeem: Jjaro-conceived and -built, means “early nova”; Nakh = last extant Jjaro client race, rebelled ~6,000 years ago, annihilated by trih xeem; S’pht’Kr victory is worst Pfhor defeat since the Nakh revolt; Lh’owon evacuation underway |
| The Adventure Continues… (introduction) | Marathon 2 / Introduction | Battle Group Three holding Pfhor homeworld approaches during the Nakh slave revolt |
| Report to Lh’owon Command (Introduction) | Marathon Infinity / Introduction | Tfear’s command report: Drinniol precedent for trih xeem; nova fired; impossible readings; Western Arm destroyed; Durandal’s warning |
| You Think You’re Big Time… (dciel1cb1) | Marathon Infinity / Envy | Yrro’s ancient station; trih xeem will release W’rkncacnter; W’rkncacnter mythos 60M years old; Pfhor obliviousness; S’bhuth’s legendary knowledge |
| You Think You’re Big Time… (wgrnc.q23) | Marathon Infinity / Envy | Tfear deploys trih xeem; “Yrro station” named; S’pht’Kr must activate ancient weapon |
| Six Thousand Feet Under (ax1-40^23) | Marathon 2 / Citadel | S’pht creation myth: Yrro and Pthia fled W’rkncacnter; S’pht terraformed Lh’owon; Pthia killed; Yrro imprisoned W’rkncacnter in sun |
| Aye-Mak Sicur (1023.poly.max) | Marathon Infinity / Envy | Station “built by the progenitors of the S’pht”; gravitational fields; can swallow the nova |
| Aye-Mak Sicur (tat.iana) | Marathon Infinity / Envy | Corrupted: “yrro(farcast)” gloss; trih xeem plummeting to sun’s core; W’rkncacnter’s prison |
| Aie Mak Sicur (^^^EOf) | Marathon Infinity / Despair | Tfear first-person: trih xeem fired; post-blast chaos; shields gone; immolation |
| Confound Delivery (Cirlw.zoq) | Marathon Infinity / Despair | Tycho’s ship carries “the tri xeem — the early nova device” |
| Ne Cede Malis ( | Marathon Infinity / Prologue | Durandal: weapon unleashed something that “this new chaos is entirely terrible, mindless, obeying rules that I don’t comprehend” |
| God Will Sort the Dead (acropolis.piltdown) | Marathon 2 / Blake | Thoth: “ancient personality construct” — named by Durandal; NOT attributed to Jjaro in source |
| Feel the Noise (//cge-wrought) | Marathon 2 / S’pht’Kr | Thoth post-activation: aiding Pfhor; Durandal notes conditional helpfulness |
| Epilogue | Marathon 2 | Ten thousand years post-Lh’owon: Durandal returns to Sol piloting a named, intact Jjaro dreadnought (Manus Celer Dei); evades the Guard; withholds what he learned of the Jjaro from all recorded sources |
Source-silent / open questions
- What the Jjaro looked like, their biology, their social structure. No volume describes their physical form, named individuals, or internal organisation.
- Why the Jjaro disappeared. No volume addresses cause: extinction, transcendence, migration, or other departure. The pack says only “disappeared.”
- The Jjaro language. The source establishes that trih xeem is a Jjaro word and gives an English gloss, and “yrro(farcast)” may or may not be Pfhor usage of a Jjaro name. No other vocabulary is recorded; no linguistic lineage is described.
- How many client races the Jjaro had. The Nakh are named as “the last extant” client race — implying others preceded them — but no other client race is named or described in any captured volume.
- Yrro’s species and nature. The source presents Yrro as the figure who imprisoned the W’rkncacnter and dispersed the S’pht clans. Whether Yrro is Jjaro, or represents some other category of being, is not stated in any volume. The S’pht themselves express uncertainty: “perhaps the myths were true, and we were actual servants of Yrro and Pthia. Perhaps they built us, or we were part of a larger group who came to Lh’owon.”17 — this is the S’pht’s own uncertainty, not a confirmed identification.
- Whether the Jjaro built the Yrro station. The station is attributed to Yrro and to “the progenitors of the S’pht” in different terminals. Neither terminal uses the word “Jjaro.” Any identification of the station as Jjaro-built rests on inference.
- Whether the Jjaro created, uplifted, or simply employed the S’pht. The S’pht creation myth credits Yrro and Pthia with bringing the S’pht to Lh’owon as servants. Whether the Jjaro (if Yrro is Jjaro) created the S’pht biologically, uplifted a pre-existing species, or merely enslaved them is source-silent.
- Whether the Jjaro built the trih xeem knowing about the W’rkncacnter. The source establishes the Jjaro conceived and built the device. It does not state whether they knew or intended the consequence of releasing the W’rkncacnter from stellar prisons.
- Thoth’s builders. No volume names who built Thoth. The pack calls him “an ancient personality construct”; Jjaro attribution is a community inference not present in the source.
- Whether the Jjaro outpost on Lh’owon’s moon actually existed. Durandal inferred it; the pack does not confirm or deny. The narrator dismisses the conclusion as “ridiculous” but gives no contradicting evidence.
- The full extent of Pfhor Jjaro salvage. The pack states “most” of Pfhor technology is Jjaro-derived but does not enumerate what was kept versus destroyed.
- How many Jjaro client races preceded the Nakh. “Last extant” implies predecessors; none are named or described.
- What Durandal learned in the ten thousand years between Lh’owon and his return to Sol, and where he found an intact Jjaro dreadnought. The Epilogue states only that he returned in a Jjaro dreadnought and told no one what he learned. Whether the dreadnought came from the Lh’owon system, elsewhere, and what became of the Khfiva (the ship he had captured) instead of taking it to Sol, are all source-silent.
- Manus Celer Dei’s origin and condition. Whether this dreadnought was functional Jjaro technology recovered intact (as opposed to reverse-engineered or Pfhor-salvaged, per §Pfhor inheritance) is implied by the pack’s phrasing but not explicitly confirmed against the “outposts on moons” or “planet-warping” categories of Jjaro technology described elsewhere in this hub.
Cross-references
S’pht · S’pht’Kr · Pfhor · W’rkncacnter · Trih Xeem · Nakh · Yrro · Pthia · Thoth · Lh’owon · Durandal · Drinniol · Tfear
Where it appears in the vault
Drinniol, Durandal, K’lia, Lh’owon, Marathon Infinity, Nakh, Pfhor, S’pht, S’pht’Kr, The Eternal Cycle, The I-Have-Been Transmission, The Lh’owon Campaign, Thoth, Trih Xeem, W’rkncacnter, Yrro
Mirror pages
The local 1:1 pages this hub’s citations resolve to — the twin’s own ground truth.
- blake · god-will-sort-the-dead
- citadel · six-thousand-feet-under
- citadel · the-hard-stuff-rules
- durandal · for-carnage-apply-within
- marathon-2 · epilogue
- marathon-2 · introduction
- sphtkr · all-roads-lead-to-sol
- sphtkr · feel-the-noise
- despair · aie-mak-sicur
- despair · confound-delivery
- envy · aye-mak-sicur
- envy · you-think-youre-big-time-youre-gonna-die-big-time
- marathon-infinity · introduction
- prologue · ne-cede-malis
- rage · acme-station
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.